Latest / All The Right Movies / Children of Men (2006) | Ep. 75 - Part 1

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Children of Men (2006) | Ep. 75 - Part 1 · All The Right Movies

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  Children of Men was released in 2006 and became one of the
• 0:09
  century's most prescient dystopian visions.
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  The story of one man's reluctant journey to protect the only
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  pregnant woman on earth, the movie is an exploration of hope
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  and humanity in the midst of societal collapse.
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  My name is John and the infertile amigos with me are
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  Westie. He was 19.
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  And Matt? Baby Diego, come on, the guy was
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  a wanker. It's 2027 and all the right
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  movies are talking pandemics, propaganda and Pink Floyd.
• 0:38
  But first, go on, pull more finger.
• 1:01
  Hello, and welcome to all the right movies.
• 1:04
  Humanity's last hope. Not really, thankfully.
• 1:07
  Thankfully. Yeah, we'll be screwed.
• 1:10
  We would be, but we are telling the story of Hollywood one film
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  at a time, and this episode puts things into perspective, doesn't
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  it? It certainly does.
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  Too much perspective. Too much perspective.
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  Too much bloody perspective if anything.
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  Yeah, so this week it's all about a child of Future as we
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  get into Alfonso Cuaron's dystopian downer, Children of
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  Men. Downer.
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  Before we pull the pin on mankind though, worried about
• 1:34
  our ATR and patrons? Let's do the happy stuff first.
• 1:37
  Yeah, yeah. If you like what we do on our
• 1:39
  flagship episode like this, you can support us and get bonus
• 1:42
  content by becoming an ATRM Patron.
• 1:45
  Patrons get our monthly bonus show double feature where we
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  talk 2 films and the watch list, our monthly review show, as well
• 1:52
  as access to the entire back catalog of bonus episode and
• 1:55
  archived episodes of this, our main show.
• 1:57
  And you'll receive our monthly newsletter and Lords more as
• 2:00
  well. Lords More and the six films on
• 2:02
  the Watch list as well. Exactly.
• 2:04
  Yeah, so if you'd like to stop in futures, in that archive we
• 2:07
  have the Terminator and Blade Runner 2049.
• 2:10
  Lovely. We do all the periods and John
• 2:12
  was a cover door. Yeah, an opportunity that's so
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  good it could even cheer up Clive on, maybe.
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  Possibly. It would take a lot, but
• 2:19
  possibly, yeah. Like a big bottle of Bells.
• 2:23
  So we'll go to patreon.com/all the Right Movies or hit the
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  subscribe button on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or YouTube for
• 2:29
  access. Absolutely.
• 2:31
  But Children of Men, it's bleak. It's Graham, which can mean only
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  one thing, Wesley. This was your choice, Wesley.
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  So why are we talking about it? Well, I mean, I believe the
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  children are our future. That's on the soundtrack.
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  That is, it was my version that didn't involve it.
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  I mean, this film for me really, really stands out.
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  It always has. It was really affecting the
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  first time I saw it, 2006. I didn't quite get it then, but
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  Christ, I get it now. It's aged so well.
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  For a start, it was incredible in the cinema.
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  Remember it finished and it was silence, but everyone was scared
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  to move first just in case. We're just kind of like, it was
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  just that moment where it was just really somber and I still
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  get it now. I think it's impact has not
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  lessened over the years. I think it's just got stronger
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  and it's just become even more terrifying.
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  To watch this film you really need to plug in, you really need
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  to sit down. This was made for the cinema and
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  I don't think it was out long enough for people to really
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  appreciate it. I would love for this to come
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  out for another run, people to go back and sit, watch it, come
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  out and talk about it properly because I really do think it's a
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  film that people need to sit up and listen to.
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  Yeah, I was a way of children and men before the film because
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  as a teenager I went through a phase where I devoured all these
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  classic dystopian science fiction novels like Nice 1984,
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  Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, all that kind of stuff.
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  And one of them was The Children of Men by PD James Nice.
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  I like the book. So when I heard a film
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  adaptation was in the works a few years later, I was really
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  excited for it. And I knew Alfonso Quran from
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  the Harry Potter film you directed.
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  Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
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  The best Harry Potter film for me.
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  Yeah, so knew we had knife of visuals and storytelling and
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  first time round children to men the film, it didn't disappoint,
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  right. So obviously I'll talk about why
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  as we go, but there's a lot to cover on this.
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  The pretty unique concept is interesting, Yeah.
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  The themes explores all as well. Some big names in the cast, some
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  big names in the crew and the first time we've coming off on
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  so Quran. Yeah, I mean that was a
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  guarantee at some point, I think.
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  Yeah, it won't be the last time either, I imagine.
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  No, definitely not. No.
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  This should be a great place to start.
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  Absolutely. And Matt, what's your deal with
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  Children of men? I think this one is one that is
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  permanently flying under the radar.
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  And I know that's not contradictory considering it won
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  the poll, but this is a film where not everyone knows it, but
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  the people who do know it get very, very passionate about it.
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  Yeah. And I'll be honest, it's flown
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  under the radar bit for me as well.
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  It's not one I've watched a lot, and that's because of one
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  particular thing about it really, which I'll address when
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  we get there. So I'll just say two more things
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  about it. Firstly, I'm really, really glad
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  I've come back to it and given it the attention it deserves.
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  And secondly, as we've been saying watching this in the year
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  of our lot, it's one hell of a trip.
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  Yeah, yeah, it really is so. Children of Men was produced by
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  Strike Entertainment, Hit and Run Productions and Tour Tour
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  distributed by Universal Pictures and released on
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  September the 22nd, 2006. Filmed in England, Argentina and
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  Uruguay, it was directed by Alfonso Cuaron with a screenplay
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  by Cuaron, Timothy J Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus and
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  Hulk Osby. Based on PD James 1992 novel The
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  Children of Men, it starred Clive Owen is Theo Farin Clay
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  Hope Asherty as Key. She would tell edgy of four as
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  Luke, Julianne Muaz, Julian Taylor and Michael Caine as
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  Jasper Palmer. And John Lennon.
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  The old hippie. John Lennon.
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  Well, let's get ourselves to London 2027 then, should we?
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  Yeah, let's do that. It's the morning commute in the
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  big smoke. It's the beginning of Children
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  of men. The beginning.
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  Children of Men opens not with The Big Bang, but a Big Bang.
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  As we're thrown into 16th November 2027.
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  We're going to be talking about the moments we are heroes
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  abducted by an immigrant's rights group.
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  But first, that explosion and the intro to some key
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  characters. Yeah, so we start with Theo
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  Farron in a crowded London cafe and the world mourning the death
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  of BB Diego, the world's youngest person, is the pause.
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  Terrorist bomb explodes. And we then meet Theo's best
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  pal, Jasper, the Woodstock throwback.
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  Coffee is the star, Westie. Yeah, good way to begin the day
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  for you. Yeah, 2 sugars.
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  Lovely. No sweeteners.
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  No, just whiskey Irish. I just make it Irish.
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  I mean, this is an incredible sequence.
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  There's been so many times one of my pet haters when I'm
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  watching a film with someone on the wall halfway through and
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  that. When's this going to start?
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  You ever experienced that? I fucking hear that.
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  And this is one of them films where you go, there you go, it
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  started bang right in your face and you cannot ignore it.
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  It's so powerful, it's so well done, but there's so much in
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  this one sequence that makes it so exciting and paints the
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  picture of the whole film. I mean, there's the woman
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  holding the dog that you don't realize anything about, but then
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  pets are like children, so they're immediately evident.
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  What's that doing in the coffee shop, what you're holding it
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  for? Theo comes in, ignores the
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  television. He's totally apathetic.
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  He doesn't give a shit. He just wants the coffee
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  straight in, straight out. This obsession with Diego down
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  to the minute that he lived, you just do what he spat in the face
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  of this fan. That's going to come back later
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  with Key. We'll get into that.
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  That's really important foreshadowing.
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  So it's got all of these kind of little details where if you look
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  at it, it's really interesting. And then he goes outside and
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  it's even more interesting because you just think, holy
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  shit, that is London next year. We're not 1,000,000 miles away
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  from this at all. parts of London do look like this.
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  It's just incredibly well done. These huge screens, they're just
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  as rubbish everywhere. There's cash for organs, that
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  cash for kidneys on the sides of bus advertisements.
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  There's this Niagara thing which obviously kind of like a sex
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  help. It's just a place that you don't
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  necessarily want to be. But he just walks past two
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  police. They're obviously not doing
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  anything with the city wish. They're not doing anything to
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  help anything. And just pouring whiskey into
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  his coffee. What could should be the morning
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  in broad daylight in the middle of everybody.
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  You just think, well, well, this guy's not happy, is he?
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  What's the point in being sober? This is just grim.
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  And there's just that incredible because it's all done in the
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  one. There's an invisible cut off
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  way, I think, but it seems like this is done in that one shot
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  and the camera just moves around just so nicely and you get that
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  wallop of that explosion and just start ringing.
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  Yeah. Now that cut to that title
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  sequence is one of the most powerful moments.
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  I love it. But I love it when it just smash
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  cuts like that. When it's just you're in the
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  middle of something, you're kind of halfway through breathing in.
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  You're like it stops you breathing out.
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  It's almost like ATV show more than a film in some ways.
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  At that point, yeah, I think a lot of, like TV shows from then
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  have just really taken this on board and went, oh, that's how
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  you do the first episode and then you would end it, say,
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  right, we're into the second one.
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  So people have taken full episodes from this one sequence
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  and this one explosion from there.
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  It's just really interesting how this it's totally, totally just
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  run-of-the-mill a terrorist attack.
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  Don't know who the terrorists are and nobody's bothered about
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  it. It's just this world that is so
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  far away from your psyche but so close to you physically that is
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  just so terrifying about this film.
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  And this opening sequence sets it up.
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  If it cuts to that children a men title sequence and you feel
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  uncomfortable, don't watch the rest of it because it just sets
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  the tone. Beautiful.
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  Well, I love a good dystopian science fiction film, Obviously.
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  Obviously. And one of my favorite part is
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  always the first I can see how to build the world up.
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  Yeah. And within minutes, he had
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  obvious we're in safe hands. We're on that shot in the coffee
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  shop. Literally everyone watching the
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  broadcast about baby Diego. He doesn't tell us it's big
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  news. He just shows us.
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  The only thing I've seen that in real life is like 911 or
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  something or England in the World Cup.
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  But love the tracking shot in the London streets, the digital
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  ads in the background that are like propaganda and all the
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  multiculturalism on the street. Yeah, the colours are all like
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  grim and desaturated. They're always feeding us in for
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  and creating the world, like in the background.
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  Yeah. But also the building, the card
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  out. Theo as well, because we're
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  seeing just after this in his office.
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  He's just been involved in the terrorist attack.
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  But the thing that he uses next used to get out of work is the
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  death of baby Diego. Yeah.
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  So the priorities of him in society, you seem a bit lost or
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  different at least. So it's a different world, but
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  still really recognizable to us, I think.
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  Yeah, not in 2006 as much, but like the amount of places now
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  where it's please report suspicious activity and you're
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  is that right? Is it your bag?
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  Is someone else touched it? Let's look.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back then it was kind of like,
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  yeah, we're never going to be that paranoid.
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  Yeah. OK.
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  Well done Westy. And it's all done almost
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  entirely with visuals and not many words.
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  I love it. There's an opening.
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  Yeah, it's great. And the terrorist attack takes
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  place in Fleet Street and it was scheduled to be shot down
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  location about a month earlier, though the London bombings on
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  July 7th happened and Quran said he never considered changing the
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  film location because London is so heavily part of the script.
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  Yeah. Yeah, he said at that point it
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  would have been impossible to film anywhere but London.
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  I mean, that's something that wasn't it.
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  The script was like on the money unfortunately.
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  On the money, Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's not the last
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  thing we'll be saying that, no. Definitely not and the scene is
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  presented as being one continuous take, but it's
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  actually two shots together. The visual effects supervisor
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  Fraser Churchill said it was filmed over 2 days.
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  Day one, the film, the coffee shop and TV's and Theo walking
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  out onto the street. Then day 2 they captured the
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  explosion in the aftermath. The two shots were then combined
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  digitally to create the effect of one on broken take.
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  Right. Yeah, so 2 main effect teams
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  worked on this double negative and frame store.
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  Two were the big boys. And the explosion had to be two
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  shots, really, the first shots in the cafe, like you say.
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  And then for the shot in the street, they had to empty the
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  coffee shop and then rig it with explosives.
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  Yeah, so they didn't just blow the extras up.
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  No. James Cameron.
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  No, it's James. Cameron.
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  No loads of tea ladies in there. And double negative where the
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  effects team who did this shot in.
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  The transition between the two takes comes in the couple of
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  seconds when Theo looks in the window and sees his reflection.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  Yeah, it's really clever, that transition.
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  It's totally seamless. But if you watch it again, I
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  think you'd probably pick it out just because there's nowhere
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  else that can transition it, really.
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  Yeah, if it's just one of these, isn't it?
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  Yeah. Yeah, and Double Negative's work
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  on this shot didn't end there. The couple who get blown across
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  the street were stunt actors added digitally imposed.
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  We also see the Shard skyscraper in the background, and that
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  wasn't built until 2009, so they added it based on architectural
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  drawings. And Double Negative also added
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  all the digital ads to the buses and screens and post production.
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  Amazing. Yeah, I love all those others
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  world building. It's like a bit of future tech,
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  but also a short of the propaganda of the world.
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  Yeah, yeah. It's only said about 20 years in
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  the future from when it was made, but this is one of the
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  best future predictions I've ever seen.
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  Yeah, definitely. Slightly more accurate than Back
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  to the Future Part 2? Just slightly.
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  Though the opening scene has a cameo from the author of the
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  novel, we see PD James is one of the people in the coffee shop.
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  She's the older lady next to Theo, holding the dog.
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  Yeah, lovely cameo, Yeah, great. And gets blown up within
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  seconds. But apart from that, it is nice
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  to see you. Yeah, yeah, great.
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  Definitely and very obvious front and centre as well as.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great stuff.
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  And then after this, we finally get a little bit of light relief
• 13:25
  when we meet Jasper. I mean, I'm not expecting to see
• 13:27
  Michael Caine as an age and hippie play an air base to
• 13:30
  juggle music, but I'm so glad that he's here.
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  Yeah, because he's such a great character.
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  Like, say, he brings a little bit of light relief that you
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  need at this point. He tells jokes, pull my finger
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  crap jokes, but they really work because he's the exact type of
• 13:43
  friend you need in a situation like this.
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  But you get some brilliant visual storytelling as well.
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  When they get to his house, that pan across the wall of photos
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  and news clippings tells you all you need to know about who
• 13:54
  Jasper is, what he stands for. You know, no war in Iraq, which
• 13:57
  was still so relevant in 2006. We see what his wife stood for.
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  And most disturbingly of all, or just how bad this totalitarian
• 14:04
  government is because they're not just victimizing refugees
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  and immigrants, they're going after homeborn British citizens
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  as well. You know his wife because she's
• 14:13
  refused to tore the government out and they've tortured her all
• 14:15
  out with not one word of dialogue at superb Brighton.
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  Yeah, yeah, it is either opening shot as well that runs across
• 14:22
  all those pictures and papers to give the back story.
• 14:24
  They're a classic technique, isn't it?
• 14:25
  But that definitely reminds me of Back to the Future that
• 14:28
  starts the same way. Right.
• 14:29
  Yeah, yeah. No shot just by hanging off a
• 14:31
  clock, unfortunately. But apart from that, we do see
• 14:34
  pictures adjust for winning, like political cartoons of the
• 14:36
  year awards, which I like as a back story.
• 14:38
  Yeah. And there's more great world
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  building. When we meet Jasper's wife,
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  Janice, Yeah, she is catatonic from being tortured by the
• 14:44
  government. How dark is that?
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  That's more 1984 vibes. And I think The thing is as
• 14:49
  well, to speak from Kane's performance, you can imagine him
• 14:52
  as a political cartoonist. Like you can see, yeah,
• 14:54
  definitely his sense of humour kind of comes across and it'd be
• 14:57
  really, really cutting. Yeah, really good.
• 14:59
  We also get to set up a Quietus, the legal euthanasia drug.
• 15:02
  Yeah. But narratively it's important
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  because this is the only place in time and probably the whole
• 15:06
  film where we see Theo seem happy and relaxed.
• 15:09
  Yeah, shoes off on the doobies, having a lovely old time and we
• 15:14
  get the set up of the Pomo finger gag, which I could do
• 15:16
  without if I'm honest. Homer Simpson.
• 15:21
  Apart from that, Jasper's great. Obviously one of the few sources
• 15:24
  of joy in the film, so I totally buy it as well.
• 15:26
  Later on when Theo takes Key and Miriam to Jasper's to hide out.
• 15:30
  Yeah. And for anyone interested, yes,
• 15:32
  Jasper's weed strain, Strawberry cough.
• 15:34
  That is real. All right.
• 15:36
  OK. I'll take your word for it,
• 15:37
  John. Yeah.
• 15:40
  And Quran said that Kane based his performances Jasper on John
• 15:43
  Lennon. Kane had been friends with
• 15:45
  Lennon since they met in the 60s and he pitched the idea to Quran
• 15:48
  when they first met about Kane being in the film.
• 15:50
  Quran loved the idea. So Kane based Jasper's body
• 15:53
  language and nasal voice on Lennon, and the makeup and
• 15:56
  costume teams gave him Lennon style hair and glasses.
• 15:59
  Yeah, once you know that, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?
• 16:01
  Yeah. Mr. Frick not getting all four
• 16:03
  of them in there. Theo on the drums like Ringo.
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  Great. But yeah, Kane and Lennon, I
• 16:09
  think they met of the 1965 Con Film Festival because Kane was
• 16:12
  promoting the Earthquest file and Lennon was there for help.
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  All right, nice. And Jasper's back story is that
• 16:19
  he was a political activist, specifically a political
• 16:21
  cartoonist. He has some of his drones on
• 16:23
  display, and they were created by Steve Bell.
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  He was a cartoonist for The Guardian newspaper at the time,
• 16:29
  famous for his political comic strip IF, which ran from 1982 to
• 16:32
  2021. Yeah, it was really good.
• 16:36
  I did loads of stuff. Steve Bell.
• 16:37
  He also did some hard work for Sand Minister.
• 16:39
  The Clash album. All right.
• 16:41
  They weren't diverse to a bit of politics either.
• 16:43
  No, the cartoons are great. There's one of Bexhill, the
• 16:46
  refugee campus like Wish You Were Here postcard, whichever
• 16:48
  you like. Right.
• 16:50
  Yeah, great. And all of the four scenes in
• 16:53
  the film were shot at Bourne Woods in Surrey.
• 16:55
  This includes the scenes around Jasper's house and the car
• 16:58
  ambush, which we'll talk about shortly.
• 17:00
  Bourne Woods has since become a Hollywood go to location in the
• 17:03
  21st century. Harry Potter, Jurassic World,
• 17:05
  and Marvel films have all shot there.
• 17:07
  And the Open and Battling Gladiator was shot there as
• 17:09
  well. Nice it.
• 17:11
  Was I think War was filmed there as well.
• 17:13
  Rightly, yeah, would have been. I'm surprised only ever left
• 17:16
  after I really Scott burned it all down.
• 17:19
  Yeah, it's just grown back. Yeah.
• 17:23
  And that's the opening to Children of Men, Explosions
• 17:25
  Ministries and Michael Caine as John Lennon.
• 17:28
  We've met Theo and Jasper. Time to meet the woman who's
• 17:30
  going to drag Theo back into the real world.
• 17:33
  Yeah. So back in London, Theo was
• 17:37
  kidnapped by an underground resistance movement called the
• 17:39
  Fishes, led by Theo's ex-wife Julian Taylor.
• 17:43
  She needs her help getting papers for a young refugee named
• 17:45
  Kay. So Theo goes to meet his
• 17:47
  government official cousin Nigel, played by Danny Houston
• 17:50
  at the Arc of the Arts. Wesley, you're taking it from
• 17:53
  here. I'll take it from here because
• 17:55
  Theo gets kidnapped and it doesn't feel like it's abnormal.
• 17:58
  Happens every. Day this happens all the time.
• 18:00
  It's like how you get the bus now it's like you see going
• 18:02
  somewhere else. Is that how you travel these
• 18:04
  days? It feels like it's completely
• 18:05
  part of the world. Yeah.
• 18:07
  So then we're introduced to this underground terrorist
• 18:10
  organization and we'll see none of the faces except when we're
• 18:13
  pan around to see that Julian's there, which is an incredible
• 18:16
  performance from Julianne Works. So understated and it's a great
• 18:19
  performance. Clive Owen as well.
• 18:21
  I think we'll mention that as we go through.
• 18:23
  He plays this so well and that you just have to kind of read
• 18:26
  them for the lack of a better word.
• 18:27
  He's not a fish out of water carrot.
• 18:29
  Like he's part of this world. They're all part of this world.
• 18:31
  So it gives you no exposition whatsoever, gives you no back
• 18:34
  story to anything. It's just look, we need some
• 18:36
  transit papers, right? And that rooms just incredible
• 18:39
  the way that's lit just with that tungsten, just that
• 18:41
  horrible glow coming in and you just your eyes are just fixed on
• 18:45
  it. And then when they turn the
• 18:46
  lights off and it brings that kind of horrible green creamy
• 18:51
  colour back to it of the world, the way it actually is and your
• 18:53
  eyes kind of adjust to it. I think that's just amazing
• 18:56
  colour balance the way you're just shocked into this world.
• 18:58
  But it's everything that's written behind them.
• 19:00
  And I think we're going to a little bit depth of that in a
• 19:02
  minute. But I think all these newspaper
• 19:04
  curtains and everything around the room are just so important.
• 19:07
  I mean, millions of people die in seconds is one of the
• 19:10
  headlines, right? What?
• 19:12
  What? How?
• 19:14
  So obviously that's some some kind of nuclear.
• 19:16
  Death *. Like the Death Star, thousands
• 19:18
  of contractors killed in seconds as they tried to rebuild the
• 19:21
  Death Star. And then he asks a little run,
• 19:23
  like, were your parents in New York when it happened?
• 19:25
  So obviously is that related to that because you stood next to
• 19:28
  it, King Charles thrown out and actually spell throne like a
• 19:32
  throne, which is really clever. The tabloid still like a pun.
• 19:35
  Exactly the love of fun. But that's the rise of
• 19:37
  government power and the end of the monarchy.
• 19:39
  And the government are now in charge of absolutely everything.
• 19:42
  So that's just shows where where it's all gone and where the
• 19:44
  strength lie and that the media will just bend over and take it
• 19:47
  off anybody who's in charge basically.
• 19:49
  So, And that's all evident just in this one scene.
• 19:52
  And then we're also getting this real play in this real push
• 19:55
  forward in the narrative that there's this refugee that needs
• 19:58
  to escape. They get out of there and they
• 19:59
  only need to get to Brighton from London.
• 20:02
  That's a far. How challenging must be just to
• 20:06
  get there, just to get to the coast.
• 20:07
  It's like this place is just under severe lockdown.
• 20:11
  It's absolutely terrifying. Who is this guy?
• 20:14
  What can he do? He's got some contacts.
• 20:16
  He must be important. He doesn't seem to be important.
• 20:18
  Why should we believe in him? But then you get this character
• 20:21
  who actually does believe in him.
• 20:22
  So we get this glib and behold and Julian.
• 20:24
  And then as she started to like her as a character, she delivers
• 20:27
  a line that I've never forgotten since I've first seen it is
• 20:30
  just, that's the sound of your ear cells dying.
• 20:33
  Yeah. Once that's gone, you'll never
• 20:34
  hear that frequency again. Enjoy it while it lasts.
• 20:38
  I've come home from a gig and I've heard that.
• 20:41
  And I just think myself, that's that's it.
• 20:43
  That's the last time I've ever going to hear that frequency in
• 20:45
  me life. Slowly going deaf.
• 20:47
  It's the whole film. Everything is going to die.
• 20:50
  Nothing is going to last. Everything is fucked, even your
• 20:53
  hearings gone. Everything is going to die.
• 20:56
  It's all so dour and I fucking. Love it right on your street.
• 21:01
  Absolutely. I built the street.
• 21:05
  Yeah, that box room covered in newspapers, Every headlines got
• 21:08
  like a different story about the world falling apart.
• 21:10
  There's one about the Beckham's for some reason.
• 21:13
  I've missed that one. It's the wedding anniversary or
• 21:15
  something, it says. Yeah.
• 21:16
  Right, the falling out of the sun again.
• 21:19
  That'll be a good prediction, but apart from that, stories of
• 21:23
  the world falling apart. That is such a great exposition
• 21:26
  device. It's kind of there if you want
• 21:27
  it, but if you don't, fine. Just leave it, yeah.
• 21:29
  And Julianne Moore? Love her touch a class every
• 21:33
  time. Every time.
• 21:34
  Always. Easily brings like an authority.
• 21:35
  I'm an intelligence to Julian. I'm not sure what you saw on
• 21:38
  Theo arguing with that on the bus like.
• 21:40
  A kid. But as leader of the fishes are
• 21:42
  totally by people following her. Yeah, exactly.
• 21:44
  Even if she has a misfire, it's not even her fault.
• 21:46
  No. And again, she's there to
• 21:48
  develop Theo, Julian and their son Dylan dying.
• 21:51
  That's Theo's back story, basically, and it kind of comes
• 21:53
  up here for the first time. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:56
  And in the source novel, the pregnant character is not a
• 21:58
  black refugee called Key. She's a white English woman from
• 22:01
  the ruling class called Julian. And some reports here that
• 22:04
  Julianne Moore was originally cast as this character, but when
• 22:07
  the pregnant character was changed to African, Kieran asked
• 22:10
  Moore to play Julianne as the leader of the fishes instead.
• 22:13
  You see that? Yeah.
• 22:15
  Yeah, it's a big change that and much better change for me.
• 22:17
  Yeah, definitely. But without the white savior
• 22:19
  narrative that's in the background, I think.
• 22:21
  Yeah, just adds a level of complexity which it needs, I
• 22:23
  think. Yeah.
• 22:24
  Yeah, and with key means it can bring in themes around
• 22:26
  immigration as well, which are a big part of the film.
• 22:28
  Exactly. Even though Julian in essence,
• 22:31
  is an immigrant because she's American.
• 22:32
  Yeah. But still white and acceptable.
• 22:35
  She's middle class white. Fine.
• 22:36
  That's OK. Yeah.
• 22:37
  Exactly and. One of the most time consuming
• 22:39
  scenes to create was the scene where Theo is interrogated and
• 22:42
  the Fisher's hided house was just talked about.
• 22:44
  The room was covered in newspaper and each headline was
• 22:46
  created. The production crew had to come
• 22:48
  up with the stories and then write headlines for them, which
• 22:50
  was then designed and printed as newspaper pages.
• 22:52
  Yeah, I love. That good job we weren't sitting
• 22:54
  around coming up with them. Well yeah, some of the headlines
• 22:59
  are things like Africa devastated by nuclear fallout,
• 23:02
  chaos and refugee camps. Loads more about immigration and
• 23:05
  fertility, drugs like famine and war.
