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Behind The Film: The Only Living Pickpocket in New York with Noah Segan · Indie Film Weekly

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Indie Film Weekly.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Behind the Film, I'm Glenn Reynolds.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Jason Connell.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: Today we're going behind the only living pickpocket in New York, starring John Taturo as Harry Lehman, an aging pickpocket struggling to survive in a city that's left his old school skills behind.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: When he steals from the wrong person, Harry finds himself racing across New York's five boroughs to recover something far more valuable than he realized, with his life and the safety of his family on the line.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: The film also stars Steve Bushimi, John Carlo Esposito, and Tatiana Maslani, and is written and directed by Noah Seegan.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I loved how much affection this film has for Harry and a New York that's disappearing.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Taturo makes a man who steals for a living funny, resourceful, and deeply moving, especially when we see what he's willing to do for his invalid wife, Rosie.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole thing has that wonderful old school New York movie feeling.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: So let's meet Noah Seegan and go behind the only living pickpocket in New York.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, Noah, welcome.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Happy to be here.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love this movie.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: You take a guy who spent his entire life stealing from people, make him incredibly likable, and then slowly reveal that he's not nearly as good a man as we want him to be.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow by the end, we're rooting for him more than ever.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: How did you come up with Harry?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And how did you figure out how to make us love a guy we probably shouldn't?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that very much.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: As fun as it is to think about genre and think about the city that you love, and even the schemes and machinations of your story, it all has to start with a character.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what people respond to in a movie.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, you're a person and you're watching people and you're just trying to connect.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it started with Harry and wanting to talk about a guy who is sort of caught between two worlds, who is uh, you know, trying to or or maybe forced to reconcile choices that he has made.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Someone who maybe spent a long time being selfish and no longer being selfish.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And these are sort of big concepts, but I think hopefully it's you know, you start with these big concepts that most people can maybe appreciate or connect with, sympathize with, maybe empathize with.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then you start having the fun part of telling your story and you know, saying, Well, he's a criminal, he's not just some guy who works in an office or you know, he's in New York.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's not just in some random town, you know, you get to make it fun.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then the secret, and it's not so much of a secret, guys, because I think we all kind of know this, is you get John Taturko.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: Can't go wrong there.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: That is for sure.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: Go.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: Which is another question for us, like how you got him.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm really big on film comps, and I see this immediately and the grittiness.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: It just like marathon man, uncut gems, it just has this like other side to the city.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: What was an inspiration for you?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Were those movies or others?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: You're a New York guy, this is kind of your hometown.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: I'm assuming it's your hometown, but you know, like what inspired you?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: It would be very awkward if I made this movie and I did not I I I didn't hail from from New York.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Although I guess a lot of great New York movies have been made by non-New Yorkers.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we don't judge, we only judge on authenticity and sincerity.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of the movies that I looked at, you know, obviously you can't not look at Lumet, you can't not look at Abel, obviously the ultimate spike.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: But then there are movies that are not New York movies, like Friends of Eddie Coyle, you know, especially because of Mitchum's performance.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's a Boston movie.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: It pains me to say that as a New Yorker.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um Mikey and Nikki, which thankfully is is really been recognized the last few years as the masterpiece that it is, a Philly movie, uh funny enough.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh so there was that, and then and then, you know, uh as much as the 70s were an influence, the 80s and the 90s, you know, Jonathan Demi, Hal Hartley, with Stillman, Nicole Holliff Center.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's a through line, I think, from some of those 70s kind of hard-boiled crime movies, all the way through something like Enough Said.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I love that he's skilled at just going talking about Harry for a second.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love how skilled he is at reading strangers, but he's so bad at with his own family.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Was that contradiction from the beginning of your writing process?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Was that like the core?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've spent a lot of time around actors.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: I spent a lot of time being an actor.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, great actors are often very bad liars because there is this yearning for the truth.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And even if the thing you are saying is not true, you have to find sort of sincerity within it.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: In a way, Harry, and you know, you hear about it as well, you know, even just people who are workaholics who say, you know, oh, well, I spend all my time at the office working and trying to make ends meet, and I miss my kids growing up.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you think that's a dichotomy, again, a lot of people I think can identify with.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so to just say, well, okay, how does that work in a, I don't know, in a crime movie?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: How does that work in a genre film?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I think, again, you know, that's sort of there's a challenge there, but again, you're really trying to sort of find the, I don't know, the the heart.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I know I mentioned this earlier really quickly, but how did you get John Taturo?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: And was he always in your mind, like, I gotta get John Taturo and even Steve Bushimi in this, but how did that come about?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: I wish that I could, what's the word, be a real big swinging guy and say, you know, oh yeah, John, I always knew John Taturo.