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The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) with Proles Pod · Left of the Projector

0:18
Evan: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,
0:21
Evan: back again with another film discussion from the left.
0:24
Evan: This week on the show, we will be discussing Ken Loach's 2006 film,
0:28
Evan: The Wind That Shakes the Barley, starring Cillian Murphy, Liam Cunningham,
0:33
Evan: Patrick Delaney, and Orla Fitzgerald.
0:35
Evan: For those of you who don't know, it follows a group of Irishmen during the Irish
0:39
Evan: Civil War, approximately 1920 to 1922.
0:42
Evan: Given what we are witnessing now in Gaza in the last 600 days.
0:46
Evan: It's all the more relevant. And for those who may also not know,
0:49
Evan: its director, Ken Loach, has been an outspoken proponent of the BDS movement for the past 15 years.
0:55
Evan: With me to discuss, I have hosts Justin and Jeremy of Prolspod.
1:00
Evan: Thank you both for being here today.
1:02
Jeremy: Thank you.
1:02
Justin: Thanks for having us. And sorry that it took us a whole ass year to get on your podcast.
1:08
Evan: But yes, no, I'm glad to finally have you on to do this.
1:11
Evan: And I guess before we talk about the film, You had chosen this film.
1:16
Evan: It wasn't even on my film list that I usually send out to guests.
1:20
Evan: So I guess what made you choose it?
1:22
Evan: I mentioned kind of its relevance, so I don't know if that played into it.
1:26
Justin: I want to say that I had nothing to do with this choice. I don't know why Jeremy
1:32
Justin: would do this to us, but here we are.
1:36
Jeremy: So I had never seen this movie before about two or three months ago,
1:40
Jeremy: And someone posted a screenshot of the conversation that happens between Damien,
1:47
Jeremy: sort of the point of view character, main character of the film, talking to Dan,
1:54
Jeremy: played by Liam Cunningham, who would later more famously probably be known as
2:01
Jeremy: Sir Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones.
2:04
Jeremy: And they're having a conversation about...
2:06
Justin: I didn't recognize him with all the hair. Yeah.
2:10
Jeremy: Having a conversation about earlier rebellions, specifically the Dublin lockout,
2:17
Jeremy: which took place between 1912 and 1913, I think.
2:23
Jeremy: And they specifically reference the speech that Connolly gives where he says,
2:31
Jeremy: you need to raise a red flag above the castle in Dublin or else England will
2:38
Jeremy: still own you through its landlords, its capitalists and its commercial institutions.
2:42
Justin: And close you know yeah true he actually says something yeah he says something
2:47
Justin: along the lines of you must establish a socialist yes uh nation or um or it
2:54
Justin: doesn't matter if you'll you raise a red flag um the green flag over yeah that's
2:59
Justin: what yeah that's right yeah whatever yeah.
3:01
Jeremy: Uh, so anyway, I was like, I was like, wow, I, I have never seen this movie.
3:06
Jeremy: Uh, I should probably watch it. And it is very bleak, very depressing.
3:11
Jeremy: Um, but it is, it is deeply anti-imperialist, uh, anti-British,
3:18
Jeremy: which we are all, all for here at Pearl's Pod.
3:21
Jeremy: So yeah, that's the main reason that I chose it.
3:24
Justin: Don't, don't let the manners fool you. The Brits fucking suck.
3:28
Evan: Yes. And that's like, that will take us like in a good spot at the beginning of the, of the film.
3:34
Evan: And we, we don't necessarily have to, I can cut this if you don't want to do
3:38
Evan: this, but sometimes I do like a little kind of like a icebreaker before we go into it.
3:43
Evan: And I usually ask the, my standard question is usually like,
3:46
Evan: if there is an actor living or dead, who you'd want to, you know,
3:49
Evan: break bread with, have a drink with, you know, who might it be?
3:54
Evan: You know, I don't know if you had any, any, anyone jump to mind.
3:58
Jeremy: And I think, I don't know how I would have answered this question before,
4:01
Jeremy: but at the moment, and he is currently living, but by the time this is released,
4:06
Jeremy: it is possible he will be dead.
4:07
Jeremy: Liam Cunningham, this morning boarded a boat which is leaving Italy,
4:14
Jeremy: headed for Gaza to bring relief to the Palestinian people.
4:20
Jeremy: And Israel has threatened to destroy these boats if they were to make it through the blockade.
4:27
Jeremy: So we will see whether that happens, but I would love to sort of sit down and
4:31
Jeremy: have a conversation with him.
4:33
Jeremy: I kind of looked up some of his history before He was born in a working-class
4:39
Jeremy: neighborhood in the west suburbs of Dublin.
4:43
Jeremy: He dropped out of school when he was 15 years old to become an electrician.
4:48
Jeremy: He worked as an electrician for several years. He went to Zimbabwe,
4:52
Jeremy: I think, to do electrician work on a safari and to teach Zimbabwean electricians, basically,
5:01
Jeremy: how to properly maintain this equipment before returning.
5:04
Jeremy: He got sort of tired of this and decided one day to become an actor which is
5:09
Jeremy: a weird trajectory and it's very uncommon for a working class person to achieve
5:13
Jeremy: the sort of success that he has he.
5:15
Justin: Said he saw an ad for like an acting school and he was like hmm.
5:18
Jeremy: Yeah i'll give that a shot yeah but i would love to sit down and talk to that
5:22
Jeremy: guy right now i hopefully he lives hopefully they do break the blockade and
5:27
Jeremy: get that food in as you know children are fucking dying right now yes.
5:31
Justin: Day 600 Just like every time I hear the number, I just want to burn everything.
5:37
Justin: Okay, well, mine is not as, won't win me as many socialist points,
5:41
Justin: but it's a toss-up between Pedro Pascal and Octavia Spencer.
5:46
Justin: They just seem like the chillest motherfuckers in Hollywood.
5:50
Jeremy: Yeah, also, well, you could get some points for Pedro Pascal.
5:53
Jeremy: His uncle, wasn't his uncle like fucking Salvador Allende or some shit like that?
5:59
Evan: Or related to that in some way. he is related.
6:02
Jeremy: In some way to salvador allende and he has spoken in support of the uh yeah.
6:08
Justin: Yeah he he has signed stuff and support yeah yeah but.
6:11
Jeremy: Yeah not but there's a difference.
6:13
Evan: I'd be willing to bet that he's probably more radical than he's able to sure
6:18
Evan: say you know as yeah a lot of to maintain his.
6:21
Justin: Position i'm assuming just his um just based on his relationship with uh what's
6:26
Justin: their name the actor on um.
6:29
Evan: Oh last of us yeah.
6:31
Justin: But anyway they're super like young and and kind of radical so i'm assuming
6:36
Justin: that there's some kind of common connection there too because they have a really great relationship.
6:39
Evan: Yeah but anyway it just seems.
6:41
Justin: Like some like really fun like i don't know it'd be really fun.
6:44
Evan: I think for me only because it's because i'm a huge fan of the andor show and,
6:51
Evan: the learning about the first season of
6:53
Evan: andor the the creator and director tony gilroy
6:57
Evan: has basically said all i think he
6:59
Evan: also is more radical than he's probably able to given
7:02
Evan: the fact that he just was able to pull off a show that i it's
7:06
Evan: hard to believe exists like under the disney banner and
7:09
Evan: so he said the first season was almost a direct not
7:13
Evan: direct but like loosely based on like the lies of lenin and
7:16
Evan: stalin and the you know heist that the soviets did pre you know revolution so
7:21
Evan: i would say it'd be interesting to hear what tony gilroy has to say in private
7:24
Evan: not uh yeah yeah the things he would he explaining yourself so yeah i think
7:29
Evan: he thinks but he can't say out loud so that would be maybe a cheap one but it
7:34
Evan: would be a i think that'd be a fun one but,
7:36
Evan: yeah i think these are all uh all people i think would have some interesting
7:40
Evan: things to say liam Cunningham, I think, might be the winner of this.
7:44
Evan: I think you stole the show.
7:46
Jeremy: I got the most socialist points.
7:49
Evan: That's okay. But yes. And it's funny.
7:52
Justin: I also- Boston's getting canceled for picking Hollywood- Hollywood elites. Like stars, yeah.
7:59
Evan: Yeah. Well, so I alluded to the fact that the beginning of this film is very
8:05
Evan: much a clear depiction of the British being colonizers as they have been for centuries.
8:11
Evan: And so the the kind of the opening of this film takes place in 1920 and it's
8:16
Evan: damien donovan play played by cillian murphy and uh i don't think murphy just
8:22
Evan: is it killing murphy fuck it is you're right you're right it's killing murphy
8:25
Evan: i i am notoriously irish are the only.
8:28
Justin: White people that you can be racist against so i think that it's important that we differentiate.
8:35
Evan: No, I have a terrible track record of mispronouncing everything.
8:40
Evan: So it's a, it's a, I always have.
8:43
Jeremy: That's a, that's a Pearl's pod tradition. Yeah. You know, lots of Slavic names,
8:47
Jeremy: lots of, lots of Chinese, Vietnamese names that we consistently mispronounce. I'm sure.
8:53
Evan: Yeah. I was going to say you dug yourself a hole with like doing the entire
8:56
Evan: list of Stalin and having just all of these names that are just so hard to pronounce.
9:00
Justin: Or the Ukraine episodes.
9:02
Jeremy: Oh, yes.
