Lady Justice, Pt. 1 — True Grit (2010) | The Next Picture Show

26:29Authorities can't do anything about it. And that's unsatisfying. And so her, so then her quest, the nature of her quest changes and what justice ultimately amounts to, that also changes. And I think it's all kind of a reflection of the world in which this film occupies, which is this kind of chaotic, unsettled, fraught, and sort of changing post-Symbol War West. So one argument we get about the war in this film is between Labeef and Mr. Cogburn, who are both ostensibly on the same side because they're both fighting against the Union forces. You know, Labeef was part of the army in Northern Virginia, whereas Cogburn was threw in with, quote unquote, Captain Quandrell and his raiders.

27:12I mean, it's clear that one is the more civilized approach to war than the other. The Quantrill's raiders were, though Coburn denies it responsible for a lot of atrocities and guerrilla warfare. But it kind of speaks to the idea of how ideas are right and wrong shift because I think we're both, and most people listening would see them both as on the wrong side of history in terms of who and what they were fighting for in this. And so it is kind of like it kind of plays into the post-war thing you're talking about in the sense that there is all this unsettled, untamed, uncivilized business. And the country is still in the process of sorting out what had just happened.

27:53And, you know, arguably, I'd say it is, you know, still in the process of sorting all that out. And the two of them are from different factions, too, right? Sorry, what do you mean by different factions? They have a beef or a little beef that goes a little bit that has to do with different terrain that they're from. Not, as you were saying, ostensibly on the same side. The side itself is also deeply divided. Yeah, that's the part that interests me is just the degree to which they don't zoom out and look at the bigger picture. They're not arguing the concept of North versus South or bemoaning the loss or defending the Confederacy.

28:31they're basically just going kind of toe to toe over which of the leaders they fought under are were nobler, more or less, like which, which way of pursuing things I know, and not even that, I think, you know, they, it doesn't, I mean, Labeef definitely has a, some moral objection to Quantrill's raiders, but it just seems like they're almost arguing more over, you know, of the leaders they fought were nobler men. The fact that they're zoomed in so close is just a really interesting thing to me, given how much of, you know, culture in American society that deals in any way with the Civil War is focused on the biggest political aspects of North versus South and brother versus brother.

29:20We don't get to see a lot of, you know, philosophical debate within the Southern side, or even really representations of these two, the North and South, not being, you know, just sort of iconic and singular things, and instead being made up of people with very different attitudes towards certain things. We'll be right back to continue our discussion of True Grit after the break.

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31:18What have you done with Papa's mare? Keep still! Are you thinking about the old place? Look here, if you let me go, I will swear to it an affidavit and once you were brought to justice it may go easier on you.

31:33I'll tell you I can do better than that.

31:41I need no affidavit.

31:49All I need is your silence. Before we left off for the break, we were talking about the idea of this being a post-Civil War film and the unsettled business. I think at the heart of the film is some pretty obvious unsettled business, which is the very plot of it, which is Maddie's quest to take down Tom Chaney. What is this film's attitude toward vengeance and justice? And are they kind of interchangeable in this world? I certainly think they're different. I think Maddie's idea of justice in particular, like, I'm not sure that she would say she's chasing vengeance. She's chasing justice. And she has a very straight line idea of what that means.

32:27It means that Tom Chaney is to be informed that he is going to be executed for killing her father and no one else. and he's going to be brought back to a specific place and executed for that specific crime. And if he goes anywhere else or is punished for any of the other murders he's committed, in her eyes, that's not justice. And, you know, I don't think of this as primarily a comic movie, but there are some very comedic elements to it. And one of them is just kind of her sternness and shrillness over this point. You know, sure, he gunned down a dog in the street and then murdered its owner, but that is not important.

33:09What is important is her father and the money that she has paid, and therefore nobody else is allowed to get in the way of the very specific things she has decided is justice. And I would argue that what she gets is vengeance, whether it's justice or not in a bigger picture. I kind of think that one of the things we're seeing in the film is that everybody defines justice differently. But vengeance may be pretty simple. And in the end, I do think that's what she gets. I mean, it's a tough situation for her to be in. And you can almost you can really kind of sympathize with her stance on wanting Cheney to pay for this specific crime.