• 23:07
  Seems like a pretty horrific place to be honest.
• 23:09
  Yeah. Awful.
• 23:10
  Please. Yeah.
• 23:11
  Imagine if we were making them headlines up.
• 23:13
  Movie intentionally changes narrative to fit podcast
• 23:16
  rhetoric. Hollywood change forever.
• 23:20
  Yeah. And then from Julian Mall we
• 23:23
  meet Danny Houston. Always good to see Houston and
• 23:25
  something, but what a contrast he is to Jasper.
• 23:28
  I mean, Jasper's had to essentially go to hiding for
• 23:30
  standing by his beliefs, but at least he's got the love of his
• 23:33
  life there to hold on to. A comfy home, a good friendly
• 23:36
  dog. Nigel got all the riches he
• 23:38
  could hope for, but that place where he lives, it's incredible
• 23:41
  set design, but it's so sterile and it's cold.
• 23:45
  Dogs are so unfriendly. Which The thing is a very nice
• 23:48
  little touch to differentiate these characters.
• 23:50
  And the most damning thing of all about Nigel is he saved all
• 23:53
  this art, but only for himself. He's got no intent to share it
• 23:57
  with the rest of mankind. And if art isn't meant to be
• 24:00
  shared with the world, then what's the point of it existing?
• 24:03
  So for seeing that on the face. But it is mainly about moving
• 24:06
  the plot long, getting the transit papers.
• 24:08
  There's so much relevant subtext to it as well.
• 24:11
  Like when they asked him how he can stand everything going on in
• 24:14
  the world he's in. Nigel says, I just don't think
• 24:17
  about it. Yeah.
• 24:18
  I mean, it's tempting, isn't it, to take his view, to be honest.
• 24:20
  It's good advice. It's good advice.
• 24:25
  Yes, the place where classic arts preserved is called the Ark
• 24:28
  of the Arts. Like the religious undertones
• 24:30
  aren't exactly subtle. I'm just surprised Nigel's not
• 24:32
  called Noah. Yeah, Russell Crowe in there.
• 24:34
  Massive. The be a huge beard.
• 24:36
  Yeah, Yeah. Just two of everything. 2M
• 24:39
  legend. David's in there.
• 24:41
  But the ark I like is an idea. The government preserving all
• 24:44
  this great art while the world kind of burns outside.
• 24:47
  And yeah, Michelangelo's David's missing a leg.
• 24:49
  Who did that drawing a Tash on the Mona Lisa and Nigel.
• 24:54
  He just smoked twat. Isn't he?
• 24:56
  Oh, absolutely. Perfect for what Quran wants to
• 24:58
  I think. This like rich bureaucrat living
• 25:00
  in luxury while everyone else suffers to the contrast of class
• 25:02
  and privilege. Like classic dystopian themes,
• 25:05
  that's brought in really nicely, in quite a unique way, I think.
• 25:07
  Yeah, with everyone around him completely deflated and devoid
• 25:10
  of life like his dogs and his child.
• 25:12
  Yeah, yeah, his kids just non responsive till he screams at
• 25:15
  him. Yeah, it's horrible that.
• 25:17
  He's a sterile man in the sterile world.
• 25:19
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 25:20
  He is. Yeah.
• 25:21
  And just before this, when Theo was being driven to the Ark in
• 25:23
  the court of the Crimson King on the soundtrack.
• 25:25
  Absolute banger. Yeah.
• 25:27
  What I love about that is how it starts on the soundtrack.
• 25:29
  We're listening to it as with Theo, but then when Theo gets to
• 25:32
  the Ark, it's actually being played in the Ark.
• 25:34
  So kind of diegetic and non diegetic at the same time.
• 25:37
  Yeah, I love when they do that. Yeah.
• 25:38
  Great sequence. I love all the visuals of all
• 25:40
  the artwork, obviously, and the themes being developed and the
• 25:42
  narrative going along really nicely I think as well, yeah.
• 25:46
  In the film and the novel handle Nigel differently.
• 25:48
  In the book, Theo's cousin is called Zan Leipiat and he is of
• 25:52
  the Warden of England, an authoritarian ruler who has
• 25:55
  abolished democracy and keeps control through fascist
• 25:58
  oppressive policies. Yeah, no curating art works for
• 26:01
  Zan. He's the right one.
• 26:02
  Good lad, nice fella. And in the Ark, as well as the
• 26:09
  statue of David, we also see Theo walk past Kissing Coppers,
• 26:12
  a famous stencil image created by the British guerrilla artist
• 26:16
  Banksy in 2004. Quran had been interested in
• 26:19
  bringing Banksy in to work on some visuals for the film, so he
• 26:22
  met his manager. Under law, Banksy said no, he
• 26:24
  let them use kissing coppers. Right.
• 26:27
  Fair enough. Yeah, he didn't meet Banksy
• 26:28
  directly, obviously Quran said that he met the manager at a
• 26:31
  coffee shop and even that was weird because the manager sat
• 26:34
  behind Quran just firing Quest into the back of his head.
• 26:39
  Can't see me either. I'm.
• 26:41
  Just really young. I think Banksy is about 10
• 26:43
  different people. Without Wesley theory.
• 26:45
  A collaboration of of different artists.
• 26:48
  Yeah, who knows? We'll never find out.
• 26:50
  And out we'll never know, unless, unless it's the children
• 26:52
  of men too deeper into the future.
• 26:54
  That's a big revelation at the end.
• 26:56
  Children of women. And then when Theo and Nigel are
• 27:01
  having dinner, we see Picasso's famous 1937 paid in Guernica on
• 27:05
  the wall behind them and Guernica shores that began at
• 27:07
  the end of the film. We see a drawn on the wall of
• 27:10
  the tunnel which Theo and Key used to escape in the Raw.
• 27:12
  Boat. Yeah.
• 27:14
  Picasso's painting was a reaction to General Franco
• 27:17
  bombing Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, so it has
• 27:19
  relevance. We've already seen a bombing
• 27:21
  here under the fascist theme of government mistreating
• 27:23
  civilians, like all the way through, isn't it?
• 27:25
  Yeah. And there's also a woman cradle
• 27:27
  and I die in son and that as well, which is mirrored in the
• 27:29
  end when the wall past it's physically done in the street.
• 27:32
  Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
• 27:33
  Which is really nice. And there's another Michelangelo
• 27:36
  reference when Nigel tells Theo he couldn't see if La Pieta.
• 27:39
  This is a statue carved in 1498 that Rosemary holding the body
• 27:43
  of Jesus after the crucifixion. And it's currently in Saint
• 27:46
  Peters Basilica in the Vatican. Yeah, stunning sculpture that.
• 27:50
  I'll make it. I still knew what he was doing.
• 27:51
  Yeah. He's anchovies though.
• 27:53
  Again, it's repeated with that that moment at the end, which is
• 27:55
  in both pains as well. I think it's fantastic stuff and
• 27:58
  and the sculpture, it's great. Yeah, there's not that statue
• 28:00
  where the end isn't there, The Battle of Bexhill, there's a
• 28:02
  woman would say cradling the body of a man.
• 28:04
  And that is based on an award-winning photograph by
• 28:07
  Georges Marion from a protest in Kosovo in 1990.
• 28:10
  That picture is called the Kosovo Pieta, and it's also a
• 28:13
  photo of a woman mourning a dead sun.
• 28:14
  It's that image named after the statue is in the film.
• 28:18
  The statue is not in the film because it's been Bond.
• 28:23
  The arc of the art scenes were filmed in the Turbine Hall of
• 28:26
  Tape Modern Gallery, but in the film it's been built in
• 28:28
  Battersea Power Station. 1 can see there's a floating pig
• 28:31
  outside the window of the ark. This is a note of the Pink Floyd
• 28:34
  album Animals. The cover of that album is an
• 28:37
  image of Battersea Power Station with the pig floating above it.
• 28:40
  That album was inspired by Georgia Wells Animal Farm, which
• 28:43
  is about a revolution against a brutal dictatorship, and as we
• 28:46
  know, the pigs are the guys in charge.
• 28:49
  The horrible fat bastards Napoleon.
• 28:53
  Napoleon, Yeah. Themes everywhere.
• 28:55
  With the film being set in 2027, that would be the 50th
• 28:58
  anniversary of Animals, so maybe another nod of why it's there as
• 29:01
  well. Fair enough.
• 29:02
  Yeah. I mean, it's very, very
• 29:03
  prevalent in the show, isn't? It Oh, you can't miss it.
• 29:05
  Yeah, kind of miss it, yeah. And then after this, Theo's on
• 29:08
  the mission, he's got the papers, the picked up key and
• 29:11
  you think this is actually quite a nice car journey going on here
• 29:14
  the. Yeah, it's lovely, isn't it?
• 29:16
  It's lovely. A little trip out into the
• 29:18
  country, he. Was laughing.
• 29:19
  He's having a good time. Everyone's having a good time
• 29:21
  until. I mean, I just love how
• 29:24
  unexpected and out of nowhere this is.
• 29:26
  I mean, this is Julianne Moore. I mean, aside for Michael Caine,
• 29:29
  arguably the biggest name in the film.
• 29:31
  Yeah. So surely she's not going to be
• 29:33
  killed off early. And what she's done is she's
• 29:35
  brought a little likeness to the film.
• 29:37
  Theo's more relaxed around here. You can tell there's still an
• 29:40
  attraction there between them. It's so playful with that, like
• 29:43
  ping pong ball trick, the doing between them.
• 29:45
  Maybe this is going to be the central relationship in the
• 29:47
  film. Nope.
• 29:49
  And The thing is, there's no, like, boom in soundtrack to
• 29:52
  signify the danger. Just that burning car rolling
• 29:55
  out of the woods. And then we're just thrown under
• 29:57
  a chaos. There's this mob, there's
• 29:59
  gunmen, there's the policeman who loop guns down.
• 30:01
  And the coverage that Quran gets while never leaving the Mt with
• 30:05
  the car is astonishing. And I think it's one of the most
• 30:08
  all time shocking deaths for Julian.
• 30:10
  Because for me it's like, it's like when Kevin Spacey gets shot
• 30:12
  in LA Confidential. You just don't see it coming
• 30:15
  because he's sworn bored with that character And the way the
• 30:17
  life just fades out of her eyes and she slips away.
• 30:20
  Incredibly well done. Yeah, there's not a wasted
• 30:23
  moment because the car scene, you think of the ambush,
• 30:25
  obviously, but narratively it's really important as well because
• 30:28
  this is the point where we meet Key and Miriam.
• 30:30
  Yeah. Pam Ferris with dreadlocks.
• 30:32
  Outrageous. Milli Vanilli.
• 30:36
  But. The ambush, one of the great
• 30:41
  action sequences from this century, I think one shot, or it
• 30:45
  looks like, anyway, I've not really seen an action scene
• 30:47
  where I feel so part of it. I feel like I'm in the car, like
• 30:50
  every bump, every swerve. And you can feel the panic in
• 30:53
  the car as well. Yeah, and always got when Julian
• 30:56
  goes, you understand. I think she's a better character
• 30:58
  than Theo to me. Misery Guts.
• 31:03
  Yeah, I mean, what an incredible 4 minutes, 8 seconds this is.
• 31:06
  It's just, you know, from start to finish, it's just you're in
• 31:08
  this one. And like Matt said, I think this
• 31:10
  is just the perfect visual representation of the punishment
• 31:14
  of happiness, because Theo's finally happy and he just gets
• 31:17
  it ripped away from him. He exposes his heart for half a
• 31:20
  second and it gets sliced from his chest.
• 31:22
  Yeah, there's a couple of signs as well.
• 31:24
  They're going to get back together.
• 31:25
  A couple of little nods. Yeah, yeah.
• 31:27
  Every time I watch this, I just think I kind of know how it's
• 31:29
  done because I wouldn't be able to sleep unless I just looked
• 31:32
  this up on YouTube and see how they actually shot it.
• 31:34
  Yeah, but even though I know how it's done, it's still so
• 31:36
  beautifully played out. I don't even know where the
• 31:39
  middle of the car is gone, where's the roof of the car.
• 31:41
  Just when that door opens and I hit that bike and it just spins
• 31:44
  out the way. It's just so visceral, and just
• 31:46
  as has this real energy to it. But again, it's got all of these
• 31:50
  predictions when you just say impact right in the windscreen.
• 31:52
  I love that. Oh, yeah.
• 31:54
  Because at the time, there was nothing like that.
• 31:55
  We've got real parking sensors now.
• 31:57
  But what a heartbreaker. He punishes the audience.
• 32:01
  He punishes everybody for feeling a glimmer of hope.
• 32:03
  And the league says, no, you're going to have to work a little
• 32:05
  bit harder for hope in this world.
• 32:07
  And you definitely do. Yeah.
• 32:08
  Well, for people wondering how it was done, we can tell them.
• 32:11
  Yep, let's do that. We certainly can.
• 32:13
  So the car ambush was always part of the script and lasted 12
• 32:16
  pages, but it wasn't always planned the way it turned out.
• 32:19
  Kieran had just finished working on Harry Potter and the Prisoner
• 32:22
  of Azkaban and his first thought was to use CGI to create it.
• 32:25
  Director of photography Emmanuel Labeski disagreed though, and
• 32:29
  said they should do it all with practical effects.
• 32:31
  Yeah, Lebeski Cheevo apparently said that you leave the
• 32:34
  production of Peron, you CGI for it because it was total odds
• 32:37
  with what the plan for the rest of the film.
• 32:39
  I love that. Yeah.
• 32:40
  I'm good, yeah. The use practical wherever
• 32:44
  possible. When Julian shot Julian well was
• 32:46
  covered in squibs. That's not CGI either.
• 32:48
  Yeah, amazing. The timing for that is just
• 32:50
  ludicrous, isn't it? Yeah, it's.
• 32:52
  Going to be on the money, yeah. It's like a second way you see
• 32:54
  in point and you just go because she can't move.
• 32:57
  And her final word as well. I'll cover key.
• 32:58
  Yes, that's the last thing she's concerned about.
• 33:00
  Yeah, yeah. Amazing.
• 33:01
  So Chivo said they should create a custom camera rig for the car.
• 33:05
  Instead. They got in touch with Gary
• 33:07
  Tealtgus, a cinema photographer who owned doggy Cam systems, and
• 33:11
  asked if he could build what they needed.
• 33:13
  Yeah, he said they got a call on a Thursday, seeing the need of
• 33:15
  the proof of concept by Saturday.
• 33:17
  So we had like 36 hours, right? But he did it.
• 33:20
  Fair enough. I mean if he builds them anyway.
• 33:22
  Yeah. So Doggy can't built a custom
• 33:25
  overhead camera rig for the ambush.
• 33:27
  The cut the roof off the Fiat, then suspended an H shaped track
• 33:31
  above the car. The camera could slide front to
• 33:34
  back and side to side over the actors, then drop down into the
• 33:37
  cabin, all controlled remotely by the camera operator, Frank
• 33:40
  Buono. Yeah, it's some piece of work.
• 33:42
  I think it's actually so good that at first you don't realise
• 33:45
  how good it is. Now you've got no idea.
• 33:47
  It's dropping in and out the car and moving round over the roof.
• 33:49
  It's actually insane when you really pay attention to what the
• 33:51
  camera's doing. Yeah, yeah, it rotates 360°
• 33:54
  inside the car at one point. And there's literally no
• 33:57
  distortion on the wide angle lens either.
• 33:59
  This. It doesn't feel like you're
• 33:59
  watching a fish eye or anything, it just feels like your field of
• 34:02
  view. Yeah.
• 34:03
  Which is incredible. And the Fiat car itself was
• 34:05
  modified too. There was a fake roof, which is
• 34:07
  where the two stunt drivers were hidden.
• 34:09
  One did the forwards driving, the other did backwards.
• 34:12
  The actor's seats were on hinges that could lure them out of
• 34:14
  fame, and Quran chivo porno and a Focus puller rode in a
• 34:18
  translucent cabin mounted on top of the car.
• 34:21
  Wow. Yeah, from, Bruno said.
• 34:23
  We look like the Beverly Hillbillies rolling down the
• 34:26
  street. Amazing.
• 34:27
  Like Luke and Han and the Falcon when the shooting the tie
• 34:30
  fighters. Great kid, don't get talking.
• 34:35
  I drive down the motorway just after work.
• 34:38
  Wacky Races won't get them Bully brothers, but like the opening
• 34:43
  sequence, the car ambush seems like one continue was shot but
• 34:46
  it wasn't. The scene was filmed in six
• 34:48
  sections at four different locations in Bourne Woods over
• 34:51
  one week and needed five digital transitions between the sections
• 34:55
  by Double Negative and the other guys who did the one at the
• 34:57
  start as well. So the shot was very fragile.
• 34:59
  If a squib mistimed, or if the flaming car rolled wrong, or an
• 35:03
  actor Mystic queue or anything else, they had to reset the
• 35:05
  whole thing and go again. That's why they had to stitch
• 35:08
  shots together, because it was just really, really complicated.
• 35:11
  Just hold all this thing down. It was so highly choreographed
• 35:13
  it was impossible to nail it all in one take.
• 35:16
  Yeah, and the moment the bike crashes into the car.
• 35:18
  Yeah, CGI as well. I think it's really good though.
• 35:20
  Well, it's great. You can kind of tell the views
• 35:22
  and that as a bit of a breath of fresh air.
• 35:25
  Let's take a breath. How it feels.
• 35:26
  Yeah. Like digitally.
• 35:27
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that in the five
• 35:29
  transitions are all seamless. The only bit that looks CGI to
• 35:31
  me is when Theo and Julian are spitting that ping pong ball
• 35:34
  each other. Yeah, exactly.
• 35:35
  Yeah, it does seem. Yeah.
• 35:37
  And in Juliano's burial scene, we see Miriam put in a version
• 35:40
  of Guadalupe, a model on top of Juliano's body.
• 35:43
  This is the patents in a Mexico birthplace of Alfonso Curon.
• 35:47
  And the chant Miriam does over Juliano's body?
• 35:49
  Shanty, shanty, shanty that's from the wasteland at TS Eliot
• 35:53
  Pomo. World War One has left the world
• 35:54
  in fertile. Some hybrid references in this
• 35:57
  film, yes, obviously. But there's some great
• 36:00
  characterization in that burial scene as well, because Miriam
• 36:02
  handles all the spiritual side of things, so we get that about
• 36:05
  her, whereas Theo just gets the booze out.
• 36:07
  Yeah, just I mentioned it earlier, but this is the first
• 36:09
  time we really sees like a full blown alcoholic, I think.
• 36:12
  Right. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:14
  And that is the beginning of Children of Men.
• 36:15
  We've met Theo, we've met Jasper, we've met Key, We've met
• 36:18
  Julian and lost her and seen an incredible action sequence.
• 36:22
  Yeah, we should discuss the guy pulling all the fingers.
• 36:24
  I mean the strings. Let's do that.
• 36:26
  Yeah, very good. The director.
• 36:34
  The director of Children of Men was Alfonso Cuaron.
• 36:36
  This was his sixth feature film, and from his start in Mexican
• 36:39
  cinema, he'd already made notable Mexican and Hollywood
• 36:42
  films like Great Expectations, Etu, Mama Tambien, and Harry
• 36:46
  Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
• 36:48
  Yes. Yes, Cuaron's first foray into
• 36:50
  science fiction came with Children of Men.
• 36:51
  Nomad. How's his work yet as director?
• 36:55
  I think he brings a tremendous tactility to this and he makes
• 36:58
  of the film, which really feels lived in, like it's the future,
• 37:02
  but it's not futuristic really. And for what he wants to address
• 37:06
  in this film, that's pivotal because it means he can't
• 37:08
  distance himself from anything. You can't dismiss and go ah,
• 37:12
  I'll be long gone before we end up like that.
• 37:14
  Yeah, exactly. We're going to end up like that
• 37:16
  next week if we're not careful. Yeah, like 2001.
• 37:20
  When you watch it, you're like, no, I'm going to be fine.
• 37:21
  Yeah, exactly. It doesn't give you that
• 37:23
  distance. You know, there's holograms in
• 37:26
  here, but they're not 100 foot high.
• 37:27
  They're on the sides of buses. The blink and you miss them.
• 37:30
  He's created a future where people still drink cups of take
• 37:33
  away coffee. They're still listen to physical
• 37:35
  copies of music that still read newspapers.
• 37:38
  And this tactility brings you into this film.
• 37:40
  Whatever the scene is, he's thrown into battle scenes which,
• 37:43
  like Saving Private Ryan, put the on your front St.
• 37:45
  Yeah, But then he can pull back and give you really emotional
• 37:49
  scenes of the kind of growing, like tenderness and emotion
• 37:52
  between Theo and Key as he realizes is what she is and what
• 37:56
  she represents. So in a way, this is just an
• 37:59
  example of a perfect director because he's a technical master,
• 38:02
  but not at the expense of emotional storytelling.
• 38:05
  Yeah, this is Quran's first science fiction film, like we
• 38:07
  said, but you wouldn't know it because his understanding of the
• 38:10
  genres there from like the first second to the film and doesn't
• 38:13
  really stop. I mentioned the world building
• 38:15
  and it is exceptional. The way that he uses the
• 38:16
  background to feed us information kind of blows me
• 38:19
  away, the ads and the propaganda.
• 38:21
  But there's more than that. There's moments where the
• 38:23
  cameras tracking characters and then it abandons them to focus
• 38:25
  on what's happening around them. That's one of the best ways of
• 38:28
  dropping an exposition I think I've seen.
• 38:30
  We get our backs a lot later on, but there's a great moment near
• 38:33
  the start where we leave Theo walking down the street to focus
• 38:35
  from the burned out estate in the background.
• 38:37
  Like not being told about the state of the world.
• 38:39
  We're seeing it constantly. And what makes Quran special
• 38:42
  here for me is a couple of things.
• 38:44
  First is restraint. There's no massive science
• 38:47
  fiction spectacle, no flying cars, no layers like guns, not
• 38:51
  many holograms. That would have been my version.
• 38:53
  Obviously the Britain here is familiar.
• 38:55
  It looks tired and it looks run down, but it's so familiar it
• 38:59
  makes it easy to believe it. And then the way that he shoots
• 39:01
  it. This idea that Quran's had of
• 39:03
  using lots of long takes, especially the big moments.
• 39:06
  You mentioned the opening and the car ambush, and there's more
• 39:08
  to come, but that technique is so immersive, it's ridiculous.
• 39:12
  Lots of handheld cameras to give like a documentary feel.
• 39:15
  It puts you right there. I feel like I'm in 2027 London.
• 39:18
  I think that's so hard to pull off, but Quran makes it look
• 39:21
  kind of easy. So technically it's there,
• 39:24
  thematically it's there, emotionally it's there.
• 39:26
  It's engaging and it's challenging, like all the best
• 39:29
  science fiction usually is. I think this is a great
• 39:31
  director, kind of at his best. I mean, I totally agree with
• 39:34
  what you both tend to be perfectly honest.
• 39:36
  It's an incredible piece of work from a guy who I think was set
• 39:40
  out not necessarily trying to make an incredible piece of
• 39:43
  work, just a credible piece of work.
• 39:45
  After the Harry Potter film, he wanted to come into something
• 39:47
  with just a little bit more of an adult theme and a little bit
• 39:50
  more depth. And I think he's completely lost
• 39:52
  patience here. And I don't think that's a bad
• 39:54
  thing. I think that's a good thing.
• 39:55
  I think he's lost patience with spelling everything out for
• 39:58
  people, and that's really good because this makes him kind of.
• 40:02
  But he's sick of press conferences.
• 40:04
  He's sick of people asking him what's going on.
• 40:05
  He's just like, no, fuck you, I'm making a world, find what
• 40:08
  you want from it. And I can give you that.
• 40:10
  And he absolutely does. And I think the whole power of
• 40:12
  this is that if this was done by a British film maker, even an
• 40:15
  American film maker, it will be nowhere near as good because
• 40:18
  they've got this responsibility to reflect this country in a
• 40:21
  certain way. There's certain respect that you
• 40:24
  have to have for Britain. Quran doesn't have to have that.
• 40:27
  He can come in here and shoot it any way he wants to.
• 40:29
  And I think that's why it's so refreshing and so new because it
• 40:33
  spins the whole thing on its head and you can see how people
• 40:35
  from outside of our bubble see it.
• 40:37
  And I think you need somebody like Conran to come in and have
• 40:40
  that view of it. And like we've said over and
• 40:43
  over again, this is not Blade Runner, this is the anti Blade
• 40:46
  Runner. Digital adverts are more
• 40:47
  important than people themselves.
• 40:49
  Kill yourself. Here you go.
• 40:51
  He has a kit to help you. Kill yourself and give us your
• 40:53
  kidneys. By the way, sex means nothing.
• 40:55
  Life means nothing. Nothing means anything.
• 40:57
  Actually, just kill yourself. And that's the world that we're
• 40:59
  in now. But he somehow makes it a world
• 41:02
  where you kind of want to look around a little bit, but at the
• 41:04
  same time you want to try and fix it.
• 41:06
  And I think that's all down to his viewpoint.
• 41:08
  Even if he didn't have a script, I think just the visuals
• 41:12
  themselves without a narrative story through the middle of it
• 41:14
  is important enough. Absolutely.
• 41:16
  Yeah. So after PD.
• 41:17
  James's source. Novel The Children of Men was
• 41:19
  published. It was optioned by Beacon
• 41:21
  Pictures in 1997 when it's president Mark Abraham saw
• 41:25
  potential for a film. Scripts were produced, but
• 41:28
  nothing else happened. And when Abraham left Beacon to
• 41:30
  form Strike Productions, part of the deal was that he took
• 41:33
  Children of men with them. Yeah, you said that you knew we
• 41:35
  needed the director. With a like a singular vision to
• 41:38
  be able to adapt it properly. Yeah, which is probably why the
• 41:40
  scripts are on the shelf for like 5 years.
• 41:42
  Yeah, exactly. It was Pakora.
• 41:44
  It'd still be there. And then in 2001, Abraham.
• 41:48
  Saw E2 Mama Tambien which was directed by Alfonso Quran.
• 41:52
  He thought part of its visuals and torn would work for children
• 41:54
  of men, so sent the script that had at the time to Quran.
• 41:58
  Yeah, apparently he was getting a lot of offers at the time.
• 41:59
  Quran. So what he would do was get his
• 42:01
  agent to read the script and then summarize them for him.
• 42:03
  So it was a summary of Children of Men that got his attention
• 42:06
  right. And he said reading Hollywood
• 42:08
  screenplays is really sad. Excellent.
• 42:12
  I want to know. What this interpretation?
• 42:13
  Was yeah, I'd love to see this summed up Yeah, I'd love.
• 42:16
  To see that, yeah, the studio. Then brought in Timothy J.
• 42:19
  Sexton, who worked on Boycott, which was a Martin Luther King
• 42:22
  TV movie, to help Quran work on the script, but Quran said they
• 42:26
  couldn't come up with any IDs that excited him and he left the
• 42:29
  project to direct Prisoner of Azkaban instead.
• 42:32
  Yeah, so Quran didn't know Sexton.
• 42:33
  But the studio thought he'd be good at bringing out the
• 42:35
  political sides of the script after he did boycott.