9:03
Evan: That too. Yeah. Those names, I don't envy the saying of those.
9:07
Evan: But yeah, so Cillian Murphy is sort of the lead in this film,
9:10
Evan: played his character as Damian O'Donovan.
9:13
Evan: And he's kind of at a crossroads of deciding whether he wants to go to London
9:17
Evan: to be a doctor, which he's been training for his whole life,
9:19
Evan: or staying with his brother Teddy to be a member of the Irish Republican Army
9:26
Evan: and fight the British to expel them from their lands.
9:30
Evan: And the sort of very initial opening scene after they're kind of playing some,
9:34
Evan: what is it? Is it hurling?
9:36
Jeremy: Hurling, yeah. So that's a, it's, I think the opening scene is actually to some
9:40
Jeremy: degree meaningful because it is, that is a, an ancient sport that's been played
9:47
Jeremy: in Ireland for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.
9:50
Jeremy: And it is them sort of, they have their disagreements, they have their fight
9:56
Jeremy: that they have amongst themselves, but they regulate themselves.
9:59
Jeremy: They have control over their own sort of destiny on the field there.
10:03
Jeremy: And then the British are introduced in the next scene. And I think-
10:07
Justin: It's literally in reaction to the game.
10:09
Jeremy: Yes, yeah. In reaction to them gathering for the game, the British show up.
10:14
Evan: I'm not endearing myself to my Irish listeners right now with my lack of knowledge.
10:22
Evan: You can tell my background is not of Irish descent.
10:26
Evan: But yeah, so that actually adds even more weight to the fact that the British
10:30
Evan: come in and essentially just forcibly having people take off their clothes, say their name.
10:35
Evan: And when one of their friends refuses to say his name in English,
10:40
Evan: as opposed to in Irish, he is tortured and shot and killed basically in front of his own mother.
10:48
Evan: And I think it's, as you said, the movie is kind of depressing for the most part.
10:53
Justin: From start to finish.
10:54
Evan: From literally from start to finish.
10:56
Justin: There's like 10 seconds of joy.
10:58
Jeremy: This is like, it's a wonderful life levels of depressing.
11:02
Justin: Yes.
11:03
Evan: I mean, it really is. And you have this moment where you can kind of see the
11:07
Evan: faces of, you know, Cillian Murphy and his friends and his comrades watching
11:12
Evan: this happen and being able to do nothing about it.
11:14
Evan: And you, even though the IRA had already been active before this,
11:18
Evan: you can see how the Cillian hasn't decided to stay yet.
11:22
Evan: He goes on a, he's about to go on a train where he meets Dan for the very first
11:25
Evan: time played by Liam Cunningham. And I think all of these little tiny moments
11:30
Evan: in his life just kind of like it like it like flips a switch in his head where
11:34
Evan: he can't leave behind, you know.
11:37
Justin: Yeah, he keeps ratcheting. There are moments in his life where he keeps ratcheting
11:41
Justin: up his revolutionary fervor, basically, and he can't go back.
11:46
Justin: Every time he takes a tick, he like moves further.
11:48
Jeremy: And it's so the the train scene is really notable because it it it references
11:55
Jeremy: the large because this is a fairly small film in terms of the scale of the conflict.
12:00
Justin: Because there's only three sets.
12:02
Jeremy: Yeah, it all takes place in County Cork, sort of in the southwest of Ireland.
12:09
Jeremy: It felt weird to me that they didn't use more of County Cork in this movie.
12:13
Jeremy: Maybe it was just for budgetary reasons, but like County Cork is gorgeous.
12:17
Jeremy: I mean, some of the most incredible, dramatic sort of coastal formations,
12:22
Jeremy: they didn't go into any of that.
12:24
Jeremy: And I don't know if that was, again, like a budgetary thing, but...
12:28
Jeremy: But anyway, the the train situation there, it sort of references the larger
12:33
Jeremy: conflict because the the the inciting incident is a group of auxiliary soldiers.
12:41
Jeremy: These these the Tans, they call them the black and Tans.
12:46
Jeremy: They get they're trying to board the train and the porter is like,
12:50
Jeremy: you can't get on the train.
12:51
Jeremy: You're not allowed to be on the train. you know and he's like
12:54
Jeremy: calling out to the driver who is uh he's he's dan
12:57
Jeremy: the uh liam liam cunningham's character and
13:01
Jeremy: liam cunningham's character comes over and he's like the union has
13:04
Jeremy: said we will not transport any soldiers any
13:08
Jeremy: weapons uh any armaments on the
13:11
Jeremy: trains you cannot board the train and sort of they they beat the shit out of
13:15
Jeremy: him and imprisonment they're like fuck you yeah um but that's that is important
13:20
Jeremy: because that was part of that was part of the strategy of the Irish people to
13:25
Jeremy: keep the British army to the roads.
13:28
Jeremy: They had to use their own transportation. They were not going to be allowed to use Ireland's rails.
13:33
Jeremy: And it was the unions that did that. And I think that's important to note.
13:38
Justin: Oh, yeah.
13:39
Evan: Yeah. I think I was looking into it further. There was even there was a number of other union.
13:44
Evan: And I think it was it wasn't only like the train transit or whatever the union
13:48
Evan: was as part of the blocking it.
13:50
Evan: There's other labor unions that were preventing British people or British who
13:55
Evan: would come to their land, as it would be, from being...
14:01
Evan: Forcing them not just to use their own roads and their own materials but just
14:04
Evan: also waste money because i think that the british are this is costing them a
14:08
Evan: lot of money to bring armaments and all of these things so anything they could do to weaken them yeah.
14:14
Justin: That's i think that that was the point i mean they knew they were never going
14:18
Justin: to beat britain militarily right they just had to create a cost that was high
14:22
Justin: enough that they would be like all right fuck it.
14:24
Jeremy: We can't do this anymore yeah it's.
14:26
Justin: Too expensive.
14:26
Evan: Yeah exactly and yeah the the like as you
14:29
Evan: said with the there only being a
14:32
Evan: few different you know uh locations where they film
14:35
Evan: like a couple different houses and a couple different areas i
14:38
Evan: think i read that the film only cost eight million dollars the budget and this
14:42
Evan: was in 2006 so you can think of it as a that's a tiny budget for this film i
14:47
Evan: mean i don't think any of ken loach's films probably broke 10 million dollars
14:52
Evan: as far as the budget was concerned but my guess is for that well.
14:56
Justin: If you look at the credits yeah if you if you look at the credits um a large
15:02
Justin: like probably half i don't want to say a large majority but probably half of
15:06
Justin: the um actors were volunteers yep yeah clearly he has like principles,
15:14
Justin: yeah he uh you know he's not interested in breaking into hollywood right he's
15:18
Justin: interested in telling stories.
15:19
Evan: Yes and i think that's i mean i i briefly mentioned in like the intro there
15:24
Evan: kind of what Ken Loach's sort of personal history and his, you know, his politics.
15:29
Evan: And for the most part, if you like, if you read just the opening, you know,
15:33
Evan: description on just Wikipedia, it's very clear that his films and all of his
15:38
Evan: messages is based on his socialist views and very unlikely that someone of that
15:44
Evan: political perspective is going to get a big studio to even make his film,
15:49
Evan: even if he wanted to so i think it's it's uh you know,
15:54
Evan: He was a fan of, of course, Jeremy Corbyn, and I mentioned that he was part
15:59
Evan: of the campaign for the boycott of Israel, and he's spoken heavily about the
16:04
Evan: treatment of Palestinians.
16:06
Evan: And we're talking about the Palestinians in Gaza in 2008 or 2009,
16:09
Evan: so we're not even talking about the current moment, which is the insane escalation
16:14
Evan: of, what, 600-plus days of genocide.
16:17
Jeremy: He is, regrettably, it seems, a Trotskyist, but we will forget him.
16:23
Justin: No! we will forgive him for.
16:25
Jeremy: His uh his anti-imperialism and his uh his willingness to engage on this level.
16:30
Justin: Yeah so before we dive any deeper i would like to say that number one this movie would be,
16:40
Justin: unwatchable without subtitles if you're not irish it's
16:44
Justin: like fuck and number two uh it sounds like it was recorded like on a yeti microphone
16:50
Justin: in the middle of a room like you get there's so much like people's shoes on
16:56
Justin: the ground are louder than the voices sometimes and i mean it's crazy it's very naturalistic.
17:01
Jeremy: And it's like.
17:02
Justin: Yes it lends itself to that like brutal kind of but yeah i mean if you if you
17:07
Justin: don't have subtitles you're gonna miss like half the movie yeah.
17:09
Evan: And almost i don't want to say it like feels like a documentary but in some ways like.
17:13
Justin: There's scenes where it does feel.
17:15
Evan: Like that where you just kind of like watching the interaction that happens in like a very real.
17:19
Justin: Way but.
17:20
Jeremy: Not a modern documentary a.
17:22
Justin: Documentary from.
17:23
Jeremy: Like the 1970s where there's just a camera in the room watching people talk and they just move.
17:28
Justin: The camera.
17:28
Jeremy: Back and forth between the the speakers that is very much how a lot of those scenes felt.
17:32
Justin: Yeah there there's yeah there's sound there are scenes where you where nothing
17:37
Justin: really matters like what people are saying none of it matters where they're
17:41
Justin: just shouting at each other and it's a cacophony of like sound, you know?