33:46Just the way this system, such as it is, works. I mean, there is no system there. You know, if other people wanted to bring Tom Janney to justice for whatever murders or other crimes he might have committed previously, they're not out there. She's the one that's out there. And so she ends up being the one who perhaps rightfully believes that she's entitled to, you know, have justice be served on her behalf. I mean, like, you know, it's not really a fault of hers per se, but the world in which she occupies and has to has to operate within like she can't. There is no official or moral, I suppose, or legal way of going about this that that would, you know, make this an easier, cleaner situation.

34:35She has to kind of get her hands quite literally dirty to get some justice for her father. So there's that. I mean, the fact that it turns into a revenge is almost circumstantial, I think. Cheney does not come willingly and she is put in danger and her friends are put in danger. And this ends up being the result. I mean, that said, there is someone else, you know, seeking justice, and that's Labeef. And he's literally spent months chasing down Cheney and expects to get paid for it. Like, if he can bring his man back to Texas, he intends to both dispense, like, proper actual legal justice and actually get paid for the sheer amount of work that he's put in.

35:18Both of those seem very reasonable to me. You know, Maddie's, as he put it, entitled insistence that his investment in like time and labor is unimportant because he's crossed paths with her. You know, it's pretty bratty. You know, I would agree that we like her as a character. But I also certainly understand. No, at times she is bratty. you know when he when he takes a switch to her but you can see why he does it are you suggesting that yes she she deserved to be paddled for for her uh for her braddiness absolutely not like that's that sequence you know i'm i'm not gonna take a stance on corporal punishment here as uh somebody without children and uh somebody who went through corporal punishment and has my has my own opinions on it i'm not gonna be one of those people who's like well i came up fine so you should definitely your kids whatever no i'm saying you understand why he does it not necessarily that it was justice with a capital j we can we can talk about that the justice of uh spanking a 14 year old all you want that i really want was it was it justice or was it vengeance can we have a corporal punishment spin-off podcast you can talk about spankings uh whoa whoa scott well not that kind of you know what I mean like but anyway uh it is I'm gonna shoot this idea down I think it's I think it's a half it's a bad it's a bad idea it's a bad idea but I think I don't I don't feel I felt like I feel like she doesn't really deserve the spanking that she gets but it's a very funny uh moment of the film of which there are many it is but it's also the moment where rooster becomes you know fully on her side I think it kind of sees that she also has uh true grit and even kind of admires her for it.

37:07I mean, how can you not admire her for just getting across the river on that horse? I mean, that's an incredible thing for her to do. Kind of feels like he should be admiring the horse. Right, but he anticipates it too. I mean, he anticipates that she is going to try to come after them, try to track him down, try to be a part of this hunt. So I think he certainly senses that she has this true grit And obviously she reveals it completely in her actions once they meet up again. We've drifted off vengeance a fair bit and I want to drift back towards it. But maybe one route to do that is just kind of bringing up the fact that one of the things that does often, I guess, delineate a Coen's film is I sympathize with all three of these characters to some degree.

37:55I think they're all very flawed. I think they're all very prickly. I think they all show their bad sides and their good sides. I don't think they fit together very well as, you know, as puzzle pieces. And they keep driving each other away. But you can understand why Maddie is angry and hurt and hurting and why she wants her own way and why she is so used to, you know, bucking the people who condescend to her and like, you know, look down on her and dismiss her. And maybe in the past, other people have turned her over their knee because, you know, she's small and young and can't fight back. Cogburn is more complicated in that, you know, he's just so obviously derelict in his duties.

38:44But you also, you know, get the sense that this is a man who had morals and had strong ideals and saw them coming to nothing. and he's in the end stages of his life, but he still stands up for what he believes in. He puts his life on the line. Labeef is prickly and full of himself and way, way, way too proud of the privations he has endured in Texas to the point where he wants to brag about them to near strangers. We get to understand that he drank water out of a hoof print and was happy to have it. That was so good that you heard that story many times. the delivery is hilarious and cogburn's like dismissive response basically saying everybody from texas says that like what an interesting like character cliche oh yes texas that's where the people are from who claim that everything's bigger there and that they all drink out of anyway you see my point you like all of these people have clear histories that we we don't get into in a ton of detail in this movie, but like everything they say and do implies the histories.