• 42:38
  But Quran just wasn't having it. Fair enough.
• 42:40
  And they must have thought he was dead at that point.
• 42:41
  He's off working with Warners on this huge IP.
• 42:45
  And then came September. 11th, 2001 because Quran was at the
• 42:49
  Toronto Film Festival where he was screening E2 Mama Tambien
• 42:53
  when the Twin Towers attacks happened.
• 42:55
  He was therefore stranded in Canada and started to think
• 42:57
  about Children of Men again. He called the studio up and said
• 43:00
  he'd do Children of Men after Harry Potter and they agreed.
• 43:03
  Quran was actually offered the next Harry Potter as well but
• 43:05
  said no to make Children of Men. Yeah, he's by himself and
• 43:09
  miserable as. Fuck.
• 43:10
  And then said I think I'll do children.
• 43:12
  Yeah, I'm in the right frame of. Mind now?
• 43:14
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 43:16
  Yeah, Yeah. Well, Tim Sexton said the.
• 43:18
  Quran suddenly. Called him back about the blue
• 43:20
  and said that he now had a vision for the film, which was
• 43:22
  the future is in some place ahead of us.
• 43:24
  We're living in the future right now.
• 43:26
  Yeah, exactly. And that's it.
• 43:28
  That's. Kind of the spark.
• 43:28
  And everything else seems like falling the place from the idea.
• 43:31
  I think definitely, yeah, Quaran said.
• 43:33
  He. Turned down off.
• 43:34
  Us to direct the next Harry Potter film, choosing to do
• 43:37
  Children of Men instead. As we've talked about it was
• 43:39
  finally greenlit in 2005 by the distributors Universal.
• 43:43
  The chair at Universal Stacey Snyder told him I don't
• 43:46
  understand this film. I have no idea what you want to
• 43:48
  do, but go ahead and do it anyway.
• 43:51
  And she approved a $76 million budget.
• 43:55
  I think that just shows how highly thought.
• 43:56
  Of Quaran was at the time, doesn't it?
• 43:58
  I need a Stacey Snyder in my life.
• 44:01
  I don't know what you want to do with it.
• 44:03
  Wesley, I don't know why. You're so miserable.
• 44:04
  But he has 76,000,000. Fucking thank you, Stacey.
• 44:08
  I'll give you a ring later. What's quite interesting?
• 44:12
  Though is that Quran said that? Filming Harry Potter in the UK
• 44:15
  was a must of help because it helped him get into the psyche
• 44:17
  of British culture. Yeah, which I think you can't
• 44:18
  see in children and men, Definitely you see some shots.
• 44:22
  From Harry Potter and. Children and men, yeah, it's got
• 44:24
  a very similar tone. Yeah.
• 44:27
  The production designers. Were Jim.
• 44:28
  Clear and Jeffrey Kirkland and they said Quran told them he
• 44:31
  didn't want a high tech future. He wanted the world to be very
• 44:34
  grounded. He said they should create that
• 44:36
  anti Blade Runner. So Quran gave them a file full
• 44:39
  of visual references, including images of conflicts during the
• 44:43
  Iraq war, abuse in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in
• 44:47
  Baghdad, the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the
• 44:51
  Balkans conflict in the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
• 44:54
  What a sticker book that is. I know, Yeah.
• 44:57
  Got any? Shinies, Here's your references.
• 45:00
  God. God, God, Guantanamo be in need.
• 45:04
  Swaps. But I think you can see all that
• 45:06
  in ways. And that's why it hits so hard.
• 45:08
  Surely they're pulling from, like, real life horrors.
• 45:10
  Yeah, even the cars are detailed.
• 45:12
  We talked about the fear during the ambush.
• 45:13
  But Jasper's car, he drives a Citroen with, like, big plastic
• 45:16
  bonnet slapped on the front. Yeah, the cars are all
• 45:19
  knackered. Kiran decided to shoot.
• 45:21
  The early Saints in east London, as he thought it was a place
• 45:24
  without glamour. He told the set designers to
• 45:26
  make it more Mexican to remove some of the capital city
• 45:29
  prestige. Nice.
• 45:31
  The details? Incredible.
• 45:32
  If you. Notice the police helmets don't
• 45:34
  have ER for Elizabeth and Regina.
• 45:36
  They've got CR for Carolus Rex. Right.
• 45:39
  So they predicted King Charlie as well.
• 45:41
  Yeah, right. Yeah.
• 45:42
  No mention of Andrew. All right to predict that one,
• 45:44
  thankfully. To be fair, I've.
• 45:46
  Already knew and kept quiet. Yeah, like everybody else, Yeah.
• 45:50
  The costume designer was zoning Tamim after.
• 45:52
  Current work with that on prisoner of Azkaban.
• 45:54
  She also said he briefed her by saying it should be anti Blade
• 45:57
  Runner. She said she interpreted this as
• 45:59
  nothing should like should be like a costume at all.
• 46:02
  It should look like clothes. She had a costume team of 40
• 46:05
  people. Little mini.
• 46:06
  He's bedride. Doesn't he quarrel?
• 46:08
  He. Just wants it to be anti Blade
• 46:09
  Runner, yeah. I'd said Dorothy was Trench
• 46:11
  Court is definitely. Reminiscent of deck odds.
• 46:13
  To me it is Yeah massively yeah. Anti Blade Runner.
• 46:17
  But the Mac. Story.
• 46:18
  Yeah, absolutely no Oscars for the film.
• 46:20
  For best picture or director. Winners that year.
• 46:22
  Do you remember what it was? Was it the?
• 46:25
  Departed. It was a departed and it's
• 46:27
  director. Martin Scorsese but in creating
• 46:30
  a grounded, relatable world and some of the most acclaimed 21st
• 46:33
  century science fiction images some top direction from Alfonso
• 46:37
  Koran for us. Oh, absolutely, yeah, superb
• 46:39
  work The. Cast the children of men
• 46:47
  director was a relatively. New Hollywood name, and the same
• 46:50
  can be said for much of the lead cast.
• 46:52
  We're going to talk about Clay, Hope Asherty is key, and sure,
• 46:55
  tell edgy a forward Luke, But there's really only one place to
• 46:58
  start on this one, isn't there? So Clive Owen plays.
• 47:02
  Thelonious. Theo Farin, a burned out
• 47:04
  bureaucrat who's lost his son. We follow Theo as he's driving
• 47:07
  to escorting a miracle woman to safety, finds his humanity in
• 47:10
  the process and and sacrifices himself so Key can reach the
• 47:13
  human project. Not your classic action hero.
• 47:16
  Maybe Westie. No, he's not Arnold, is he?
• 47:19
  Absolutely not. I mean, he's the opposite.
• 47:21
  How? Is Clive Owen is for you, I
• 47:22
  think. Clive Owen is fantastic in.
• 47:24
  This film, I do think it's, it's kind of the best I've seen him.
• 47:27
  And I think of this in Sin City. Yeah, when I think of Clive
• 47:30
  Owen, and for good reason, because I think he's totally
• 47:32
  selfless in this character, I think it could be really, really
• 47:36
  confusing in the hands of another actor who just plays
• 47:38
  this angry and straight all the time.
• 47:41
  But I think he's just on this knife edge from the moment you
• 47:44
  meet him. He's just so volatile.
• 47:46
  You don't know where he's going. He's completely given up hope.
• 47:49
  But you can see that he's got this drive, he has this motor
• 47:53
  inside of him that just needs to be kick started somehow.
• 47:56
  You can kind of see that from the character and that he's hope
• 47:59
  presence change once Julian gets him involved with the fish and
• 48:02
  once he goes to visit, he goes to the power station and his
• 48:05
  whole body language change, his whole posture kind of changes.
• 48:08
  He has this belief of something that he doesn't quite know what
• 48:11
  to believe in yet. And I think you totally get that
• 48:14
  from Clive Owens character. You don't remember half of the
• 48:17
  physical things about him. Like I had to be reminded again
• 48:19
  that for half the Philby hasn't got shoes.
• 48:22
  Yeah, that's not something that. Sticks in my mind, but if you.
• 48:24
  Think you die hard, you think, oh, well, that was detrimental
• 48:26
  to the character and he used that in a certain way where his
• 48:29
  own doesn't pour on that. Then act 3 just stands on
• 48:32
  something and he reacts and he's on his left foot all the time,
• 48:35
  limping all the way through the last act.
• 48:37
  But you don't think about that. You don't think about these
• 48:40
  really subtle character moments, these really subtle levels that
• 48:42
  he puts into it. I mean, when Julian dies, that
• 48:45
  was spoke about, that performance from him is easily
• 48:49
  miscible because you're just looking at Julia Moore fading
• 48:51
  away. Watch him watch his reaction to
• 48:54
  that. It is absolute grief.
• 48:57
  He feels like he's completely helpless.
• 48:58
  You feel that character is completely helpless.
• 49:01
  And I think it's it's the Clive ones absolute credit that he
• 49:03
  didn't turn this into like a suave, a misogynistic wanker
• 49:07
  who's just like a bit, I don't care.
• 49:09
  And you're going to have to convince me.
• 49:10
  He's totally flawed. He's not a very nice guy really.
• 49:13
  And you've got to earn his trust.
• 49:14
  And he does that. You kind of earn it all the way
• 49:16
  through. And when he starts to believe,
• 49:18
  you start to believe. And then when the character buys
• 49:20
  it at the end, you take, you're genuinely sorry that he's gone
• 49:23
  because he is a genuinely nice guy who's been shut down by a
• 49:26
  genuinely disgusting world. And that's who he is, a flower
• 49:30
  and a cloud of smoke basically. And he's just got to protect
• 49:33
  himself however he's got to. But it's all these layers that
• 49:36
  you see them take off throughout the film.
• 49:38
  And every layer that comes off this character is an absolute
• 49:40
  pleasure to see. And it's a pleasure to see Clive
• 49:42
  Owen doing it. And I think it's that purpose
• 49:44
  and that drive and the humanisation of this character
• 49:47
  that Clive Owen brings to it. And the fact that he's not like
• 49:50
  the big action star of all time where you're just like, oh, he
• 49:53
  made that film. He exists in this film.
• 49:57
  And that's the whole point. He is Theo.
• 49:58
  He's not Clive Owen. Yeah, this is a film with stuff
• 50:01
  to say, like. We've been talking about, and I
• 50:02
  think what makes Theo such a great lead is how he kind of
• 50:05
  personifies some of those messages.
• 50:07
  I think he's really well written.
• 50:09
  What I think Koran is showing us, probably the cautionary tale
• 50:12
  is that this has become a world without meaning.
• 50:14
  Yeah, as humans, I think we need purpose.
• 50:16
  I know what I do. If I feel like my life's aimless
• 50:18
  or without point, then I start getting depressed.
• 50:21
  I think that's why rich people work when they don't have to.
• 50:23
  Or some do, anyway. Oh, yeah.
• 50:24
  Yeah. So here with the infertility,
• 50:26
  society's lost its sense of purpose, and the world's, like,
• 50:28
  gone to hell as a result. And that's the basis of Theo's
• 50:32
  arc. Because at the start, everyone's
• 50:34
  transfixed by that news broadcast except for Theo.
• 50:36
  Yeah. Couldn't give a monkeys about
• 50:38
  Diego calls him a wanker. Well, by the time Key gives
• 50:42
  birth, Theo has changed. He's realized the life of Keys
• 50:45
  baby, and therefore the human race is worth saving.
• 50:48
  It's even worth dying for. So basically, he's got a
• 50:51
  purpose, and I think he's kind of the main theme of the film,
• 50:53
  the importance of hope and purpose.
• 50:56
  Yeah. As a character, I think he was
• 50:57
  the perfect example of the world and the society at the start of
• 51:00
  the film. So if he's redeemable, maybe we
• 51:03
  are as well. Yeah.
• 51:04
  I think it's great character writing.
• 51:05
  And Clive Vaughan, not your typical action star, but I like
• 51:08
  him. Yeah.
• 51:08
  Leaves it really well. Yeah.
• 51:10
  And apart from the scene where Jasper euthanizes Janice, he was
• 51:13
  in every scene in the film. Yeah, I agree, Wesley.
• 51:15
  This is easily the best I've seen Clive one, to be honest.
• 51:17
  Yeah. Before or since, I think.
• 51:19
  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I said the top.
• 51:21
  There's always been something about the film that puts me off
• 51:23
  at a bit and I don't want to blame Owen Toadley, but a kind
• 51:26
  of asses fault. A little bit up.
• 51:28
  Yeah, we'll go up there. You will go I.
• 51:30
  Thought it was going to be. Pam Ferris.
• 51:34
  I just can't think of a single film where I've gone.
• 51:36
  Clive Owens in this. Great.
• 51:38
  That's sealed a deal. I'm in there for that.
• 51:40
  So I'm just a bit conflicted about him.
• 51:42
  Like, is Owen playing a perfectly unremarkable man in
• 51:45
  very remarkable circumstances, Aussie, just a little bit kind
• 51:48
  of bland compared to everyone else?
• 51:50
  Is he just an unremarkable actor?
• 51:52
  Yeah. I mean, I just think 2000. 6,
• 51:55
  You could have Daniel Craig in here.
• 51:57
  You could have maybe Jude Law. Not going to say it.
• 51:59
  So I'm certainly not saying he's actively bad.
• 52:01
  I mean, I'd agree. I think this is his best
• 52:03
  performance and there is probably, you know, a lack of
• 52:06
  vigor. I think he does let everyone
• 52:08
  else outshine him. Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, I
• 52:10
  think he lets him kind of grab the limelight, but, you know,
• 52:13
  that's maybe the point. I think he's fine and he's very
• 52:15
  much the everyman, which is exactly what Theo is.
• 52:18
  It's just hard to get really excited about him as an actor, I
• 52:21
  think. Yeah, but think about the rest
• 52:22
  of the cast or. Everyone else who's in there,
• 52:24
  it's all on the same level apart from Julianne Moore.
• 52:26
  Yeah, it's on a level. It makes sense.
• 52:29
  Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean.
• 52:30
  It's just, you know. Just in general, Clive Warner's
• 52:32
  bit, you know, white bread with the development of the film
• 52:35
  taking place. Over quite a few years, like we
• 52:37
  talked about, there were various Hollywood actors considered to
• 52:40
  play Theo at various points. Matt Damon, Russell Crowe and
• 52:45
  George Clooney were all reportedly considered preferring
• 52:47
  it as Matt. Russell Core at that time, yeah,
• 52:52
  Damon could have been great, I think.
• 52:54
  Yeah, he could have. Been great, yeah.
• 52:55
  Is that round the Bourne films? Isn't it?
• 52:56
  Round then, yeah, yeah. Round then, yeah.
• 52:58
  Yeah, Clooney just charming the pants of everyone coming up
• 53:01
  himself, because I love Clooney, but he wouldn't have worked at
• 53:03
  all if you. Imagine Clooney at the start.
• 53:05
  In that street film that up the whiskey and the explosion
• 53:07
  happened and that kind of see him doing that.
• 53:08
  Yeah, yeah. Like Solaris Clooney.
• 53:10
  Or maybe yeah yeah, actually depressed Clooney.
• 53:12
  Yeah, yeah, miserable Clooney your.
• 53:14
  Favorite Clooney? My favorite, if any.
• 53:16
  Of the Clooney. Gloomy Clooney.
• 53:21
  So when Kieran signed on to direct, he.
• 53:23
  Knew he wandered in every man type of actor to play a Theo
• 53:26
  Clive wanted played some big lead roles recently like King
• 53:29
  Arthur in Sin City. So Kieran had the script sent
• 53:32
  room on Reddit and didn't think he was a good fit for it so he
• 53:35
  was hesitant. But he was a huge fan of Kirondo
• 53:38
  and that convinced him to take the part.
• 53:40
  He was a big name in the time Clive one wasn't.
• 53:42
  He. Yeah, yeah, he was.
• 53:43
  At the time, he was apparently also wanted by Edwards Wick as
• 53:46
  the lead in Blood Diamond. All right, He turned that down
• 53:48
  to do Children of Men. All right.
• 53:50
  Wow. It's one of the Caprio's worst
• 53:51
  performances. Nobody talks about that, but
• 53:53
  it's not great. Yeah, it was.
• 53:54
  Wick cast him on the back of him.
• 53:56
  He's. Accent in that blood diamond.
• 53:58
  I look to get kissed before I get fucked.
• 54:04
  Well, before we move on from that.
• 54:06
  And Clive Owen, we have our first ATR.
• 54:09
  On Page 1. Question, so one of the benefits
• 54:12
  of signing up was an ATM page Ron is I will answer your
• 54:15
  questions on the show and we have one now on Clive Owen.
• 54:18
  It's Theo. Okay, yeah, so Derek who
• 54:20
  against? Yeah.
• 54:21
  Hello, Derek. Hello, Derek and Derek.
• 54:23
  Asked is Clive? Owens character, the least
• 54:25
  action the action hero ever, spends a lot of time scrambling
• 54:28
  and hiding. Is there any other character
• 54:30
  there so out of their depth but as resourceful as Clive or
• 54:34
  right? What do you think about?
• 54:36
  One I'll go. For and the.
• 54:37
  Prefer it's done very deliberately, but I'll go Jack
• 54:40
  Burton in big trouble in Little China.
• 54:42
  Yeah, very nice. Because the joke of that.
• 54:44
  Film is he? Thinks he's the hero and he's
• 54:47
  not. He gives it the posture and he
• 54:49
  gives it all the big talk, but he's an idiot who just blunders
• 54:52
  his way through the whole thing. Everyone else is sorting shit
• 54:55
  out around him. His sidekick does more than him.
• 54:57
  I mean, the biggest laugh in that film is when he turns up
• 54:59
  for the big final battle, shoots his gun in the air because he's
• 55:02
  really excited, and then gets knocked out by the plaster
• 55:04
  fallen from the ceiling. And this is the rest of it
• 55:06
  entirely. Yeah.
• 55:08
  I'll have to go. Jack Burton.
• 55:09
  Yeah. Amazing.
• 55:10
  That's a good one. While.
• 55:11
  Like here is that. First, Theo seems to be a bit of
• 55:13
  a textbook case of like a reluctant hero, alcoholic,
• 55:16
  disinterested, no purpose. He just needs to be yet.
• 55:19
  I mean, we've seen that kind of stuff before, but it's not done
• 55:22
  in a textbook way because he doesn't become your bombastic
• 55:25
  gung ho action star. He's not Neo.
• 55:27
  Yeah, machine guns under the Mac.
• 55:29
  I mean, we never even see a Theo pick up a gun, never mind use 1.
• 55:32
  So he is really understated. Isn't actually like Derek says,
• 55:35
  which I like a lot. Another classic is Cary Grant as
• 55:38
  Roger Thornhill and North by Northwest.
• 55:40
  Oh yeah, sure, but I'd agree, Theo.
• 55:42
  Is one of the least action. Style action heroes out there,
• 55:44
  especially at that time. Yeah, and Westie, there was a
• 55:48
  few before for. Me, that kind of fit that mould.
• 55:51
  I think there was this moment in cinema where it was kind of like
• 55:54
  the anti hero. It all started with Willis and
• 55:56
  Die Hard and it was like, well, as he's supposed to be the main
• 55:58
  guy. And then we had Mel.
• 56:00
  Gibson doing it as Rick Jarman. And Bird on a Wire want to be
• 56:02
  very favorites. If you haven't seen that very
• 56:04
  similar kind of Fisher or water that performance, which is
• 56:07
  great. One that's brought to mind was
• 56:09
  Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson. An Independence Day?
• 56:12
  Yes. Nice, you're supposed.
• 56:14
  To be an acting star and he doesn't.
• 56:15
  Yeah, he's. Smoking the cigar at the end,
• 56:17
  and he comes around, but really he's just a nerd thrown in the
• 56:19
  middle of it. Yeah.
• 56:20
  And the ultimate one for me is Richard Kimball in The Fugitive.
• 56:22
  Harrison Ford, of course. And one the totally sprung the
• 56:25
  mind that we soon reminded us of was Johnny 5 in Short Circuit,
• 56:28
  because he's ultimately just a pacifist robot.
• 56:31
  Yeah, and he gets it done because he is alive.
• 56:35
  Yeah, they're. More for me, kind of tick that
• 56:36
  box. All good ones.
• 56:38
  Yeah. Well, first performance.
• 56:39
  As Theo, Clive Owen wasn't nominated by any of the major
• 56:41
  awards bodies. Not surprising, maybe.
• 56:44
  But no, it seems we kind of agree.
• 56:46
  An excellent character played quite well by Clive Owen.
• 56:49
  Quite well. Yes.
• 56:51
  A really excellent character. Very.
• 56:52
  Normally portrayed by a very normal middle of the road actor
• 56:55
  who plays a very normal middle of the road character very
• 56:57
  normally well. The second cast member we're
• 57:03
  discussing is. The female lead in Clay Hope
• 57:05
  Asherty is Key, the first pregnant woman in 18 years and
• 57:09
  an African refugee where with Key as she's smuggled through
• 57:12
  England by the fishes, gives birth in a war zone and in the
• 57:15
  end makes it to the human project with her newborn
• 57:17
  daughter. She's well named Wesley.
• 57:20
  Key is the key. There we are.
• 57:21
  How is Clay Ho Bashati in the role?
• 57:24
  She is the key. Subtext.
• 57:26
  Love it. Brilliant.
• 57:28
  Perfect, I think. She's fantastic.
• 57:30
  I think she's. Absolutely fantastic because she
• 57:33
  plays it in such a subtle way. Her performance and her
• 57:36
  character's so understated that it could be like, I feel really
• 57:39
  sorry for her. Oh, she's had a bad life.
• 57:41
  Oh, she's been dragged through this.
• 57:42
  She's just like, this is what life's like.
• 57:45
  This is it. And I couldn't believe it.
• 57:47
  I was going to kill myself. And then I felt the baby kick.
• 57:51
  That's literally where she is as a character.
• 57:53
  And now she has this lease of life, this hope, and she's
• 57:56
  clinging on to these different beliefs.
• 57:57
  And she's learning how to trust people.
• 57:59
  She's learning how to navigate relationships because you can
• 58:02
  tell that people don't really have relationships anymore.
• 58:05
  Yeah. Sex is just meaningless.
• 58:07
  It's just a recreation. It's just get on with it.
• 58:09
  You just exist, and then you die.
• 58:11
  And I think the really great thing is we don't really know
• 58:13
  how old she is. Yeah.
• 58:15
  And you never find that out, which I think is quite important
• 58:17
  because she looks young enough to kind of be early 20s easily.
• 58:20
  Yeah. Easily so.
• 58:22
  And. If we're talking about Diego
• 58:23
  being. 18 at what age did people stop giving a shit?
• 58:27
  Yeah yeah yeah. Patrick's cousin.
• 58:29
  Dies. He's 19.
• 58:30
  Because key to me in her performance is just that
• 58:33
  everyone's given up on her. Her performance is really
• 58:36
  relevant for any parent watching this and that.
• 58:39
  No matter how old your kids get, they still need your attention,
• 58:41
  they still need your love, and they still need guidance through
• 58:43
  life. And everybody does.
• 58:45
  I didn't feel threatened for her, I felt threatened for the
• 58:48
  baby, but I felt like she's just a perfect mother character.
• 58:52
  She just personifies that she's never weak.
• 58:55
  She's never broken down by anything.
• 58:57
  She's just a strong, solid human being and a representation of
• 59:00
  the generational pull that we all feel and that they do need
• 59:04
  attention and that they do need help.
• 59:06
  But I think she's just absolutely part of the tapestry
• 59:08
  of the whole thing. I think it's an incredible
• 59:10
  performance. I agree.
• 59:11
  I like her a lot. Yeah, the character.
• 59:13
  And the actress, I think what's tell her about the character is
• 59:15
  how much weight she carries in the narrative.
• 59:17
  She's literally the future of humanity.
• 59:18
  She's the most important character.
• 59:20
  But the stories told through the eyes of Theo, which works well.
• 59:23
  Yeah. I like the way she taps into one
• 59:24
  of the main themes as well, of immigration.
• 59:26
  The saviour of the world is literally a refugee.
• 59:29
  Yeah. The point surely being that
• 59:30
  immigration isn't necessarily a bad thing.
• 59:32
  It's kind of normal. It's kind of the key to the
• 59:35
  evolution of humanity or what has been.
• 59:37
  Yeah. So really good writing.
• 59:38
  And I think Clay Hope I should see is just excellent.
• 59:41
  She'd been in shooting dogs before this about the Rwandan
• 59:44
  genocide. This was a step up in terms of
• 59:46
  scale. And she seems to rise to it
• 59:48
  effortlessly. I mean, she's acting with
• 59:50
  Julianne Moore and Michael Caine, like acting heavyweights.
• 59:53
  And she doesn't feel out of her depth.
• 59:54
  She plays it as a young woman who was pregnant and scared.
• 59:57
  But she has strength. I mean, she's not shy.
• 1:00:00
  Is she key? No.
• 1:00:01
  The real resilience. Hasn't you?
• 1:00:02
  Yeah. Massively, yeah.
• 1:00:04
  And I think Ashiti gives her. A Lord of Dignity as well, yes.
• 1:00:06
  Great piece of casting and a really impressive performance,
• 1:00:09
  especially for someone so in experience, I like her a lot.
• 1:00:12
  Definitely. Yeah.
• 1:00:13
  Yeah. I mean what I.
• 1:00:14
  Really love about this. Performance is she stops Key
• 1:00:17
  from falling into the potential pitfall where she just becomes a
• 1:00:20
  metaphor. Yeah, she could stop being a
• 1:00:22
  character and just becomes this on the nose, saintly
• 1:00:25
  representation of the saviour of mankind.
• 1:00:28
  But she isn't. And I think actually finds a lot
• 1:00:30
  of humanity in the performance. I think she's got very kind of
• 1:00:33
  soulful eyes and I think she does a really great job after
• 1:00:36
  being seen, just reminding it. She's still just a girl, really.
• 1:00:39
  We don't know how old she is because that scene where you see
• 1:00:42
  is sitting on those swings. That makes sense.
• 1:00:44
  You go, yeah, she should still be playing on swings, not going
• 1:00:48
  through this horrendous circumstance.
• 1:00:51
  You know, I don't think it's a coincidence that the person who
• 1:00:53
  might see if mankind is a young black refugee.
• 1:00:56
  I think it's very pointed character writing, and that's
• 1:00:58
  great. But like I said, she just avoids
• 1:01:01
  being saintly. It's really funny.
• 1:01:03
  Like the first thing she says to Theo.
• 1:01:04
  What the fuck are you looking at?
• 1:01:06
  All right, this is. How is it?
• 1:01:08
  Fine. Great.
• 1:01:09
  Yeah, for your. Performance, though sorry the
• 1:01:10
  character of Key was created for the film.
• 1:01:12
  In PD James novel, the pregnant woman was Julian, who's played
• 1:01:15
  in the film by Julianne Moore. Like we said, Quran wanted the
• 1:01:18
  pregnant girl to be a black immigrant, so Key was conceived
• 1:01:21
  in an early version of the script, which I think is
• 1:01:23
  wonderful. I like that as well.
