One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at 50, Top 5 Jack Nicholson Scenes

13:36Josh Larsen:Her eyes are drained of any spark. Her skin is sapped of any feeling. I think the only smile we might get is when she squashes McMurphy's attempts to put the world series on. And she sees that it's the vote is not going his way early on. We get a little smile and it's her small smile is the embodiment of evil to me because it's not just that she doesn't want the wards schedule to change. She wants McMurphy to fail. There is no heart for rehabilitation here. And that is again, where Murphy represents life because his rehabilitation, which he needs, I had forgotten the statutory rape thing. I mean, this is a nasty guy.

14:17Josh Larsen:Um, he needs rehabilitation, uh, but he's not going to find it here because ratchet will not allow it. He's seeking life anew. Maybe he doesn't even know that's what he's seeking yet. And he's striving to survive perhaps until he can get it. But in the face of this death, that's all he's going to run up against it at some point. And this brings us to the end. I would love to talk about the ending and how I see that being mythical as well. But yeah, I want to throw to you and just hear about this Ratched question, although it sounds like you didn't have a newfound sympathy for her either.

14:59Adam Kempenaar:No, and you're right. McMurphy isn't going to find rehabilitation with Nurse Ratched. He also, I think the movie makes very clear, isn't going to find rehabilitation in any kind of mental institution. That isn't where he belongs. He shouldn't be there at all. I love your reading and I agree with it. I think the movie does take on that kind of mythic proportion. I think it's why it's so captured the cultural imagination then. I think it's why it still captures our imagination the way it does. Now, I do think it's worth acknowledging that Ratched is the only female character of real consequence in a work written, directed, and produced entirely by men.

15:39Adam Kempenaar:And she is one of the biggest villains in movie and probably literary history. I'm not as familiar with its legacy there, but surely American literary history. I imagine there had to be feminist critiques of Cuckoo's Nest. And sure enough, a very preliminary Google search turns up at least one reclaiming big nurse, a feminist critique of Ken Kesey's portrayal of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. So it's complicated. But in terms of my experience watching Nurse Ratched this time, not only, Josh, did I not gain sympathy for her, I lost it, if that was even possible. AFI put her at number five on the all-time movie villains list.

16:21Adam Kempenaar:Hannibal Lecter was number one. I don't know. Obviously, I'd be more scared to be put in the same room with Hannibal Lecter, but at least with Hannibal Lecter, he knows exactly who and what he is, and you know who and what he is. There's no pretense. Ratched is oblivious to her impropriety, which makes her more insidious. What is, let's just outline it. And spoiler note, we're going to do it right here. The movie's 50 years old. We're going to talk about the ending of the movie. If you haven't seen it or don't want to know what happens to McMurphy or to Billy Bibbit, stop listening now. What's unjustifiable and unforgivable?

17:06Adam Kempenaar:Her culpability in Billy's death. I will say this about Ratched. I don't think she's purely a monster. She's human. That wouldn't be very compelling drama. I think she is upset, not just scared when Billy kills himself, but he makes that choice and she knows he will want to make that choice based on past behavior, based on his psychology, because she relishes the opportunity or at least can't resist the opportunity to shame him. She doesn't need to tell his mother, as he says, but she is punitive. She wants to cause him agony. She sees his act as an act of disobedience, as an insult towards her.

17:51Adam Kempenaar:You're talking mythic. I think we're getting biblical here as well. She's the god, and this is her little garden, and he has now sought knowledge that she has not condoned, perhaps. And, of course, there is McMurphy's fate, right? The severity of the treatment slash punishment for his condition slash crime. She knows and we know she knows that he's not crazy. If anything, all of his actions at the end further prove that he belongs in jail, not in a mental institution and definitely not lobotomized. But she gets what she wants. She gets him passive. She gets him subservient. She gets his freedom taken away forever.

18:33Adam Kempenaar:She wins. She beats him. That's what she wants. She doesn't want to help him. She wants to defeat him. And I'll also mention one more thing here, Josh, because it ties back to this notion of power and gender roles, but also something I want to get into, which is Ratchet is a symbol of America maybe itself. And this is what I was thinking about going into the movie specifically and as these scenes were starting. I just wondered if maybe, you know, how much did McMurphy, not that it justified anything in terms of the outcome, but how much does he wind her up versus her being the antagonist? And right away, you notice what is every single so-called therapy session about?

19:19Adam Kempenaar:Therapy sessions that she dictates, that she controls. They're all about sex, but they're not just about sex. More than anything, she uses sex. and the men's sexual past as a way to humiliate them. And then she uses that humiliation to divide them and to set them against each other. So she's in a position of power and she wields it not to heal them, but to hurt them. And what's most telling is that her contempt for McMurphy grows the more what happens. It's not just about whatever rules of hers he's breaking. It's that those men, and this is something I certainly never picked up on the last, you know, the 20 times I watched it in college.

20:04Adam Kempenaar:It's that those men become more unified as a group. They become happier as a group and individually. They're fishing. They're playing cards. They're watching the imaginary ballgame. They're playing basketball. They express themselves more, which early on she says she wants within their group, individually. Scanlon all of a sudden talks. Cheswick won't shut up. Even Harding isn't so insufferable. You could reasonably argue that they are more on a trajectory to eventually leave the hospital all because of McMurphy's influence. And does she encourage it like she should if she really cares about what she ostensibly cares about?