39:53And through those histories, I think you end up coming to a form of sympathy with each of them in turn, depending on the scene. And so maybe the question is like, how do they, we've talked a bunch about how Maddie considers vengeance. Do you think Labeef or Cogburn cares at all about vengeance or justice? Or do they just care about, you know, getting paid and doing doing the job that allows them to keep a saddlebag full of loose, shootable cornbread and keep themselves in whiskey, if you'd be. I think it's at best secondary until I think they both kind of come to, to be very fond of Maddie and each in their own way.

40:39But I think as they set out and for most of the film, it's like they certainly wouldn't mind taking Tom Cheney down, but it's not their primary justice itself is not their primary motivation they have a job they also have a job their emotional attachment to something like this is just never going to be at Maddie's level it's something that has to be that type of engagement has to be earned over time and experienced with her and experienced also with Cheney himself who's, you know, I think there's, to kind of see him up close and get a feel for, you know, who he is and what he's like, that makes an impression on them as well.

41:24But I think there is, you know, I mean, I think there's a basic sense there for both of them of right and wrong. You know, they carry that with them, you know, even if their level of investment is not on her level. Yeah, I just think getting the job is more important than the principles, at least at first. Keith, you mentioned that maybe justice or vengeance wasn't a prime motivation for either Cogburn or Labeef. I'm curious what you think their motivations are. You know, Labeef maybe cares about justice, maybe just cares about money. cogburn like one of the things that strikes me most about this film whenever i rewatch it is his sudden like late stage turn into maybe caring more about taking down ned pepper and that to me implies like there's some kind of history there that i don't think we know any kind of depths of and whether that's based in vengeance or justice i i'm very curious what your take on all of that is yeah i mean perhaps one way to look at the film is kind of as Rooster Cogburn's moral reawakening in a way, because he does, you know, there is sort of that commitment.

42:34And certainly he doesn't have to risk his life in the final stretch of the film in an attempt to get Maddie to safety and to get her the medical care she needs. But at that point, I think he's become, I don't think his character has been transformed. Certainly what we hear of his later years, he kind of seems to have gone back to his, you know, his drunken ways. But I do think it's not just getting the job done for him. And it's not just a matter of convenience to help this girl. It's a crucial thing. And I find the final stretch of this film from the horse ride, you know, the late night horse ride through the epilogue, incredibly moving.

43:19And, you know, I mean, I always kind of push back at complaints that there's the coldness to the Coen brothers films. And like, I think the coldness is perhaps only on the surface and not even that much on the surface here, but I just find this final stretch of this film as moving as anything in any Coen brothers movie. And I don't mean that as a qualified praise in any way. I think the Coens just, as I was saying earlier, they just don't give it away quite so readily in terms of, you know, there's a depth of feeling in their work that is so present. I mean, you can see it in a lot of films around True Grit.

43:55You can see it in, you know, A Serious Man and even, you know, The Man Who Wasn't There, which is really dry. Inside Llewyn Davis also. Just a great, really soulful film. And I think they get to that point, but they're just not going to hammer it home. I mean, I think, you know, the original True Grit or the original adaptation of it with John Wayne, I mean, that is sentimental. And not in a bad way. It's a good film. I like that movie. but but this is much much more subtle and and uh the the grace notes that it hits at the end when you kind of when you when you have this very dramatic cut forward in time to where maddie is now what is it 25 years older or something like that is it 25 um and an adult she's she's 40 and we've learned that she's lost her you know we learned that she lost her arm uh after the the snake incident and and that also she did never married um that she's on her own and there's something about that specific fact that almost deepens her connection with rooster at the end you know there just feels like it feels like that relationship that she had with him um that adventure they had together was just so much more meaningful um than than just you know seeking revenge for her father that there was something it was like a profound you know life life event for her that I think, you know, if she had, if we did find out that she was just had this, you know, great marriage and a big family and it wouldn't have resonated the same way.

45:27But here there's, I think it almost heightens the intimacy of that connection and the meaningfulness of that connection and gives the, gives the ending a real punch. I mean, she literally puts him alongside her father. I read a write-up that I thought was really interesting, I believe over at Looper, that kind of makes the point what she puts on his gravestone is a kind of and I forget exactly what the the text is but it's something like a loyal officer of Judge Parker's court and that's kind of eliding it's like ignoring his entire history before he met Maddie and his entire history afterwards it's narrowing his life down to what she knew of him like the period that she knew him she's like redefining him in death as as this one thing that he was during the time they knew each other and it's you know kind of typically uh like very limited narrow blinkered maddie thinking but you know she also has him dug up and shipped to her own family graveyard because she thinks of him as uh somebody who deserves to be buried alongside her father you know that's that's not nothing And as justice goes, I don't know if it's justice for the life he lived, but it's a respect that maybe nobody else would give him as an answer for what he did for her.