17:45
Jeremy: Yeah. But they, yeah, it's very naturalistic. Like a lot of, like they don't,
17:49
Jeremy: they don't do, they don't seem to stop and do takes for perfection.
17:53
Jeremy: If somebody stutters over their words, they leave it in.
17:56
Justin: That's what I was going to say. Cunningham flubs his lines like at least five or six times.
18:01
Jeremy: So does Murphy.
18:02
Justin: And he just, yeah. And they just roll with it. They don't, they don't try to like cut it back.
18:05
Justin: But it feels like, I mean, if you're actually in the moment,
18:08
Justin: it's not like you, you never stutter or mess up what you're going to say, you know?
18:11
Jeremy: Exactly. Yeah.
18:12
Evan: I think they filmed it over a pretty short period of time.
18:16
Evan: I couldn't find the exact length of time it
18:18
Evan: took to film it but but it wouldn't surprise me so yeah i would
18:21
Evan: bet that they didn't have the time or money to do
18:24
Evan: lots of takes and have lots of fancy equipment it just kind
18:27
Evan: of did like i i think i was saying before you
18:30
Evan: joined um i was telling jeremy that i haven't seen
18:33
Evan: that many of his films i think only one other one actually and i just must i
18:37
Evan: think this is his sort of his style within a lot of his films of just kind of
18:41
Evan: like a raw sense of it you know like it's it's low budget but like in a way
18:45
Evan: that doesn't make you think like oh this is this is shitty this is actually
18:49
Evan: sure it like looks good yeah despite it yeah.
18:51
Justin: I mean honestly i'm like i mean i know it's it was an independent film but i'm
18:56
Justin: just surprised i've never heard of it before i.
18:58
Jeremy: I mean i'd heard of it i just had never seen it uh like i said.
19:02
Justin: Until about i mean i might have heard of it and then just the name turned me
19:05
Justin: off right it's it sounds like a like a uh you know movie about you know three
19:14
Justin: daughters in like a plantation or something you know what i mean.
19:17
Evan: Sure sure but it's funny you mentioned the the
19:20
Evan: subtitle thing i initially turned on the film without them and i'm like oh man
19:24
Evan: they were kind of just shouting while they're playing i have no idea what's
19:26
Evan: what they're being what they're saying at all and had to uh had to make sure
19:30
Evan: i had the subtitles in there and again showing my very you know non-irish blood
19:35
Evan: here trying to trying to watch this well.
19:37
Justin: I actually i saw this um sorry i'm getting off the reels here but um i saw this
19:42
Justin: video um where they talked about subtitles um 50 of people without any hearing
19:49
Justin: issues use subtitles nowadays so um yeah i thought it was interesting.
19:52
Evan: And that and then again to continue that thought just it's a lot of the even
19:57
Evan: like new films with high budgets don't spend as much money on like the sound
20:01
Evan: mixing after they've actually filmed it they just like rush it to theater or
20:05
Evan: streaming or whatever and so
20:07
Evan: yeah the volume sometimes is too low to even like hear it perfectly yeah.
20:11
Justin: Well that's what i was gonna say a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have
20:14
Justin: moved away from film um film acting being like stage acting uh and to where
20:20
Justin: it's more like real life so people are whispering and people are you know talking
20:24
Justin: like with a morbid accent you know like not trying to talk clearly right they're
20:28
Justin: they're mumbling and all that kind of stuff so it makes total sense.
20:32
Evan: Yeah no that's,
20:33
Evan: That's true. And one of the other things, again, going back to the British thing
20:37
Evan: that I noted is, I think right after Damien decides to stay following the incident
20:43
Evan: in the train, which you were talking about,
20:45
Evan: is he, I think they then have a conversation of how many British soldiers are
20:49
Evan: in Ireland at this point. I think he says 10,000.
20:51
Jeremy: 10,000.
20:52
Evan: And I was thinking about not just that number of soldiers, but just the concept
20:57
Evan: at this point that while we haven't hit World War II,
21:00
Evan: where you could maybe argue is like the real post-World War II is really the
21:03
Evan: downfall of the ending of the British Empire as like, as we know it,
21:07
Evan: this point, I feel like they're kind of like hanging on to the,
21:11
Evan: you know, their name as the British Empire, trying to keep what they can keep
21:15
Evan: Ireland, keep these, you know, these small territories.
21:18
Evan: And it's just kind of like a, maybe it's just the way they're depicted in this film.
21:22
Evan: It's like, they really have kind of a, they're kind of a half-assing it.
21:25
Evan: And maybe that's just the way that they depict it in this. Or again, I don't know the.
21:29
Justin: Well, they probably took a, I mean, they just come out of World War I.
21:33
Justin: So they're probably reeling for it as far as losses and finances and all that kind of stuff.
21:39
Evan: Yes, that's true too. So I mean, maybe you could argue that post-World War I
21:43
Evan: is really the downfall of the British Empire.
21:46
Justin: I think it's the beginning of the downfall. Yeah.
21:47
Evan: Yeah, where now it's like, you know, in complete free fall where,
21:51
Evan: you know, many people don't want to, well, British monarchists or whatever they
21:55
Evan: would be called, or don't want to admit that, but let's face it,
21:59
Evan: their Brexit was their death, Neil.
22:01
Evan: Yeah the other the other thing that i
22:03
Evan: really appreciated which i think shows some of the the scenery
22:07
Evan: of the beauty of that part of the country the
22:10
Evan: countryside in county cork was when they're doing kind of their
22:12
Evan: training exercises which they easily could have just like not done and just
22:17
Evan: kind of gone into it but it's very clear that they are trying to instill like
22:21
Evan: these guerrilla tactics you know amongst themselves and so i don't know what
22:25
Evan: you all thought of kind of including that in it you know where easily they could have just,
22:31
Evan: It's not important necessarily, except that later on you see that they're continuing
22:35
Evan: the training as part of this like anti-treaty group.
22:38
Jeremy: I think that's part of it is that there is it's a it's a continuity, right?
22:43
Jeremy: The and I think that's also why they reference James Connolly.
22:49
Jeremy: You know, they sing songs which were part of the 17 like eight like 1798 uprising.
23:00
Jeremy: So it's like a continuity This is not The things that are happening in this
23:04
Jeremy: film Are not isolated to these two years That we're showing here This is part
23:09
Jeremy: of a longer continuity We go all the way back to the 18th century And we go
23:14
Jeremy: forward to The new generation being trained To fight,
23:20
Jeremy: uh fight back i think it's part of why that happens.
23:22
Evan: Yeah that makes that does make sense yeah and
23:25
Evan: it's also crazy to think of how you know they're they're
23:28
Evan: training with their with their sports equipment like they don't even have guns
23:33
Evan: and pretty much all i think maybe there's a later moment where they ask how
23:37
Evan: many you know guns total the ir has ira has like in the entire country and it's
23:42
Evan: like you know a couple hundred thousand three yeah okay so they have three They have 3,000.
23:46
Jeremy: Rifles in the whole country, which is incredible.
23:50
Evan: Yeah, they have less rifles than the British have troops. 10,000 troops to 3,000
23:54
Evan: rifles for however many active members are in the IRA.
23:58
Evan: And again, we only see kind of like a small group of them as opposed to seeing
24:02
Evan: what it, you know, I assume in Dublin, it's a much larger presence of IRA.
24:06
Justin: Right. That was another thing I thought was really interesting is just the way
24:09
Justin: that they, At no point did they really try to address or include the overall
24:15
Justin: movement. It was very, very focused on one cell.
24:18
Evan: I think what strengthens the point of the idea of the IRA and the move to revolution
24:29
Evan: or to independence is that it starts with these tiny groups of people.
24:34
Evan: It's not necessarily, you have to have all these little groups that are all
24:38
Evan: kind of, uh, what's the word, um, falling behind like the larger movement.
24:42
Evan: Cause I keep, you know, a thread throughout it is they're receiving letters,
24:46
Evan: you know, by horseback and by bicycle.
24:49
Evan: And, you know, these little tiny notes from other groups to essentially give
24:54
Evan: them their orders and they're following. Yeah. Kind of a, yeah.
24:56
Justin: That was cool.
24:57
Evan: I like the, um, all of those scenes and it's, it's, it almost shows,
25:02
Evan: I actually think about this. This was 1920.
25:04
Evan: I mean, this is, I don't know, I'm not deeply well-versed in like the IRA,
25:09
Evan: but is, were they taking their cues from, you know, things that happened?
25:13
Evan: I mean, especially with Connolly and his views on socialism and the idea of
25:17
Evan: clearly he's, you know, red marks and probably like, do they have any cues you
25:21
Evan: think from like the Soviet Union and what they had just recently accomplished?
25:25
Justin: Almost certainly. Yeah, I was honestly surprised they didn't address it. Oh, go ahead.
25:28
Jeremy: Oh, no. The thing about the IRA is that it was it was made up of a collection
25:34
Jeremy: of very disparate political groups.
25:39
Jeremy: They were not all socialist, obviously.
25:41
Evan: Right.
25:42
Jeremy: As is that's one of the central conflicts of this movie is this argument back
25:47
Jeremy: and forth between sort of the the nationalists who just want independence and
25:52
Jeremy: the nationalists who want a socialist republic to form in Ireland.
25:55
Jeremy: And,
25:59
Jeremy: Eventually, the socialists are more or less pushed out of the IRA or pushed down within the IRA.
26:05
Jeremy: They are not at the forefront. So I imagine some of them were absolutely adherents
26:10
Jeremy: of Lenin and others, not so much.