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, you think to yourself, you're like, okay, I'm gonna make this little movie, and you think, you know, what I really need is a John Taturo type.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: Type, yeah.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: I really, and there is no John Taturo type.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just you and your brain going, in my dreams, John Taturo wants to be in this movie, right?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: You try to put the movie together, and then at some point they say, Well, you know, let's send the script to John.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you think, okay, this is, you know, we'll never hear back from him.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's so busy and he's working with Spike and Joel and Ethan, and you know, and doing all of his, all of his stuff.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um, he read it, and his very longtime agent, who is now my agent, Christina, read it and said, Let's have a meal together and talk about it.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you can believe I pooped some bricks.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I can imagine what that meal was like.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: John likes to John likes to say, he likes to say it was Albert Finney who told him, and he said, apparently, Albert Finney taught John that if you really want to get to the bottom of a meeting with a filmmaker, you have a meal with him.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you really eat, you don't have a glass of water and a cracker, you eat, and we ate, we ate Italian food, and we talked, and uh nice, it was a good first date.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: That is awesome.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's an early exchange between him and Bishemi's character Ben about watches and online selling, and it's so funny.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: That friendship part of the script, or did you find that in there between the actors?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was curious if that was always there.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: The relationships, you know, I were very much what I had envisioned, you know, which, yeah, you're talking about a thief and his fence and a cop and a robber and all this stuff, but these are relationships that I want to have with the people that I've known for most of my life.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: You want to have that camaraderie with somebody.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wrote them and then, you know, in talking to John, his bench of people who love him is so deep.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the people that he has worked with and that he has a relationship with, you know, he and Steve were neighbors for many years.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Giancarlo and he, you know, have known each other for 40 years.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these people, their kids grew up together.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: When it sort of came time to put that cast together, that's what you're looking for.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: So why not ask for?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, it's sort of like the silly thing, you know, you ask for, what are they gonna do?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Say no?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know how many times everybody says no to me?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sure, you get used to no, it's indie movies.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then occasionally you get a yes.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, who do you like?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because it really is the only way you can make a movie like this is through collaboration and asking people what they want to do.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: So was John a natural pickpocketer, or is that something you guys had to work on?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I had done a lot of very academic research, of which there is quite a bit.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing modern, you know, a lot of stuff from the 19th century through sort of the middle of the 20th century, and then it sort of falls off.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: John found a brilliant living human named Apollo Robbins, who is a pickpocket, but a magician by trade.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, sort of has the skill set of the pickpocket, but puts it into effect as a very skilled magician.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he and Apollo work together, and he Apollo gave him a lot of homework and gave him a lot of techniques.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And thankfully, John is such an incredibly physical presence.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: He loves to dance, he loves to move, he puts his whole self into his work that when it came time for him to master his techniques, I think he found a lot of joy in that.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, very convincing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: The scenes with Rosie are remarkably tender.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: How did you make that relationship feel so complete with when she has like pretty much no dialogue?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Karina, who plays Rosie, is an incredible actor.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's you know, the first is you know, hiring and collaborating with people who have insight, even insight into something as challenging as performing with a limited physicality.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she had a lot of insight, personal insight that she was able to bring to it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And she became close with John and close with me.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And again, you're just sort of you're building a friendship first, right?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're talking to people, you're asking them for their insight.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, we would do little things where you know we would perform the scene often without her limiting her physicality so that they could make a connection that maybe bridged the gap between the era when she was totally mobile and the moment in the movie, and then we would shoot the scene.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we did that a little bit.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, often the challenge is just trying to create a a history and a relationship over a short period of time because, you know, there's only so many hours in the day.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, New York movie, and New York is such a character in this movie and so many others.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: What were some challenges just shooting there in your city?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: The usual like traffic and the other, but what were some things you ran into?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: We shot a lot in the boroughs.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: We shot a lot in parts of New York that you don't see as often as the Empire State Building.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because of that, those a lot of these neighborhoods, you know, everybody in New York has a block, you know, everybody's got their block, they got, you know, somebody else's block.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: The block has like people who that is their world, that is their microcosm.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we're shooting at this pawn shop, and you know, we'd be shooting.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: John and and Steve are doing a scene, and people are coming in to like buy stuff and going, like, wait, where's the lady who where's the lady who runs the place?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: What's me who sounded like you know what I mean?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: At one point, we broke the front window.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we replaced it with a piece of movie glass to show that it had been broken, which is something that happens in the movie, no spoilers.