46:50One big difference between this and the 1969 version is Maddie's narration, as in the book on which it's based, Maddie is the narrator of the story. She's the person telling the story and it's her voice framing it. What does that bring to this? I'd have to go back and look at the opening narration because I'm not sure how much it brings there. But it feels crucial to the closing events. Because if not for those events, we wouldn't know how long had passed and kind of what her attitude on it was. We wouldn't know, you know, that it was short of somebody saying, oh, it's good to see you again. Did you ever get married and have children?

47:34The efficiency of the lines with which she dismisses the idea of having had a family of her own as something she just never had time for and kind of dismisses anybody who would have a problem with that in kind of contemptuous terms. It's just so Maddie. It's how we know it's still her, even though it's another actress, you know, even though she's obviously gone through tremendous like physical and emotional changes, even though the era has changed. it's still pretty distinctly her. And she doesn't have to explain to any of these strangers how she feels about her life or what she came of in order to communicate it all to us.

48:18It also, you know, you brought up this point in the keynote, how by the end of the movie, the Old West is already being mythologized and contained and turned into a sideshow. her narration bookends kind of turn this all into a story this is something that happened to her when she was younger and it it makes it just another myth of the old west being communicated much like the story of the midnight caller which we never get to hear because you know nobody will nobody will do all of the vocal parts as she tells them to do the difference i think though is like there's an intimacy to this story that it's different from the kind of you know sideshow myth making that we see elsewhere i mean this isn't this this is her telling us this story this isn't this isn't something that is being mythologized for entertainment purposes you know so i think that's somewhat meaningful the other thing i mean the other couple things i would say about the narration.

49:20One is that the use of it reminded me a great deal of No Country for Old Men, which Timely Jones narrates. And you really just get him, if I recall, at the beginning and the end. And I think that, you know, and again, that movie's unthinkable without it. It sets the table in No Country for Old Men for the type of world that we're going to deal with and reflect upon. And so I think that some of that table setting And then, of course, the conclusion that you get here is so important that it's in the narration. And I think more basically, you establish True Grit as a story about Maddie. Because you have two other characters who are quite strong, particularly Rooster Cogburn, who compete for your attention.

50:05And I think it kind of makes clear that this is our person, this is our hero, and we're going to follow the story through her and her experiences. The other thing that connects to No Country for Old Men is the ending, which arrives like a beat sooner than you feel like it's going to. And then it kind of takes your breath away when you realize this is the end of the story. I mean, much like No Country, there's a lot of differences here between this and the 1969 version, one of which is, as far as we can tell, Labeef lives. But the fact that Maddie and Cogburn don't really get to say goodbye, like they don't have a riding off into the West scene the way they do in the 69 version.

50:50Everything just seems very abrupt and clipped here in a way that is really familiar from No Country for Old Men. That feeling of what the Coens intended from this, they've achieved. I think it's really interesting in particular that in spite of all of the focus on vengeance and justice, we see Cheney shot. We see him fall over a cliff. I don't think there's any question that he's dead, but we don't linger on it. I'm not even sure we see the corpses the way we see the corpses of Ned Pepper and at least one or two of his gang members. It's unceremonious, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, he just he disappears from the story.

51:29The second vengeance is taken. He is not important anymore at all. What's important is the relationship between Cogburn and Maddie and where it leads. But once her life is saved, we also kind of like lose sight of that. And then that 25 year jump is, did she not try to look him up at all during the rest of that time? Like what what are we missing here? Why is this ending so abrupt? It feels right, though. It feels good. I don't know. It feels like the right place to end it. I mean, Serious Man does that, too. Any of that is a real question mark. I don't think this is quite as radical as either one of those other examples.