26:14
Jeremy: But, you know, yeah, we should probably do an episode on the IRA.
26:18
Justin: One of the things that I think really benefits from the kind of small scale
26:26
Justin: focus was that you get to see the interactions between essentially the social democrats of the IRA,
26:34
Justin: the communists of the IRA.
26:37
Justin: You get to see the, um, court, uh, like the local court, you get to see the
26:43
Justin: local rich person who's providing guns to the IRA, but also exploiting, uh, Irish workers.
26:50
Jeremy: Yeah.
26:50
Justin: Yeah. There's a lot of like interactions that you really wouldn't get.
26:53
Justin: I mean, you would probably get to see them, but you wouldn't feel them as viscerally,
26:56
Justin: uh, as like these people who grew up with each other, like yelling at each other in a room basically.
27:01
Jeremy: Yeah.
27:01
Evan: Yeah. To me, that was the, that's also like, if you look into kind of when he
27:05
Evan: can made the Ken Lewis made the film and he really wanted to specifically show
27:09
Evan: that dichotomy or that sort of contradiction between, you know,
27:13
Evan: the idea of socialism versus a more nationalism.
27:16
Evan: And you, you said that quote earlier from Connolly of, you know,
27:19
Evan: like, it's not just, we can't just change the color of the flag.
27:22
Evan: It has to actually be like a material change for the people.
27:26
Evan: And it's like slowly, you know, kind of unfolds like
27:29
Evan: the first time when Dan and Damien are in the
27:31
Evan: prison cell from their first the first time they're
27:35
Evan: kind of just having that little conversation realizing they're kind of on the
27:37
Evan: same team and then to me the most like important part of the film maybe is that
27:43
Evan: court scene which you mentioned where they're going after this uh the court's
27:47
Evan: going after someone for exploiting a person what with 300 interest or something or like.
27:53
Jeremy: Just so that she could buy groceries. She's trying to buy groceries and she
27:56
Jeremy: can't afford to because she doesn't get paid enough.
27:59
Jeremy: And so he loans her the money to buy the groceries and then charges her 300 percent interest.
28:04
Evan: Yeah. And basically, you know, Teddy is saying like, you know,
28:08
Evan: the independence is more important than a box of groceries.
28:11
Evan: And he said, I think he says, like, it's better than painting it red.
28:14
Evan: Like, they're very much anti-communist in the idea that like,
28:18
Evan: oh, these socialist views are going to be the undoing of us.
28:20
Evan: We can't stop to think about all these little things when, you know,
28:25
Evan: Damien is very clearly thinking about the after the revolution, after the success. Yes.
28:30
Evan: And I think what comes next, which is like the downfall of like 98% of films
28:36
Evan: that show any kind of revolution is they don't ever even pose the question of what happens.
28:41
Jeremy: What comes next. Yeah.
28:42
Evan: And so that I have to give.
28:44
Justin: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And which is ironic, I think, coming from a Trotsky.
28:47
Jeremy: Um the oof but.
28:50
Justin: The reality is that they like there he was right right i mean they they pushed
28:55
Justin: out the socialists ira the uh uh the irish republic's the shitty one right so
29:00
Justin: what's the free state right yeah.
29:02
Jeremy: Well yeah so the the free state was a temporary sort
29:05
Jeremy: of situation in between because for
29:09
Jeremy: for a period of time and it wasn't very long the
29:12
Jeremy: the republic of ireland was still a a
29:16
Jeremy: governant of the british empire they
29:20
Jeremy: were granted independence uh we'll
29:23
Jeremy: uh we'll reference back to the philippines episode where uh
29:27
Jeremy: i forget the dude's name but he called it hindependence like uh
29:30
Jeremy: hindi and tagalog is like the opposite of it's like a
29:32
Jeremy: prefix that means the opposite of they were granted hindependence and
29:36
Jeremy: at that point accepting the northern counties
29:39
Jeremy: the rest of ireland was quote unquote free of the british empire but for a brief
29:45
Jeremy: period of time there it was referred to as the irish free state which was like
29:49
Jeremy: the under the treaty they still were technically part of the british empire
29:53
Jeremy: but they governed themselves uh yeah anyway it.
29:57
Evan: Was like called dominion is that what the i think.
29:59
Jeremy: Yeah yeah they were under the dominion of the british empire um.
30:03
Justin: But yeah like what i was going to say is that britain is i mean to this day
30:08
Justin: right they control they still control them through their capital,
30:11
Justin: through the business owners, through,
30:13
Justin: the corporations all of it.
30:15
Jeremy: Yeah and they still have the northern counties they still hold them yeah people
30:21
Jeremy: maybe not for much longer yeah.
30:22
Evan: Well um we have what is it there's that that that scene from i don't know if
30:26
Evan: you both watch star trek but like the uh where he talks about the irish unification of 2025.
30:32
Jeremy: And so we've got we've got six months for everyone out there to to make.
30:37
Justin: That happen if.
30:38
Evan: Not then you know what.
30:39
Justin: I thought one of the like it was really important because there's like a couple
30:43
Justin: scenes that are like this but um where they're like we will never get this kind of energy again we.
30:49
Jeremy: Have to take advantage.
30:50
Justin: We have to keep pushing.
30:51
Jeremy: We can't.
30:51
Justin: Stop now and that's exactly what the fuck happens every time.
30:55
Jeremy: Yeah the the argument in front of sinade's farmhouse at the beginning when the
31:00
Jeremy: british soldiers leave and teddy is basically begging damien to stay and fight
31:07
Jeremy: That's an important argument,
31:09
Jeremy: even though Teddy flips later on in the movie.
31:13
Jeremy: Then the argument that happens in the courtroom is another vital scene where
31:20
Jeremy: you get these sort of opposing viewpoints butting heads.
31:24
Jeremy: And then again, when the treaty appears in front of them and they're arguing
31:28
Jeremy: about whether or not they should ratify the treaty, same thing.
31:34
Jeremy: It's important not to show these people as a unified, monolithic,
31:39
Jeremy: we want freedom for Ireland, whatever that means.
31:42
Jeremy: There are people with ideological viewpoints that have very different ideas
31:48
Jeremy: of what freedom looks like, and they come into conflict with one another.
31:53
Jeremy: That's also that scene that you were just talking about where he's like,
31:59
Jeremy: you know, whatever, we're this close.
32:01
Jeremy: We just need to push. We're an inch. So he says we're an inch from winning.
32:05
Jeremy: We just need to keep pushing. That's also the scene where Dan pulls out the
32:09
Jeremy: like sheet that he reads like a like section from some previous document.
32:15
Jeremy: But at the end, he says, if you move forward with this treaty, why?
32:20
Jeremy: The only thing that's going to change is the accents of the oppressors and the color of the flag.
32:26
Jeremy: And I'm like. Yeah.
32:29
Justin: So I thought just to draw like a just to draw like a link between and or and
32:35
Justin: this movie, I think that that both of them.
32:39
Justin: Because we, you know, we just got done with and or we did an episode that hasn't
32:44
Justin: been released yet about like just left media in general.
32:47
Justin: But the way that they depict revolution
32:51
Justin: the reality of revolution yes not the not
32:54
Justin: the hollywood ideal of quote-unquote revolution but
32:58
Justin: the reality of revolution being fucking brutal and
33:01
Justin: awful yeah tough and everyone's arguing and
33:04
Justin: everyone's coming from different viewpoints right like mon mothma
33:07
Justin: and uh what's the uh i
33:10
Justin: can't ever remember his name saw the lutheran saw
33:13
Justin: well yeah saw and uh the guy the guy that
33:16
Justin: kind of runs everything luthan um luthan yeah
33:18
Justin: they're all like different opposing viewpoints working together to
33:22
Justin: overthrow the empire it's it's the same kind of shit and every
33:24
Justin: people are dying and they're given these opportunities to
33:28
Justin: to like okay we can stop this right we can yeah we
33:31
Justin: can get a win but in in those moments
33:34
Justin: you can feel for like what i would call the liberals right
33:37
Justin: you can feel for them because their families have died they've
33:40
Justin: watched their friends die they've done terrible fucking things
33:43
Justin: they've gone through terrible fucking things they've had hired they they've
33:47
Justin: made you watch their fingernails getting pulled out for like three minutes right
33:51
Justin: um in an actual scene in this movie um and so you understand the desire to just
33:57
Justin: stop yeah but that has a cost like you've lost you've already lost at that point yeah.
34:02
Evan: Yeah there's that's a it's actually a good uh comparison to and or in that they're
34:07
Evan: both have They both talk about things that you don't normally see.
34:12
Evan: You know, some of my favorite parts of Andor are like the...
34:16
Evan: Could have just like the scenes where Andor and Bix are just kind of,
34:19
Evan: they're tired and they're just like have to go do mundane things.
34:22
Evan: Like you never see like the, that side of exhaustion.
34:27
Evan: I think you see it in this too, even, even in those court scenes,
34:29
Evan: even those in the, the, the jail scenes and all of those.
34:32
Evan: And the, the quote you were saying from Dan, the first part he reads,
34:36
Evan: I'll just, that he pulls out his little piece of paper.
34:38
Evan: Says the nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the nation,
34:43
Evan: but to all its material possessions, the nation's soil, all its resources,
34:47
Evan: all the wealth, all the wealth producing processes within the nation.
34:50
Evan: And so it's very clear what he wants for the nation. He wants everyone to,
34:55
Evan: you know, he wants collectivization.