• 1:01:25
  Key being African taps. In like the single origin
• 1:01:27
  theory, where scientists think that human life originated in
• 1:01:30
  Africa about 300,000 years ago, then moved across the globe.
• 1:01:33
  That's right. Yeah.
• 1:01:34
  So Quran's put in the future. Of humanity kind.
• 1:01:36
  Of back where it all began. Yeah, that's a great little idea
• 1:01:39
  that Oh yeah, it's wonderful. It's wonderful.
• 1:01:41
  Imagine this. Character Anyone else's hands
• 1:01:43
  though, it would just be like saving the baby and like
• 1:01:45
  sacrificing herself, throwing the baby to Theo look after
• 1:01:50
  getting shot. You see with.
• 1:01:51
  This character, it's never going to happen, is it?
• 1:01:54
  It's so grounded. Gosh, she's really grounded.
• 1:01:56
  You could pump into on the. Street it feels like Yeah,
• 1:01:58
  exactly. And at the time the.
• 1:02:00
  Casting call went. Out for Key Claire Whoop Asherty
• 1:02:03
  was 18 years old and going to Saturday drama classes in
• 1:02:06
  London. The class instructor heard about
• 1:02:08
  the audition and thought a star people would be a good fit.
• 1:02:11
  So he arranged an audition for Asherty.
• 1:02:12
  Nice. Yeah.
• 1:02:13
  It was only her third ever audition.
• 1:02:15
  Wow. What's it?
• 1:02:16
  Yeah. The others have been for
• 1:02:17
  adverts, I think. And then suddenly she's in front
• 1:02:19
  of Hollywood and Alfonso Cuaron. Quite the jump.
• 1:02:21
  Yeah. And that class instructor then
• 1:02:22
  became her agent as well. Like, get me in there.
• 1:02:26
  She just walks. At the audition and say hello to
• 1:02:31
  who the fuck you looking. At get that in the script, will
• 1:02:35
  you? And Ashadi said her.
• 1:02:37
  Agent received a. Call saying she had the job and
• 1:02:39
  they'd get a confirmation of the start date late that week.
• 1:02:42
  The next morning, Ashadi got a call at 8:00 AM from nowhere,
• 1:02:45
  seeing there's a car waiting outside for you for your camera
• 1:02:47
  test. So she did that and then the day
• 1:02:50
  after that started filming. Wow.
• 1:02:52
  Bloody hell yeah. It sounds like The Apprentice.
• 1:02:54
  There's a car inside for you at 4:00 AM.
• 1:02:56
  Hurry after fucking hell. Half the age at.
• 1:02:59
  Least yeah, there's a McDonald's.
• 1:03:00
  Breakfast in. There right that's.
• 1:03:02
  Fine, I'll get it. Yeah, it must be a whirlwind for
• 1:03:05
  that though, like. Welcome to Hollywood.
• 1:03:06
  Yeah, definitely. And Ashti was.
• 1:03:08
  Born in Enfield. London and auditioned and was
• 1:03:11
  cast using her normal British accent, but when she was doing
• 1:03:14
  that camera test the day before shooting or Kiran told her she
• 1:03:17
  had to perform the role with an African accent, both her parents
• 1:03:21
  were gone in so she said it wasn't too much of A stretch to
• 1:03:23
  speak in their accent instead. Luckily the day before filming.
• 1:03:27
  Luckily. Imagine.
• 1:03:29
  No, I'm not doing that. Another nice touch, that.
• 1:03:32
  She brought in from appearance. As well, when Key has the baby
• 1:03:35
  at the end, she's singing to learn a foreign language.
• 1:03:37
  That's a Ghanian lullaby that I should his mother used to sing
• 1:03:39
  to her when she was a little girl.
• 1:03:41
  Oh nice, love that baby. Do not.
• 1:03:43
  Cry, it's called, right? Well.
• 1:03:44
  I'm crying now. Exactly, Yeah.
• 1:03:47
  But could have had just passing in crybaby cry.
• 1:03:50
  Surely. Yeah, maybe.
• 1:03:52
  Yeah. Well, for a performance as key
• 1:03:54
  clay hope. Asherty wasn't dominated by any
• 1:03:56
  of the major ward bodies. Again, the film didn't get huge
• 1:03:59
  recognition at the time. No, not at all, did it?
• 1:04:01
  But for us, very impressive. Performance from an.
• 1:04:04
  Inexperienced actress, incredibly impressive from a
• 1:04:06
  wonderful yeah. The final customer we're
• 1:04:10
  discussing in depth. Is the villain of sorts that's
• 1:04:12
  she would tell a Geo for as Luke Julian second in command in the
• 1:04:16
  fishes we watch it. Luke takes over leadership after
• 1:04:18
  Julian's death, reveals his plan to use Keys baby as a political
• 1:04:21
  tool, and ultimately dies for it.
• 1:04:23
  Trying to recapture Key in the Bexhill camp.
• 1:04:26
  Right. He's up the no good mat.
• 1:04:28
  How is it? Sure tell a gear for as Luke he
• 1:04:32
  brings. Really.
• 1:04:33
  Interesting neutrality to the role, because on the paper you
• 1:04:35
  should hate this guy. Yeah, responsible for Jasper.
• 1:04:38
  Seth takes over from Julian, happy to execute Theo in the
• 1:04:41
  street and kidnap Keef his own ads.
• 1:04:44
  But somehow you don't quite hate him.
• 1:04:46
  He's not an eye rolling villain ranting and Raven like at the
• 1:04:50
  end when he's obsessed in that bombed out room and he's
• 1:04:52
  shooting down at the army. You do realize he's fighting
• 1:04:55
  against the people who are essentially the enemy in this
• 1:04:57
  film. So is the enemy of my enemy my
• 1:05:00
  friend? I mean, probably not, but just
• 1:05:02
  think there's a real interest and complexity to Luke and his
• 1:05:05
  motives, and I think that works really well for this film.
• 1:05:07
  Yeah. Yeah, he's interesting.
• 1:05:09
  I think what's interesting. About Luke as a character is
• 1:05:11
  that he believes he's doing the right thing.
• 1:05:13
  Yeah. When he says the baby won't
• 1:05:14
  bring peace and should be able to start the revolution, he
• 1:05:17
  totally believes it. Yeah.
• 1:05:18
  He thinks that's the only way to save humanity.
• 1:05:20
  He's got an ideology. It's that classic thing.
• 1:05:22
  And his story looks the good guy.
• 1:05:25
  The problem is he's willing to risk the future of the human
• 1:05:27
  race for his beliefs, which is a bit notes and rings very true to
• 1:05:30
  me. I think there are people who'd
• 1:05:32
  rather see others die than even admit they were wrong.
• 1:05:34
  Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:05:36
  Yeah. Energy 4 plays at all well he's.
• 1:05:38
  Charismatic. He's got a bit of an edge, so
• 1:05:40
  he's believable. You can see why people follow
• 1:05:42
  him in the film, but you can also see that fanaticism, like,
• 1:05:44
  bubbling underneath the surface as well.
• 1:05:46
  Yeah. I mean, not one of the greatest
• 1:05:48
  villains I've ever seen by any stretch.
• 1:05:49
  I wonder if a bigger name might have made him jump off the
• 1:05:52
  screen more. Possibly.
• 1:05:53
  But a very interesting villain with motives and a very good
• 1:05:55
  actor playing him, So I think he's good.
• 1:05:57
  Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:05:58
  I think you need a. Villain of the piece.
• 1:06:00
  But not necessarily a somebody who's an out and out villain who
• 1:06:03
  represents everything that he's part of.
• 1:06:05
  I think he just represents presents his own desperation.
• 1:06:08
  I think he represents the desperation of the human race to
• 1:06:11
  try and find a glimmer of hope somewhere.
• 1:06:13
  And it just feels to me like it's somebody who's chasing a
• 1:06:16
  lottery ticket when he's playing the character.
• 1:06:18
  It's like, if I just get this, everything's going to be all
• 1:06:20
  right if I could just get to this point.
• 1:06:23
  And he does honestly believe that his heart's in the right
• 1:06:25
  place. He believes he's doing the right
• 1:06:27
  thing ultimately, which doesn't make him a villain.
• 1:06:29
  It just makes him confused and I think Tubertelli Duvall plays it
• 1:06:32
  beautifully. He plays it beautifully because
• 1:06:34
  he's just on that line of humanity and then that
• 1:06:37
  desperation to be known to want something.
• 1:06:39
  He's probably spent his whole life in the shadows and he wants
• 1:06:42
  to come out of those shadows. I honestly think of him and Theo
• 1:06:45
  just sat down with Julian and just talked.
• 1:06:48
  They could have figured this out, but it's just he's just so
• 1:06:51
  hell bent on the glory, just so hell bent on finding that
• 1:06:54
  lottery ticket that it's just confusing for him.
• 1:06:58
  He's so conflicted as a character but so well played
• 1:07:00
  through to the point where he's actually shooting towards Kate
• 1:07:03
  and the baby. All of these beliefs have got
• 1:07:05
  out the window. Through.
• 1:07:06
  Desperation and I think he plays it so well, just this bubble and
• 1:07:09
  tension. But again, just so, so well
• 1:07:11
  played. You're right by the anyway, just
• 1:07:13
  firing bullets. He's kind of like lost the plot
• 1:07:15
  completely. Yeah.
• 1:07:16
  He's just spinning between Am I? Desperate.
• 1:07:18
  Or am I calm? I don't know where I'm supposed
• 1:07:20
  to be. He's just so confused as a
• 1:07:21
  character. Question his motive, doesn't it?
• 1:07:23
  For all the way through, Absolutely.
• 1:07:24
  Was he ever bothered yet? Was it ever?
• 1:07:26
  Going to work. Brilliantly done so.
• 1:07:27
  Complex and Aisha Fawst film debut.
• 1:07:30
  Had been in Steven Spielberg's Amistad in 1997 and he'd started
• 1:07:35
  making a name for himself before Children of Men by appealing in
• 1:07:38
  Dirty Pretty Things and Kinky Boots, and he was cast by Quran.
• 1:07:41
  After going through a casting process and auditioning, Yeah,
• 1:07:45
  yes, we started on stage. In.
• 1:07:46
  Shakespeare, right? But I think I first saw him in
• 1:07:49
  love, Actually, Yeah. He plays Keira Knightley's
• 1:07:51
  husband, doesn't he? That chump sitting on the couch
• 1:07:53
  while his supposed best pal tells his wife he loves her on
• 1:07:55
  those cards. Yeah.
• 1:07:57
  And. And there's videos of a Yeah.
• 1:07:58
  Horrible. Outrageous, that.
• 1:08:01
  Luke's henchman in the fissures is Patrick.
• 1:08:03
  Played by Charlie Hunnam, he was cast after Corum saw him in the
• 1:08:06
  period war drama Cold Mountain, where he played a sadistic home
• 1:08:10
  officer. One of the bad guys, obviously.
• 1:08:12
  Hunnam said he'd been out of work for almost 2 years.
• 1:08:14
  Then two offers came at once. Kuran offered him Patrick and
• 1:08:18
  Zack Snyder offered him a part in 300.
• 1:08:20
  He loved waiting Mama Tambien, so chose Children of Men
• 1:08:23
  instead. The right choice.
• 1:08:26
  Yeah, I think there's so many people in. 300 you forget about
• 1:08:28
  them. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:29
  Fastbenders in 300. You totally forget about that.
• 1:08:31
  Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:33
  Bossy. He's called in Cold Mountain
• 1:08:35
  like. An albino gunslinger.
• 1:08:36
  He's great. Or not?
• 1:08:37
  Yeah, he is great. Yeah.
• 1:08:38
  What do we think of him? Yeah, I mean, it's always.
• 1:08:40
  Strange whenever you hear. Someone with our accent in the
• 1:08:43
  film that isn't set in the Northeast, even more so when
• 1:08:46
  it's. The film series is this one.
• 1:08:48
  And I think what makes it strange though is those dreads.
• 1:08:50
  He just looks like Travolta in Battlefield Earth to me.
• 1:08:54
  Very good. Loads of laughs.
• 1:08:55
  Evil. Laughs.
• 1:08:59
  So, as you might have guessed, Charlie Hunnam is from.
• 1:09:01
  Newcastle He usually has to learn other accents for his
• 1:09:04
  roles, but in Children of Many plays Patrick talking in his
• 1:09:07
  natural Geordie accent. And there's a moment towards the
• 1:09:10
  end where Patrick executes a man who's helping Theo and Kate to
• 1:09:13
  find the boat. And while he does it, Patrick is
• 1:09:15
  singing The Bladen Races, which is a Newcastle folk song from
• 1:09:18
  the 19th century. 18162 to be exact.
• 1:09:21
  To be exact. Yeah.
• 1:09:22
  Yeah. Written by George.
• 1:09:23
  Ridley It's still very well known.
• 1:09:24
  Now, wasn't it football fans still sing it and stuff?
• 1:09:27
  Yeah, yeah, you still hear it now, but in the book.
• 1:09:29
  Patrick or the version of them? Is called gas coin another
• 1:09:33
  Geordie 4 key row. Wow, imagine he was called gas
• 1:09:36
  going in this. That would have.
• 1:09:37
  Been ridiculous. It would be ludicrous.
• 1:09:39
  Just crying. Yeah, some fried chicken and a.
• 1:09:42
  Fishing Room. But thinking that must.
• 1:09:45
  Have been Hunnam's idea. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:09:47
  Surely a Mexican. Director wasn't like get.
• 1:09:49
  The blame races in there 100% and Hunnam never did the
• 1:09:52
  Geordie. Accent again, no, not heard it
• 1:09:54
  since. Probably why being so successful
• 1:09:57
  because if this accent had gone any further than children and
• 1:09:59
  men, which to be honest brings it down a little bit for me
• 1:10:03
  really. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:10:04
  When I hear it, it's just. Like he was 19.
• 1:10:11
  No awards. For sure Telegia 4 or.
• 1:10:13
  Charlie Hunnam for Children and Men.
• 1:10:15
  It impacted them both, though, and both went on to have good
• 1:10:17
  careers in movies and television.
• 1:10:19
  Yeah, Hunnam played the lead in FX, The Sons of Anarchy and Asia
• 1:10:22
  4 was Oscar nominated 8 years later for 12 Years a Slave.
• 1:10:25
  That's right. Oh, yeah, he was.
• 1:10:26
  Yeah. Great in that.
• 1:10:27
  Yeah, yeah. And here was the Fishers couple.
• 1:10:29
  Of pretty goodbye, guys. Yeah, yeah, definitely confused
• 1:10:32
  boys. Very confused.
• 1:10:34
  So that's the cast section we've.
• 1:10:36
  Talked about some of the supporting roles already in
• 1:10:38
  Julianne Moore and Michael Caine, and in those just
• 1:10:40
  discussed, Clive Owen, Cleo Bashati, Sure Teller, G4 and
• 1:10:44
  Charlie Hunnam. Some pretty engaging
• 1:10:46
  performances. Very much that's the word.
• 1:10:48
  Very engaging. From everybody.
• 1:10:56
  All the right movies will be back shortly.
• 1:10:58
  Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode.
• 1:11:01
  Sponsors. Thanks for listening to our
• 1:11:06
  sponsors. Now back to the show.
• 1:11:12
  The middle heading into the middle active children of men
• 1:11:17
  and. Things are starting to heat up.
• 1:11:18
  We're going to be looking at Bexhill on the ends of Jasper
• 1:11:21
  and Miriam. But first we've got a support
• 1:11:23
  and safe house to get to. We do.
• 1:11:25
  So the group arrives at the Fishers safe house where it's
• 1:11:28
  all happening. First, Key reveals she's
• 1:11:30
  pregnant to Theo. Kind of a shock, yeah.
• 1:11:32
  Then Theo overhears the Fishes arguing they're planning to kill
• 1:11:36
  him and keep the baby. Yeah, yeah, some pretty
• 1:11:39
  significant moments then, Matt, how would it play out?
• 1:11:42
  I mean, I think this reveal of the.
• 1:11:44
  Pregnancy, you really, really need the same between Theo and
• 1:11:47
  Key for them to really sort of bonding over something in this
• 1:11:50
  just that so well, I mean the symbolism of being in the cow
• 1:11:53
  shed so surrounded by innocent animals.
• 1:11:56
  Obviously the milk's there. Obviously babies live off milk.
• 1:11:58
  The boat is called tomorrow. Not particularly subtle, but it
• 1:12:01
  works really well. And I think what works even
• 1:12:04
  better is how their relationship just flips because he's adamant
• 1:12:08
  that he's in too much trouble to help, but he doesn't know why
• 1:12:10
  Julian recommended him. So when Keith starts to undress
• 1:12:13
  and he goes, whoa, wait a minute, don't do that.
• 1:12:16
  You know exactly where his head is gone.
• 1:12:18
  And he thinks she's going to offer sex in return for help,
• 1:12:20
  but obviously he's far too much of a good guy to even
• 1:12:23
  contemplate doing that. So that realization of why she's
• 1:12:27
  unrolled, that is so well played because he's stunned it in the
• 1:12:31
  silence, and he just holds that silence for so long, and then he
• 1:12:34
  discours Jesus Christ. Yeah.
• 1:12:36
  And the brilliant thing about that is, is that an expression
• 1:12:39
  of disbelief or considering what he's just saying, is he actually
• 1:12:42
  having a religious moment here? Yeah.
• 1:12:45
  In a barn. In a barn.
• 1:12:46
  Exactly. Because that's what the subtext.
• 1:12:49
  Is. I think it's such.
• 1:12:50
  A brilliant saying and so well played between the two of them.
• 1:12:52
  Yeah, yeah. I think narratively this is
• 1:12:54
  probably the most. Important plot point in the
• 1:12:56
  whole film keeps showing just carrying a baby and I think
• 1:12:59
  Quran knows it. I think it's obvious how much
• 1:13:01
  thoughts gone into this particular moment, like Keys
• 1:13:04
  Port when she does the reveal that's apparently based on The
• 1:13:06
  Birth of Venus by Sandra Botticelli.
• 1:13:08
  Like legendary painting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah,
• 1:13:11
  yeah. So.
• 1:13:12
  Still with the odd references. Yeah, I'm not sure of key
• 1:13:14
  holding a bump. The framing and the lighting is
• 1:13:16
  stunning. It's all like soft light coming
• 1:13:18
  through the doors. Yeah.
• 1:13:19
  Very ethereal feeling to me, Like heavenly.
• 1:13:21
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:13:22
  And you've mentioned it, but there's loads of religious
• 1:13:24
  symbology. We're in a stable, like where
• 1:13:26
  the big JC was born. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:28
  And when Theo sees Keith pregnant?
• 1:13:30
  He sees Jesus. Christ, and then a few minutes
• 1:13:31
  later he makes a joke, which is a virgin, yes.
• 1:13:34
  And then she's like, Nah, I'm a shite.
• 1:13:36
  That's pretty funny. How do we in shite?
• 1:13:38
  Patrick would have said. How do we in shape man?
• 1:13:41
  That's a justice. Isn't it?
• 1:13:42
  That's even bad. Yeah.
• 1:13:43
  So from this moment, we'll find out the Fishers aren't exactly
• 1:13:46
  what they seem to be. The one at the kill, Theo, the
• 1:13:47
  one at the kill, Julian. That is one of the key to kind
• 1:13:50
  of believe in what they were doing.
• 1:13:52
  So Luke was behind the whole thing.
• 1:13:53
  Again, this is like blinking your message stuff.
• 1:13:55
  It's not slowly built. It's not slowly delivered to the
• 1:13:58
  audience. It's very much like through a
• 1:14:00
  window. I did worse.
• 1:14:02
  Please. Everyone did it right.
• 1:14:03
  Getting out of here, right? Fuck that car, but stop pushing
• 1:14:05
  that one. It's really heart pounding and a
• 1:14:08
  really good action sequence and that it's just very slowly built
• 1:14:11
  and I love action sequences like this where it's just literally
• 1:14:13
  pushing a car and it's not like. Driving out there's.
• 1:14:17
  Explosions everywhere. It's like they've got two guys,
• 1:14:19
  but Theo knows that because he's got key, then they're not going
• 1:14:22
  to start shooting the shit out of the car.
• 1:14:24
  They're not just going to open fire.
• 1:14:25
  Thing I love about this sequence is it goes from night to day.
• 1:14:28
  It's totally over the sunrise. Yeah, which is great.
• 1:14:31
  Starts in complete darkness. So it's like them escaping the
• 1:14:33
  darkness towards a new light, towards Jasper's place, towards
• 1:14:37
  something else. So they're just, they're leaving
• 1:14:39
  like all of this horrible darkness behind them, which is
• 1:14:41
  really, really good and gets halfway down that hill and the
• 1:14:45
  car stops and you're like, ah, would he just work?
• 1:14:48
  And it does. Push it again.
• 1:14:49
  And then Patrick? Catches up, Yeah.
• 1:14:51
  Cannot shoot him. No, you can't, because he's
• 1:14:57
  already. Went against what Luke said
• 1:14:59
  before. That's why I asked for
• 1:15:00
  permission, isn't it? That's why he doesn't.
• 1:15:01
  And he asked permission because he's already gone too.
• 1:15:03
  Far before it's hit by the car door again.
• 1:15:05
  Allergic the car doors this guy. But again, I mean this.
• 1:15:09
  Really hammers home how. Much.
• 1:15:11
  Theo stepped up. He's now part of this.
• 1:15:14
  He could have escaped there by himself.
• 1:15:15
  He could have got out of there no problem.
• 1:15:17
  And now we know why Julian wanted him involved.
• 1:15:19
  Now we know why Julian trusted him with this information.
• 1:15:22
  Because it wasn't just for the transfer papers.
• 1:15:24
  It was for his conscience and for him himself.
• 1:15:27
  Yeah, but we've just had the most important plot.
• 1:15:29
  Point in the narrative and I think this might be the most
• 1:15:31
  important plot point in terms of Theo's arc because he overhears
• 1:15:35
  looking Patrick and what they're planning to do he's got a
• 1:15:37
  decision to make see what the start of the film we'll just do
• 1:15:39
  one leave Key and Miriam to it get the Irish coffee in there
• 1:15:42
  easily. But now risks his life and he
• 1:15:44
  chooses to help them. And yeah the escape in the car
• 1:15:47
  not quite as spectacular as the last car scene we talked about
• 1:15:50
  freewheeling down the muddy bank but I really like it.
• 1:15:53
  Yeah. Yeah, but the Fishers meeting
• 1:15:54
  scene before this? As well that's.
• 1:15:56
  Really important because that's when we hear the ideology in
• 1:15:58
  full for the first time, and Theo speaks out and sees that he
• 1:16:01
  disagrees with it. That's the first time he gives
• 1:16:04
  an opinion on anything. And from that point, he's not
• 1:16:06
  passive anymore. Yeah.
• 1:16:07
  He's like a proper protagonist. Theo's choices from now until
• 1:16:10
  the end drive the narrative, which I think is great
• 1:16:13
  development. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:16:15
  Another great moment in. This whole sequence as well is
• 1:16:17
  when Tomas comes in, the farmer who actually owns the place, and
• 1:16:20
  he's handing Theo different clause.
• 1:16:22
  Oh yeah. So obviously they're going to
• 1:16:24
  kill. Him.
• 1:16:24
  Yeah, and they're going to. Wipe out and then they're going
• 1:16:25
  to say OK, all, we found these clothes.
• 1:16:27
  Here they are, right? Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:16:28
  You know, just to still gain her trust as well, which I think is
• 1:16:30
  another lovely little touch. Yeah.
• 1:16:32
  Nice, nice detail. Yeah.
• 1:16:33
  So. That's the Fisher safe house.
• 1:16:35
  Key is pregnant, Theo decides to become a guardian Angel, and
• 1:16:38
  they and Miriam are on the run. Yep, things are about to get
• 1:16:41
  darker still, though. Oh yeah, of course they are.
• 1:16:47
  From one safe house, Theo Key and.
• 1:16:49
  Miriam flee to another Jaspers do be then in the woods and then
• 1:16:53
  move on to Bexhill refugee camp. It's in these scenes we meet,
• 1:16:56
  Border Guard said, and also see the final scenes of Jasper and
• 1:16:59
  Miriam. Yeah, some big moments.
• 1:17:01
  Westy Yeah. Are we doing?
• 1:17:03
  I mean, we're doing great now. That we're about to Jaspers, but
• 1:17:05
  the setups here are wonderful. As soon as they arrive they
• 1:17:08
  think he's taking the quietness which is a set up again for
• 1:17:11
  later on. But it's just the fact that
• 1:17:12
  Jasper uses it to kill the rats like the vermin.
• 1:17:15
  Even though they have a peaceful death, it just shows his
• 1:17:18
  character shines through. Just wonderful key revealing
• 1:17:21
  that pregnancy to Jasper. That just shows the safety and
• 1:17:24
  the trust that's developed between her and Theo, because if
• 1:17:26
  Theo trusts this guy, she was completely open.
• 1:17:29
  And then there's that moment that you spoke about, John,
• 1:17:32
  where they're just literally talking about the pregnancy, but
• 1:17:35
  she's talking to Theo as if he doesn't know that it takes nine
• 1:17:38
  months. Yes.
• 1:17:40
  I know that, but that. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:44
  Good point. Yeah, Yeah, nobody.
• 1:17:45
  Gives a shit about but. Again, he started to buy into
• 1:17:48
  people's ideologies and people's ways of thinking, and he's
• 1:17:51
  starting to be more accepting because we've got Miriam
• 1:17:54
  outside, obviously practicing whatever she's practicing.
• 1:17:57
  And then Kate asks Theo, it's a beautiful line and it's blinking
• 1:18:00
  new message. She says, how does she look?
• 1:18:02
  And he says honest, lovely. And it's just a wonderful.
• 1:18:06
  Thing because it's like he's. Believing in people now.
• 1:18:09
  And there's that shot of Theo in the foreground topping up his
• 1:18:12
  whiskey with Jasper's whiskey bottle and they're listening to
• 1:18:16
  that story about Dylan in the background and it never rocks.
• 1:18:19
  Focus. It just stays on Theo.
• 1:18:22
  And that's just beautiful because that's just framed so
• 1:18:25
  nicely. But always just stay on him.
• 1:18:27
  And the way Kane tells that story demands to be shot in a
• 1:18:30
  mid. It demands to be in there on him
• 1:18:32
  and you can tell he's given an incredible performance, but it's
• 1:18:36
  just Jasper. That's just the way he is with
• 1:18:38
  everybody. That's just his personality.
• 1:18:40
  It's absolutely wonderful when Jasper's over there again, it's
• 1:18:43
  just an absolute heartbreaker and we've got Theo to such a
• 1:18:47
  point where he has to get out the car and then watch it happen
• 1:18:50
  and we see it from his viewpoint.
• 1:18:51
  We're doing cut close again. It's that story that we've heard
• 1:18:54
  about Dylan to keep him in the background.
• 1:18:55
  Pull me finger blows his hand off 1st to fuck you, right.