20:50Adam Kempenaar:Of course not. She loathes him. She despises him for it because it diminishes her authority. And because the sounder of mind they are, the more likely they are to question her authority, which is what they do and which she cannot allow.

21:07Josh Larsen:Remember, Mr. Scanlon, we've discussed many times that time spent in the company of others is very therapeutic. While time spent brooding alone only increases a feeling of separation. You remember that, don't you? Do you mean to say it's sick to want to be off by yourself? It's ratchet. Mr. Cheswick, you sit down. Yes, but I want to know. Sit down, Mr. Cheswick. I want to give him a cigarette. Will you, Harding? Yeah, he's helping them to see beyond the ward. And that is something she can't allow because in a way, the ward is purgatory. And they're stuck here. And if she is this, you know, minister of death, as I'm proposing, look at the choices she makes.

21:57Josh Larsen:Yes, absolutely. She knows not that for sure Billy will commit suicide if she pushes those buttons, but she knows it's in play. She absolutely knows it's in play. And so she's nudging things that way. And, you know, McMurphy, as far as it goes with McMurphy needling her, I think his fallibility only makes him more of this figure of life to me because life isn't the same as goodness. He's no innocent. It's very crucial to me that McMurphy is not an innocent. Life is messy. It's full of mistakes. It's full of bad decisions, some of which cause other people pain. But that's where you get the opportunity for rehabilitation, for life anew.

22:37Josh Larsen:And she is so opposed to that very notion. She cannot abide that notion, which is why it leads her to, and we're assuming this, it happens off screen, but surely she was in on the conversations. It leads to McMurphy's lobotomy. And I think that is so symbolically potent as well, because Adam, this removes him from purgatory, but doesn't move him to death. He is the living dead at that point. And this is something that's horrible that we haven't even really encountered or thought about. But it also puts into stark relief for me, Chief's decision when it comes to McMurphy. Later that night, it makes it seem like this is something of a mercy killing because of this, not because of the practicalities of the story, but again, this more mythic proportion.

23:32Josh Larsen:Because if McMurphy's life is reduced to a false one, right? That's what he has now. Then at least Chief can give him a death that is true. And it is something of a relief. So even that ending, which strikes this very strange, difficult note of tragedy and in Chief's escape release and some form of victory, I think resonates with us because it is working on these levels. these character levels, and then all these grander ideas that we're talking about.

24:07Adam Kempenaar:Absolutely. Doesn't Chief even say right before he does it something like, you're going where I'm going, or you're going with me. He doesn't mean it literally. He means it symbolically or metaphysically. He is going, he is sending McMurphy off with him outside these walls. He is freeing him. Absolutely. I do want to say, I'm not going to necessarily say in her defense. But I think it is clear that she doesn't want Billy to kill himself. And we know that because she does say, nurse, put Billy in the office and she sends the orderly to stay with him until the doctor arrives. She knows he will try to kill himself and she sends the orderly to be there with him so that he doesn't try to take his life.

24:56Adam Kempenaar:It's more about knowing he'll try to do it and she wants him to feel the agony. Yeah.

25:02Josh Larsen:Which speaks more to the purgatory idea too, right? It's like keeping him in this space under her control.

25:08Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And, and maybe this speaks a little bit, Josh, to your point about, which I absolutely agree with about not only being the case, but almost needing to be the case that McMurphy is flawed. McMurphy is culpable too, because something I didn't notice until this viewing it's Washington. I believe the orderly's name is that she sends to sit with Billy. Washington is the one who gets called to come get McMurphy when McMurphy punches the other orderly. It's because of McMurphy that Washington leaves Billy and Billy. Yeah.

25:45Josh Larsen:And, and McMurphy is the one who, you know, not only through the party, that was the inciting incident, but pushed Billy into the room with the, the friend that the woman that he has brought. And so there's culpability to go around. Absolutely.

25:59Adam Kempenaar:And at the same time, of course, he did this tremendously sacrificial thing, truly a gesture of friendship for Billy. So it's, it's complex, right? Going back to Fletcher and, and her performance. And it really is, I think an incredible performance. I called her sweetly savage, which you recognize about her right away is that civility, the, the coolness and the calmness. She's just a little too soothing. But that maddening sort of calmness that bad teachers have. She's just a little bit too soothing, as opposed to actually being comforting, which is, I think, what makes it remarkable. And I was thinking about that civility.

26:38Adam Kempenaar:There's something genteel about it. And you think about gentility like, well, there's elegance to it, or there's grace, and free from vulgarity or rudeness. Okay, that's definitely what she's striving for. But there's another definition of genteel, which is marked by false delicacy, prudery, or affectation. And I think it's the falseness, of course, that we're tapping into. That gentility belies her awfulness. No, she won't be outwardly vulgar or rude, but she will do horrible things to maintain her power. The way she maintains her power is to control her charges. And sometimes that means McMurphy, of course, nails her.