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And people were coming up on the block going, what happened to the shop?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what do we need to do?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we need to protect our block, our shop.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you guys a funny story, real quick.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: We shot a lot on the subway, which is not allowed.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's no such thing as a subway permit.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: Gorilla filmmaking.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love this.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're on the subway, and John takes a subway all day, every day, everywhere he goes, you know.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And for New Yorkers, seeing John Saturda on the subway is like it's a nice sign.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: It probably means you're gonna have a good day.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like good luck.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh, hey, there's John, and they're cool.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: New Yorkers are cool like that, but you're still not allowed to do it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we're there, we got a camera, it's just a few of us, and two cops get on the subway.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we think to ourselves, oh my gosh, these guys, you know, they're gonna do their job, and their job is gonna be kick us off or get us in trouble, report us to somebody, what's gonna happen here?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we're putting our coats over the camera, and John is trying to not look like John, which is very uh that's never gonna happen.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, talk about it's like the FR State building.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, there he is.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the train stops, and the two cops they come right towards us, and we're thinking, ay, yeah, this is it's gonna be a disaster.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: The doors open and they walk right past us and right off.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And as the doors are closing, one turns to the other and goes, Yeah, I told you it was him.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: So closer to look.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's so great.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's amazing.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Man, we were very blessed.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: We were very, very blessed.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we felt at home.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love the way the film turns a trip through these burrows you're talking about into a real ticking clock thriller.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: How did you build that pace without losing these character moments?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it was Hilda, you know, Hilda Rasula, who uh is our our editor and really did the thing that you know no director wants, which is keep you keep beating it, you know.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Every time you think you're done, you're not done.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Go home, I'll tell you when we're done.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we'd be sitting there working on a scene all day, and she'd go, you know what?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let me cook.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And she did.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, a lot of it is like shooting.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're just you're refining and you're sort of looking for what is what do we need, what do we need to keep, you know, is really the question.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a very concise tight script to begin with.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously there's gonna be a parts of it that are not lean just by the nature of shooting and wanting scenes to go longer and shoe leather and all of that.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, luckily we were able to go back to the script often and kind of say, What does this scene want?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of it was just Hilda, like just beating my ass.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Hilda, well done.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you were writing this and conceiving it, was it that balance of humor and tension, which is just so great?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: Is that was always kind of the through line?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm married to one of the best writers, and she is a comedy writer.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: It makes me want to be a comedy writer, even though I'm not a comedy writer.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm constantly looking for, you know, ways to be like my partner, be like my wife, and and and so maybe make you laugh a little bit.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that is nobody ever wanted to turn off a movie that they were smiling at or or laughing at.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what we want.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: We like that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Very simple.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I want to laugh.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to have a bad time, you know, and I understand that there's sort of a need for you know the dramatic push and pull, and you want to sort of create a tapestry, right?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: You want there to be a rainbow in a spectrum.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was important for there to be humor because I think in life that's what we want.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: We want humor.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of which, I love the contrast between Harry's patient, old school manner and Dylan's frantic tech bro vocabulary.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: How'd you find that comic rhythm between those two?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Will really got it straight away.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think Will, who plays Dylan, he's a very well-trained, serious actor.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: He is, in that respect, like John in that in his young career, he has spent time, you know, in the theater and really did study devotedly at conservatory.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, you know, he was approaching it with a sort of seriousness that, of course, the character doesn't approach anything with, right?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that makes him dangerous because we don't know whether he's serious or not, or whether his vulnerability and his insecurity is going to make him snap, you know.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And Will really meted that out well.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, there is no dirt of like bad tech bro dudes out there to watch and cringe at in order to get inspired to write your own.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: As we round out and get into the movie coming out, which is wonderful, I do want to ask you about the music.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, music is so key to movies, it galvanizes things, and you got this New York film here.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe speak to that.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: We have some songs, which we could talk about, but the star of the show is Gary, Gary Leonelli and his score, which I don't even know how to describe me.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know how the presidential limousine, like it just like looks like a limousine, but it's like bulletproof and it's like faster than a Ferrari, and it's got like, you know, all types of crazy, like James Bond shit in there.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's like Gary.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like Gary looks at kind of vibes, like a really mild-mannered guy.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're like, wait, are you Isaac fucking H's?