• 1:18:59
  And it's that moment where Miriam just tries to touch these
• 1:19:02
  like don't you fucking touch me. And you know, he's like you're
• 1:19:05
  like, oh God, he's reset again or he's even more determined now
• 1:19:09
  to get this done because of what's happened and who he's
• 1:19:12
  lost. So incredible moment in the
• 1:19:14
  film. Incredible end of the second act
• 1:19:17
  into a third one because you just think, right, God knows
• 1:19:19
  where it's going to go. Yeah, I think the scenes back at
• 1:19:22
  Jaspas. Are some of the best in the
• 1:19:23
  film. Yeah.
• 1:19:24
  Because we've heard bits and pieces through Julian.
• 1:19:26
  But here we'll finally get Theo's full back story where you
• 1:19:29
  mentioned the Wesley just by explains the key about Dylan
• 1:19:31
  dying in the flu pandemic. And Theo's from the corner
• 1:19:33
  listening. It's a really powerful way of
• 1:19:35
  doing it. But like, right now, we
• 1:19:37
  understand why Theo's so miserable.
• 1:19:39
  Yeah. He's lost his son.
• 1:19:40
  He's not getting another one, obviously, and that's why he's
• 1:19:42
  lost his purpose. I think he was already a good
• 1:19:44
  character before this. And then they develop him even
• 1:19:46
  further, which is excellent. And just by going is a
• 1:19:50
  heartbreaker. Yeah, that whole sequence.
• 1:19:52
  Because firstly, he euthanizes Janus.
• 1:19:54
  That's massive on its own. But then you kind of realize why
• 1:19:56
  he's doing it. You know, the Fishers are going
• 1:19:58
  to kill him, and without him, she'll just starve.
• 1:20:01
  Oh, God, yeah. Michael Caine is just.
• 1:20:02
  Outstanding if he wants. To care about the death of a
• 1:20:04
  character who doesn't have loads of scenes, Just get Michael
• 1:20:07
  Caine to play him. Problem solved.
• 1:20:08
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every time, Yeah.
• 1:20:11
  And Janice was played by Philippa.
• 1:20:13
  Urquhart, an experienced British TV actress best known for World
• 1:20:17
  War 2 drama Tenkor and Janice's back story is that she was an
• 1:20:21
  award-winning photo journalist who was tortured by the
• 1:20:24
  authorities for exposing government abuses, which has
• 1:20:27
  left her in a catatonic state. But in the book, she's called
• 1:20:30
  Hilda and is elderly and senile, and she dies in a state
• 1:20:33
  sanctioned suicide where the military drowned a lot of
• 1:20:36
  elderly people on a beach. Jesus, that's right.
• 1:20:39
  So in the. Book quite it.
• 1:20:41
  Isn't a drug, it's a state-run mass killing ritual for people,
• 1:20:44
  right? Kind of like Logan's run for 60
• 1:20:46
  year olds, right? Yeah.
• 1:20:47
  So in the book he would write to see if Hilda and fails.
• 1:20:50
  And it's that that leads into joining the resistance, right?
• 1:20:53
  OK, right in. The scene where Jasper is.
• 1:20:55
  Describing Dylan. 'S death.
• 1:20:56
  We hear choral music in the background.
• 1:20:59
  The music is Gustav Marlas, Kinder Tauten leader.
• 1:21:01
  Or songs on the death of children.
• 1:21:04
  Wow. Yeah, what a title that is.
• 1:21:06
  The lyrics are taken from the set of poems written by a German
• 1:21:08
  poet called Frederick Rickert, and the poems were written by
• 1:21:12
  after Regardless, two children. The scarlet fever choices.
• 1:21:16
  Pain becomes art, I guess. Yeah, in the worst possible way.
• 1:21:19
  Yeah, 1830s, those poems are written.
• 1:21:22
  So a specific choice of music, I mean, child based heart breaks
• 1:21:24
  all over the place in this. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:26
  I was like Nick Cave, this guy. Yeah, and.
• 1:21:30
  Then after this, well, it doesn't.
• 1:21:32
  Get really any better? Because what comes next is one
• 1:21:34
  of the most disturbing parts of the film for me.
• 1:21:36
  They're on the bus in the Bexhill Keys.
• 1:21:38
  Waters are broken, and just when it's making its way to come, you
• 1:21:42
  can see just people already in cages.
• 1:21:45
  They're being beaten, but because we're on the bus, we
• 1:21:47
  can't stop to look at it. It's just that's the way it is
• 1:21:50
  and you've got to move on from it.
• 1:21:51
  You want to stop and help, but you can't.
• 1:21:53
  And it's just these constant glimpses of horror and then it
• 1:21:56
  does stop and that piece of shit God gets on.
• 1:21:59
  He's horrible, horrible. And he goes straight for.
• 1:22:02
  Key. And it's when you get one of the
• 1:22:04
  underlying themes of the film, which is the individual having
• 1:22:07
  to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
• 1:22:10
  Because when Miriam stands up and she starts her religious
• 1:22:12
  kind of ranting and raving to distract the God, so he goes for
• 1:22:16
  her and instead, I mean, literally dragged out by your
• 1:22:19
  hair and then that black bag overhead and that's it.
• 1:22:23
  That's the last we ever see her again.
• 1:22:25
  The buses keeps on moving. Like, you should have to think
• 1:22:28
  what's going to happen to her and this whole scene, because
• 1:22:30
  it's over so fast. The bus is moving out.
• 1:22:32
  They're like, this is no big deal.
• 1:22:34
  This is just, you know, daily routine for these guys.
• 1:22:37
  Yeah. Then it's the next bus.
• 1:22:38
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's right behind it,
• 1:22:40
  Yeah. Yeah, it just.
• 1:22:42
  Leaves you feeling. Sore sick to your stomach over
• 1:22:44
  what's going to happen to Miriam?
• 1:22:45
  Yeah, I mean, you do see what is going to happen.
• 1:22:47
  Because it is painted, isn't it? As the go and you see the people
• 1:22:50
  been like kneeling down, then you see the corpses and then you
• 1:22:52
  kind of get an idea. Horrible.
• 1:22:54
  Awful. Yeah.
• 1:22:55
  The theory of immigration. Has been there all the way
• 1:22:57
  through, but then it Becks here. It goes up about 5 notches.
• 1:23:00
  I think it's some pretty pressing in writing.
• 1:23:02
  I mean, in the 10 years I saw after this came out, major world
• 1:23:05
  events occurred powered by immigration manifestos.
• 1:23:08
  World leaders have been elected on the back of it.
• 1:23:10
  Kind of like Quorum saw it all coming.
• 1:23:13
  I'm surprised Farage doesn't turn up with that bus.
• 1:23:15
  Yeah, yeah. But another powerful character
• 1:23:19
  moment when? Miriam's dragged off the bus.
• 1:23:20
  She just sacrifice herself for key, really powerful, really
• 1:23:23
  uncomfortable filmmaking. Which is exactly, I think, what
• 1:23:26
  Quran's going for. Yeah.
• 1:23:27
  What should be. Yeah, definitely.
• 1:23:29
  So. Miriam, as we've.
• 1:23:31
  Seen she is Key's midwife and the person meant to deliver her
• 1:23:34
  baby, and she's played by Pam Ferris and Quan Caster after
• 1:23:38
  working with her on Prisoner of Azkapan.
• 1:23:40
  That's right where she played Harry Potter's Aunt Marge.
• 1:23:43
  Yeah, sticks are in the cupboard.
• 1:23:44
  Of the stairs right she. Was also the Trunchbull in
• 1:23:47
  Matilda. That's right.
• 1:23:48
  Yes, darling, but to me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's in.
• 1:23:51
  That as well. JV veteran.
• 1:23:52
  Back in the day, yeah. I mean, she's good, Yeah.
• 1:23:54
  She. Brings like a bit of a warm oh.
• 1:23:55
  She's wonderful. Yeah, she's great.
• 1:23:57
  That bit when? She gives the whole back.
• 1:23:58
  Story is just incredible. Yeah, that speech about the
• 1:24:00
  sound of children and. Playgrounds being silenced.
• 1:24:02
  Brilliant. Keeps disappearing.
• 1:24:04
  Yeah, amazing. And Bexhill is a seaside.
• 1:24:06
  Town in. Sussex and the sets for the film
• 1:24:08
  were constructed across several locations.
• 1:24:11
  The bus arrival scenes were filmed at Bruno Barracks in
• 1:24:14
  Aldershot, Royal Conohort Barracks in Hertfordshire was
• 1:24:17
  used as the come interior market scenes and the room where Key
• 1:24:21
  gives birth and the climatic battle sequence was filmed at
• 1:24:24
  RAF But Hereford in Oxfordshire, a derelict former US Air Force
• 1:24:28
  base. Yeah, the use digital effects
• 1:24:30
  are. Buildings and people as well.
• 1:24:32
  I think it'll be some really powerful imagery in the refugee
• 1:24:34
  camp. The metal grating over the
• 1:24:36
  windows on the bus like subtle touch but just looks horrendous,
• 1:24:39
  horrific and Quran said that in. Creating Bexhill, he gave the
• 1:24:42
  production team some real life reference points.
• 1:24:45
  He asked them to look at Nazi concentration camps, Japanese
• 1:24:48
  American internment camps and Syrian refugee environments as
• 1:24:52
  inspiration. Yeah, yeah, we hear the
• 1:24:55
  libertine. Song.
• 1:24:56
  All by Mac Fry playing in the background as well, right?
• 1:24:59
  All by Mac Fry means work sets you free.
• 1:25:01
  And those words were over the gates.
• 1:25:02
  Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.
• 1:25:05
  So you know that deliberate choice.
• 1:25:07
  Yeah. And that entrance to Bexhill
• 1:25:08
  looks very. Similar to that?
• 1:25:09
  It does, definitely, yeah. And there's also reference.
• 1:25:13
  To Abu Ghraib in Iraq, where the US Army and CIA tortured and
• 1:25:16
  abused detainees. There's a famous photograph
• 1:25:19
  taken at Abu Ghraib of a torture victim in a mask standing on a
• 1:25:22
  box with his arms outstretched. And we see something very
• 1:25:25
  similar at Bexhill. Yeah, we do.
• 1:25:27
  Yeah, The hooded man. That image became.
• 1:25:29
  Known as it was all over the press in about 2004, I think.
• 1:25:32
  Yeah. And there's a prison 9 Bexhill
• 1:25:34
  standing in that exactly import. Yeah, it's obviously
• 1:25:36
  intentional. And the bus goes, passes and
• 1:25:37
  it's one of the last things you see.
• 1:25:39
  Isn't it? Is Yeah, yeah, they're taken
• 1:25:41
  into Bexhill. By Sid the.
• 1:25:42
  Home Guard and there are some interesting deals on his outfit.
• 1:25:45
  The Crest on his burial shows the map of Britain and the whole
• 1:25:48
  of of Ireland, suggesting the Republic of Ireland has rejoined
• 1:25:51
  the UK. Yeah, I love all the little.
• 1:25:53
  Details like earlier in London with all the Homeland Security
• 1:25:56
  signage everywhere. And there's billboards seeing
• 1:25:59
  avoiding fertility tests as a crime.
• 1:26:00
  And there's a piece of graffiti that says last one, the die,
• 1:26:03
  please turn out the lights. Yeah.
• 1:26:05
  Incredible that. Yeah, I'll make it.
• 1:26:06
  Help. Yeah.
• 1:26:07
  For our recordings. And another subtle detail in the
• 1:26:11
  bus. Scene is that we see the fishes
• 1:26:13
  outside the window pretending to surrender, which shows how they
• 1:26:16
  got into the camp. And we can see Patrick.
• 1:26:18
  He's wearing a mask, boot. We can see his hair and jacket.
• 1:26:22
  Yeah, that's how they get. In similar to that at.
• 1:26:24
  The start of the film, we said when he was on his way.
• 1:26:26
  Jasper's on the train. We see Ian, one of the fishers
• 1:26:29
  on the bus. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:30
  No puddles. Yeah.
• 1:26:31
  No. And I'm not happy enough.
• 1:26:33
  That is the middle of Children of Men.
• 1:26:36
  Yeah. Jasper's gone.
• 1:26:37
  Miriam's gone. And Theo and Kieran Bexill.
• 1:26:40
  We're set up for the climax. But before we go there, let's
• 1:26:43
  get into Alfonso's team. Should we?
• 1:26:45
  Let's do it. Let's do that.
• 1:26:46
  The. Crew Alfonso Cuaron didn't do it
• 1:26:54
  all alone. He had quite the crew on
• 1:26:56
  Children of Men, and we're talking about some of those
• 1:26:58
  talents right now. John Tavanagh as composer and
• 1:27:01
  Emmanuel Labetsky as director of photography will be discussed,
• 1:27:05
  but we're going to begin with the screenplay and the writers.
• 1:27:08
  Yep, Yep. There are a few credited.
• 1:27:10
  Screenwriters on children. Of men namely Alfonso Cuaron,
• 1:27:13
  Timothy J Sexton, David Aratta, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby paron
• 1:27:17
  had already written his features solo kantu parea and ITU Mama
• 1:27:21
  tambien Sexton this was his first screenplay A writer had
• 1:27:24
  written thrillers broke down palace and spy game and Fergus
• 1:27:27
  and osby were a writing team who had written thrillers
• 1:27:30
  consequence and 1st snore right five credited writers and Matt
• 1:27:35
  the famous five of their writing on children of men I mean it
• 1:27:39
  doesn't feel like. Five different voices.
• 1:27:41
  It all feels very unified, and it's just terrifying how
• 1:27:44
  prescient it is. When Theo walks into the
• 1:27:47
  building, at one point, there's a sign in the background that
• 1:27:50
  just says British drops for British people.
• 1:27:52
  You just think, wow, did PD James have a time machine or
• 1:27:56
  something? You know, that advert that plays
• 1:27:59
  only Britain soldiers on. I mean, not just hits on so much
• 1:28:03
  as well. And the novel, which I've not
• 1:28:05
  read, but which I think it really should.
• 1:28:07
  It obviously gives them such a firm base to work from because
• 1:28:10
  everything they bring out of it is still so horribly plausible.
• 1:28:13
  I mean, what I keep coming back to, this doesn't feel like
• 1:28:16
  science fiction. It's that thing about it's taken
• 1:28:19
  from tomorrow's headlines, and that's why it hits them so hard.
• 1:28:21
  There's not that many films where you can honestly see what
• 1:28:24
  it's about continues to go on relevance, but this one really,
• 1:28:27
  really does. The themes it explores.
• 1:28:29
  Absolutely. I mentioned the character.
• 1:28:31
  Writing around Theo, and that is great, but probably the themes
• 1:28:34
  that really stand out for me, the way the script explores
• 1:28:37
  things like immigration feels massively relevant, maybe even
• 1:28:40
  more in the later years than when it was made.
• 1:28:42
  Yeah. The idea that my creation is
• 1:28:43
  just human nature, something we've always done and always
• 1:28:46
  will. I mean, political themes can be
• 1:28:48
  really divisive, but I think with how accurate this feels,
• 1:28:51
  it's not easy to argue against it, I don't think.
• 1:28:53
  Yeah, exactly. I also think the critique of
• 1:28:55
  ideology, or rather the critique of being enslaved by an
• 1:28:58
  ideology, that's really interesting.
• 1:29:00
  Like Luke and the Fishers are willing to risk everything,
• 1:29:03
  including the future of humanity, for what they think.
• 1:29:06
  The film is basically saying that ideologies are tools to
• 1:29:08
  separate us or they can be used for that.
• 1:29:10
  That can be dangerous. And again, that kind of feels
• 1:29:12
  timeless. So as a cautionary tale, this is
• 1:29:16
  pretty scary accurate. I think there's even a pandemic
• 1:29:19
  in the back story a decade and a half before COVID, and there's
• 1:29:22
  more ideas in this world with no hope.
• 1:29:24
  People turn to religion that's there, like we talked about, and
• 1:29:27
  the government's handing out suicide drugs, like quietest or
• 1:29:30
  drugs to get you up high with quietest bliss.
• 1:29:33
  I mean, if I lived here, I'd be off my head all the time as
• 1:29:35
  well. Yeah, too, right.
• 1:29:36
  There's some incredible technical.
• 1:29:37
  Filmmaking. As we've been seeing, but some
• 1:29:39
  really interesting writing as well.
• 1:29:40
  And my combination is what science fiction designs best, I
• 1:29:44
  think. Yeah, I think it's really
• 1:29:45
  interesting the writing of. This because we don't get any
• 1:29:48
  explanation as to why the world is the way it is.
• 1:29:51
  It just is that way. And I think that's really brave,
• 1:29:55
  and it's one that doesn't leave you thinking, well, if only I
• 1:29:57
  knew, then we'll be able to solve it.
• 1:29:58
  I don't think this is very politically charged, even though
• 1:30:01
  it does seem to be. It's about humanity and about
• 1:30:04
  being human and about the progression and where we're
• 1:30:06
  going. We've got to just be good to
• 1:30:08
  each other, otherwise we'll go nowhere anyway.
• 1:30:10
  It doesn't matter about who's governing what.
• 1:30:12
  You can only govern what exists and if hopelessness exists.
• 1:30:15
  And that's what they're trying to govern.
• 1:30:17
  But again, I think there's just a lot of this that gets lost.
• 1:30:21
  A lot of the narrative to me seems secondary to the message.
• 1:30:25
  I think it's a very simple story.
• 1:30:27
  A refugee is the only one who can be pregnant and she needs to
• 1:30:29
  be found. It's just this beacon of hope
• 1:30:31
  and nobody knows how to deal with it and nobody knows how to
• 1:30:34
  cope with it. Because even as we see what
• 1:30:36
  we'll get to the end of the film, it's temporary.
• 1:30:39
  You know, this hope is temporary and then it's it's raided again.
• 1:30:42
  So it's about human nature and the and the destructiveness of
• 1:30:45
  human nature. And I think that's what it's
• 1:30:47
  trying to address. And if we take away that
• 1:30:49
  destructive element, all we're doing is hurting ourselves.
• 1:30:51
  We're not helping anybody. We're not even helping each
• 1:30:54
  other. We're not helping ourselves by
• 1:30:55
  not helping each other. And that's the central message
• 1:30:57
  in this, which, again, is really important.
• 1:30:59
  And it's wrapped up in this terrifying dystopian world.
• 1:31:03
  And like we've said, isn't that far away.
• 1:31:05
  So I think it's about time that people realize what the writing
• 1:31:07
  about is literally around the corner.
• 1:31:10
  Yeah, the narrative, it's pretty straightforward.
• 1:31:11
  That's. Why it's only what, 95 minutes
• 1:31:13
  or something? It's very, very simple.
• 1:31:15
  It could this could be easily. Be a 15 minute short film.
• 1:31:18
  They could, yeah. So when beacon pictures first.
• 1:31:20
  Option PD James's novel in 1997 they hired Paul Chart to adopt
• 1:31:25
  it. He was a British filmmaker
• 1:31:27
  making some noise at the time with American Perfect Reward
• 1:31:30
  crime thriller and it was written like a road trip film.
• 1:31:33
  Yeah, you too, Mama Zombie ends a Rd.
• 1:31:35
  Trip film, isn't it? So if this was a road film early
• 1:31:37
  on, possibly why Quran was approached.
• 1:31:40
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:31:41
  Didn't go after Todd Phillips for some reason.
• 1:31:43
  No, that's a sham. There's a baby.
• 1:31:45
  In the Hangover, what more do you need?
• 1:31:47
  Mark Fergus and. Hawk Osby were then hired to do
• 1:31:50
  a rewrite. They were a writing team, and it
• 1:31:53
  was them who laid the groundwork for what the script would
• 1:31:55
  become. They said they were struggling
• 1:31:57
  with how to adapt it for the big screen, but their breakthrough
• 1:31:59
  came when they realized there were similarities to Casablanca.
• 1:32:03
  Yeah, Fergus said. The Sophia.
• 1:32:05
  Was being like Rick Blaine, this, like, scarred hero who was
• 1:32:08
  a revolutionary but gave up when he lost too much?
• 1:32:10
  I mean, that is kind of there, isn't it?
• 1:32:11
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:32:12
  It makes sense, No? Piano sing along though.
• 1:32:15
  Could have had just by belting out imagine or something.
• 1:32:18
  That would be great. There was.
• 1:32:20
  Space for that. I think they just might have cut
• 1:32:21
  it. Out, yeah, they could have done
• 1:32:22
  that. Just possessed they could have.
• 1:32:24
  Done that. Yeah.
• 1:32:24
  Yeah. But it was that.
• 1:32:25
  Version of the script the Quran read.
• 1:32:27
  And convinced him to come on board.
• 1:32:29
  Yeah, right. So then when?
• 1:32:30
  Quran came in. One of his conditions was that
• 1:32:33
  he got to develop the script. The studio hired Timothy Sexton
• 1:32:36
  to work with him for rewrites. Sexton hadn't written a feature
• 1:32:39
  screenplay before and was actually known as ATV Movie
• 1:32:42
  Writer. Yeah, so as well as boycott that
• 1:32:44
  were. Mentioned he'd Co written live
• 1:32:46
  from Baghdad, which is about the news team covering the Gulf War.
• 1:32:49
  That must have been a draw to get him in the I would think.
• 1:32:52
  Oh yeah, a lot of similarities, yeah.
• 1:32:54
  But other changes from the earlier script.
• 1:32:56
  Versions. At one point, the quietest mass
• 1:32:58
  suicide from the book we mentioned was how Janice died
• 1:33:01
  and Jasper died when he was mauled by guard dogs to help the
• 1:33:04
  own key get to Bexhill. Presumably he didn't have the
• 1:33:07
  dogs to pull his finger. But maybe that wouldn't work.
• 1:33:11
  Bite my finger. And we've mentioned some of the
• 1:33:16
  religious themes. Already.
• 1:33:17
  And that comes from the novel PD James actually took the title of
• 1:33:21
  the book from the Bible because Psalm 90 says, Lord, thou
• 1:33:24
  turnest man to destruction and seest return, ye children of
• 1:33:28
  men. And Theos Fullimus Thelonious,
• 1:33:31
  which comes from the Latin for belonging to God.
• 1:33:34
  And the name of the fishes comes from the idea that the fish has
• 1:33:37
  been a symbol of Christianity for thousands of years.
• 1:33:40
  Yes, when the book they're called the. 5.
• 1:33:42
  Fishes right taken from like the five loaves 2 fishes miracle in
• 1:33:45
  the Bible right under the end of the book Theo.
• 1:33:48
  Makes a sign of the. Cross on the baby's forehead
• 1:33:51
  because like PD James was a practicing Christian, I think
• 1:33:53
  so. Perron torn that stuff down, but
• 1:33:55
  it is kind of still there. Oh, it's definitely still there.
• 1:33:58
  Karen said he deliberately. Didn't read PD.
• 1:34:00
  James novel as he didn't want it to affect his vision.
• 1:34:03
  Yes, Timothy Sexton to read it. So they were aware of what was
• 1:34:06
  happening in the book. There were some other changes.
• 1:34:08
  Like in the book, we were told that the reason for the
• 1:34:10
  infidelity is that men have stopped producing healthy sperm.
• 1:34:13
  In the book, it's referred to as the ultimate failure.
• 1:34:17
  Yeah, the movie doesn't go into massive detail.
• 1:34:19
  For the reasons behind it, does it?
• 1:34:21
  No, which I think works fine. I think it works absolutely
• 1:34:23
  fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:25
  I've heard coron talk before. About how he doesn't like.
• 1:34:27
  Too much exposition and explanation in films.
• 1:34:29
  So maybe that's why he just got rid of it all.
• 1:34:30
  Yeah. Now thinking about it, I think
• 1:34:32
  that actually. Does point with because when
• 1:34:34
  Luke finds out it's a girl at the end, he kind of gives up,
• 1:34:37
  right? Yeah, and.
• 1:34:39
  That he was hoping it would be a boy.
• 1:34:40
  Who could produce healthy sperm? Yeah, maybe.
• 1:34:42
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of taps.
• 1:34:44
  Into it, so it's there, but. You've really got to look for
• 1:34:46
  it. Yeah.
• 1:34:46
  Oh, you have. Yeah, you have.
• 1:34:47
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:34:48
  And also in the novel. Julian was the pregnant woman,
• 1:34:51
  which we've mentioned, and the father was Luke.
• 1:34:53
  Actually, Julian and Theo's baby Dylan didn't die in a pandemic.
• 1:34:57
  He was killed in a car accident and Theo was American, not
• 1:35:00
  British. And also he wasn't an office
• 1:35:02
  worker, he was a Oxford University history professor and
• 1:35:06
  as part of his depression he would sleep with homeless
• 1:35:08
  people. Wow.
• 1:35:09
  Yeah, I think he sleeps outside. With groups of homeless.
• 1:35:11
  People. Oh, right, OK, he wasn't
• 1:35:13
  seducing them. I was going to say that.
• 1:35:15
  'D be weird to get a little. Depression, yeah.
• 1:35:19
  Why don't you get a job? Get a goddamn.
• 1:35:23
  Job, Al about the mind. Well, for pending the screenplay
• 1:35:29
  of Children of Men. The screen writers were
• 1:35:31
  nominated for Best Adapted screenplay at the Oscars.
• 1:35:33
  They lost out again to The departed William Monaghan, based
• 1:35:36
  on the Hong Kong crime drama Infernal Affairs.
• 1:35:38
  That, Yes, that's right. Yeah, No.
• 1:35:41
  Oscar for the writers here, but. For us, some pretty
• 1:35:43
  extraordinary precedent writing on children of men.
• 1:35:46
  Oh, wonderful, I say. It's terrifying.
• 1:35:48
  Really. We're moving on to the music on
• 1:35:52
  the film now. And the composer on Children of
• 1:35:54
  Men was Sir John Taverner, a British musician known mostly
• 1:35:58
  for his religious choral pieces going back to the 1960s.
• 1:36:01
  This was Tavern as first and only original film score.
• 1:36:04
  Wow, an unconventional choice, Matt.
• 1:36:06
  How was the music on Children of Men?
• 1:36:09
  I think it's great, I think. As well as the soundtrack, I
• 1:36:12
  think the choice of very unusual cover versions is really
• 1:36:15
  striking. I don't know if it's a budgetary
• 1:36:18
  thing, so they couldn't afford the original, but those covers
• 1:36:20
  of Tomorrow Never Knows and Ruby Tuesday because they're not The
• 1:36:23
  Beatles or the Stones. It does give the film the sense
• 1:36:26
  of This is our world, but also not.
• 1:36:28
  Yeah, it's not authentic. It's not.
• 1:36:30
  Authentic. It's slightly.
• 1:36:32
  Removed from our reality. I think that's so effective.
• 1:36:34
  And I think the original scores great.
• 1:36:35
  I mean, it's quite sparing, but when it comes in, it feels like
• 1:36:38
  it's stabbing you in the heart and it's punching you in the
• 1:36:40
  gut. It's really evocative, really
• 1:36:42
  powerful. It haunts you once the film's
• 1:36:44
  finished. Really, really like it.
• 1:36:46
  And any film that ends with Jarvis Cocker scene is still
• 1:36:49
  running the world. That's fine by me.
• 1:36:53
  Anything with? Jarvis is fine by me, yeah.