34:58
Evan: He wants people to have- He wants nationalization. He wants nationalization of all these resources.
35:02
Evan: And yes, they have strong unions right now and the unions are willing to do
35:06
Evan: things but i think you have to go to be have been as successful to become a
35:10
Evan: socialist irish republic or whatever it would be you have to go.
35:13
Justin: Right further.
35:14
Evan: And people like teddy are willing to just take the bare minimum.
35:18
Justin: Right yeah yeah but they don't yeah but like they don't pose it in like a in
35:23
Justin: like a way that you can't understand where you're like all this motherfucker
35:26
Justin: right you're just like you get it he's not a bastard he's not evil right he
35:29
Justin: he's just he's tired he's.
35:31
Jeremy: Just tired of fighting yeah.
35:33
Justin: Yeah and there's this scene i don't know
35:36
Justin: if we want to get get there but um there's the
35:39
Justin: scene where he visits his brother in jail
35:41
Justin: like after like after they've signed the treaty after the uh now it's the people
35:47
Justin: with different accents oppressing the irish people yeah um and his he gets arrested
35:53
Justin: and he goes in there and he's like please like I will beg I will do anything
35:56
Justin: just please stop and he's like,
36:00
Justin: motherfucker. Like I killed a 12 year old for, for betraying us.
36:04
Justin: Would you, do you really think I would swallow it now?
36:06
Justin: It's like a, it's not like a, he doesn't say it in that way.
36:10
Justin: Right. It's more in like the way of like, I can't, right.
36:14
Justin: I can't live with myself if I do that. I would love to do that because I'm tired
36:18
Justin: and I'm scared and I don't want to die, but I can't.
36:22
Jeremy: Yeah. That's another aspect of this that I love because none of these people are like,
36:27
Jeremy: they don't depict any of this as like this is
36:30
Jeremy: fun and cool and good right like they show
36:33
Jeremy: after after the big massacre on the
36:35
Jeremy: road where they kill all the british soldiers and the trucks there's dudes
36:38
Jeremy: crying they don't they don't want to look at
36:41
Jeremy: the dead bodies they hate it when killian
36:44
Jeremy: murphy has to kill that kid and the landowner he
36:48
Jeremy: just like he's he just like he's barely alive
36:51
Jeremy: right like he's just stumbling he's like a zombie like falling
36:54
Jeremy: yeah falling almost falling down as he's walking
36:57
Jeremy: trying to get away from it um and
37:00
Jeremy: when he's because it does the the end of the
37:03
Jeremy: movie is uh more or less not quite the end
37:06
Jeremy: but almost at the very end uh damien is
37:10
Jeremy: executed uh and he is spoiler alert
37:13
Jeremy: the the bulk
37:15
Jeremy: of the movie is filmed in county cork but that particular scene is filmed in
37:20
Jeremy: the jail where james connelly was executed in the place i believe in exactly
37:25
Jeremy: the place where james connelly was executed which if you aren't familiar with
37:29
Jeremy: the story during the easter rising in 1916 uh.
37:34
Jeremy: Connelly had already been shot several times in combat and the British had to
37:40
Jeremy: tie him to a chair because he couldn't stand up.
37:43
Jeremy: He was going to die anyway, but they had to execute him.
37:47
Jeremy: They had to. They had to put him down, which, you know, if he died from his
37:54
Jeremy: combat wounds, I guess that would make him too heroic. But if he died in an execution, whatever.
37:59
Evan: They don't want him to be a martyr.
38:01
Jeremy: Correct. I mean, he's still a martyr, but like, yeah, but, but anyway,
38:05
Jeremy: that's, that's where that takes place.
38:06
Jeremy: But Killian Murphy is not like brave, like staring into the guns.
38:11
Jeremy: Like I'm going to die with honor.
38:13
Jeremy: He's, he's terrified. And he's like, he's.
38:15
Justin: He's like crying and he's like, yeah, he's having a panic attack.
38:19
Justin: He's hyperventilating.
38:20
Jeremy: Yeah and teddy his brother is is also crying like all of this sucks everything
38:25
Jeremy: about this sucks uh which also felt good you know not to depict it as like.
38:30
Evan: Glory whatever like glorified glorious.
38:33
Jeremy: Dead the glorious dead and all that shit.
38:35
Evan: And and one of the great things they do too especially
38:38
Evan: with all of the people right before they're going
38:42
Evan: to be executed like the 12 like the 12 year old kid or
38:45
Evan: he like they they ask everyone to basically write a letter
38:47
Evan: to give to their family afterwards words he was the only one i
38:50
Evan: think doesn't write a letter he just tells he couldn't read yeah
38:53
Evan: he couldn't read so he tells his mother just to you know like tell him where i'm buried and
38:56
Evan: another thing that also struck me is that after killian murphy
38:59
Evan: has to execute the landowner which again
39:03
Evan: we could also talk about like that's another threat of just like the traitorous
39:06
Evan: the trip the traitorous uh you know bourgeoisie in this that are still siding
39:12
Evan: with the british because they gained from it but after he kills the child and
39:15
Evan: he later sees his mother the mother like he takes him to where he's buried in
39:19
Evan: the church and then, you know, can't talk to him.
39:22
Evan: Like it, this, it not only divides the, like the sectarianism of it with,
39:27
Evan: you know, the socialists and the nationalists, it,
39:31
Evan: these small families in these small towns.
39:34
Justin: That just it's.
39:35
Evan: Like destroying lives across you know from the top to the bottom i guess.
39:40
Justin: Yeah well he says that he walked six miles with her she didn't say a word he
39:46
Justin: showed her where he was buried and she said i never want to see your face again
39:50
Justin: and at the end of the movie yes when teddy gives the necklace to um sinead she
39:58
Justin: doesn't say anything to him.
39:59
Justin: He gives the necklace to him and she says, I never want to see your face again.
40:03
Jeremy: Yeah.
40:04
Justin: I thought that was cool.
40:05
Jeremy: It's an echo.
40:06
Justin: I mean, it's sad.
40:06
Jeremy: Very sad.
40:07
Evan: The Sir John, who was like this traitor who essentially turned in.
40:11
Evan: And what's so sad about it?
40:13
Jeremy: So this is a lot of Ireland was under the control of what they referred to as
40:21
Jeremy: Anglo-Irish landowners, but they were primarily British.
40:25
Jeremy: They were primarily English families who had
40:28
Jeremy: been invited over at various times like
40:31
Jeremy: the the conquest of ireland took a long time it
40:33
Jeremy: was it began basically it's sort
40:36
Jeremy: of it's quite sad actually because it was
40:39
Jeremy: it was at the request of an a deposed irish king who was like i want my my property
40:46
Jeremy: back and so he invited some uh some anglo-norman mercenaries over and when he
40:54
Jeremy: did that it more or less opened the door to the conquest of Ireland.
40:59
Jeremy: And it was like, it's hard to talk about this as like the English were the ones
41:04
Jeremy: doing the invading because the Normans were not English.
41:07
Jeremy: And it was, a lot of Ireland was already under the control of the Norse.
41:13
Jeremy: So there was conflict amongst multiple groups, but it was this event which opened
41:18
Jeremy: the door for what eventually became the English conquest of Ireland.
41:22
Jeremy: It had more or less been, not entirely, but mostly conquered by about 1300.
41:31
Jeremy: And then it was almost completely, the power was completely consolidated by
41:36
Jeremy: the time of Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century.
41:40
Jeremy: So it was a process by which this happened. Yeah.
41:44
Jeremy: Every time this did happen, landowners from what what is now England and eventually
41:51
Jeremy: became England came over and took over sections of land.
41:56
Jeremy: And these landowners remained forever.
42:00
Jeremy: Basically, they they remained until, you know, and some of them still own that
42:05
Jeremy: land, which is insane. But most of them were were were kicked out.
42:10
Evan: Another reason why they needed to follow the socialist track and get rid of
42:15
Evan: these wealthy landowners who are exploiting them.
42:19
Evan: And, you know, you could argue like, okay, well, they're employing some of the
42:22
Evan: local Irish people, but Sir John gets the child killed because he threatened him.
42:31
Evan: Mean like you're a kid like it's it's tough to hold out against you know people
42:36
Evan: torturing you and threatening you probably threatening his family and so he
42:40
Evan: ends up dying for it and it's uh as you said like it's fucking bleak yeah.
42:44
Justin: And and again like they don't try to glorify it like they fucking hate it they
42:48
Justin: don't want to do it right but like at the same time they can't risk people not
42:52
Justin: being scared of selling out the ira right they need that.
42:55
Evan: Yeah the the uh what was the other thing i was gonna bring up
42:58
Evan: about the the it's like one of
43:00
Evan: like the things in general like obviously there was the kind of the nationalist
43:04
Evan: versus socialist but it's also just like you could i
43:07
Evan: don't even think we use this term or maybe it just sort of like the infighting once
43:11
Evan: the treaty is signed and you know there's this
43:14
Evan: there's a scene in the church where they're the like the
43:17
Evan: the church is on the side of of course the the wealthy and catholic priest yeah
43:21
Evan: like he called it like damien calls it out saying of course you're you know
43:24
Evan: with the exception with very few exceptions you're always going to side with
43:26
Evan: the rich and it's just like all of these things that they get excommunicated
43:31
Evan: yeah they get excommunicated and you know it's uh it's just the what's the,
43:36
Evan: There was another quote that I was thinking of. I think it's where Damien might
43:40
Evan: have said to Teddy something about, like, putting himself in the,
43:43
Evan: like, wrapping himself in the flag of Britain for, you know, what they're doing.