27:19Adam Kempenaar:He is so perceptive. He says she's dishonest. She says she likes a rigged game. And that's absolutely the case. And Josh, I was looking up something and I found, talk about an insight into a character that nails this so potently. Fletcher, in an interview with Vanity Fair sometime around when the movie came out or just shortly after, talked about, they asked her about how she approached the character and the performance. And it's from the 70s. But this is a July 2018 article in Vanity Fair that that references this interview. And, you know, it's ironic. I compared McMurphy to the Joker. The writer compares Ratched accurately to the Joker and other all time great villains like Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader.

28:04Adam Kempenaar:And the interview section that this writer references, it's Fletcher and also Foreman. They landed, Milos Foreman, they landed on the perfect insight into the character. And he grew up or experienced an oppressive communist regime. This is what the article says about Fletcher's insight.

28:51Adam Kempenaar:this music and make her feel good about the way she is unquote. Yeah.

28:57Josh Larsen:And that's how it's chilling. That's how you have to play a character like that as a complicated human, um, with a flawed perspective on the world, right?

29:05Adam Kempenaar:She doesn't think she's evil at all.

29:07Josh Larsen:It's all for their own good. You can't, you can't play her as a symbol or none of this would work. It's working on both levels because the performance is so good. And I'm glad you brought up the gender thing. Cause I do think it's worth considering. Um, we'll have to track down that piece. I would love to read it through a feminist lens. I do think, again, seeing it more symbolically, that this role could have been played by either a man or a woman the same way. And maybe I'm missing something in the dynamics there because I am a man. But it really felt like it wasn't envisioned in a gendered way, the role.

29:47Josh Larsen:Now, of course, Fletcher is going to bring that to the performance. But yeah, I am interested in seeing someone give it that reading because you're right. She is the only woman. She's dealing with power dynamics herself. She has superiors, right? All men, the doctors in the room that she meets with. She's the only woman in that room. So certainly things like that are in play. I want to go back to something else you said as you were setting things up, Adam, too, which is related to the other people on staff and the other people in the ward. you were touching on the supporting cast, these other patients.

30:19Josh Larsen:And I was, I think, relieved personally to see that I think to my mind, those depictions of the patients held up and of course have not had experience working on a ward like this. And we'll see to anyone who has, or anyone who knows people struggling with this type of mental illness and might find some of these performances patronizing. Um, and each one is different. So they all work on different registers. The ones that I found worked really well, you mentioned Christopher Lloyd and also Danny DeVito in the way they seemed very immersed in the background of each scene, not looking to do something, you know, quote unquote crazy to mark their character, but just living as these individual men, DeVito has that squinting smile, but to me, it was always being used as a form of self-defense, right?

31:17Josh Larsen:This was kind of like something he was putting up in front of himself so that he wasn't going to get caught up in what else was going on in the ward. And Lloyd just has this, he's thrumming with this coiled energy, but not in a way that detracts from what else is happening in the scene. I think they're both good. And then Will Sampson as chief, who I already mentioned, chief Bromden, we're introduced to this character and told that he's deaf and dumb. And later we reveal that's not the case. And you realize what a sly human being this is, what a sly performance this is, how funny it gets. Once chief reveals to McMurphy that he can talk, he's got a great sense of humor and then gets that shattering midnight monologue about his own father.

32:04Josh Larsen:and talking to McMurphy about, what is the phrase he uses? Working on you. They're working on you. And I saw that happen to my father. He admits his father was a troubled man too, ran into trouble with the law and how that was used against him unjustly and ruined his father's life.

32:23Adam Kempenaar:My papa's real big. He did like he pleased. That's why everybody worked on him.

32:34Josh Larsen:The last time I seen my father, he was blind in the seders from drinking. And every time he put the bottle to his mouth, he don't suck out of it. It sucks out of him until he shrinks through, wrinkled and yellow. Even the dogs don't know him. Killed him, huh? I'm not saying they killed him. They just worked on him. the way they're working on you. That speech is incredible. I had forgotten about that and from Will Sampson. And overall, I just found this to be a very credible portrait of the community in the ward. They were fully realized individuals rather than oversized children.

33:19Adam Kempenaar:Yes, and I'm glad you brought that up too because as I referenced in the setup there and invoking the word problematic, of course I think back to us as college freshmen And were we laughing at them? And honestly, Josh, maybe I'm letting us off the hook too easily. Just like I was laughing now. No, I don't think we were. I think we were laughing with them. I think we were invested in them as characters. I think we understood even then inherently that Ratched was pitting them against each other and watching the way those dynamics developed and watching the way, for example, I mentioned Cheswick, watching the way he initially tries to talk and he can't even get a word out of his mouth.

34:05Adam Kempenaar:He can only make sounds. And then at the end, by the end, he is saying he's demanding. I want my cigarettes. Where are my cigarettes? There's humor in that, while at the same time you recognize the absolute seriousness in those demands. So I do feel as if the writing and the portrayal of those characters, it feels authentic to me and never as if we're exploiting the conditions of those characters. Yes, Sidney Lassick as Cheswick, I would agree. Another great performance. We're going to talk a lot about Nicholson. And yes, we do. Spoilers. Both have a scene from this movie. That said, I still think we have to acknowledge here what makes this performance so special or talk about it a little bit.