52:10It's a dental, but I had to reel it. When you talked about the 1969 version of True Grit, I actually had to look it up again because it's so hard to believe that True Grit was made as late as it was. It's from 69 because it feels so much older than that it's like way way last gasp of the traditional western very much very much uh the 69 true grit is the last of its kind for sure just which is fitting given that it is it's about it has john wayne is is about this this character who is is who he is because man that was the end of an era seemingly several a decade after the era ended already maybe that's part of the ending we get with the 69 version where you know maddie bids him a fond farewell and then he he jumps over a fence on his horse in order to prove that he's not too old to jump over a fence on his horse which she uh she said earlier like that that has a little john wayne bravado of you know i'm not done yet i am i still got it uh that that just isn't really part of the cohen's i'd like we no we we know that jeff bridges is he still still got it and is still going to be around for a while turning in uh turning in incredible performances uh we don't we don't need to see him jump over a fence to prove it and the other big difference between the two versions is that that kim darby was 22 when the film came out presumably a little younger when she made the film, but doesn't really suggest girl, teen girl, just, you know, young woman versus Haley Steinfeld is obviously quite, quite young.

53:53I really love her performance too. Unbelievable. Like, you know, yeah. She makes the movie. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, who knew at the time that she'd go on to give many great performances after that, but, you know. I could have guessed it. I could have guessed it too. I mean, yeah, sometimes you see a kid performance like that's a really they really coach that kid to their performance really well and then sometimes like this and and like anna packwood in the piano it's like oh this is a great performance from a fully formed actor whatever whatever their age is but yeah she's fantastic in this yeah i love her and i just you know i just appreciate you know the three lead performances are so good and they're also i think the writing for each character the musicality of those of the dialogue that's written for each of them is so beautifully you know raw I mean like you know Tasha was talking about them as is kind of pieces that don't fit together and I think that's kind of like one of the great things about the movie is that is that is that sometimes so when each of them talk they're all you know they all have their own cadence they all have their their own frequency with which they talk they all talk about kind of different things you know rooster's kind of uh often he's crotchety and he's you know kind of going off into the ether a little bit and uh you know you get kind of a lot of like non-stop chatter from labeef and then um and that that's of a different nature and of course and maddie is her her kind of headstrong but also teenage self i mean i think that there's just the the writing for all three of these characters and then the performances you know really pop and and give you know life to this movie.

55:28Yeah, the scenes between the three of them in particular are just so well written, you know, her kind of incisive way of cutting through the middle of things, even sometimes with inappropriate things, like let's go through a ghost story. That's kind of a peace offering between these two men, her arguing about things that probably happened before she was born. And well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know exactly when this takes place. But certainly things that would have been before her time and above her head. You know, there's just, I like Labeef's in that first conversation in particular, and he's just like dispensing laconic sentences about the ways in which Texas Rangers are better, you know, the adventures that he has had.

56:14And he's just sort of like placing them in the middle of this group, like he expects them to be like lauded and admired uh versus you know cogburn's like just sort of non-stop mumbly delivery like they're as you say they're all very precise characters it's a really cool script yeah he's he mumbles in the except except when he says labeef the way he sells the beef is so funny throughout the movie it's like that honking sound of just like of kind of like contempt and like over emphasis on beef it's just so it's so uh funny a wonderful he has a wonderful work from jeff bridges which is you know not easy to follow up the big lebowski which at that you know at the point this movie uh came out was such a beloved you know classic and beloved you know collaboration between him and the cohen's i think he just he delivers it you know a not dissimilar but but different performance here that i think is quite good too we definitely don't have time to like get into the ensemble here but this is as usual for the cohen's some familiar names and faces or some names and faces that have become familiar since shout out to dom hall gleason as the the poor fellow what gets killed uh after having his fingers cut off um but you know just just a lot of very strong characters again who you know the the difference between her lawyer in voiceover and the man who sells the donkeys and the various members of Ned Pepper's gang and Ned Pepper and, you know, Barry Pepper and Josh Brolin themselves as members of the gang.

57:53Like they're just, there are a lot of very different characters and very indelible performances here. So in conclusion, a very good movie. And I honestly think when I saw it, I liked it a lot. and my fondness for this film grows every time I watch it. And I would also be remiss if I didn't say it looks great and if you want to read about how it was made, there's a book called Reflections on Cinematography by Roger Deakins, which I helped out on. And this was a difficult shoot. The most difficult scene? What do you think the most difficult scene to shoot was? Would it be the shootout in the dark?

58:28Were they kind of outside of that cabin sort of waiting for... Yes, because just lighting that is ridiculously difficult. And the fact that you're not thinking about how hard it would be to light it is a sign of a job. Well done. Also, the opening scene was very, very frustrating. But the end result is excellent. Well, we'll be right back after the break with some feedback.