43:48
Jeremy: Oh, yes. He says you've wrapped yourself in the Union Jack.
43:53
Evan: Yes.
43:54
Jeremy: The butcher's apron, he calls it. The butcher's apron.
43:56
Justin: Yeah. Yep.
43:57
Evan: Yeah. It's great. Like it's, it's very like they, they like love each other,
44:02
Evan: but at the same time, they are still going to fight to the end for kind of what their beliefs are.
44:09
Evan: And you have to kill each other. Yeah. Kill each other over.
44:12
Evan: And it's, uh, it's commendable. I don't know.
44:15
Justin: Um, it's sad, but it's real.
44:17
Evan: Yeah. Yeah.
44:18
Justin: That is the price that you pay. And if you're going to be a revolutionary,
44:20
Justin: you need to know the price that you're going to pay.
44:23
Justin: Yeah. Another, you know, that's one of the things I kind of walked away from
44:26
Justin: the movie with is just this, like, You know, as revolutionaries,
44:30
Justin: we carry with us, behind us, every Lenin, every Connolly, every Mao, every Stalin,
44:39
Justin: every Che, every Fidel, every Sankara,
44:44
Justin: every Kollontai, right?
44:48
Justin: All of these people are behind us.
44:51
Justin: It's the legacy of revolution and the sacrifices that they made and the hard
44:57
Justin: decisions that they paid paved the way for us.
45:01
Justin: And so, I don't know, there's just this kind of moment of like,
45:04
Justin: this is our struggle also, even though we don't know anybody there,
45:08
Justin: we don't know anybody that fought in it, you know what I mean?
45:11
Justin: But we are bonded, yeah.
45:15
Evan: Well, this is another thing that I was maybe slightly hesitant to bring it up,
45:22
Evan: but one of the things that follows with the socialism versus nationalism kind of track,
45:29
Evan: and I've seen this argument before, and as I was trying to find articles about this,
45:35
Evan: people writing about this film and talking about whether, can it be a true revolutionary
45:40
Evan: group or revolution if they're not, they don't have a socialist,
45:47
Evan: mindset or that's the end goal.
45:49
Evan: And so people are arguing, oh, well, the Palestinians aren't socialists,
45:52
Evan: so why should we support them as their independence? And I...
45:57
Evan: I guess gets back to like the socialism versus nationalism. And I think as,
46:01
Evan: you know, communists, you support any movement that's seeking to decolonize
46:08
Evan: or fight against imperialism, fight against this oppression of a colonizer.
46:12
Evan: And then it's sort of like the aftermath that you have to figure out these,
46:16
Evan: you know, what's the, what's the next step in it? So I don't know.
46:20
Justin: And there, so I think this is actually like an interesting question because
46:25
Justin: we can actually draw a parallel to how the ideology needs to exist,
46:32
Justin: but doesn't matter when it comes to decolonization,
46:35
Justin: national liberation movements.
46:37
Justin: I mean, I think that something that a lot of people don't understand about Palestine
46:43
Justin: is that the state of Israel probably never would have existed if it wasn't for socialists,
46:52
Justin: Zionist socialists, paving the way for the state of Israel.
46:56
Justin: So in the 20s and especially in the 30s, there were this large group of Jewish
47:03
Justin: socialists that started collecting money and purchasing land in Palestine from
47:08
Justin: rich landowners that owned the land.
47:11
Justin: And then, once they had that land, they would evict the Palestinians that were
47:18
Justin: on that land, that were, like, working as land tenants.
47:21
Justin: And they created—over the years, they perfected this system of going in,
47:28
Justin: setting up, asking them to leave, offering them, like, whatever,
47:33
Justin: money or whatever if they leave.
47:35
Justin: If they don't take it, going in at night, building fences around their territory.
47:40
Justin: Building towers, and then in the morning, surprise, you don't have land anymore.
47:45
Justin: And these were socialist movements, right?
47:47
Justin: And again, I think it kind of paints in a new light the way that we look at
47:51
Justin: like the Soviet Union's policy against Zionism in the 30s and 40s.
47:57
Justin: It makes a lot of sense from this perspective.
48:01
Justin: And so there was already this blueprint and basis of people in Palestine when
48:09
Justin: the state of Israel was formed.
48:11
Justin: All they did was switch it to a quote unquote legalized version.
48:15
Justin: And I just think that like that's kind of what I mean.
48:18
Justin: Like you could put socialism on anything. You need both. You need decolonialism.
48:24
Justin: You need national liberation.
48:26
Justin: You need rights for indigenous folks. Then you need socialism.
48:31
Jeremy: Yeah, because the primary contradiction is imperialism.
48:36
Jeremy: And if your quote unquote socialism is in favor of imperialism,
48:42
Jeremy: that makes it fucking useless.
48:44
Jeremy: And if your anti-imperialist movement is not socialist, that still makes it valuable.
48:51
Jeremy: Um you the the important part
48:54
Jeremy: is to defeat imperialism because we cannot have worldwide socialism until we
49:00
Jeremy: do it will not happen it's not possible to defeat capitalism so long as imperialism
49:05
Jeremy: is the dominant sort of uh means of governance globally it's it's uh so the
49:12
Jeremy: more we can weaken it the better.
49:13
Evan: Yeah as uh you know as the as the famous uh book
49:16
Evan: imperialism is the highest form of capitalism so
49:19
Evan: yeah you can't you can't you if you have one
49:22
Evan: you you have both it's all uh yeah you know
49:25
Evan: it's not you can't separate the two from each other and to like
49:28
Evan: also on that part about the like israel and the socialist movement i mean that's
49:32
Evan: essentially what like the kibbutz system was which i think is what you're kind
49:37
Evan: of referring to i'm talking about these are still still to this day people view
49:42
Evan: those communities as like a socialist community And having personally,
49:46
Evan: I think I've done an episode a long time ago with another podcast that doesn't exist anymore,
49:51
Evan: we talked about my personal experience of living on a kibbutz in 2000 in Israel
49:59
Evan: and just looking back on the way that those...
50:03
Evan: The people on those kibbutzes don't probably view what they're doing as colonial. Obviously, they don't.
50:10
Justin: No, they didn't.
50:12
Evan: Then or now, it's just like the idea is like, oh, well, we just have this community.
50:15
Evan: Just leave us alone kind of thing.
50:16
Justin: We bought this land. Yeah.
50:18
Evan: We paid for it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We paid for it. I mean, just like what the U.S.
50:21
Evan: Paid for, what, Hawaii and Alaska or whatever.
50:24
Evan: Because you bought it doesn't mean it's yours in a sense.
50:28
Justin: Yeah.
50:28
Evan: But no, I maybe wasn't hesitant to bring that up.
50:31
Evan: But I think I see that unfortunate argument coming from in the same argument
50:35
Evan: of like, oh, how could you support, you know, Palestine, Palestine,
50:39
Evan: if you are, you know, LGBT community like these kind of these,
50:44
Evan: you know, pinkwashing and other arguments.
50:46
Justin: Yeah, he's got to arguments.
50:47
Evan: Yeah, that does kind of all fall into this. But yeah, I think.
50:51
Evan: Yeah. Oh, and this is one other line that I wanted to bring up that kind of
50:55
Evan: relates to a lot of again, like the infighting is I think.
50:58
Evan: That i think that it was dan who said
51:01
Evan: it although maybe it was damian he to teddy he
51:04
Evan: says i'm not a dreamer i'm a realist and i think it's this idea that many people
51:09
Evan: have that they see socialism as you know idealist and it's idealism when it
51:15
Evan: couldn't be more the opposite that liberalism is idealism and reactionary and
51:20
Evan: obviously as materialists we understand that.
51:23
Justin: Yes yeah that And it's funny that you said that because it kind of ties into
51:27
Justin: what I was about to say, which is that people act like there's this big ambiguity
51:33
Justin: or obscure concept of how...
51:39
Justin: To orient yourself in world
51:42
Justin: and in the world and in revolutions but there's
51:45
Justin: not like there's there is a there's a path and
51:49
Justin: it's not a fun path and it's not a happy path but
51:52
Justin: it's a realistic path of how revolutions should go
51:56
Justin: and like that's kind of what you know what we're talking about yeah like obviously
52:00
Justin: there's plenty of reactionary uh belief systems in a lot of uh hyper-religious
52:07
Justin: communities in all across the world, but certainly in Palestine. Right.
52:13
Justin: And that sucks. But we have to take step one before we take step five.
52:18
Jeremy: Yeah.
52:19
Justin: And if you take step five before you take step one, you're never going to get anywhere.
52:24
Justin: Then you just like hand it over to the capitalists and that's it.
52:29
Jeremy: Yeah. When liberals say that socialists are idealist and they mean it in the
52:34
Jeremy: sense of Not like idealism versus materialism, but you are focused on your ideals and not reality,
52:42
Jeremy: the world around you that actually exists.
52:45
Jeremy: But what is going on underneath that is that they believe, which is insane and also in my mind,
52:54
Jeremy: the absolutely idealist in both senses, that they think they can change the
53:00
Jeremy: system from within the system.
53:01
Jeremy: And what they mean is it's very very hard to do a revolution that's what makes
53:08
Jeremy: us idealists but the reality is that that's the only way things change you cannot
53:13
Jeremy: without incredible violence take power away from people who have a lot of it and it sucks but.