34:53Adam Kempenaar:For sure. One thing I noticed this time, here again, this is the beauty of these sacred cows, especially when you haven't seen the movie in so long, is I had never fully recognized the extent to which this is a dual performance. This is Jack Nicholson playing Randall, playing, and I'm going to put this in air quotes, but this is his Randall McMurphy's version of playing crazy Randall. And I think this is just having a clearer sense of the characters and the story itself, paying closer attention. But there is a clear line that Nicholson draws between Randall and crazy Randall. I thought in my mind, in my recollection, it was more blurred.

35:38Adam Kempenaar:I always understood. And to go back to that phrase, I always understood that Randall was being worked on, like Chief says, that this wasn't fair, that he really shouldn't be here. But I guess when Dr. Spivey is asking him point blank, are you trying to fool us or are you really crazy? and Randall's coy about it, I thought there was more ambiguity there. I thought that while he didn't belong here, he wasn't 100 % acting either. His behavior was enough outside the realm of what society deemed to be normal that we just really weren't sure about him. And seeing it fresh, and here again, maybe just paying closer attention, I don't really think there's any ambiguity.

36:16Adam Kempenaar:There's the entire scene, first of all, where all hell breaks loose, finally, largely incited by McMurphy learning that acting crazy now has real consequences, that it isn't just a way of getting out of jail, which this whole time he has thought. He thinks jail is worse. And so acting crazy allows him to have a vacation basically here. But now he learns that at least jail has a set end date. And this doesn't. He could get stuck here for as long as they deem necessary. And he's really pissed off about it. And that Randall that Nicholson gives us in that group scene and in every scene after, that's a very different McMurphy.

36:56Adam Kempenaar:Not entirely different, but it is a different Randall than the one we've seen up to that point, at least in the scenes where Ratched or someone in authority is present. Go back and watch, for example, Randall on the boat. That's a different Randall than the Randall we see when he's interacting with Nurse Ratched, where he's really trying to get her to see him in a different light, where he's trying to maintain a certain type of performance. That group scene where the curtain has fallen, right? The manic energy is dissipated. The devilish Jack Grin has disappeared. He's no longer larger than life.

37:30Adam Kempenaar:We see a despondent, disappointed, frustrated, tired Randall. He's just a more human character. I always saw him as the same Randall because it seems like it's the same size Jack performance. He gets really angry. He breaks the glass. He grabs the cigarettes. But it is not at all. And I want to say one more thing, Josh. It's fascinating, too, because it speaks to how strong I think the story and the writing are. The entire time, he's crazy Randall. He's willfully fighting with Ratchet. He's trying to break her down. He's trying to stay there, as I said, not go back to jail. They are antithetical forces.

38:07Adam Kempenaar:And I, again, agree with the way you're pitting them as antithetical forces. They're always in opposition to each other. And they still are, those antithetical forces, ultimately at the end. But what's the irony of this scene? The scene where not only does everything really get extreme, but the real Randall finally comes out in front of the group. He and Nurse Ratched are actually, for once, on the same side of a confrontation. Cheswick and everyone is attacking her about Tyrandall, their petty individual concerns. All she wants them to do is shut up and move on, and she's getting increasingly agitated.

38:44Adam Kempenaar:All he wants them to do is shut up and move on, and he's getting increasingly agitated. When he breaks the glass and gets the cigarettes, he's defying her rules. That's another act of disobedience. But he's not doing it to defy her. He's doing it to accomplish the same thing that she wants, which is shutting Cheswick up. He's actually trying to help her. You could almost read it, almost read it, like the real Randall and Ratched could find some common ground with each other, that there's the potential for it. They both do want to be in control of group situations, right? But even when they're on the same side of something here, they're still in opposition to each other.

39:30Josh Larsen:Yeah, we're back to that clip, getting to the bottom of McMurphy, which, as you said, is probably not possible. He's definitely shifting personas here. And by he, I mean McMurphy. I think you're right about that. And we see it. I mean, how does he arrive on the scene when they bring him into the hospital? He's dancing and gives one of the guards a kiss on the cheek, right? He's playing into the quote-unquote loony bin persona that he thinks they're expecting. I think I probably, though, see it less of a flip of the switch for McMurphy and more of a continuum. And it's a really tricky question, too, because it's almost like there are moments where he's sober and there's moments where he's tipsy and there's moments where he's blind drunk and there's moments where he's passed out.

40:21Josh Larsen:Uh, and in terms of the question of society, yes, he doesn't belong here. Does he belong in jail? I mean, yes. If he's been convicted of some of these awful crimes he's been accused of, but to go back to the idea of rehabilitation, I don't know if either are going to serve him as a human being. And this is where we're, you know, it becomes maybe particularly a film of the era as, you You know, institutions like this were being reevaluated and what was considered polite and respectable in society is being questioned. Authority is being questioned. This is where the role is so perfect for Nicholson and who he was in the 70s.

41:05Josh Larsen:Because when you think about, he had already established himself with this sort of iconoclastic persona with five easy pieces, the last detail. So we know this is something Nicholson can do really well. But I do think it's, if not better performance. No, I think it probably is a better performance than both of those. It's because it has these layers you're talking about of shifting who he wants to be for people in different scenes. But I especially like the delicacy that Nicholson brings. You've already touched on it in some of the scenes you've talked about. I want to go back to that entrance exam he has.