58:5930 years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City. Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Or will you trust the people five miles overseas? This is a story about neighbors turning on each other. And what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough. We reached for a feeling that exists in this city, but we're not stopping, are we? I'm Ben Nadeff-Haffrey, and for my new series on revisionist history, I took a deep dive into Staten Island's attempt to secede from New York City in the 1990s, and what it all has to do with the politics of resentment that dominate America today.

59:45Listen to Revisionist History, The Staten Island Problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:00:14episode of film spotting SVU, I should say, streaming video unit of in the hand of Dante, a film they say, and I'm quoting here might be the worst thing they've had to endure through the show's first 12 episodes. I actually kind of want to check that one out, but I'm a little less encouraged. By the time this episode releases, a movie death match will have dropped an episode pitting inception against interstellar to Nolans will enter, but only one will leave. Meanwhile, the mothership film spotting podcast episodes queued up looking at Fargo and Independence Day on their 30th anniversary. Scott, you recently visited Independence Day for a piece at our newsletter, The Reveal, which you can find at thereveal.film.

1:00:51What did you think of it? What was it like to go back to Independence Day? I would say it's worse than Fargo. Wait, wait, Scott. If we're going to do a movie death match, I think it's worse than Fargo. I had fun revisiting it. It is not a good film, but it was a film that I had not seen it since it came out in 1996. And at the time, it was just this unstoppable behemoth that I had nothing but contempt for because I was in my mid-20s and thought such things were just diabolical and awful. Watching it again, I can kind of appreciate a little bit more as a movie in the spirit of a big cheesy disaster film and kind of laugh along with it while also being kind of insulted by it.

1:01:37So I don't know where I stand, but I did. And somehow, however I stand on it, it did result in about 2 ,400 words of me yammering about Independence Day. So if you want to hear a lot about that and me making a lot of jokes at its expense, you can visit the reveal.film on that. Tasha, any thoughts on Independence Day? I have not seen that movie in a very long time. I cannot imagine that the sequence where Jeff Goldblum writes a virus on his Apple laptop and injects it into an alien computer has become any more sensible or believable in the ensuing decades. But I look forward to reading what Scott has to say about it, having seen it much more recently.

1:02:21I will say Mars Attacks, which I recently was screened in our backyard movie theater recently, holds up pretty well. So now it's time for feedback where we read or listen to some other responses. We've gotten to recent episodes and other topics. We'll kick this off with a response on our recent episode about Disclosure Day, which we paired with E.T., the extraterrestrial. Tasha, can you read that one? Sure. TJ writes, I had a reaction to Disclosure Day that I have not heard or read elsewhere. Your discussion acknowledged that the alien crash slash visitation incidents referenced in the film's world were connected to publicized incidents in the real world.

1:02:54Keith called it an interesting aspect of the film, but for me, it was disruptive and turned me off the film. I was enjoying Disclosure Day up until the final broadcast sequence, but that abruptly pulled me out of the film's story. By creating fictitious footage persistently connected to reported incidents, I felt the film was moving into JFK territory. I felt the filmmakers were trying to convince me that reported alien encounters and a government conspiracy to conceal them were true. I experienced a crash between the fictional world of the film and the real world, and I could no longer suspend my disbelief.

1:03:25I spent the rest of the film harrumphing, arms crossed, and I walked out wholly disconnected from the parts I'd enjoyed. It had broken the spell for me. Instead, I was having an argument in my head about the societal harms that result from conspiratorial thinking. My 1990s self found pleasure in X-Files blurring conspiracy and fiction, but my 2020s self despised the highly conspiratorial X-Files episodes during a rewatch. Did any of you have this reaction to Disclosure Day? Are there other films you've encountered where a blurred line between fiction and the filmmaker's convictions limited your enjoyment?

1:03:57I totally get the whole changing attitude toward conspiracy theories because I thought they were fun in the 90s too. And before they were able to break containment and do real harm by becoming, distorting our very idea of reality. that said i never really felt like disclosure day was trying to be see all these things you've read about they're actually true and here's the footage i never really got that sense from this i imagine if i did as tj did it would take me out of the film and i too would harumph uh for the rest of the film but quietly to myself of course um but no i i didn't i mean the fact that the first sort of quote-unquote real footage or documentary found footage we'll see is of Richard Nixon showing Jackie Gleason the corpses of some aliens.