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are you, you know what I mean?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like what, like, what's going on here?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Gary has has worked a lot with with Ezra Edelman, who I love Ezra Edelman's documentaries, and I love especially the the OJ doc.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he did a doc on Gordon Parks.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not Ezra, a colleague of Ezra's, I think, but Gary scored the this doc on Gordon Parks.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was watching that, and he did like a like a riff.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: He did like sort of, you know, filled in some of the the colors that were missing on this documentary with the Isaac A's Gordon Parks, the classic black exploitation soundtrack, and played in that world.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when I heard that, I was like, this guy, we gotta get him.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's the guy.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so he wrote the score and all of our little needle drops.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I can walk you through just a few of them really quick.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'll work backwards.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the movie ends with the great Bobby Short, who would perform live at the Carlisle Hotel famously.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And this recording is live at the Carlisle Hotel.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a Cold Porter song.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: And Dan Wilcox, who is a great DJ and a great music supervisor, he showed up with an end credits suitcase.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he did the damn thing, guys.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, you know, let me play you know, a dozen songs for us, kind of going, okay.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what are we gonna do?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then he did the damn thing.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, and you know, I got this other one, but I don't think you're gonna like it.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's for you.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Nah, never mind.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, we're all going, well, why don't you just play it for us?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, why no, no, no, no, no.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we got time, we'll hear it.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a Bobby Shore tune, and we lose.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the producers Hilda, Charmion Aristotle.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: This, I mean, the entire room losing their mind.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we locked onto that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then moving backwards, you know, I had made a playlist for John, a couple people on the movie of sort of inspirational songs.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: One of the songs was Native New Yorker, and John called me up after listening to this playlist for a while, and he goes, You know, I love some of these tracks, especially Native New Yorker.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: I used to dance to that in the nightclubs in the 80s, you know.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, I was there for this record, and John loves to dance.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And one day, and I really recommend this for everybody, if you can get a text message from John Taturo of him dancing in his office.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just great.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he sends me this video and he's like, I'm just feeling it, man.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just like feeling it.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, we gotta do this, we gotta dance for Rosie.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that gave the uh producers a heart attack because anything that is not already on the schedule for a movie of this size is a disaster waiting to happen.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: But we made it, we made it happen, and the uh it was the end of the day, we made it happen.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, the other one, of course, at the beginning of the movie, New York I Love You, James Murphy, L C D sound system, you know, that was such a song that meant something to people of a certain age and time in New York, because it's New Yorkers are not cynical, so there's something very honest about the song, even though there's a maybe not cynicism, but sarcasm, if you will.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And luckily, it takes a village, Ryan Johnson, and my best friend and producer on this, he had done a music video with James, a beautiful music video with David Strathairon and Sissy Spacich that you should look up.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's gorgeous.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: He had become friendly with James and he reached out to James.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I've got this, you know, buddy of mine is making a little movie.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Could you give him a break on the price of the song?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Without going to give it away, obviously the ending is beautiful and brutal at the same time.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Harry finally seems to understand you know what he got wrong, but he he's running out of time.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: How early did you know that that was where the story had to go ultimately?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I knew from the beginning of the writing process, I think, where it needed to go in spirit.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of the shoot, we wanted The movie to operate in all five boroughs.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: The end of the movie does take place in Staten Island.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it includes this, not to spoil too much, it includes a view of New York, of the skyline from Staten Island, from the Staten Island side of the Arizona Bridge, which connects Staten Island to Brooklyn.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And usually almost exclusively, we see New York, that skyline, from New Jersey.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: When we think of the New York skyline, we're actually thinking of that vantage.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it was really important, I think, for us to show New York from New York, to not leave Harry's town, to not force him to leave, so to speak.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And with that, hopefully maintain the dignity that he has earned.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, now let's tackle something else.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: The movie gets done.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: The village finishes the movie, and you premiere at Sundance.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's a high bar.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_03: What was that experience like?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we were desperately trying to finish the movie.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: We had submitted late in the process.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And at some point, I've got my lovely producers, Katie and Leo, who were there every day and they still are.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I said to them, I said, Oh, my worst nightmare is premiering this movie at the Sundance Film Festival.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And like to this day, occasionally we'll be doing something, and I'll like, I'll make some remark or I'll go, oh, you know, we're gonna miss our flight, guys, or whatever.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll look at me and they'll whisper, Your worst nightmares premiering this movie, the Sunday.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's that's our new inside joke.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, it was, I mean, it was a mad dash.