41:47Josh Larsen:And here he is still, he's being particularly cagey. He's like, he's sobering up and then getting a little tipsy again in the same moment, right? With, with the director, but watch the face Nicholson's face. When the director just says out loud, doesn't really mean anything about it. He's reading biographical details and he just says his age, which I think he says 38. And you'll see on McMurphy's face, this little flicker of failure. Like I'm 38, I'm still doing this. At least that's how I read it. He doesn't admit anything, but then we also touched on this, Adam, about his, how much power he has.

42:24Josh Larsen:And that moment you talked about when he realizes he can't just leave at any time, he's asked something about, you know, are you, are you going to work with us or help us help you? Something like that. And he kind of mutters off to the side. It ain't up to me. it ain't up to me. He knows a little bit already, if not that this hospital is against him, but that society has already respectable society, institutional society has aligned itself against him and he doesn't have a place within it anywhere. I just think what's remarkable about Nicholson here is, you know, he's even when he's being his most impertinent as McMurphy, you get a sense that he's a cocky cornered animal.

43:08Josh Larsen:He's always still the cornered animal. And to be able to do both of those things at once is a delicacy that maybe some of those earlier parts where he was really leaning into the bravado, you don't see quite as much. Different parts, different person, people he's playing. So that makes sense. But here I do love that you get both of those elements in so many of these scenes.

43:27Adam Kempenaar:Eventually we're going to get to another Pantheon project conversation about Cool Hand Luke. And I think there are certain antiheroes and they both qualify, McMurphy and Cool Hand Luke. There are certain antiheroes who fall into that category, Josh, of mythic misfits where that's exactly what they are. We aren't meant to get to the bottom of them. There isn't a getting to the bottom of them. They are symbolic representatives. They are meant to draw out these types of mythical conflicts. We are supposed to confront them through them. McMurphy doesn't belong there, but as you said, he probably doesn't belong in jail, but he doesn't belong in society either.

44:07Adam Kempenaar:What do we do with him? What do you do with someone like Luke who doesn't belong in the jail that he's in, but he also doesn't want to and doesn't belong in the society that he's in? That's the beauty of this type of art.

44:21Josh Larsen:Man, I have been thinking about Newman quite a bit lately in this context because watching other Nicholson films, having recently done our top five Gene Hackman scenes, also known for playing antiheroes of a type. And I did just see HUD again at Doc Films here at University of Chicago. And that is a great conversation to have at some point of these sort of 70s, late 60s era antihero figures that the likes of Newman and Nicholson and Hackman specialized in. We'll probably get to some of that in our top five.

44:56Adam Kempenaar:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is currently available VOD. And you know, of Nurse Ratched won't let you watch it. You can just act out the whole thing for yourself. If you agree or disagree with anything we had to say, or if you just have comments about the film, we'd love to hear them. Feedback at filmspotting.net. All right.

45:12Josh Larsen:Koufax looks down. He's going to get the great Mickey Mantle now. Here comes the pitch. Mantle swings. It's a f***ing arm round. Gentlemen, stop this. Stop this immediately. Listening is the number one thing you could do to support an independently produced show like ours. A couple more things you can do. Take a minute to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Doesn't matter if you're brand new or have been around for 20 years. Every new review helps us reach new listeners. Now, this is usually the spot where we mentioned the other thing you can do to help us out. That's join the Film Spotting family, and then we'll feature a member of the Film Spotting family.

45:51Josh Larsen:Instead, this time, we're going to share a couple of voice messages that listeners submitted ahead of Film Spotting Fest back in March. We're going to highlight some more of these over the course of our 20th anniversary year. We do offer a few prompts for these voicemails asking folks to share a favorite show memory or something they appreciate about the show. They could really say whatever they wanted, though. So here's what we got from a couple of longtime listeners. Hey, Film Spotting. It's Trip Burton from Chicagoland. I've been listening since 2005, the full 20 years. It was the first podcast I ever discovered.

46:27Josh Larsen:And the thing that I value most about Film Spotting from day one is the listener involvement in the show. From the moment I listened to the show the first time, it was about not only reviews and top five lists, but it was about shouting out listeners and listener feedback and massacre theater and giving nicknames to listeners and making them into celebrities.

46:54Adam Kempenaar:I remember the first time I ever had something that I sent in read on the show. I remember when my son's picture in his film spotting onesie was on your website.

47:06Josh Larsen:I remember the first live event that I went to where I actually got to talk to Adam and talk to Matty Ballgame. And I've sat down at events and I've talked to all of you.

47:17Adam Kempenaar:And then in 2020, the world shuts down and you bring us all together on Zoom in trivia spotting and other events. Trivia spotting and film spotting have given me some of the best friends that I have right now.

47:33Josh Larsen:It has given me a community. And you guys have shared all of that with us and made us feel like integral parts of the show. So there's a reason I'm still listening 20 years on, and there's a reason that I'll still be listening when we celebrate Film Spotting 40. So congratulations, guys. I'm so excited to be celebrating with you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Lisa. I'm Chris. From Air Mass, and we wanted to share our first time that we got to meet the Film Spotting group.