1:04:50It makes me think, it's establishing right away that we're not necessarily taking this as a literal persuasive argument for the existence of alien life and more maybe a symbolic metaphorical use of that. But what about you guys? Yeah, again, I 100 % am with you and TJ here about the conspiracy thing and how poisonous conspiratorial thinking has been to the world we live in now compared to what it might have been before. war um because uh you know we have the world's because our president is the is the is conspiracist in chief and and it uh makes reality hard to grasp onto and it you know makes makes my favorite thing occam's razor not as relevant as it should be people are are inclined to believe ridiculous stuff so i don't like any of that however i didn't feel that at all with disclosure day and maybe it's because i'm not that locked into real life alien conspiracies that was never really a huge interest of mine maybe if maybe if i had that level of engagement i would have been more bothered but i almost feel like the tone of it is a little bit it's a little lighter i don't think it's really i don't feel like the film is like trying to turn to say you know really this is actually happening guys the government's been doing this stuff i didn't really feel like the film was nudging us in that direction other you know more just prompting us more generally to believe you know that that um you know just prompting us with the question of what if more than more than this actually happened and this is something that uh this movie is just following up on what uh we should perhaps acknowledge is true that's interesting because i feel like my response was kind of the same response no it didn't bother me for the exact opposite reason, which is the lead up to this movie, you know, starting literally months beforehand.

1:06:49It seemed like it was just wall to wall stories about Steven Spielberg in interviews talking about how aliens are real and the government has been covering them up. I went into this movie expecting it to have that background. So it didn't surprise me or trip me or get in my way or, you know, change the nature of the story or anything. I just walked in understanding that that was the background to the story is Steven Spielberg Goldberg believing that aliens are real, believing that there's a government cover up. You know, whether that's true or not, it just seems really beyond the litigation of this film, much less this podcast.

1:07:25So, I mean, it didn't. No, no, we're going to get to the bottom of it. The truth is out there. Keep passing around the videotapes. Yeah, I mean, there certainly have been movies in the past where, like, I feel like the filmmakers' personal prejudices in particular, especially towards people from other countries, especially, you know, brown people from countries where people are brown, has just gotten my back up. I am in particular thinking of literally decades of movies that just sort of assumed that anybody whose skin was darker than a certain shade was evil. And if not evil, at least schemey and suspicious and or, you know, at absolute best, exotic.

1:08:16Like there are a lot of movies that I have watched that that kind of belief system works in either in terms of who is dispensable and can be mowed down in huge numbers in the 80s action films were particularly bad about this. But in terms of like a filmmaker, you know, Oliver Stone getting his politics all over his investigations of movies, I guess TJ kind of referenced that in talking about JFK territory. And that sort of thing certainly comes up. But like a lot of the films that are more conspiratorial in nature. Like back when I was working for Polygon, I was getting a lot of press releases about, you know, movies about the truth about aliens.

1:09:07And I would just instantly delete anything that had the words, the truth about aliens in it. And there's a lot of other stuff out there that's like that. That's like, you know, we're going to tell you the truth about thing that you've been lied to about. And I just don't watch those movies. So I'm having a hard time thinking of a good example of like a fictional film where I felt that kind of belief system, that kind of conspiracy thinking in particular got in the way of a narrative or got in the way of my enjoyment. Your trash folder is like a great cover up. My trash folder is so full of the truth.

1:09:44I guess I can't handle the truth. Yep. You can't handle it. Well, with that, I think we have nowhere to go except to end this episode and then quietly consider whether or not the truth is out there. In our next episode, we'll talk about Supergirl. Wait, she's an alien. In our next episode, we'll talk about Supergirl, which despite being set in space is still sort of a Western and one that owes a debt to True Grit. Look for that episode next Tuesday on your podcatcher of choice. For ad-free versions of the podcast and extra content, find us on Patreon at patreon.com slash nextpictureshow. You can find us at nextpictureshow.net and on Blue Sky at The Next Picture Show if you want to keep track of when new episodes drop.

1:10:23And also remember, the next time you meet a man wearing a whole bare skin, don't be scared. Admire his resourcefulness.

1:10:40That was a good movie. Yeah, seen here before once. 30 years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City. Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Or will you trust the people five miles overseas? This is a story about neighbors turning on each other. And what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough. But we're not stopping, are we? Listen to Revisionist History, The Staten Island Problem, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.