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I don't know that anybody really thought, you know, again, rushing to finish the movie, and then you get this opportunity, and not only that, it was the last narrative film to be shown at the Eccles, where wow, this cast, John and Steve and Giancarlo had premiered movies at the Eccles for four decades.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my career started at Sundance.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: First movie that I ever worked on that Ryan hired me for, uh, Brick was a Sundance movie.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, so, so unexpected, but yet a beautiful homecoming.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, to make things even more surreal, you show the movie and you know, you have a nice time, and everybody hugs and go out for a meal, and then you start reading reviews, and you realize the reactions to the movie are coming in, and you're sitting next to Barton Fink, and you're like, this is like like I like like what how meta is this shit?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm sitting next to this is the first 10 minutes of Barton Craig.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's very, it's very surreal.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's very, very surreal.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what were audiences' reactions like at Sundance in Toronto?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, people have been, I think, very generous to the film and recognizing what John put into it and his whole self, which we love so much and we all have loved so much for so long.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's so nice to see him be recognized as the great that he is.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: It keeps my belly very full.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if there's any justice, there's an Academy Award nomination for him.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: I guess that might be, you know, hopefully the film opens big, does what it needs to do.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's awesome in it.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: He really is.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: He really is, and he deserves the world.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: He is as good a person as he is an artist.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, it's good to know.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not always the case, as we all know.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: So that's amazing.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm still waiting for that text message of him dancing sometime.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: If that'll come in.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: So you play Sundance, Toronto, and it culminates into Sony Picture Classics, this big distributor.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like everything's aligned for you.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: You're probably pinching yourself, but how did that come about?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: Was that at Sundance, or how did that relationship happen?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was after Sundance, and I think unfortunately, there are not many companies like I mean, I don't think that there have ever been companies like SPC in particular.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think Sony Pictures Classics, you know, has been so consistent in terms of Tom Bernard and Michael Barker really loving movies and really getting behind movies and not having a there is no ulterior motive.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: There is just like, are these good movies and we love them?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And like, let's do this.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: But there used to be more art house distributors, there used to be indie distributors of great note.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think Sony is still Sony Pictures Classics is still they are burning that candle still.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: They are keeping that light alive in a very real, old school, legit way.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's why when you see that blue logo, you're like, it's gonna be all right, it's gonna be good.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I didn't even know.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes somebody tells you go see a movie, and then you see the blue logo, and you're like, oh, okay, all right, all right, legit, you know.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: They walk the walk like they talk the talk in terms of again, butts in seats, and you'll have a conversation, you know.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's so funny, you'll have a conversation with these guys.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're old school guys, they're New York guys, you know, 1992, New York, New York established guys, you know, nobody else can really say that.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you'll have a conversation, they'll send like some artwork, you'll start the conversation, you know.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you, let me tell you my thoughts, and they'll go, no.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine it in a light box.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Don't imagine it on a screen.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine the artwork in a light box in a theater, and you're like, I will do that.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: That is everybody's you know, it's like we are still there, we are still talking about going to a movie theater, guys.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: That is awesome.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Noah, this is the part where we phase out of talking about the movie, which we're so excited for you and how it's gonna reach audiences.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: People need to see this film, that's for sure.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: Let's get John Totaro nominated.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: But now we're talking about the theatrical experience, and this is something we call quick cuts.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: Super fast, super easy, don't think a lot about it, rapid fire questions, and it's about you going to the theater.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right, go for it, Jason.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: You start okay.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: First one popcorn or candy.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Popcorn butter or no butter, no butter, aisle seat or center seat.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Center and how many trailers are too many?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Five.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good number.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: I like a trail.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I love a trailer too.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: Matinee or late night screening.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Matinee.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: And either growing up or now, what's your favorite movie theater?