53:20
Justin: That's why I think media like Andor, like this movie, The Wind That Shakes the
53:26
Justin: Barley, are so important because it's important for us to know what we're getting
53:30
Justin: ourselves into, that we're not just talking about it.
53:33
Justin: We understand the consequences of what we're saying.
53:36
Jeremy: Right.
53:36
Evan: It honestly makes it all the more insane that Andor exists.
53:41
Justin: I am shocked, honestly.
53:43
Evan: I think about this all the time, you know, that they made the first season.
53:48
Evan: And the other i think i just saw i read a lot
53:51
Evan: about andor i've done multiple episodes on it and
53:54
Evan: the the like they gave uh
53:57
Evan: gilroy 650 million dollars to make
54:00
Evan: andor and they basically said the only note he got was he couldn't use the f
54:04
Evan: word at the end of season one and other than that he could basically do whatever
54:08
Evan: he wanted it was supposed the marvel was supposed to say fuck the empire and
54:12
Evan: they've recorded that and then they made it re-dub over saying fight the empire
54:16
Evan: but But if you watch her mouth during that scene, it definitely says fuck.
54:19
Jeremy: She says fuck to the Empire. Amazing.
54:21
Justin: Nice.
54:21
Evan: And other than that, they just let him do it. And it's just,
54:24
Evan: it's shocking. Like, I can't believe that the Disney banner is on it.
54:27
Justin: We actually talked about it briefly. I think the only reason they were able
54:32
Justin: to pull it off is because it's the Empire and the Rebellion and X-Wings and
54:37
Justin: U-Wings and Aliens and, right? Right.
54:40
Justin: And so it's so divorced from what we live the day to day that people can watch
54:46
Justin: it and not really pick up on.
54:47
Jeremy: And the other thing is that they are very vague about what the rebellion wants.
54:55
Jeremy: They do not come out and explicitly sort of say, here's what we want after the revolution happens.
55:02
Jeremy: They're very like freedom and anti-oppression, but what does that mean and what
55:07
Jeremy: do we want after the rebellion wins? What do we get out of that?
55:13
Jeremy: And I think those are the two things. I think Andor is much more...
55:17
Jeremy: Like a blueprint of how to do a revolution rather than uh explicitly like socialist
55:25
Jeremy: in any way shape or form you know what i mean.
55:27
Evan: That's that's true that the old that actually
55:29
Evan: reminds me of one of my favorite lines or one of
55:32
Evan: many favorite lines in and or i think it's uh clay and and or
55:35
Evan: like arguing about something i won't this won't be any spoilers
55:38
Evan: who hasn't seen and or and he says you know like it was so
55:41
Evan: great yeah and oh she's the best the best character uh or close to it but i
55:45
Evan: think they're arguing and he's and or says something to the effect of like i
55:48
Evan: want to start doing you know what i want to do and she basically says like isn't
55:52
Evan: that why we're doing this so you can do that and it's it's yes it's such a great line because it.
55:58
Justin: Was it was huge yeah i loved it.
56:00
Evan: You in in the same thing where
56:03
Evan: you kind of see bringing it back to when the shakes of barley is
56:06
Evan: teddy and dan and the socialists arguing
56:09
Evan: is yes we can we can stop
56:12
Evan: now we could have our our revolution we could have this treaty we're still going
56:16
Evan: to be under the yoke of them but what we what you want teddy what you really
56:20
Evan: deep down want is ultimate complete freedom but you're willing to accept the
56:24
Evan: the the the simple version of that you're not willing to go the extra right ancient yeah.
56:30
Justin: You could almost rephrase it with like um all i want is for people to stop dying
56:36
Justin: yes that's what we all want that's why we want the revolution so people stop
56:40
Justin: dying It's this weird kind of dichotomy of like,
56:43
Justin: you're not free until you have bound yourself so tightly that you have created
56:51
Justin: this system that frees you.
56:53
Justin: You cannot stop the death until you have...
56:59
Justin: Die like until a bunch of people have died right it's just a thing that is is
57:03
Justin: part of the process the contradiction of the movement.
57:05
Evan: Yeah like and the the same like the what is it the line like
57:08
Evan: you know um we're not free till all of us are
57:11
Evan: free in the sense that yes they could have this treaty but there's still going
57:15
Evan: to be that woman who can't buy groceries she's not really free like the kid
57:19
Evan: that killian murphy has to go see because he's sick he's like starved right
57:23
Evan: and they have no money they have no food they have nothing and so what's what's
57:27
Evan: it going to solve when you know the is.
57:29
Justin: Yeah is he happy that he can fly an irish flag you know yeah yeah.
57:33
Evan: It doesn't doesn't give him anything yeah.
57:35
Jeremy: And that's uh you know another scene that sort of hits that
57:38
Jeremy: home sort of more directly is that at
57:41
Jeremy: sinade's family farmhouse the
57:45
Jeremy: british army visits twice and then the irish free state army visits a third
57:51
Jeremy: time to try to take out the rebels and they they do the same shit that the british
57:55
Jeremy: did they bust down the door yeah they go looking for guns they they abuse the
57:59
Jeremy: people that are there um because they are the same.
58:03
Evan: Well i wrote i think that my like last note sort
58:06
Evan: of the section which is actually perfect timing is i wrote this kind of like the circle
58:09
Evan: of violence you have the irish army doing the same thing i think there's a moment
58:13
Evan: where they talked about the tans and their shootout how they're sort of just
58:17
Evan: their savagery of the British and they then it's shown when they basically scalp
58:24
Evan: Sinead in that scene after which is really hard to watch,
58:28
Evan: and then you see you don't see necessarily the.
58:32
Justin: They use sheep shears.
58:34
Evan: Oh that's right horrible but then the Irish are maybe not doing the same level
58:39
Evan: of violence but they kill they kill Damien I mean that's The circle,
58:45
Evan: that's the, just, yeah, it's, um.
58:48
Jeremy: Yeah. I think they refer to them as the green and tans at one point.
58:52
Evan: Yeah.
58:52
Jeremy: Instead of the black and tans. Yeah.
58:54
Evan: I never realized they called that the black and tan. And I guess that's the,
58:57
Evan: like the famous drink, the, you know, Irish, uh, lager and like a Guinness or whatever.
59:02
Evan: And you never have one of those again. Now that I sort of associate that with
59:05
Evan: my head, my head, not that I've had one anytime recently, but like,
59:09
Evan: you know, when I've been to England, you're like, oh yeah, a black and tan.
59:11
Evan: Like, I don't know about that.
59:14
Evan: Is it just like an imperialist drink?
59:15
Jeremy: Come out ye black and tans is a banger, as always. I don't know if you've heard the song.
59:20
Evan: I don't know if I have.
59:21
Justin: You haven't?
59:22
Jeremy: No? Really? Banger.
59:23
Justin: I don't think so. Okay.
59:24
Evan: That's one other thing in this that we didn't even mention is the music in this
59:28
Evan: is sort of like not heavily overused.
59:31
Evan: It's sort of just, it's always very somber in the background.
59:35
Jeremy: And it's part of the scene.
59:36
Justin: There's almost no music in it at all.
59:37
Jeremy: Yeah. It's part of the scene that's going on. So like at the funeral for Mahal.
59:42
Jeremy: Uh, the, the Sinead's brother who gets killed at the beginning of the movie,
59:46
Jeremy: uh, at his funeral, that's where they sing the song, the wind that shakes the
59:50
Jeremy: barley, the line comes from that.
59:51
Jeremy: Um, and then later this, the, uh,
59:55
Jeremy: the IRA soldiers are marching down the road and they sing, uh,
1:00:00
Jeremy: again, like a song from the 1798 uprising, the Jacobite uprising, um,
1:00:06
Jeremy: which the lyrics to that song was changed by an Irish nationalist who was killed
1:00:12
Jeremy: or imprisoned at the same jail where Connolly was killed and where,
1:00:15
Jeremy: um, Damien ends up being killed.
1:00:17
Jeremy: But that's, again, those are the only times that music really appear is sort
1:00:21
Jeremy: of somebody is singing in the movie.
1:00:24
Evan: Right.
1:00:24
Justin: There was also the piano player during the news reel, which one of the coolest
1:00:29
Justin: parts of the movie for me was that there obviously is silent films.
1:00:34
Justin: So anything that comes up on the screen, the people that can read would yell
1:00:39
Justin: it out because a lot of the people in the theater can't read.
1:00:42
Jeremy: Yeah.
1:00:43
Justin: And I thought that that was a really cool thing that they didn't have to do.
1:00:46
Jeremy: Mm-hmm.
1:00:47
Evan: Yeah.
1:00:47
Jeremy: Yeah.
1:00:48
Evan: I thought you're the other moment. I think where they sing too,
1:00:51
Evan: is when they're arrested the very first time and they meet Dan in the prison.
1:00:53
Evan: I think they start singing while Teddy is being tortured. Like they start singing out loud.
1:00:58
Justin: Yeah. They do.
1:00:59
Evan: Yeah.
1:00:59
Jeremy: Yeah.
1:01:00
Evan: Yeah. It's like all of the moments of the, of the song it's,
1:01:03
Evan: it's more like the music is meant to be like both joyous, but also,
1:01:08
Evan: you know, in these, like the two opposite ends of like the joyous singing and
1:01:11
Evan: then just someone has died and now we're singing for their, for their death or like as we mourn them.