48:04Adam Kempenaar:We got to meet Josh, who's, of course, great to talk to him. talked to met sam we got to giggle about josh's uh pronunciation of bill ricka as bellica or something and then we got to meet the very cool michael phillips who promptly told us no you're

48:20Josh Larsen:not in chicago just for film spotting there's so many other things you can see now here you're not here just for that it was really cool and then we met adam and that was so cool um until he told me that i was possibly the one of the people that traveled the furthest to get there and therefore I might be getting up on stage to Massacre Theater. I was very relieved when that bit was cut. And I'm so relieved that you guys are so famous now. I never have to worry about going through that again. Congratulations. Thank you.

48:48Adam Kempenaar:Wonderful to hear from Trip and from Lisa and Chris, who, as you heard, we have had many encounters with over the years in person and also virtual. And it was just one of those serendipitous things where when I picked these two voicemails or these two bits of audio to feature, I just kind of randomly put them together. I didn't realize that they were both going to be about the community and that communal aspect of film spotting, but it really is maybe the best thing about this show and doing it over 20 years. And it does go back, Josh, to something that just was organic to what Sam and I started and continued with Maddie and continued with you.

49:30Adam Kempenaar:It wasn't something that was a strategy, but it just happened and I'm glad it did. And I'm glad that it continues. And we thank Trip and Lisa and Chris for sharing such wonderful thoughts.

49:42Josh Larsen:And proof of that is just hearing those voices, even just seeing their names, you know, I can picture their faces because I've had the opportunity to meet them online or yeah, even in person.

49:54Adam Kempenaar:So yeah, it's really good stuff. I think we have two more of those segments that we'll feature over the next month or so. Thanks again to Trip and Lisa and Chris. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, your support comes with perks. You get to listen early and ad-free. You get our weekly newsletter. You get exclusive opportunities like being part of the FilmSpotting family Discord. And you get monthly bonus shows. Back in June, you heard us wax on about our favorite performances of the year so far. Just earlier today as we're recording this, we talked about Burn After Reading with producer Sam Van Halgren.

50:28Adam Kempenaar:A little we were wrong once. I was wrong once. and I might have been wrong twice.

50:34Josh Larsen:Maybe. I also am pretty sure, yeah, we just finished up about an hour ago. Sam's probably halfway through Burn After Reading right now. I think he just wanted to put it on and watch it straight through again. He loves it so much.

50:46Adam Kempenaar:He adores it. He adores it. So he definitely wasn't wrong about it for all you Burn After Reading fans. And that will be appearing in your FilmSpotting family feeds very soon. If you would like to learn more about the FilmSpotting family, you can do so at filmspottingfamily.com. Architecture is just a way to think about how we live. When we design something, we design the behavior for people.

51:13Josh Larsen:That's from the new doc, Architecton, from director Victor Kosakovsky. It opens this weekend in limited release. Kosakovsky's previous film, 2021's Gunda, was a close study of farm animals, including the mother pig of the title. I really went for Gundah. I think I called it Charlotte's Web by way of slow cinema, something like that. It's worth checking out. His latest is more expansive. It's a meditation on, and I'll quote the plot description here, the material that makes up our habitat, concrete and its ancestor stone. Okay, if that's not grabbing you, how about this? A review in Variety apparently calls it, quote, dazzling epic scale filmmaking.

51:57Josh Larsen:What say you, Adam? You have had a chance to see this.

52:01Adam Kempenaar:Well, by any technical objective definition, it is certainly epic scale filmmaking in the same realm as Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi. I like that you use the word plot there as if there's a plot. It's an abstract documentary. It's comprised entirely or almost entirely of shots of nature. there's no talking heads there's almost no context there's sort of a character i'll get into that very minimal dialogue you almost wish the one conversation about architecture that happens in the film would have been put at the beginning instead of the end just to provide some intellectual framing i would say if you are at all interested in architecture obviously this documentary may appeal to you but i'd add that if you were someone who watched the brutalist and found the designs and the conversations and conflicts surrounding design.

52:53Adam Kempenaar:Interesting that this documentary might appeal to you as well, because of course, brutalist architects predominantly used concrete for a host of reasons. You may recall some of this coming up in that film, right? Affordability, functionality, the monolithic imposing style and more. And architecton is at its core, as you heard, Josh, kind of about concrete. More specifically, Architecton is kind of about how much concrete sucks. It's very anti-concrete. So there's a nice pro and con, if you will, with the Brutalist that you might be drawn to. The imagery could be enough of a draw to that epic scale filmmaking.

53:37Adam Kempenaar:There are many sequences you could single out. I'll note too, There's a scene where these rocks, you know, the stone, you really see the entire process of concrete being made coming from, and it's not only that, but you do over the course of the film, see that happen. Stones being broken down, transported, the heating process, all of it. You see these rocks, the smaller rocks on a conveyor belt and where the camera, the way the camera's position and the way the conveyor is moving, the rocks are jiggling almost like they're bubbling or like they're alive. And it's just a way of seeing rocks like you've never seen them before.