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big question.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, now now it's my now it's my home theater, which is Vidiettez in Eagle Rock, which is a beautiful historic theater nearby our home that um my family and I are very heavily involved in.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a nonprofit.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Before that, it was the New Beverly, where I would spend, you know, many days a week at the New Bev.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up, my home theater was 19th Street in Broadway, the Lowe's, which I used to frequent.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then later on, of course, you know, the Angelica, but really I was more a sunshine guy than the Angelica, because you could go to Jonah Schimmel's and get a knife as well.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's awesome.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Noah, we were neighbors until two weeks ago.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: I used to walk to Vidyots.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: I was in Eagle Rock for a while.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: No way.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, we were right around the corner, man.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I went to the video store and gave them, I made a lot of documentaries, like these award-winning docs, and donated a library to the uh video store there as I left.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, thank you.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: Now we would have been neighbors.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Now I meet you and I'm gone.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: But uh when I come back, where are you?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: You're in Asia.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm in Asia.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: I moved to Vietnam last week.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's I mean, that's cool.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: Adventure, you know, and the podcast world continues.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: It was time to do some traveling and take my work with me.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: So but Eagle Rock, shout out to you.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have you back in Eagle Rock any any day of the week.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Fair enough.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, now what was the first movie you remember seeing in a theater?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I saw movies before this, but of course, I remember a babysitter taking me to Last of the Mokekins.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: Michael Mann.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think regretting it immediately, but having it be incredibly fun.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: It was like scalping.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's a lot of bloodshed here.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think maybe the babysitter thought it was gonna be like a uh historical educational experience.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it was because it was.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: I remember being, oh man, I think I remember being like eight years old and sneaking into boomerang.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, the murky film.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine that?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: That talk about formidables and adult humor and situations in it.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: That was in my other local theater on 23rd Street near Eighth Avenue.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what, I don't know how I snuck in there.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just remember going to see it alone.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: I love this answer, Galandis.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Very strange.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, unique.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we're getting very deep, guys.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: I remember seeing Edward Scissor Hands in the theater with my dad and having nightmares for like months afterwards.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what's the movie you've seen the most in theater?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: I go see Raising Arizona every time it plays anywhere.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, so good.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are movies that I have watched, new movies that I've gone to see like multiple times in the theater.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I usually will see a Tarantino multiple times in the theater.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I saw Tree of Life a lot in the theater, you know, three, four, five viewings.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: But in terms of like, I will show up every time, anywhere a town that I am.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Raising Arizona, Razing Arizona, done.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: Done.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's great, man.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: Now, what was the last movie you saw in a theater besides your own?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: What was the last movie that I saw in a theater?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've been going to all these film festivals, but the problem is you don't get to see movies when you go to a film festival.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's very, very frustrating.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I did see the great uh Once Upon a Time in Harlem, you know, made by the Graves family, and it is absolutely incredible.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe getting a proper release soon.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I think it's coming out soon because I was trying to get them for the podcast too, but it didn't work out.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've been on the same tour together from the beginning, and they are the coolest.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: They are like the coolest people.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is probably a pretty easy question, pretty easy, but thumbs up or thumbs down for last movie, the Harlem film.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, huge thumbs.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, two thumbs up.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like everything.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's like you go into a lab and you make a movie for me, and that's it, you know?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's great.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no, we just have one more question, and it's called the Final Cut.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: And Glenn, take it away.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, no, this is um such a love letter to New York, but it's also about a city that's constantly changing, where you know, entire ways of life can disappear almost without anyone noticing.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fifty years from now, when somebody watches the only living pickpocket in New York, what do you hope they'll discover about the New York you wanted to capture?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: I hope they will watch it in a movie theater with strangers and friends.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that they will go to BH Dairy, have a meal, because I assume it will still be serving Great Holla.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like your movie.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: We want New York to stay the way we lived it or imagined it, right?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you know, the only constant is change, and New York is always changing.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: The beauty of New York is that we meet it where it is.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it'll be someone else who's raised in Arizona and they'll go up and see it in the theater constantly.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: You never know.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh oh.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: We'll see.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: So we'll see.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: Time will tell.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: So, Noah, where can people see the only living pickpocket in New York?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: They can see it if they're in New York or LA on October 23rd in a movie theater.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if they are elsewhere, they can see it on October 30th in a movie theater.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Noah, thanks so much for joining us and taking us behind the film.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: We love the movie and and wish the best for it.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, thank you guys so much.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: This has really been a pleasure.