• 1:36:54
  Yeah, yeah, I think We're on uses music in quite an unusual
• 1:36:57
  way, but really cleverly. It's like a combination of
• 1:36:59
  original score and like pop soundtrack.
• 1:37:02
  John Tavanagh score. I don't think it's really like a
• 1:37:05
  traditional film score. It's more like a spiritual kind
• 1:37:08
  of home that sits underneath the film.
• 1:37:10
  It's really atmospheric. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:12
  You've talked about the religious themes and symbology,
• 1:37:14
  and I think that's surely why Quran hired Tavanagh, because
• 1:37:16
  that was kind of his thing. So with Tavern stuff being quite
• 1:37:19
  subtle, it probably is the pop music that's most noticeable.
• 1:37:23
  Ruby Tuesday gets played several times.
• 1:37:25
  And it's not The Rolling Stones version like you see Ma, it's
• 1:37:27
  the one by Franco Battiado. It's a good version.
• 1:37:30
  I like it. But I think Quran might be
• 1:37:32
  making a point on multiculturalism because it's a
• 1:37:34
  very British and very British sounding song made more
• 1:37:37
  beautiful sounding by being developed by someone from a
• 1:37:39
  different country. Yes.
• 1:37:40
  It's like a cultural collaboration almost.
• 1:37:43
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:37:43
  I mean, not that it's hard to make it more beautiful sounding
• 1:37:45
  than when Jackass belding out the first one.
• 1:37:48
  Just a reimagination. And by how important the refugee
• 1:37:52
  viewpoint could be. Yeah.
• 1:37:53
  And then we've got all these other pop songs all over the
• 1:37:55
  place. Almost always diegetic we
• 1:37:57
  mentioned King Crimson and the Libertines.
• 1:37:58
  We hear hush yes by deep purple on Jasper's car radio at the
• 1:38:01
  start always welcome, but as a choice feels almost like a kind
• 1:38:05
  of lullaby for this world with no babies yeah and then we hear
• 1:38:08
  bring on the Lucy by John Lennon a couple of times.
• 1:38:10
  I think surely chosen as keen based Jasper on him yes and how
• 1:38:14
  mad that means the Jasper plays to Theo in the first that like
• 1:38:17
  barrage of noise yeah, that's FX twin Oh my guess which is Evan
• 1:38:22
  it's called Ah right. OK, but yeah, the way music's.
• 1:38:25
  Used for scoring songs. Always think of Quran is like a
• 1:38:28
  sophisticated and classy filmmaker and I think that's
• 1:38:31
  shown how he uses the music in this as well.
• 1:38:33
  I think it's one that's easy. To forget about, because again,
• 1:38:37
  it's one of them soundtracks that really doesn't emphasize
• 1:38:40
  anything that's happening on the screen.
• 1:38:41
  Yeah, it's one of them soundtracks that takes you away
• 1:38:44
  from what's happening on the screen.
• 1:38:45
  Almost especially the the original score feels very
• 1:38:50
  religious to me. Very heavenly, very angelic,
• 1:38:53
  lots of strings, lots of voices, lots of calmness, lots of hope,
• 1:38:57
  but it's just buried beneath all of this shit that you're
• 1:39:00
  watching. There's no rise in the score
• 1:39:02
  where it's like you know where The Walking down the stairs at
• 1:39:05
  the end with the baby there and you expect this score and
• 1:39:08
  there's nothing. That's where you would use it.
• 1:39:10
  There's nothing. It's kind of like you're just
• 1:39:12
  using it to reinforce certain parts of of what you think, not
• 1:39:16
  what you believe. He's making you think certain
• 1:39:18
  things, not feel them. And I think he's doing that
• 1:39:20
  through music, and he does that to the with the actual sound
• 1:39:22
  design as well. I think it's just so well done
• 1:39:24
  and so well put together. Another part of the piece that's
• 1:39:27
  just perfectly used. It just feels like a Jenga
• 1:39:30
  tower, but it just feels so solid at the same time, like
• 1:39:33
  it's all been put together and all these pieces are in place.
• 1:39:35
  Take one bit out and it kind of tumbles.
• 1:39:38
  Yeah. I mean, if you listen to this by
• 1:39:39
  itself, which I've done, I don't recognize which parts each bit
• 1:39:43
  of musics from. Yeah, I don't think I would
• 1:39:44
  either. It's kind of oh.
• 1:39:46
  Where was this? It's not like that's the that's
• 1:39:48
  the end credits or whatever. It's like I don't remember.
• 1:39:51
  So it's there, but it's not. It's really well done.
• 1:39:54
  I mean, Quorum doesn't want that one thing.
• 1:39:55
  He doesn't want big. Themes.
• 1:39:56
  Does he? Definitely not.
• 1:39:57
  He doesn't want anything to make.
• 1:39:58
  You kind of move away from what you're saying.
• 1:40:01
  Yeah. So as we've been saying, Sir.
• 1:40:03
  John Tavaner. Was an unconventional choice of
• 1:40:05
  composer by Quran. He'd never written a scarf of
• 1:40:08
  film before and had made a name for himself by writing
• 1:40:11
  spiritually themed choral and orchestral pieces that had
• 1:40:14
  broken into the mainstream. His most famous works were The
• 1:40:17
  Whale Song for Athene and Song of the Angel, which he'd written
• 1:40:21
  to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
• 1:40:24
  And Quran said he hired Tavener because when he was writing the
• 1:40:27
  screenplay, he listened to Song of the Angel on a loop, right?
• 1:40:31
  Yeah, Quran said that piece. Gave him like the.
• 1:40:32
  Spiritual footprint, he called it that he followed for the film
• 1:40:35
  and the Whale that was released in 1968 on Apple, The Beatles
• 1:40:38
  label. Yes, and Song for a Theme became
• 1:40:41
  quite well known because it was played at the funeral for
• 1:40:43
  Princess Diana, right? OK, but it is such a strange.
• 1:40:46
  Choice a composer. By Cuaron, I mean a great one.
• 1:40:48
  I think it's pretty inspired. Again, it's that choice, isn't
• 1:40:51
  it? It's like.
• 1:40:52
  Somebody who's there but not. It's almost like an invisible
• 1:40:55
  composer. Yeah, easily having never.
• 1:40:58
  Scored a film before Tavern's. Approach was unique.
• 1:41:01
  He scored to the screenplay rather than the finished film.
• 1:41:04
  He read the script and told Kuran he saw themes of
• 1:41:06
  motherhood, salvation and hope. Kurana Grade and Taverner wrote
• 1:41:10
  a 15 minute piece of music inspired by those themes that
• 1:41:13
  became Fragments of a Prayer, his main piece for the children
• 1:41:15
  of men. Yeah, that's all like choral.
• 1:41:18
  Sopranos and strings and stuff, that was his thing, what he was
• 1:41:20
  known for. But we hear words in that in
• 1:41:22
  like Sanskrit, there's English, German again to reflect that,
• 1:41:26
  like multiculturalism, right? And Corinne then took that piece
• 1:41:29
  and chop it down to different bits to use at different places
• 1:41:31
  in the film, right? Yeah.
• 1:41:32
  I love all that, which I kind of tell.
• 1:41:34
  I kind of tell which bit was used way.
• 1:41:36
  No, it's beautifully done. And the sound?
• 1:41:38
  Design team was headed up. By Richard Beggs, who was the
• 1:41:41
  best sound Oscar winner for Apocalypse Now.
• 1:41:43
  And he'd worked with Quran on Prison of Azkaban, which is how
• 1:41:47
  he came to be hired here. And the sound team deliberately
• 1:41:50
  broke mixing conventions. They came up with a new panning
• 1:41:53
  approach to the sound that was based on the camera movements.
• 1:41:55
  So as the camera pans across the landscape, the sound does the
• 1:41:58
  same through the speakers. Amazing.
• 1:42:00
  Love that. Yeah, so the camera is kind of
• 1:42:02
  the microphone. As well as the camera.
• 1:42:04
  Yeah, I mean, we talk about the visuals, but I think the sound
• 1:42:06
  design is a big part of why the tracking shots are so immersive
• 1:42:09
  as well. Yeah.
• 1:42:09
  Like the battle of the end, we'll talk about it.
• 1:42:11
  The gunfire in the explosions, like pull you in.
• 1:42:14
  Yeah. There's a great moment where
• 1:42:16
  that happens. Where?
• 1:42:16
  Theo goes to meet Julian on that bridge.
• 1:42:19
  Oh, yeah. He walks past that pub, and it's
• 1:42:21
  just like the gang of punks just outside the pub, and they're
• 1:42:23
  just playing some music. And when he walks past them, it
• 1:42:25
  gets louder and then just totally disappears.
• 1:42:27
  Yeah. So that's not technique that
• 1:42:28
  developed for this. Yeah, brilliant.
• 1:42:30
  For his work on Children of Men, John Tavanagh wasn't nominated
• 1:42:33
  for any major awards whenever the Oscars that year was Gustavo
• 1:42:36
  Santa or Liar for Babel, which is incredible.
• 1:42:39
  Oh yes, right, another one that's not.
• 1:42:41
  Talked about enough, but Children of Men still has some
• 1:42:43
  pretty. Great work from John Tavanagh
• 1:42:45
  and the sound design team. Wonderful.
• 1:42:47
  Brilliant. It's time for the children of
• 1:42:50
  men. Cinematography.
• 1:42:51
  Now, and the director of photography was Emmanuel
• 1:42:53
  Labetsky, AKA Shivo. This was Libetzky's 22nd
• 1:42:57
  feature, his fifth with Quran, and some of his Hollywood
• 1:43:00
  highlights were Reality Bites, The Birdcage, Meet Your Black,
• 1:43:03
  Sleepy Hollow Alley and Lemony Snicket's A Series of
• 1:43:06
  Unfortunate Events. Yes, which I love, obviously.
• 1:43:08
  And Cut in the Hat, yeah. And he'd shot Quran's great.
• 1:43:14
  Expectations and Itsumama Tambien.
• 1:43:17
  Yeah, the visuals and Westy. How was Chivo's work?
• 1:43:19
  Yeah, how long he got as long as you.
• 1:43:22
  Want as long as I. Want I'm going to be here a
• 1:43:23
  while strap. Yourselves in famous last words
• 1:43:25
  there. I should have said that.
• 1:43:26
  Yeah, you. Shouldn't have.
• 1:43:29
  Here he. Goes last orders it's only 6.
• 1:43:31
  O'clock, I mean, it's. Just incredible work this.
• 1:43:35
  Is just fantastic. I mean, Chivo is Spanish for
• 1:43:37
  good grace of all time. So you can see why he's called
• 1:43:40
  Chivo. Yeah.
• 1:43:40
  Oh really? Which is his nickname.
• 1:43:41
  He's just so involved in every project that he's in and you can
• 1:43:44
  just say he just gives 100% of everything.
• 1:43:47
  There's such an organic and raw quality to all of this
• 1:43:51
  filmmaking, especially the visuals, and I think the visuals
• 1:43:54
  just really moved me in 2006 to just be like, really got to try
• 1:43:58
  better. It's very subtle.
• 1:44:00
  At the same time, he's not slamming you over the head with
• 1:44:02
  it. You can forget that because it
• 1:44:04
  is purely about the story. He's not using techniques that
• 1:44:08
  take you out of this film whatsoever.
• 1:44:10
  And his use of natural light is just so beautifully done.
• 1:44:13
  It's just so softly lit. It's just the colour palettes
• 1:44:16
  that go all the way through it. You know, when he gets to the
• 1:44:19
  power station or the arc of art and it's just so clinically
• 1:44:22
  white and just clean and just so nicely lit.
• 1:44:25
  And then the outside, it's just so muddy and dark and grim.
• 1:44:29
  And the whole thing about it is just he knows exactly what he's
• 1:44:33
  doing from the start of this. Just the way that this is all
• 1:44:35
  shot handheld now. This is shot on 35 mil and he
• 1:44:39
  shot on the Aricom Lt. and the Ariflex 235 and they have two
• 1:44:43
  really small compact cameras compared to a 35 mil film
• 1:44:47
  camera. Like you can move that around.
• 1:44:49
  You can shoot that handheld, you can put it on your shoulder and
• 1:44:51
  move it around. There is no use of Steadicam
• 1:44:53
  here. There is nothing where it's got
• 1:44:55
  to be like beautifully pushed in and beautifully played through.
• 1:44:58
  It's everything Scorsese doesn't do to be perfectly honest.
• 1:45:01
  It's so well done. It's shot on the Zeiss Master
• 1:45:04
  Primes. So what that does, it gives you
• 1:45:05
  absolutely no distortion when it's wide to uses wider lenses
• 1:45:09
  and what don't realize that it looks like you've gone through
• 1:45:11
  your own vision, which is wonderful.
• 1:45:13
  And the stock that he used was Gold Act Vision 2 expression 500
• 1:45:17
  T stocks. So gold act Vision 2 was the
• 1:45:19
  very first film stock that was actually made for digital and
• 1:45:24
  film post processing. So you can digitally manipulate
• 1:45:28
  shadows and highlights and colors and make it a little bit
• 1:45:30
  more flat. So it's really law, contrast,
• 1:45:34
  law colour, but you just don't really see that.
• 1:45:36
  And it was that level of detail on that level of attention.
• 1:45:39
  The contrast is just right, the light is just right, the colours
• 1:45:42
  are just right. People are still trying to do
• 1:45:44
  this now, and they can't. He's an absolute pioneer of the
• 1:45:47
  craft, one of my top three cinematographers of all time.
• 1:45:50
  He's just an absolute master. The craft and the technique
• 1:45:53
  match the depth of this film, and that's incredibly hard to
• 1:45:57
  do. But she will does it.
• 1:45:59
  Yeah, well, in the years after this film.
• 1:46:01
  Emmanuel Lebeski went on the forge of reputation as a great
• 1:46:04
  Hollywood DP, didn't he? Yeah.
• 1:46:05
  He didn't have the reputation yet when he made Children of
• 1:46:07
  Men. Probably, but his work is still
• 1:46:09
  of that level. Absolutely.
• 1:46:11
  Yes. The cinematography.
• 1:46:12
  Is just incredible. I mean, it's a long one shot
• 1:46:15
  takes that are probably the headline if you like.
• 1:46:17
  Yeah, people always talk about the car ambush and the battle of
• 1:46:19
  Bexhill, rightly. What I think it's a bit
• 1:46:21
  overlooked is how those long takes save the story.
• 1:46:24
  Yeah, it's not showing off. Well, it is a bit, but
• 1:46:27
  everything. The hold is short.
• 1:46:29
  It kind of feels like you can't escape.
• 1:46:30
  Yeah, it does feel like a documentary if you say the
• 1:46:32
  cameraman isn't as much danger as the characters are.
• 1:46:35
  Yeah, but it doesn't take you out either of the story.
• 1:46:37
  No, exactly. But it's not just the long
• 1:46:39
  takes, the whole. Film's got that.
• 1:46:40
  Documentary feel to it, there's loads of natural light, the
• 1:46:42
  colors are really desaturated and gives the whole thing a kind
• 1:46:45
  of grey overcast look, which works for like dystopia.
• 1:46:49
  It's like we're looking out the window where it's been like for
• 1:46:51
  the last three months. Looks like children and men.
• 1:46:53
  Same. Yeah.
• 1:46:54
  But I think what? Elevates Libetsky.
• 1:46:56
  Above both DPS is that he's not just technically brilliant, he's
• 1:46:59
  emotionally great as well. Yeah.
• 1:47:01
  Yeah. He knows where to put the camera
• 1:47:02
  to make you feel something or even to send a message.
• 1:47:05
  There's that shot when we're with Theo and Miriam in the
• 1:47:07
  abandoned school. Yeah.
• 1:47:08
  And you can see Key outside through a broken window, sitting
• 1:47:10
  on the swing. It's incredible.
• 1:47:11
  She's, like, framed in light as the hope of everyone.
• 1:47:14
  That's a great shot. Yeah.
• 1:47:15
  And they're in the past. They're in the school.
• 1:47:17
  She's in the future. Yeah, It's a beautiful thing.
• 1:47:19
  Outstanding work from Libetsky throughout.
• 1:47:20
  I think in terms of immersion, it's up there with anything I've
• 1:47:23
  ever seen, probably. It's amazing, yeah.
• 1:47:26
  Incredible. Work.
• 1:47:26
  I mean this. For me is what gives us that
• 1:47:28
  sense of this film is science fiction, but it's not science
• 1:47:31
  fiction at the same time because it does bring, like you've said,
• 1:47:34
  John, that documentary element to me.
• 1:47:36
  And it's always about catching images on the periphery, like
• 1:47:39
  when Theo gets off the bus and he just walks past those cages
• 1:47:42
  full of people screaming and yelling.
• 1:47:44
  It doesn't stop to look at them. It just brushes past them
• 1:47:47
  because it's almost like it's a character here.
• 1:47:49
  It's the same for the battle scenes.
• 1:47:50
  It doesn't stop to revel in the carnage or show off how
• 1:47:54
  offensive those explosions are. It keeps moving, it keeps tight
• 1:47:58
  on the characters. And because it feels so on the
• 1:48:00
  fly, when that canvas stops to take in something, it's really
• 1:48:03
  impactful. And we've talked about the scene
• 1:48:05
  where Jasper tells Key about Theo's baby.
• 1:48:08
  That slow push in just to keep on Theo's face to capture the
• 1:48:12
  emotion of that scene, that's incredible.
• 1:48:14
  So it's really immersive and taking you into the sorry, but
• 1:48:17
  it's very emotional cinematrophy at the same time.
• 1:48:20
  It is what you are so labesky. Has been Quran's DP.
• 1:48:23
  Collaborator since their student days at Mexico Cuec Film School
• 1:48:27
  in the 1980s, Quran said some of Labesky's first words to him
• 1:48:31
  about the film were. We cannot allow one frame of
• 1:48:33
  this film to go without a comment on the state of things.
• 1:48:37
  I think Quran said that took a lot of influence from the Battle
• 1:48:40
  of Algiers and Italian Algerian war film from 1966.
• 1:48:44
  And I think 1 battle after another took a lot of influence
• 1:48:46
  from that as well. Yeah, Yeah, it did.
• 1:48:48
  Yeah, a lot of the battle. Of Algiers is filmed.
• 1:48:50
  Handheld, which was an inspiration, and Quran and Clive
• 1:48:53
  Owen watched the Battle of Algiers together as well.
• 1:48:55
  Yeah, there's an FW moon now. Film called Sunrise, a song of
• 1:48:58
  two humans from 1927. Quran said the long takes there
• 1:49:02
  were influence as well. Wow.
• 1:49:04
  And more recently, it reminds me of a clockwork.
• 1:49:07
  Yeah, there was a lot of that. Yeah.
• 1:49:09
  Bleak London. Can definitely say that, yeah.
• 1:49:11
  Didn't you the car ambush like those zany joyride scenes
• 1:49:15
  matching that with a bad? Projection.
• 1:49:16
  Yeah, yeah, super. Grass did though, didn't they?
• 1:49:19
  Yeah. They did.
• 1:49:19
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:49:20
  Video, Yeah. And as well as shooting.
• 1:49:23
  The car ambush without. CGI Another creative
• 1:49:25
  disagreement came over whether to shoot with handheld cameras
• 1:49:28
  or steady Cam. Lebetsky wanted steady Cam as he
• 1:49:31
  thought it had more power than handheld and the starter was
• 1:49:34
  Steadicam. But after one day of filming,
• 1:49:36
  Curon told the best key to get rid of it and the shot
• 1:49:38
  everything from their handheld. Yeah, nice.
• 1:49:41
  Yes, so apparently. The best he got the Steadicam.
• 1:49:43
  Out of the truck every morning and every morning, Corn told him
• 1:49:46
  to put it back. The best key?
• 1:49:49
  Like any chance today? Nope, I can't.
• 1:49:53
  The best key? Did say later that Alfonso
• 1:49:55
  proved. Me wrong.
• 1:49:56
  Yeah, fair enough. Well, before we get the
• 1:49:58
  cinematography in the can, we have our final?
• 1:50:00
  It's your own Patreon question. This time it comes from Matt T
• 1:50:04
  Hello, Matt. Hello, Matt.
• 1:50:05
  So Matt has said. Who has done the best?
• 1:50:07
  Warner, Birdman or Rope come to mind.
• 1:50:09
  And has it fallen into the territory of pastiche, something
• 1:50:12
  technically difficult but done to death?
• 1:50:14
  Then Matt says great work as always.
• 1:50:16
  Thanks a million. You're most welcome.
• 1:50:18
  Thank you. Thanks to you, Matt.
• 1:50:20
  Yeah, and what do you think? Westy Too many Warners.
• 1:50:23
  Too many Warners, I mean. I've got a bit of a.
• 1:50:24
  Stance on this one and I am getting a little bit sick of it
• 1:50:27
  being this whole new thing that people think is just being
• 1:50:30
  invented is really bothering us. And I've done a couple and it's
• 1:50:36
  it's so difficult to choreograph and so difficult to put off.
• 1:50:39
  And if it works for the story, I'm all for it.
• 1:50:41
  If it's just a Warner for the sake of being a Warner, then I'm
• 1:50:43
  not interested. I think there's some incredible
• 1:50:45
  ones that I've seen over the years that have been
• 1:50:47
  inspirational but I've never wanted to do.
• 1:50:50
  I think Goodfellas is an obvious stand out.
• 1:50:52
  I think the opening of the player is incredible.
• 1:50:54
  I think the old boy corridor fight is is wonderful.
• 1:50:58
  Russian Ark, if you've not seen that, that's all about the
• 1:51:00
  story, that's fantastic. But what I really want to talk
• 1:51:03
  about is the technique is necessary and that's how film
• 1:51:07
  was made. Because cutting was always a
• 1:51:09
  pain in the ass and people didn't know how to do it in old
• 1:51:12
  Hollywood. And it seems to me that modern
• 1:51:14
  cinemas go in one way or the other.
• 1:51:15
  It's either going towards super fast cuts, high action, really
• 1:51:18
  intense like shots being about two seconds, one second long, or
• 1:51:23
  it's about this really slow, one take, dialogue driven cinema and
• 1:51:27
  we need to start meeting in the middle.
• 1:51:29
  And if we're going to talk about the one, I just want to talk
• 1:51:31
  about Spielberg for half a second because he's the absolute
• 1:51:35
  king of the one that you do not know is A1.
• 1:51:38
  And that's what filmmaking is. If you want to use that
• 1:51:41
  technique, use it and tell the story with it, because that's
• 1:51:44
  very scene on Jaws is one minute and 43 seconds and all that's
• 1:51:48
  changing is the background. That's a Warner and that's how
• 1:51:51
  you do it. When the argument next to the
• 1:51:52
  Billboard with the mirror, Yeah, yeah, amazing. 2 minutes, 45
• 1:51:56
  seconds. That's a.
• 1:51:56
  Warner, and you don't realize it.
• 1:51:58
  There's the whole drinking sequence in Raiders of the Lost
• 1:52:01
  Ark with Marion. That is a Warner and it's genius
• 1:52:04
  in filmmaking. Let it serve the story and
• 1:52:07
  you've got something unique. If you're just using a Warner
• 1:52:09
  for the sake of using a Warner because you think it's going to
• 1:52:11
  make your story better, it makes it worse.
• 1:52:13
  So that's my stance on it. Powerful stance as always.
• 1:52:17
  As always. Yeah, the long.
• 1:52:19
  Takes and children of men are right.
• 1:52:21
  Up there, I think that's kind of became a quarrel on trademark,
• 1:52:23
  hasn't it? It's in everything because
• 1:52:25
  gravity starts with like a. 12 minute opening.
• 1:52:27
  Shot 12 minutes. I think you had to Mama.
• 1:52:29
  Tell me. When she's going to the jukebox,
• 1:52:31
  yeah, that's about 3-4 minutes, I think are the great examples,
• 1:52:34
  the opening of touch of. Evil by Orson Welles is right up
• 1:52:36
  there. Yeah, yeah. 1958 like a huge
• 1:52:39
  crane shot that goes on that's about 3 minutes long, ending
• 1:52:41
  with a car bomb. My favorite though was from I Am
• 1:52:44
  Cuba by Mikhail Kalatozov. 1964. Like a documentary slash war
• 1:52:49
  film. It's got this like acrobatic
• 1:52:51
  long take in a funeral scene where the camera does some
• 1:52:53
  insane things just comes down from the window through.
• 1:52:56
  The procession, it's crazy. Yeah, I've seen that.
• 1:52:59
  Unreal. Yeah.
• 1:53:00
  Check. Out if you've not seen it,
• 1:53:01
  you'll be like, how do they? Do that in 1964.
• 1:53:03
  He watched that over and over and he was like.
• 1:53:05
  How did they do that? Yeah, right.
• 1:53:07
  Brilliant. I mean how?
• 1:53:08
  Long takes become pastiche. I agree with USC to save the
• 1:53:11
  story or they have a point or the thematically relevant then
• 1:53:14
  no go for them. I love them when they're done.
• 1:53:15
  Well yeah yeah yeah. Very much agree in terms of
• 1:53:18
  being a. Pastiche, 100% agree with what
• 1:53:20
  both of you said. I think it's the first Kingsman
• 1:53:22
  film that do one for fight scene, but it just doesn't work
• 1:53:26
  because the the fights are very purely choreographed and it
• 1:53:29
  doesn't add to the story and it just becomes distracting.
• 1:53:32
  I mean, one of the most impressive ones is there's a
• 1:53:35
  German film from 2015 called Victoria, which is about this
• 1:53:39
  young woman in a nightclub, gets down to three guys, the walk
• 1:53:42
  around Berlin for a bit. Brilliant.
• 1:53:43
  Yeah, I know you're a fan of that one.
• 1:53:45
  Yeah, then. Realizes they've been hocked to
• 1:53:46
  a gangster. And she ends up being taken for
• 1:53:48
  writer to rob a bank and that is all.
• 1:53:50
  The whole film is one shot and it's a staggering achieve
• 1:53:54
  because it's up and down buildings, it's in and out of
• 1:53:56
  cars, there's gunfights, chasers, but you know what?
• 1:53:59
  That justifies it because it breeds the tension in that film.
• 1:54:02
  So yeah, exactly. If it adds something, absolutely
• 1:54:04
  go. For, but if it doesn't.
• 1:54:05
  Add anything. Don't do it.
• 1:54:07
  Or for his work on Children of Men, Emmanuel Libetsky was
• 1:54:09
  nominated for Best Cinematography at the Oscars.
• 1:54:12
  He lost out to Guillermo Navarro for Pan's Labyrinth.
• 1:54:15
  All right, nice. Which is a visual.
• 1:54:17
  Feast. It.
• 1:54:18
  Is it really is? Yeah, It's wonderful.
• 1:54:19
  Yeah. But for us, some incredible
• 1:54:21
  cinematography throughout. Children and men, yeah.
• 1:54:24
  Timeless. It's going to live forever that.
• 1:54:25
  Yeah, and that is our crew. Quran captaining the ship but
• 1:54:29
  with his screen writing team, John Tavanaz composer Emmanuel
• 1:54:32
  lebetsky as DP and an array of great pop songs.
• 1:54:35
  You had a ship shaped crew helping him out?
• 1:54:37
  No, indeed. Yeah, the crew of the.