54:18Adam Kempenaar:There's also drone footage of train cars loaded with stones, and they're whisking across a desert that honestly rivals the majesty of anything in Lawrence of Arabia. It's stunning. If none of that immediately grabs you, you want something a little bit more intellectually challenging to grab onto, I'll offer this, and I'll confess. In 20 years of doing this show, I think I can count the number of times I've referenced the press notes on one hand, maybe two. And those were almost all interview situations, not review situations. And I'm not suggesting a critic shouldn't reference them. That's what they're there for.

54:53Adam Kempenaar:It's just not usually part of my process. But this is a case where I did feel like I needed some additional context to be fully confident in what I was seeing or what I thought I was seeing. Some of the footage is from the part of Turkey where a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit in 2023. And in the press notes, Kosakovsky says, in Turkey, we filmed in two areas very close to each other. In the earthquake zone, where everything made from concrete was destroyed, but 4 ,000-year-old buildings made from stone remain in place. Civilizations became less durable once we started building with metal and cement.

55:26Adam Kempenaar:with this juxtaposition, the movie wants us to contemplate how it is that we clearly know how to make beautiful, enduring structures. And Kosakovsky showcases many other examples as well. Yet all too often, we continue to make ugly, disposable structures. For all our supposed sophistication and technology, why do we regress, not progress? I said there was sort of a character. So I like that question. I like thinking about that provocation. I said there was sort of a character. The only architect we meet is an Italian named Michel De Lucci. And that's because when Kosakowski began his research for the film, he reached out to 20 of the most famous architects in the world.

56:04Adam Kempenaar:And he asked them two questions. Why did you become an architect? And what should be the dominant focus of the modern city? And he explains that, you know, back in the olden times, right, in Western civilization, especially in Europe, but also in other parts of the world, Of course, what was the focus of civilization? It was religion. So everything was built around cathedrals. Well, religion is no longer the focus of civilization and these cities. So he asked them, what should it be now? And some proposed schools or libraries or even shopping malls. I'd love to hear from those who propose shopping malls.

56:47Adam Kempenaar:and according to Kosakowski, he said only one offered a clear cut and universal idea, and it was DeLucci, and his grand idea, this is from the press notes, instead of a cathedral or a shopping mall, he was thinking about open space, empty space, a circle where man cannot enter, never, it should be in the center of our cities in order to remind us that nature is at the center of our existence, so he even acknowledges that other people talked about it being sustainable, and there should be green aspects to it, but they were all still talking about concrete and metal. And only DeLucci was like, nope, it should just be nature, basically.

57:26And so you see over the course of the film,

57:30Adam Kempenaar:him cutting back to this circle being created. I'm not entirely convinced that, and it's a small circle on his property. I'm not entirely convinced that returning to scenes of DeLucci watching two men hammering stones into his lawn to form a magic circle offers the powerful statement, Kosakovsky desires, but I appreciated the modest enterprises, poetic implications. And I, I appreciated enough of the visual poetry I saw in architect on I'm hooked.

57:59Josh Larsen:I mean, this all sounds great to me and yeah, especially having liked Gunda, I think there's actually an architect on screening tonight. So if we, if I get out of here pretty soon, I might try to make that, but otherwise we'll definitely catch up with it on release for sure.

58:14Adam Kempenaar:Architect on is currently playing in limited release. I look forward to your thoughts once you see it. If you like Gunda, though, it does sound like a different scale of filmmaking as we alluded to. I have a feeling you will appreciate this film as well. Next week on the show, Josh, have I been tricked? Well, maybe I'm the one who's tricked myself into seeing a horror movie because I saw the trailer for the new film starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco together. It looked really interesting to me. There are a couple who experience a supernatural encounter that transforms their relationship and apparently their flesh.

58:50Adam Kempenaar:It was a film that debuted at a midnight screening at Sundance earlier this year. And then maybe it's changed in the last couple of days, but recently this was a 100 % on Rotten Tomatoes. People are really digging it. IndieWire's Kate Erbland was at that midnight screening at Sundance and she called it a crowd-pleasing and screaming little ditty of a midnight treat. So are we going to see it and talk about it?

59:13Josh Larsen:I mean, I did raise my eyebrow when this showed up on the schedule as a sure thing. I thought, wait a minute, does Adam know what this is about? But yeah, definitely, definitely intrigued. Glad to hear you are as well. So I think, I think we're going to put ourselves through this, Adam, and we'll see what we feel on the other side.

59:31Adam Kempenaar:Okay. And we will see if we're ready finally for our close-ups we talked about the apartment a pantheon project review of that billy wilder film a couple of weeks ago and sunset boulevard is turning 75 this year so this is this is kind of the doldrums august those first few weeks of august especially when when summer is sadly kind of ending so this is why we're taking advantage of these weeks to see movies re-see movies and talk about films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and even The Apartment and Sunset Boulevard. So that is on the schedule right now, Josh. Are we sticking with it?