1:01:17
Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. So there's a there's like a cultural concept in Korea that's known
1:01:24
Jeremy: as Han, which is it's more or less like a cultural sadness.
1:01:29
Jeremy: And it is born out of like having been colonized.
1:01:34
Jeremy: Over and over and over and having your nation split in half.
1:01:40
Jeremy: Uh, and so it's like, you are distant from your family. You can't go and visit them anymore.
1:01:46
Jeremy: Like it, it is this, like, basically it's all, it's almost like it's a,
1:01:52
Jeremy: it is a cultural sadness born out of imperialism.
1:01:56
Jeremy: And I feel like Ireland has that, right? Like there's a, there's an element of that.
1:02:02
Jeremy: Like ireland has its own kind of han um like
1:02:05
Jeremy: i feel like it's the only nation really that might be like that in the world
1:02:09
Jeremy: where you just have hundreds and hundreds of years of colonization and you are
1:02:14
Jeremy: still divided um you know it's a little bit different now as you can travel
1:02:18
Jeremy: freely across the border but still it's it's like uh i don't know it's fucked.
1:02:24
Evan: Yeah so for anyone listening and you
1:02:27
Evan: uh watch this movie don't expect it to
1:02:30
Evan: be as we said at the outset it's not a it's not
1:02:33
Evan: a heartfelt uplifting not a rah rah
1:02:36
Evan: rah movie yeah it's not like uh it's not a revolutionary film
1:02:39
Evan: that's gonna you know maybe fill you with
1:02:42
Evan: uh you know happiness and glee it's uh it begins and ends just like true truly
1:02:48
Evan: just you know the cycle of violence the the murder at the hands of the british
1:02:52
Evan: and then the murder at the hands of the irish you know uh aren't uh the army
1:02:57
Evan: what do they call it the what's the irish forces at the end that teddy's part of like you know what oh.
1:03:01
Jeremy: I forget they what they call them the regulars i think or.
1:03:04
Evan: Oh yeah that may be it yeah but yeah it's um,
1:03:08
Evan: it's a it's a tough one but i'm glad that i am glad you uh both uh or glad that
1:03:13
Evan: you jeremy had chosen this film to talk about made this watch this because it's
1:03:17
Evan: it's uh it's like definitely an important film more than more now than maybe
1:03:21
Evan: well than maybe ever in fact so i'm glad uh i don't know if you either you had
1:03:26
Evan: any last last thoughts on it,
1:03:28
Evan: Anything we missed?
1:03:29
Justin: I was, yeah, I mean, just, you can watch it for free, but, like,
1:03:32
Justin: it's on Plex, and you have to sit through, like, three minutes of commercials
1:03:36
Justin: every 15 minutes, and I just wanted to stab my own eyeballs out.
1:03:41
Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah, if you could find it cheap to purchase somewhere, maybe just do that.
1:03:46
Justin: Or if you have, like, there's, like, different streaming services.
1:03:49
Jeremy: I think it's on AMC.
1:03:50
Justin: Like, AMC Plus. Like, AMC Plus, yeah. Yeah, but I don't have that one.
1:03:52
Evan: Yeah, I didn't have that one either. I acquired it through other means.
1:03:56
Justin: Secret means on the high seas yes yes
1:04:01
Justin: yeah um no i like i said i i think that
1:04:04
Justin: um just you know as revolutionaries it
1:04:08
Justin: is important for us to find the joy the camaraderie the rah rah rah we need
1:04:14
Justin: that to keep us going the community that keeps us together it's important for
1:04:17
Justin: us to um keep our eyes open when black people are being suffocated by cops or
1:04:24
Justin: when Israel is doing a genocide in Palestine day after day.
1:04:28
Justin: It's important for us to keep our eyes open and watch those things and feel
1:04:31
Justin: that pain so that we know what we're fighting for.
1:04:34
Justin: But it is also important for us to understand the consequences of what it is
1:04:39
Justin: that we want for the world and so that we can have a sober, clear eyed view moving forward.
1:04:45
Jeremy: Yeah, we it's you got to bear witness and you have to you have to gird your loins.
1:04:50
Jeremy: I think also don't don't jump into this being like, yeah,
1:04:56
Jeremy: I'm going to kill a bunch of imperialists like you need to you've got to get
1:05:00
Jeremy: the people on your side first or you're just doing adventurism and they will turn against you.
1:05:05
Jeremy: So before any of that happens, please go talk to your neighbors.
1:05:10
Jeremy: Please go talk to the people you work with. You need to bring them on side first
1:05:16
Jeremy: before any of this will be possible.
1:05:21
Jeremy: And also Free Palestine.
1:05:23
Evan: Excellent point. And I guess before we depart, I think I mentioned in the beginning
1:05:25
Evan: you all have your own podcast, PearlsPod, but I did not or forgot to ask you
1:05:29
Evan: to tell people about it, maybe what you are coming up.
1:05:33
Evan: You did mention you have an episode coming up on leftist kind of media,
1:05:39
Evan: but I'll let you describe it.
1:05:41
Justin: Jeremy?
1:05:43
Jeremy: Do you know when this episode will go up?
1:05:45
Evan: Probably in two-ish weeks, maybe three.
1:05:49
Jeremy: Okay. So the newest episode, which will probably go up, but it'll go up a week
1:05:55
Jeremy: before, would be we interviewed a Brandon who is currently getting his PhD in,
1:06:04
Jeremy: I believe, in history.
1:06:05
Jeremy: But he wrote it on sort of his family's relationship to the guerrilla struggles
1:06:13
Jeremy: in Guatemala in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
1:06:17
Jeremy: And also, you know, not just his family, but others.
1:06:20
Jeremy: So that episode focuses on the sort of left-wing guerrilla movements in Guatemala
1:06:27
Jeremy: during that period. After that,
1:06:30
Jeremy: we're doing a theory episode on Reformer Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg.
1:06:35
Jeremy: And then i believe is the the left media sort of um the anti-capitalist media
1:06:43
Jeremy: we got two episodes on that one that focuses on science fiction and one that
1:06:47
Jeremy: focuses on like quote-unquote real world kind of um conversations about capitalism.
1:06:53
Justin: And yeah and in it we kind of discuss more
1:06:57
Justin: than we discuss the films or movies or shows themselves it's uh more about like
1:07:03
Justin: the strengths and limits of media and like how does that where does that line
1:07:10
Justin: draw and how far can it go is it good is it bad at what point is like you know
1:07:14
Justin: whatever so that's kind of what we discuss no.
1:07:16
Evan: That's a that's the very i'm very interested in that as as someone who is uh
1:07:20
Evan: actively doing you know films obviously in TV shows, it's like there's pros
1:07:26
Evan: and cons, I guess you could say, of,
1:07:29
Evan: as easy as it would be to say, but...
1:07:31
Justin: We should have had you on.
1:07:32
Evan: That's okay.
1:07:33
Jeremy: Yeah, we should have.
1:07:35
Evan: But no, but Jeremy and Justin, appreciate you coming on and finally making this
1:07:39
Evan: happen and talking about the wind that shakes the Bartlett.
1:07:43
Justin: It's a long way from WALL-E, which is what we were originally going to do.
1:07:48
Jeremy: That is what we were originally going to do. We talked about this literally
1:07:51
Jeremy: a year ago, and then we got busy with the,
1:07:54
Jeremy: Stalin series, which nearly killed us.
1:07:57
Evan: Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know how you all did it because...
1:08:00
Jeremy: Not well.
1:08:01
Evan: We were dying.
1:08:03
Justin: Crawling to the finish line.
1:08:05
Jeremy: Yes, it was... We were... That's the most tension we've ever had.
1:08:09
Jeremy: That's the most stressed I've ever been.
1:08:13
Jeremy: Not in my entire life, but as far as related to this podcast,
1:08:17
Jeremy: insane amount of research and editing. and oh my god i i don't know how we did it.
1:08:24
Evan: But we're.
1:08:25
Jeremy: Done we did the damn thing.
1:08:26
Evan: Yeah listeners you should definitely go listen to that full series on stalin
1:08:31
Evan: eras which i think is it nine episodes ten geez.
1:08:36
Jeremy: It so there's the intro the intro which was just by itself and then one two three and four each had.
1:08:44
Evan: Two parts.
1:08:45
Jeremy: Except three which had which had two which had three parts.
1:08:49
Evan: Okay so maybe it's 10 and.
1:08:52
Jeremy: Then we had then we had the the conclusions of the controversies episode yeah
1:08:57
Jeremy: uh episodes which yeah so there's like i think 11 episodes.
1:09:01
Evan: Okay i think or 12 you can all listeners can listeners can strap in over 20
1:09:06
Evan: hours listen yeah strap in you know if you're going on a long flight if you're
1:09:10
Evan: flying to to china for example and you've got a 16 hours,
1:09:15
Evan: you're.
1:09:16
Justin: Going to be an expert on the other.
1:09:17
Evan: End yeah yeah yeah right exactly you get to the other end and you're going to
1:09:19
Evan: be speaking uh speaking russian or yeah.
1:09:22
Justin: I believe the saying is a thousand hours and you become an expert i'm i think
1:09:26
Justin: we are now stalin experts.
1:09:27
Evan: Yes but uh yeah so let's listeners can go check out pearls pod and uh listen
1:09:35
Evan: wherever you get your podcast and we will catch you next time bye.