• 1:54:39
  Tomorrow. The end into the end of children
• 1:54:48
  of men and things are. About to get intense.
• 1:54:51
  The climactic battle of Bexhill at the refugee camp is coming
• 1:54:53
  up. But before that, we have a baby
• 1:54:55
  to talk about, don't we? Yep.
• 1:54:57
  So having made it into Bexhill camp, Theo and Key are taken
• 1:55:00
  through the ghettos by a Romani woman, Mariska, to the safety of
• 1:55:03
  a decrepit apartment building. There, he goes into labor and
• 1:55:07
  gives birth to a girl, the first human born in 18 years.
• 1:55:10
  Yeah, we don't talk about big. Birthing.
• 1:55:13
  Scenes too often do we must. Nope, Alien.
• 1:55:16
  That's about it. But how was this one I mean?
• 1:55:21
  I just love how. Absolutely crap Theo is in this
• 1:55:24
  situation. He makes like a big deal of
• 1:55:26
  washing his hands clean and then just wipes him on his smoky
• 1:55:28
  trousers straight after anyway. So that negates all that.
• 1:55:32
  But I'll think the form's such a good bond by now.
• 1:55:35
  Theo and Key. There's just these little
• 1:55:37
  touches of Comic Relief in there now.
• 1:55:39
  Just keep breathing. I am breathing.
• 1:55:42
  And it's such an effective contrast because it's obviously
• 1:55:44
  the most wonderful. And celebrate, we think,
• 1:55:46
  bringing new life into the world without the extra importance of
• 1:55:50
  what this baby represents. But it's in the grimmest of
• 1:55:53
  surroundings. Like those dogs outside are
• 1:55:55
  barking non-stop. But then you get that swell on
• 1:55:58
  the soundtrack that angelic calls when the baby's born, and
• 1:56:01
  it tells you just this one minute, everything's OK.
• 1:56:05
  And like I said, their relationship by this point is so
• 1:56:07
  well developed. When Theo says to see it wasn't
• 1:56:10
  that bad. And she just goes, oh, yeah, not
• 1:56:12
  for you. Yeah.
• 1:56:14
  And they just genuinely laugh. Yeah.
• 1:56:16
  Probably for the first time in probably years, Like, genuinely
• 1:56:19
  laughing at something. It's a beautiful moment, Really
• 1:56:21
  well shot it is, yeah. It's a huge plot point.
• 1:56:24
  Obviously in this world, key giving birth, the most important
• 1:56:27
  thing that's happened for like 2 decades Yeah.
• 1:56:29
  And while I like it's how Quran frames it is that but really
• 1:56:32
  subtly because the biggest moment in the film you shoot as
• 1:56:34
  long takes. This is one of them.
• 1:56:36
  And it's late. I think only by that lump in the
• 1:56:38
  corner. It is yeah.
• 1:56:40
  It feels raw and. Intimate and totally.
• 1:56:41
  Real again? I feel like I'm in the room.
• 1:56:44
  I'm sick of being pulled into rooms by Quran.
• 1:56:47
  Yeah. Quite a moment here that I
• 1:56:49
  really love. Like I said earlier, Theo's arcs
• 1:56:51
  kind of going from a man who was lost to a man with purpose.
• 1:56:54
  And we see that spelled out because up to now, that lack of
• 1:56:57
  purpose has been kind of visualized through Theo's
• 1:57:00
  addictions, like the cigarettes and alcohol.
• 1:57:02
  Like Oasis. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:57:03
  But now, like Oasis, he's found something worth living for in
• 1:57:07
  Key. So he literally gives the
• 1:57:09
  cigarettes away to say it is to get rid of them.
• 1:57:10
  So kicking out some space. Yeah.
• 1:57:12
  Then he uses the alcohol to sterilize his hands before the
• 1:57:15
  birth. Yeah.
• 1:57:15
  He throws the crutches away to prioritize Key.
• 1:57:18
  Yeah. How smart is that in the
• 1:57:19
  writing? Yeah.
• 1:57:20
  Great. So Theo spent the film running
• 1:57:22
  away from responsibilities. Now Call the Midwife.
• 1:57:25
  What? Not that is.
• 1:57:26
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:57:27
  And I think it's. Fantastically handled by.
• 1:57:29
  Quran and the film, Yeah, Clybourn said The Quran plan to
• 1:57:32
  shoot. The birth sequence to have cuts
• 1:57:34
  in it to give them more control over what to show and once they
• 1:57:37
  were on set though he decided to do it as one take.
• 1:57:39
  It was filmed as a 3 1/2 minute handheld shot.
• 1:57:42
  There were special effects involved by the Effects Studio
• 1:57:45
  Frame store. It was headed by VFX supervisor
• 1:57:48
  Tim Webber and Quran brought them in because they just worked
• 1:57:51
  with him on Prisoner of Azkaban. Yeah, we've interviewed Tim
• 1:57:53
  Webber and it was. The CGI hippogriff and Harry
• 1:57:56
  Potter. That's what Frame Store did.
• 1:57:58
  Yeah, OK. But changing.
• 1:57:59
  This to one take that late. Means the crew must have been
• 1:58:02
  kind of improvising as they were going.
• 1:58:03
  That's impressive. I guess you can do it here a bit
• 1:58:06
  more easily. I mean, you can't decide to
• 1:58:07
  shoot the car on Bush in one take on the day, surely?
• 1:58:10
  No, no, I think something like this.
• 1:58:12
  So you can't change to one take as opposed to a multi camera
• 1:58:16
  setup. It's easier to go to 1 take.
• 1:58:17
  It's hard to go from one take to be like, oh, we're going to have
• 1:58:20
  to cut into this, what we're going to cut into, right?
• 1:58:21
  So I think if you've got it there, storyboard it anyway and
• 1:58:24
  say no, actually just pull back and do it as a Warner.
• 1:58:26
  It's a bit easier to do it that way.
• 1:58:27
  Fair enough. Cool.
• 1:58:28
  Yeah, and a few different. Techniques were combined to.
• 1:58:30
  Create the birth scene. Claire Hope Asherty was in a set
• 1:58:34
  piece which had a fake lower body and a prop baby was pushed
• 1:58:37
  through the fake body for Clive Warren to grab and hold.
• 1:58:40
  Wow, fake body. Yeah, similar to how?
• 1:58:42
  They did the chess purse. I seen an alien.
• 1:58:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Imagine one of them popped out.
• 1:58:46
  Give me that whiskey back. Yeah.
• 1:58:48
  Even grimmer. It would have been a good like
• 1:58:51
  star to alien Earth, wouldn't it?
• 1:58:54
  And Quran. Originally wanted to use an.
• 1:58:56
  Animatronic baby and one was created that could move its arms
• 1:58:59
  and legs but Quran wasn't happy with how it looked and that's
• 1:59:02
  when frame salt got involved in post production.
• 1:59:04
  They replaced that animatronic baby with the CGI version.
• 1:59:08
  The other things in it as well like.
• 1:59:09
  When you can see the character's breath to make it look freezing
• 1:59:11
  cold, that's all digital. And Tim Webber said at one of
• 1:59:15
  the screenings, an audience member asked him if they filmed
• 1:59:17
  somebody giving birth for real or what.
• 1:59:20
  Pretty good feedback, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:59:21
  Great feedback, Yeah. I mean, got to be a bit.
• 1:59:23
  Of an idiot though, haven't you to think?
• 1:59:26
  Yeah. Did you do that for real?
• 1:59:27
  Yeah. Didn't ask about the breath,
• 1:59:29
  that's fine. Was it cold in there?
• 1:59:31
  And Webber said. Creating a digital baby.
• 1:59:33
  Was massively challenging because Quran changed the plant
• 1:59:36
  so late they didn't have time to prep as they normally would.
• 1:59:39
  And because the lighting was so minimal, it was more difficult
• 1:59:42
  for the animators to track and replace that animatronic baby
• 1:59:45
  digitally. The arms and legs were removed
• 1:59:47
  from the animatronic so they could be added as CGI limbs.
• 1:59:50
  And all the baby's facial expressions were created by the
• 1:59:52
  animators. Right.
• 1:59:54
  Yeah. Just turning on set like all
• 1:59:55
  right. Everyone change your plan.
• 1:59:57
  Yeah, there's real pressure there because.
• 1:59:59
  The baby like we're. Saying it has to look real.
• 2:00:01
  Yeah, yeah. If it finally appears and, like,
• 2:00:03
  looks like some crap CGI, it would be like, kind of
• 2:00:05
  laughable. Yeah.
• 2:00:07
  It's just the hope of the world. Yeah, exactly.
• 2:00:09
  Yeah. And that's why there's.
• 2:00:10
  So much work went into, I guess, yeah.
• 2:00:13
  So after this, we've got the baby.
• 2:00:14
  And we're out, and we'll have to try and find a way out of there.
• 2:00:18
  And then these bastards turn up again.
• 2:00:20
  Luke comes in, tells him not to fire.
• 2:00:21
  There's this whole kind of standoff thing, and you just
• 2:00:23
  know that there's something not quite white.
• 2:00:25
  And this is a foreshadow. And again, because Diego spat in
• 2:00:28
  a fan's face and died for it. So Kate spits in Luke's face.
• 2:00:32
  And then we're just. Away and you're just.
• 2:00:34
  Gone with it and once you we're tracking down with Theo's, he
• 2:00:37
  goes into that, you know, into the side corner.
• 2:00:40
  I love that performance from Owen.
• 2:00:42
  This shows a whole transformation of his character.
• 2:00:44
  He's actually putting himself in harm's way and now he's running
• 2:00:46
  into bullets to kind of get this kid back, to get key back, to
• 2:00:49
  make a difference again. You think we're there?
• 2:00:52
  We've had a moment of happiness again.
• 2:00:53
  We've had laughter, we've had the baby born.
• 2:00:55
  It's going to be all right, guys.
• 2:00:57
  No, it's not. Well, just before the scenes
• 2:00:59
  when said the. Bent immigration officer Guy
• 2:01:01
  too, ends up trying to capture them for a reward.
• 2:01:03
  Yeah, he talks about himself in the third person, Said never the
• 2:01:06
  sign of a good guy. That was a red flag, yeah.
• 2:01:09
  And then? When he chases them, he gets.
• 2:01:10
  Stuck in the door. And Theo knocks him out with
• 2:01:12
  what looks like a toaster. Is it?
• 2:01:14
  It's a car battery. Is it?
• 2:01:16
  Hence he's using car. Parts to knock.
• 2:01:18
  Everybody out, right? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, right.
• 2:01:21
  It's not like Scrooged. Looks it a toaster.
• 2:01:30
  And now we really start to see how far Theo has come.
• 2:01:32
  Because at the start he couldn't care less about anything.
• 2:01:34
  Now he's putting himself in real danger to protect Key and the
• 2:01:37
  baby. He's like, yeah, 100% the
• 2:01:39
  protagonist from now on. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:01:41
  And this where it injuries himself as well.
• 2:01:42
  And then? He's just literally limping all
• 2:01:43
  the way through the rest of the film.
• 2:01:44
  It's amazing. Yeah, and the Romani woman.
• 2:01:47
  Who helps Theo and Key? Mariska is played by Romanian
• 2:01:50
  actress Awana Pelia, her line to All in Romanian, but those were
• 2:01:55
  mostly Adley Bipelia. The name Mariska is Russian, so
• 2:01:58
  she's possibly meant to be Russian.
• 2:02:00
  And Pelia is the daughter of an actor called Amza Pelia, who is
• 2:02:03
  a very big name in Romania. Yeah, he was possibly how crown
• 2:02:06
  you. She was right.
• 2:02:08
  I like her in the film. Mariska running away.
• 2:02:10
  Them in a different language all the time.
• 2:02:11
  Yeah. And just brave as a lie.
• 2:02:12
  And she sees them from, say, a couple of times, doesn't she?
• 2:02:15
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's great.
• 2:02:16
  I think it's quite sad when she. Doesn't get on the board with
• 2:02:18
  him at. The end.
• 2:02:18
  Yeah, yeah, get on the board, for God's sakes.
• 2:02:20
  Just selfless. That's the whole point, isn't?
• 2:02:22
  It Yeah, yeah, she is. Yeah.
• 2:02:24
  And she just cares more about. A dog, I don't think she can
• 2:02:25
  take a. Dog with her, Yeah, yeah, fair
• 2:02:27
  enough. Yeah.
• 2:02:28
  And Sid's paid by. Peter Mullen.
• 2:02:30
  Scottish actor, been in loads of stuff over the years.
• 2:02:32
  He was in Braveheart, Westie. He was in Braveheart, yeah, and
• 2:02:35
  fantastic and. Tyrannosaur as well, if you've
• 2:02:36
  seen that. Oh, yeah.
• 2:02:38
  But I just love that moment when he turns up and that's it.
• 2:02:41
  That's your keyword. Yeah.
• 2:02:42
  Calling somebody. You don't know what he looks
• 2:02:44
  like who's part of this regime, A fascist pig that's going to,
• 2:02:48
  you know, you are going to get beat up.
• 2:02:50
  And I always feel like I'm really on edge at that point,
• 2:02:52
  you know, when he brings the stick up.
• 2:02:53
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, as well. Yeah.
• 2:02:54
  Great. Great.
• 2:02:55
  Performance from Peter Mullen. He's so unhinged.
• 2:02:58
  But again, this humanity there, his motivation to get Key and to
• 2:03:02
  get Theo is that his mom's got cancer and she's dying, and he
• 2:03:05
  was with her the night before. And it's like, right, OK, if I
• 2:03:09
  can forget a reward here, I can probably get some money.
• 2:03:11
  These guys are refugees, are now the fugitives.
• 2:03:14
  So they're all Fugees within refugees, within fugitives.
• 2:03:18
  Fugitives. Yeah.
• 2:03:20
  It's all just beautifully. Tied together and I.
• 2:03:21
  Think I'm on right in the middle of it.
• 2:03:23
  Really ties the last act together.
• 2:03:25
  Really makes it push. He's great.
• 2:03:26
  Great little scene when Sid. Turns open.
• 2:03:28
  And he's like, what's under the blanket there key when she's got
• 2:03:31
  the baby and she doesn't want to show him, that's really good.
• 2:03:33
  And then when he does see the baby, what does?
• 2:03:35
  He say Jesus Christ, Yeah. Love that.
• 2:03:39
  Yeah. And in the Bexhill.
• 2:03:40
  Tower block scene we can see that the was wearing a London
• 2:03:43
  2012 Olympics fleece. London had won the bid in 2005,
• 2:03:47
  just before the start of filming, so that was added six
• 2:03:50
  years before the Olympics took place.
• 2:03:52
  And you can buy those fleeces online.
• 2:03:54
  You can. Amazing.
• 2:03:56
  Prediction they were confident would come right that one
• 2:03:58
  probably, I think yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:04:00
  Would have been impressive of the hard Theo doing the Mobot
• 2:04:02
  after the baby's born. Celebration give birth to more
• 2:04:08
  furrows save beautiful world. So there it.
• 2:04:12
  Is. A pivotal.
• 2:04:13
  Plot point with Key giving birth and hope to humanity before the
• 2:04:16
  fishes make off with her. There's only one man can save
• 2:04:19
  her now, right? Apparently so.
• 2:04:23
  The climax of Children of Men is a big one.
• 2:04:25
  Theo races through the bombed out back seal to rescue Key and
• 2:04:28
  her baby from the fishes while a full scale battle rages around
• 2:04:31
  them until Kia appears with the newborn.
• 2:04:34
  Yeah, yeah, we're seeing the climax for you.
• 2:04:37
  I mean, he has probably, I mean apart.
• 2:04:39
  From the ambush sequence, the sequence that is Children of Men
• 2:04:42
  is known for, and I think it's just an incredible sequence, the
• 2:04:45
  amount of choreography involved in this.
• 2:04:47
  You know, there's explosions, there's people fire and rock
• 2:04:49
  itself, windows, people getting gunned down.
• 2:04:52
  It's just this real scramble for this prize at the end.
• 2:04:56
  And I just love that opening moment.
• 2:04:58
  And you've got the running through and you've got them
• 2:04:59
  rocket coming down. It hits the tank.
• 2:05:02
  There's all that going on. And then we're following Theo
• 2:05:04
  all the way through, right? Yeah, yeah.
• 2:05:05
  And then he's inside the lobby. Then he works his way upstairs
• 2:05:08
  and we just see the absolute carnage it's going on.
• 2:05:10
  It's just hell on earth. You see Patrick coming in, he
• 2:05:13
  gets taken out. Thank God for that.
• 2:05:15
  He's he's out of there. And then we'll find K just SAT,
• 2:05:18
  which is totally helpless, and Luke's meant to be the one
• 2:05:21
  looking after her and she's totally separate from him,
• 2:05:23
  couldn't be any further away from him.
• 2:05:24
  But you get that really wonderful moment from that
• 2:05:26
  character. He's like, when he saw the baby,
• 2:05:28
  I forgot how small they are, and he made his cry.
• 2:05:31
  It's awful. We need him, we need the baby.
• 2:05:33
  It's like it's a girl, so. His world view does.
• 2:05:38
  Not even tap in to anything. He just thought, well, the
• 2:05:41
  saviour of the human race needs to be a man.
• 2:05:43
  Children of men, masculinity, we're the saviours.
• 2:05:46
  Nothing to do with women. They just exist.
• 2:05:48
  And I think that really smashes at home without smashing at
• 2:05:50
  home. Really excellent character
• 2:05:52
  development, really excellent ending to that guy when he's
• 2:05:56
  just the whole room kind of blows up and collapses.
• 2:05:58
  He's gone, everyone's gone. What a one shot that is.
• 2:06:01
  It's just incredible, incredible filmmaking.
• 2:06:04
  Oh yeah, it really is. I mean, we're with Theo.
• 2:06:06
  Every step, no big cutaways, no big wide shots.
• 2:06:09
  We're kind of say what Theo sees.
• 2:06:10
  Yeah. And it's not Arnold or Bruce
• 2:06:12
  Willis dodging bullets and taking out bad guys with one
• 2:06:14
  liners. He's totally out of his depth,
• 2:06:17
  like scrubbling about behind walls and stuff.
• 2:06:19
  But he's still heroic because he just keeps going.
• 2:06:22
  Yeah. And when the bullets start
• 2:06:23
  whizzing around him, I'm almost talking for cover myself.
• 2:06:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the way they build the whole
• 2:06:27
  sequence, I think is really brilliant because it starts
• 2:06:29
  really quiet, like tense, and then gradually escalates into
• 2:06:33
  just complete carnage. Yeah, action filmmaking is just
• 2:06:36
  exceptional. Yeah.
• 2:06:37
  It's just so immersive. You're.
• 2:06:38
  Ducker And you're hiding on a bus.
• 2:06:40
  You're off the bus. Shrapnel everywhere.
• 2:06:42
  The British troops are just swarming out of everywhere and
• 2:06:44
  you don't know where they're coming next.
• 2:06:45
  Blood on the camera, explosions. Then we'll see Luke making his
• 2:06:49
  last stand. But you know, as we've been
• 2:06:51
  saying, he's kind of lose some perspective on everything
• 2:06:53
  because he's still trying to stop Theo and Key get away while
• 2:06:56
  fighting the army. The amount of moving pieces that
• 2:06:58
  Quran is in charge of here and he hasn't given himself the
• 2:07:02
  comfort blanket of being able to cut away to something else at
• 2:07:05
  any point. It's absolutely staggering.
• 2:07:08
  I think it's interesting when you look at all the soldiers,
• 2:07:10
  how many of them are kind of middle-aged men because there's
• 2:07:13
  no young men to get in the army, which you normally see as the
• 2:07:16
  soldiers in this situation. There's no young men anymore and
• 2:07:19
  there is a genuinely funny moment when Theo's rescued Key
• 2:07:23
  and they getting out there and obviously the baby's crying and
• 2:07:25
  Theo goes how is she? And Key just goes annoyed and
• 2:07:29
  then just keep on. Going I love that moment.
• 2:07:31
  Yeah, yeah. Brilliant.
• 2:07:31
  Yeah. I mean, by the end I'm.
• 2:07:33
  Exhausted just watching. It fantastic, really
• 2:07:35
  unconventional action sequence is one of the best shoot out of
• 2:07:38
  the decade. Do you think it's up there?
• 2:07:40
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. And as you.
• 2:07:42
  Can imagine the street. Battle was a big undertaking.
• 2:07:45
  The shot runs for 6 minutes and 18 seconds and it took Quran,
• 2:07:49
  Lebeski and the crew 14 days to prepare and choreograph.
• 2:07:53
  It was filmed in five separate takes at 2 locations, a disused
• 2:07:57
  RAF base in Upper Hereford and Pinewood Studios.
• 2:08:00
  The different shots were then all digitally stitched into one
• 2:08:02
  continuous shot by double negative.
• 2:08:05
  Yeah. So with it being so highly.
• 2:08:06
  Choreographed every retake, took about 5 hours to set everything
• 2:08:10
  back up again so really time consuming pressure.
• 2:08:13
  Yeah. Put your hair.
• 2:08:13
  Exactly. And that apartment block that's
• 2:08:15
  a disused building at that RAF base.
• 2:08:17
  Great location for the scene. Yeah, yeah, perfect.
• 2:08:20
  Yeah, but. You're in filming the studio.
• 2:08:22
  Sort of getting concerned about how long it was taking them to
• 2:08:25
  prepare and shoot the battle when Kieran had nothing to show
• 2:08:27
  them. After a few days, executives
• 2:08:29
  visited the set. They did a really good take, but
• 2:08:32
  at the end the camera operator, George Richmond tripped and fell
• 2:08:35
  and they had one final attempt to get the shot.
• 2:08:37
  But they did managed to do it. Can you imagine two weeks in the
• 2:08:40
  guide? Trips.
• 2:08:42
  Oh God, yeah, yeah. But George.
• 2:08:45
  Richmond, the son of Anthony B Richmond who was quite a well
• 2:08:47
  known DP. He shot Don't Look Now with a
• 2:08:49
  man who felt it worth OK and Legally Blonde.
• 2:08:52
  Legally Blonde, Yeah. Highlight, obviously, yeah.
• 2:08:55
  There's a moment in the sequence where some blood splatters.
• 2:08:57
  On the camera lens, Quran saw it happen and shouted cut, but he
• 2:09:01
  was drowned out by the sound of the explosion.
• 2:09:03
  So the crew kept going. I wasn't sure about it, but they
• 2:09:06
  basically convinced him to keep it in.
• 2:09:08
  And there's also a bit, I think where you can notice the cut
• 2:09:11
  when he goes into the building and they use the darkness to
• 2:09:13
  kind of mask it, I think and then from there to continue that
• 2:09:17
  to make it look a little bit more believable that take the
• 2:09:19
  blood splatter and exactly the location of where that is on the
• 2:09:21
  lens. And I think they put that on
• 2:09:23
  again digitally. They put that on the CGI and
• 2:09:25
  then it slowly fades away. If you watch it again, first
• 2:09:27
  couple of times I watch, I was thinking that blood should stay
• 2:09:30
  on the lens. Where's the blood gone?
• 2:09:32
  Yes, if you watch it just. Really slowly fades.
• 2:09:34
  Away and there's so much going on that you don't realize right
• 2:09:36
  very very clever wait it convinced the audience that it
• 2:09:39
  is continuous yeah it is really clever and Quran said that when.
• 2:09:42
  They got the blood on the lens it wasn't planned and he was
• 2:09:44
  good at, but then Chivo started dancing and he said it's a
• 2:09:47
  miracle, so they kept it in. I'll remember that.
• 2:09:51
  Let's see if that. Works.
• 2:09:52
  Next time I'll fuck up. So now we get probably one of
• 2:09:57
  the most. Well, it's just an amazing
• 2:10:00
  sequence, really profound sequence when everything just
• 2:10:04
  starts to stop. Like I said, that's all you want
• 2:10:07
  to happen And it just people start hearing the baby.
• 2:10:09
  They see the baby and everyone from every walk of life, no
• 2:10:12
  matter what the fight, no matter what they're doing, no matter
• 2:10:14
  what they believe in, stops. It's like the second coming.
• 2:10:17
  Everybody's just floored by it. And what I love about this is
• 2:10:22
  that it's not like the end of mother, which it.
• 2:10:26
  Could have been. Everyone tried to snatch the
• 2:10:29
  baby. Kate just completely alone, him
• 2:10:31
  having to sacrifice himself could have been written that
• 2:10:33
  way, where there's just this panic, but there's not this just
• 2:10:36
  calm. It's absolute unity in good
• 2:10:40
  unity and hope. Unity and faith.
• 2:10:43
  We'll see. Thomas from the farm earlier on.
• 2:10:45
  He lowers, he's gone. Then the army turn up and it's
• 2:10:48
  just no ceasefire. Everyone stop, stop, stop, stop.
• 2:10:51
  Everybody standing together because the baby just represents
• 2:10:55
  hope. And there's some people praying,
• 2:10:56
  there's some people showing what they believe in.
• 2:10:59
  All these different beliefs are covered, All these different
• 2:11:01
  walks of life are covered. But this is human nature.
• 2:11:04
  Even when you have the answer, people ignore the answer and
• 2:11:07
  they want to destroy things, not to nurture, not to create.
• 2:11:10
  And that's all pivotal in this one scene because there's a baby
• 2:11:14
  there. The problem can be fixed, and
• 2:11:17
  that's what the film's saying. We're not happy until we're
• 2:11:19
  extinct. Yeah, it's great as well
• 2:11:21
  because. Earlier, Luke justifies taking
• 2:11:23
  the baby by saying the newborn will not bring peace.
• 2:11:26
  And then here, that's literally exactly what it does.
• 2:11:28
  Exactly what it does. Yeah, the humanity and people.
• 2:11:30
  Does still exist? Maybe.
• 2:11:32
  And the way it's put together is great.
• 2:11:34
  No music. The camera follows Theo and Key
• 2:11:36
  down the stairs, through the corridors, out through the
• 2:11:38
  street. And the silence, like, spreads
• 2:11:40
  like a wave. This definitely has a religious
• 2:11:42
  feel to it. Yeah.
• 2:11:43
  I mean, it doesn't last. They all start shooting again
• 2:11:45
  almost immediately. But just for a second, there is
• 2:11:48
  hope. Yeah.
• 2:11:49
  And that's the point. I think Keys brought her back
• 2:11:51
  not just to Theo but to everyone and what I really love about it
• 2:11:55
  as well. Any other?
• 2:11:55
  Filmmaker would have a reason for that to start again, like it
• 2:11:58
  would be Luke, like we cut on him going no, I'm not letting
• 2:12:01
  you get away with this and then throw it and it would start
• 2:12:03
  again. All the trope for you.
• 2:12:06
  It's so easy to fall into the. Tropes here, though, isn't it?
• 2:12:08
  No. Absolutely.
• 2:12:09
  So easy to fall into that because you've seen it that many
• 2:12:11
  times. So it's, again, really brilliant
• 2:12:13
  way to do it. It is really good, Yeah.
• 2:12:16
  I mean Wesley. Said he's glad.
• 2:12:17
  It wasn't like the end of Mother.
• 2:12:19
  I'm glad. It wasn't like the bit in
• 2:12:20
  Shawshank when Andy plays this song through the speakers and
• 2:12:24
  all the prisoners are just like, because, you know, it works,
• 2:12:26
  really. Well, there, but it could.
• 2:12:27
  Be a little bit over the top if they try to do it similarly.
• 2:12:30
  I love how there's a different reaction from everyone.
• 2:12:33
  I mean, some people are really emotional, probably because it's
• 2:12:35
  the first baby they've seen in absolutely years.
• 2:12:38
  Some of the younger guys out there, it just dumps it because
• 2:12:40
  it's the first time they've ever seen a baby and they don't know
• 2:12:43
  how to react to it. But again, for me, we're used to
• 2:12:46
  being seen the most realistic thing of all.
• 2:12:48
  It'll last for about 30 seconds, and then someone starts shooting
• 2:12:50
  again. Yeah, because children of men,
• 2:12:52
  nature of men. Nice.
• 2:12:54
  It's not the end of the film. Though we go.
• 2:12:56
  Straight into the Dengue mall, Mariska leaves Theo and Key to a
• 2:12:59
  boat. Theo rose Key out to sea and the
• 2:13:02
  human project ship The Tomorrow appears from the mist.
• 2:13:05
  Yes. How was this for an ending,
• 2:13:06
  Wesley? I mean, it's great because we
• 2:13:08
  see Mariska. It's.
• 2:13:09
  Just that pure force of good. Again, that just ties into
• 2:13:12
  Miriam, it ties into Jasper, it ties into everyone who's helped
• 2:13:16
  them who has a conscience and has a faith, and they believe
• 2:13:18
  the faith is is going to save them ultimately.
• 2:13:20
  And I love the visuals here. I love the fact that they're
• 2:13:22
  just rolling into the fog and that it's uncertain and there's
• 2:13:25
  just this beacon of hope. There's just that light.
• 2:13:28
  And I love the fact that Theo as a character doesn't matter
• 2:13:30
  anymore. I think he's done exactly what
• 2:13:32
  he needs to do and got as far as he can possibly go.
• 2:13:34
  I love the fact that the blood reveal is his because we didn't
• 2:13:36
  see that it's not obvious that he's been shot.
• 2:13:39
  Another thing that I get. Am I reaching here?
• 2:13:41
  Go on. OK.
• 2:13:42
  Dylan is a girl. Yeah.
• 2:13:44
  They're looking for the tomorrow boat.
• 2:13:46
  We don't know what's going to happen, but the way that the
• 2:13:48
  Finder signal and the way that they meet them is they find a
• 2:13:50
  boy in the sea, right? So there's a girl and a boy and
• 2:13:54
  they find the boat. Does that mean that they're
• 2:13:55
  going to get together and it's all going to continue?
• 2:13:57
  Is that going to be fine? She actually shouts the boy,
• 2:14:00
  right? Yeah.
• 2:14:00
  Yeah. Am I reaching there?
• 2:14:01
  It might be a. Little bit too simple.
• 2:14:03
  Of course there's a boy there, Dick, headed to the Middle East.
• 2:14:06
  It might work. It might not, but I love it
• 2:14:08
  anyway. No, I think it's a.
• 2:14:11
  Beautiful ending. It's really understated because
• 2:14:14
  Theo was arcs complete. He starred the film as a
• 2:14:16
  hopeless bureaucrat guy, and he ends it by giving it all up to
• 2:14:19
  save humanity. I love that at this point, we're
• 2:14:21
  not even sure if the human project exists.
• 2:14:23
  So their rivals huge. Yeah.
• 2:14:24
  I love that we don't see what happens next.
• 2:14:26
  I love the ambiguity, how we don't know if Theo was dead or
• 2:14:28
  not at the end. Yeah, that's surely taken from
• 2:14:31
  the end of Shane. The classic western.
• 2:14:32
  Definitely. Oh yeah. 100% where he rides.
• 2:14:34
  Off on his. Horse and we don't know if he's
• 2:14:36
  dead or not. But it's so perfect here as
• 2:14:38
  well, because Theo was arcs tied up, the narrative was tied up,
• 2:14:41
  and the themes are all given like a nice full stop.
• 2:14:44
  And visually out at sea all alone, and the ship comes out of
• 2:14:46
  the mist. It's just like the perfect
• 2:14:48
  ending, I think. Yeah, it is.
• 2:14:49
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:14:50
  Classic ending. Really is the hero.
• 2:14:52
  Dead. Is he alive?
• 2:14:53
  Is he just wounded? I love that kind of ambiguity,
• 2:14:55
  and it works really well here. I think the music's great, and I
• 2:14:59
  just really respect the fact that it doesn't tie everything
• 2:15:01
  up in a neat little boat. They've got key to safety and
• 2:15:05
  that's all anyone can hope for. It might come to nothing, it
• 2:15:08
  might solve nothing, but at least there's a little bit of
• 2:15:11
  hope now. There's definite hope because
• 2:15:13
  over that last title. We've got kids voices.
• 2:15:15
  Yeah, the voices are there again, because Miriam said when
• 2:15:17
  the voices faded, everyone's hope did.
• 2:15:19
  Yeah. It's literally not a film about
• 2:15:21
  the film. It's a film about what's going
• 2:15:23
  to happen next, and that's up to you.
• 2:15:24
  Perfect. The sound of children's laughter
• 2:15:26
  at the. End.
• 2:15:26
  What's him seeing? Everything's going to be all
• 2:15:28
  right, isn't it? Yeah, of course.
• 2:15:30
  Yeah, the end of the novel is. Very different to the film.
• 2:15:32
  In the book, Theo kills his cousin Zan Lapayet to protect
• 2:15:35
  Julian and the baby. He then takes the coronation
• 2:15:38
  ring from Zan's finger and puts it on his own, taking on Zan's
• 2:15:42
  position as Warden of England. Yes, Warden of England.
• 2:15:46
  So the ambiguity there is whether or not Theo will.
• 2:15:48
  Become corrupted by power, right.
• 2:15:49
  The ending he has miles better for what Quran's made.
• 2:15:52
  I think so, yeah. Yeah, Exactly.
• 2:15:53
  Would it be like? Lord of the Rings.
• 2:15:54
  He's like, yeah. Why shouldn't that keep it?
• 2:15:56
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, good.
• 2:15:58
  Children's voices, so key names. Her daughter, Dylan.
• 2:16:03
  After Theo and Julian's child, Dylan.
• 2:16:05
  But it has a wider meaning to Dylan is a Welsh name that means
• 2:16:08
  son of the sea or born of the ocean ice, which is fitting,
• 2:16:12
  seeing that's where they take her after she's born.
• 2:16:14
  Yeah. Nice bit of symbolism there.
• 2:16:16
  Yeah. Everything connecting.
• 2:16:17
  To the sea in Rebirth. Not Bob Dylan as I was hoping
• 2:16:19
  for. No, really, no some.
• 2:16:21
  Really. In Seasick Blues.
• 2:16:23
  The human project don't exist in the book, they were created by
• 2:16:26
  the writers for the film. The idea is that there are a
• 2:16:29
  group of scientists who have been working on a cure for the
• 2:16:31
  infidelity in the Azores, which is why Julian wanted to get the
• 2:16:34
  baby to them and arrange the rendezvous.
• 2:16:36
  I like how Theo doesn't even find out that.
• 2:16:38
  Might not be real until the Inbeck sale on the bus nor going
• 2:16:41
  back furious. Just like if you've spoken to
• 2:16:44
  any of them, no? So that takes us to the end of
• 2:16:50
  Children of Men. A pretty epic battle sequence.
• 2:16:52
  And Theo does it. Key and Dylan are rescued and
• 2:16:55
  there is hope for humanity. There is.
• 2:16:56
  Wow. A fitting way to finish.
• 2:16:58
  Yeah, Perfect. The only way to finish.
• 2:17:03
  Reception and awards. So that is the story of children
• 2:17:08
  of men. And it opened in cinemas on 22nd
• 2:17:10
  of September 2006. How we're doing its release
• 2:17:14
  well, if the human project was looking for someone to give
• 2:17:16
  birth to some box office data that have called Matt yes Sir.
• 2:17:19
  So let's hear Matt. Let's do it.
• 2:17:21
  So production budget. Was $76,000,000 and Children of
• 2:17:25
  Men grossed $105.4 million worldwide.
• 2:17:29
  So not exactly set in the box office light.
• 2:17:32
  And at the Oscars, it was nominated for three awards but
• 2:17:35
  won none. As we've said, screenwriters
• 2:17:37
  were nominated for Best adapted Screenplay.
• 2:17:39
  Lebetsky was nominated for Best Cinematography.
• 2:17:42
  And as well as those, Alfonso Curon and Alex Rodriguez were
• 2:17:46
  nominated for Best film editing. But they lost out to Thelma
• 2:17:49
  Shoemaker for the departed. Right.
• 2:17:51
  Worse people to lose? To than Thelma school maker.
• 2:17:54
  Yeah, definitely. Yeah, marketing experts have.
• 2:17:57
  Given a few reasons for the film not perform well at the box
• 2:18:01
  office, the marketing agency Creative Partnership designed 8
• 2:18:04
  poster variations before the film came out and Kate was
• 2:18:07
  almost entirely absent from all of them and Clive Warren was
• 2:18:10
  positioned as playing a big action role.
• 2:18:12
  The tagline was he must protect our only hope.
• 2:18:17
  Wow, sounds like Obi Wan. Kenobi.
• 2:18:20
  He must protect our only hope. But yeah, that's not what the
• 2:18:23
  film is. And the theatrical trailer.
• 2:18:26
  Emphasized a romantic plot between Theo and Julian and TV
• 2:18:30
  spots. Used music that wasn't in the
• 2:18:32
  film, with Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones prominent in the
• 2:18:34
  marketing. Romance shot in the throat. 30
• 2:18:38
  minutes in. Exactly.
• 2:18:39
  Yeah, and don't tease me with the stones.
• 2:18:41
  And leave them out. No, that's not well, exactly.
• 2:18:43
  Gimme shelter such like. On the nose.
• 2:18:45
  Reference as well for the film, isn't it?
• 2:18:47
  It is, yeah. And in. 2000 and. 6 digital
• 2:18:51
  marketing was taking off, but it seems like Universal didn't take
• 2:18:54
  advantage of it. There was no guerrilla
• 2:18:55
  marketing, AR GS or viral campaigns.
• 2:18:59
  Yeah, Viva Vendetta. That was the.
• 2:19:00
  Same year. And that Guy Fawkes mask was
• 2:19:02
  like, everywhere. That's right.
• 2:19:03
  It was. Yeah.
• 2:19:04
  All right. Yeah.
• 2:19:05
  I remember nothing for this, no. And they?
• 2:19:07
  Released it in the US on Christmas Day.
• 2:19:09
  It was up against happy feet and the holiday.
• 2:19:16
  Merry Christmas. He's not giving it a.
• 2:19:18
  Fighting chances it really. Penguins are winds lit neither
• 2:19:22
  Quoron. Grim dystropia, please under
• 2:19:26
  the. Critics and we'll start.
• 2:19:27
  As is typical with Roger Ebert, one of the big man make of the
• 2:19:29
  film. Do we think I think you would
• 2:19:31
  have enjoyed it, but not. Thoroughly.
• 2:19:34
  So maybe three. Yeah, I'll go three.
• 2:19:36
  It was full marks. From Wow.
• 2:19:38
  Right, four starts out of four. And he said.
• 2:19:40
  Quran fulfills the promise of futuristic fiction.
• 2:19:43
  Characters do not waste range. Costumes of Visit the Moon and
• 2:19:46
  the Cities are not plastic hallucinations but look just
• 2:19:48
  like today, except tired and shabby.
• 2:19:51
  Here is a world ending not with a bang, but a whimper, and the
• 2:19:53
  film serves as a cautionary warning.
• 2:19:56
  Indeed. Bang on from Rog.
• 2:19:57
  Yep, as always to. The surprise of nobody.
• 2:19:59
  Surely. Yep.
• 2:20:01
  Peter Travels A Rolling Stone rang Children of Men as his
• 2:20:03
  second best film of the decade, and said Children of Men is
• 2:20:07
  indisputably great. No movie this decade he was more
• 2:20:09
  redolent of sorrowful beauty and exhilarating action.
• 2:20:12
  You don't just watch the car ambush scene, you live inside
• 2:20:15
  it. Definitely.
• 2:20:16
  That's Quran's magic. He makes you believe he does.
• 2:20:19
  Yep, true. Yeah, there will.
• 2:20:21
  Be blood number. 1. If anyone's interested, yeah, I
• 2:20:23
  mean, that's up there for me, yeah.
• 2:20:25
  We've also covered that one, so we get.
• 2:20:27
  Stuck into it? Here we are and writing for
• 2:20:28
  Empire magazine. DM and Wise gave the film four
• 2:20:31
  stars out to five and said a visually stunning, Swifty and
• 2:20:34
  satire. Children of Men may appear
• 2:20:36
  clumsy, but it's message is simple, heartfelt and ultimately
• 2:20:39
  rather moving. Nice, doesn't it?
• 2:20:42
  Not sure I agree if it. Appears clumsy.
• 2:20:43
  No, there's nothing clumsy about this film.
• 2:20:45
  Intentional handheld camera work?
• 2:20:47
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 2:20:49
  It's fared. Better over time though.
• 2:20:50
  Today on Rotten Tomorrow's Children of Men has an 85%
• 2:20:54
  audience approval rating and a very big 92% from critics.
• 2:20:58
  And on IMDb, irrespectable score of 7.9 out of 10.
• 2:21:03
  Yeah, I think this might be one that.
• 2:21:05
  For a lot of people, get better with repeat viewings maybe.
• 2:21:07
  Oh, absolutely, definitely does. So, children.
• 2:21:10
  Of men struggle at the box. Office an award ceremonies on
• 2:21:12
  its release not great marketing campaign and a Christmas Day
• 2:21:16
  suicide release, but over time it does seem to have found its
• 2:21:20
  audience. Yeah, deservedly so.
• 2:21:22
  What if you've got a? Quiet.
• 2:21:23
  It's for Christmas. Sequels and influence if Alfonso
• 2:21:34
  Quran wasn't for making a. Harry Potter sequel?
• 2:21:36
  It seems very unlikely he'd return the new Children of Men
• 2:21:39
  too, and that's how it played out.
• 2:21:41
  No sequel Good. What about the film's influence?
• 2:21:44
  And legacy though. What kind of impact has Children
• 2:21:46
  of Men had since 2006? Do we think, Wesley?
• 2:21:49
  I think we've seen nothing but. The influence of this film since
• 2:21:53
  that time, I think any film that's looking at a near future
• 2:21:56
  or a dystopian future or something that is grounded in
• 2:22:01
  that realistic element. I think they've taken Korans
• 2:22:03
  lead noticeably I think in the likes of The Road because
• 2:22:08
  exactly the same kind of aesthetic and even in different
• 2:22:10
  countries it's really worked. Films like The Rover, yes, if
• 2:22:13
  you haven't seen that, it's very, very similar in its torn
• 2:22:16
  and it's aesthetic. Brilliant film and leaning more
• 2:22:18
  into the sci-fi element the current didn't go into.
• 2:22:21
  I think you'd agree with this one, John, with the likes of
• 2:22:23
  District 9, yeah. Yeah.
• 2:22:25
  I think has a very similar tone, especially the Bexhill vibe.
• 2:22:28
  Yeah, yeah, definitely. But I think the most obvious in
• 2:22:31
  all of this is the design, the playability and the success of
• 2:22:36
  The Last of Us. Yeah.
• 2:22:37
  I mean, if you imagine Children of Men with zombies, you have
• 2:22:41
  The Last of Us basically. So yeah, even though it flopped,
• 2:22:44
  I think it's been very, very influential to creatives.
• 2:22:47
  Yeah, definitely. I think it's had a big.
• 2:22:48
  Influence. Since it came out, I mean,
• 2:22:50
  before this, the still being futures were often pretty far
• 2:22:53
  fetched, like advanced technology and stuff.
• 2:22:55
  Children have mended it by just taking the current world.
• 2:22:57
  Yeah. And moving it forward just
• 2:22:59
  slightly a few years. I see that in Charlie Brooker in
• 2:23:02
  Black Mirror. Oh, in Black Mirror all the
• 2:23:03
  time, Yeah. Filmmaking wise, I think there
• 2:23:05
  was a clear influence with the. Long take sequences like a
• 2:23:08
  tournament by Joe Wright came out the year after this 5 minute
• 2:23:11
  shot in Dunkirk Beach. And then, like we talked about
• 2:23:14
  some Mendez when 1917 filmmaker started doing whole films as one
• 2:23:17
  one take or seeming to be 1 take and you won the money, Westie
• 2:23:20
  because I saw an interview with Neil Druckmann, who was the head
• 2:23:22
  of Naughty Dog, the video game company behind the Last of Us.
• 2:23:25
  All right. He said this was like the major
• 2:23:27
  influence when the creator that oh wow, that idea of the beat
• 2:23:30
  down adult escorting a young woman who was humanity's last
• 2:23:33
  hope. I just thought like the
• 2:23:34
  aesthetic of the look. I.
• 2:23:35
  Didn't think of it like thematically as well.
• 2:23:37
  That's really interesting. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:23:38
  I think it's became one of those films that other.
• 2:23:40
  Creators seem to study. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:23:43
  I mean, I'll just. Add another two because I agree
• 2:23:45
  with everything you said. I have much the same, I think
• 2:23:48
  her the Spike Jones film. It's obviously very different
• 2:23:51
  tonely, but it has that vibe of it's set in the future, but it's
• 2:23:55
  not futuristic like this one. That one feels like that's only
• 2:23:59
  a few months away, which I think is scary.
• 2:24:01
  Children of Men has that. Similar kind of.
• 2:24:03
  Feel but a different tone and a film we've mentioned already but
• 2:24:06
  mother the Darren Aronofsky film because the last 10 minutes of
• 2:24:10
  that when that house gets invaded and the military charge
• 2:24:13
  in the putting people in cages and the lining people up to be
• 2:24:16
  shot that whole sequence to me have very very children of men.
• 2:24:20
  Yeah, definitely. So no.
• 2:24:21
  Sequels for children of Men. Rightly so, Probably, yeah.
• 2:24:24
  But in terms of influence, from Hollywood to video games to TV,
• 2:24:28
  Children of Men did make an impact.
• 2:24:30
  And unlike his box office, its legacy seems to have grown
• 2:24:33
  stronger. Yeah, it really has.
• 2:24:34
  Oh, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, all the right movies
• 2:24:39
  ranking and here we are the end of Children of.
• 2:24:44
  Men, now it's time for our ratings, where we each score the
• 2:24:46
  film out of 10. Yeah, we're seeing with Your
• 2:24:48
  Choice. So you want to lead us in your
• 2:24:51
  summary and score for Children of Men, please.
• 2:24:53
  I've got a lot of appreciation for this film.
• 2:24:56
  Which doesn't mean I've got a lot of love for it, but I've got
• 2:24:58
  a lot of time for it. I think I really appreciate the
• 2:25:00
  techniques here. I really appreciate what it's
• 2:25:02
  trying to say and that it's so on the money.
• 2:25:05
  It was so right and so well thought through and so well
• 2:25:10
  produced. It's just an amazing piece of
• 2:25:12
  filmmaking and it is just wonderfully done and it's just
• 2:25:15
  something to marvel at from a visual creative.
• 2:25:19
  You kind of get much better than this as some real inspiration
• 2:25:22
  and influence. Having said that, as a cinema
• 2:25:25
  goer, do you get everything that you need from it go?
• 2:25:28
  I was really moved by that as a narrative story.
• 2:25:32
  Or is it more just about the visuals and technique?
• 2:25:34
  I think it's a little bit of both.
• 2:25:36
  If the score Room was based on the third time you've seen this
• 2:25:40
  film, it will be a 10. But.
• 2:25:43
  It's not. It's a film that you've really
• 2:25:45
  got to dive into in a film you've really got to study.
• 2:25:47
  So I'm going to take one point off of.
• 2:25:48
  Technically it's perfect, but it's a nine out of 10 for me.
• 2:25:52
  The third, fourth time you watch it, it's a perfect film, but
• 2:25:54
  you've got to give it the time. Yeah, but like I said, at the
• 2:25:57
  top, I was really. Impressed with this when I first
• 2:25:58
  saw it, and if anything, I think it's got better with time.
• 2:26:01
  Yeah, read the book as a teenager, and that can be
• 2:26:04
  dangerous, judging against that cornet.
• 2:26:06
  Yeah. But what I think is impressive
• 2:26:08
  is how much Quran's changed without feeling like he's
• 2:26:10
  betrayed the book. And he made a film that now I
• 2:26:12
  actually prefer to the book. I love the character writing.
• 2:26:15
  Theo was the personification of that theme of lost hope and
• 2:26:18
  finding it again. Grace Clay O Bashati is Key is a
• 2:26:22
  bit of a revelation in a first major film role, I think.
• 2:26:25
  And the technical filmmaking is just extraordinary.
• 2:26:27
  The long takes, the way Quran uses the background to build the
• 2:26:30
  world. I love all that, that
• 2:26:32
  documentary realism. And thematically it became more
• 2:26:34
  relevant after it came out. If anything, immigration and
• 2:26:37
  totalitarianism, pandemics. Probably the most prescient
• 2:26:41
  science fiction film of the century.
• 2:26:43
  Yeah, Yeah. So a bit of a master class in
• 2:26:45
  science fiction filmmaking to me.
• 2:26:46
  Intelligence moving, thrilling when it needs to be and
• 2:26:49
  massively relevant. It's not one of my favourites,
• 2:26:52
  but it is superb. And it's a nine out of 10 for me
• 2:26:56
  and Matt. Yeah, I mean, this one's been.
• 2:26:58
  Such a great voyage of discovery for me.
• 2:27:00
  Like, I've never dismissed this film, but like I said it, I just
• 2:27:03
  haven't watched it a lot and it's not one I've given the time
• 2:27:06
  it deserves to appreciate its many, many qualities.
• 2:27:09
  It's a perfect band of technical wizardry, but done with heart
• 2:27:12
  and soul behind it. It's not just cure on showing
• 2:27:15
  off what he can do with the camera for the sake that he's
• 2:27:17
  telling a very emotional and a very relevant story at the same
• 2:27:20
  time. And that's what will always
• 2:27:22
  resonate with me going forward. And as much as I'm not ever
• 2:27:25
  going to be excited by Clive or lead in this, that's not going
• 2:27:28
  to be the main thing anymore. Whenever I think about watching
• 2:27:31
  Children of Men, it's going to be the depth of writing.
• 2:27:33
  It's going to be about how terrifyingly prophetic it is.
• 2:27:37
  Like, maybe for that reason, I don't know when I'll come back
• 2:27:40
  to this again, but I definitely will because it's a great, great
• 2:27:43
  film. And I'm also giving it A9 all
• 2:27:45
  the nines well. Unlike the world of the film,
• 2:27:48
  our community of ATR and Page Rons haven't gone quiet yet and
• 2:27:52
  we also put this out there to them to get their thoughts on
• 2:27:54
  Children of Men. So Ian Joyner said.
• 2:27:57
  Easily one of the best 21st century films set in Britain.
• 2:28:00
  Hugely underrated and gets better on rewatchers.
• 2:28:03
  The car chase, the jumpstart, the Bexhill siege, incredible
• 2:28:06
  feats of blocking and camera work, King Crimson Batter, Sea
• 2:28:09
  Power station and pulling Michael Caine's finger.
• 2:28:12
  What more do you need 10? OK, nice.
• 2:28:15
  What would? You need 10, Hilton, Thompson
• 2:28:18
  said. It still holds up.
• 2:28:20
  Visually, the cinematography, editing and sound design is
• 2:28:22
  brilliant and the story feels like the near future.
• 2:28:25
  But the performances, with the exception of Clay, Hope, Asherty
• 2:28:28
  feel off for me. Right.
• 2:28:29
  Pam Ferris with dreads and the grungy Michael Caine?
• 2:28:31
  No thanks. 8 right? OK, 2 marks.
• 2:28:35
  Obliterated by Grungy. Michael Caine just doesn't like
• 2:28:38
  hair, does he? Yeah, Michael Cubin.
• 2:28:43
  And Oliver Betts said Children of Men is a.
• 2:28:45
  Criminally underappreciated masterpiece, It looks and sound
• 2:28:49
  the business. An absolute master class in one
• 2:28:51
  as career best performances from Clive.
• 2:28:54
  Oh and unsure tell Edgier 4 and it's Michael Caine's last great
• 2:28:57
  role with a cracking Barnet to boot.
• 2:28:59
  Nice. It's one of the easiest 10 on
• 2:29:01
  10s ever. Fair enough right?
• 2:29:03
  Michael Caine's Barnet I. Get to mention from.
• 2:29:05
  Everyone so mostly very positive from our followers and patrons
• 2:29:08
  and all together they rated the film.
• 2:29:10
  What do you think out of 10? Oh, that's a tough one.
• 2:29:13
  It's very positive. And.
• 2:29:14
  I'm going to say a nine as well. I'm just going to stick to be
• 2:29:16
  guns here. I'll go 9.50.
• 2:29:20
  You're right, Westy. It was a nine out of 10.
• 2:29:22
  Here we go. All right.
• 2:29:23
  So that's all the nines in tall like it was Children of Men 36
• 2:29:26
  out of 40. Yeah.
• 2:29:27
  Lovely. And we're done on Children of
• 2:29:29
  Men. Hopefully it hasn't made you
• 2:29:30
  want to roar out into the middle of the ocean and just give it
• 2:29:33
  all up. Well, not much, doesn't.
• 2:29:38
  I don't include you in them, Westy, because you know the
• 2:29:40
  crack. Next time.
• 2:29:42
  Out. Yeah, your diary.
• 2:29:44
  Call the fire department because Luke, Wesley and Matt are
• 2:29:46
  heading to the glass tower to take on the disaster classic
• 2:29:49
  that is the Towering inferno that being inside a chimney.
• 2:29:55
  Massive. Cast Massive film, Yeah.
• 2:29:57
  Massive tower. Massive tower.
• 2:29:59
  Brilliant film. Well, in the meantime to find.
• 2:30:02
  Out more about. Becoming a patron, supporting
• 2:30:03
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• 2:30:06
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• 2:30:12
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• 2:30:15
  Formerly Twitter, where we are at at Right Movies.
• 2:30:18
  We post threads on there telling the stories behind classic
• 2:30:20
  films. Everything reports been said by
• 2:30:22
  someone involved in the production or come from three
• 2:30:25
  separate sources. We follow the same rule on our
• 2:30:27
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• 2:30:30
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• 2:30:33
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• 2:30:36
  great chat as well. So go join that and our website
• 2:30:40
  full of great features. All the right movies.com.
• 2:30:42
  Lovely. We're all off now to see if
• 2:30:44
  Michael Caine has any Strawberry cough left.
• 2:30:47
  Do come back for towing Inferno. Though.
• 2:30:49
  And as always, thank you for listening.
• 2:30:51
  Thank you so much for listening, guys.
• 2:30:52
  Thanks for listening. Guys, take care out there.