1:00:10Josh Larsen:Yeah, I can't wait to revisit this one. I don't know when the last time was that I watched it. It feels quite a while ago, though it also has that similar status I mentioned with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, where you see clips at award shows and movie appreciation documentaries and that sort of thing so often that it seems fresh in my brain, but a full viewing with it,

1:00:33Adam Kempenaar:it's been a while. We will also have results from the Sunset Boulevard inspired deeply flawed film spotting poll. I'm not sure if this one is deeply flawed, but those might be my famous last words. It asks you to choose one and only one actress playing an actress going through it. I did notice that Michael Phillips missed those directions. The options are all great. You got Naomi Watson there, Gloria Swanson, Jenna Rollins, Betty Davis, Natalie Portman, Laura Dern, Scarlett Johansson, Juliette Binoche. I do love that Sam included Juliette Binoche, even though like 17 people saw The Clouds of Sils Maria.

1:01:09Adam Kempenaar:And I like The Clouds of Sils Maria, the Olivier Assayas film quite a bit, but I don't expect it to fare well in this poll. we will have those results i have to imagine that naomi watts is currently leading that poll i

1:01:25Josh Larsen:haven't looked it was one of michael's two choices probably your choice as well i believe and yeah i went with i went with jenna roland's in opening night been but can absolutely understand a vote for naomi watts in mulholland drive if you want to vote in that poll you can also leave a comment please do it at filmspotting.net. And for a schedule of our future shows, go to filmspotting.net slash episodes. Sunset Boulevard, Adam, one of the key texts that influenced Robert Altman's The Player. So we'll be sure to touch on that connection at Cinema Interruptus, which is right around the corner now.

1:02:03Josh Larsen:This is going to be August 11 to 14 at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center. Four days of communal film criticism. We're going to work our way through the player scene by scene. If it takes us all those days to do it, we'll use up all that time. I always bring bonus material for this. I don't think I have clips planned from Sunset. Instead, I think I'm going to show a little bit of Touch of Evil and a little bit of a movie I was unfamiliar with before doing research, 1951's Hollywood Story, sort of a Hollywood set noir mystery. William Castle directed, pretty enjoyable. I'll show a clip from that.

1:02:40Josh Larsen:as well. For Cinema Interruptus, you can get a whole package and attend all four days, or if you can only make it one day, single day tickets are available as well. And you can pick those up right now, ciscofilmcenter.org slash interruptus.

1:02:56Adam Kempenaar:You know, Josh, speaking of bonus material, I wrote a pretty good essay back as a film student about that opening long take in Touch of Evil. I'll let you take a look at it. Send it along.

1:03:06Josh Larsen:Yeah. We'll see if I can steal a few things from it. Okay. This week on our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show, looking at cinema's present via its past. It's part two of their Men of Steel pairing. After a very good conversation about 1978 Superman, they are moving on to 2025 Superman. I don't know, Adam, if among The Next Picture Show hosts will find anyone sympathetic to our negative responses to Superman, or it'll just be more praise. I have yet to listen to that installment myself, but we'll get to that at some point. Also, we want to encourage you to listen to Keith Phipps' new podcast.

1:03:45Josh Larsen:Keith, one of the next Picture Show hosts, of course. His new podcast is called The Laser Age, and he's exploring science fiction films from the second half of the 20th century. That, too, is available wherever you get your podcasts. Time now for Massacre Theater, where we perform a scene and you get a chance to win a film spotting prize. Last time we massacred this scene.

1:04:09Josh Larsen:Sup Supes?

1:04:11Adam Kempenaar:Wow, it's Batman and he's at my house right now.

1:04:16Josh Larsen:What are you doing here? Don't worry about it, Doug. I'm not here to throw down or anything. Uh, no, I would crush you. Okay, sure, sure, sure. Hey, listen, thank me later, but I just happen to be in the hood and I figured that you could probably use the Company. Wait a minute. Are you having the 57th annual Justice League anniversary party without me? No! No, no, no, no, no! That was Channing Tatum's Superman with Will Arnett's Batman in 2017's The Lego Batman Movie. It was written by Chris McKenna, John Whittington, Seth Graham Smith, Eric Summers, and Jared Stern, and directed by Chris McKay.

1:05:05Josh Larsen:That massacre was part of our Superman extravaganza a couple of weeks back. We did review James Gunn's Superman, and we also shared our top five Superman moments. So why that scene from the Lego Batman movie? Did each one of those writers contribute like a line at a time? I was just thinking, you know, you get that many writers. It usually doesn't bode well for the finished product, but I think it worked out pretty well this time.

1:05:30Adam Kempenaar:It worked. Matthew from Brooklyn, New York says, in last week's episode, you massacred a scene from the Lego Batman, the obvious connection being that you discussed Superman. But more deeply, this could have been because although it didn't work for you, James Gunn brought a different take on the character, especially the visual look of the world, just as Lego Batman did.

1:05:47Josh Larsen:Here's Angela Capus from Richmond, Virginia. Hey, Adam and Josh, you guys did a fantastic job playing Batman and Superman in the vastly underrated the Lego Batman movie. I haven't seen the new Superman movie, but obviously Superman is in both films. The Phantom Zone also features heavily, which comes from previous Superman movies, Love the Show, and Massacre Theater. Wait, I already called it two different things. Now we're calling it The Phantom Zone? Yeah, I was going to say, is that supposed to be what's in the 2025 Superman?

1:06:16Adam Kempenaar:Is it just a riff on that? I'm asking questions I don't really want the answer to. I did Google it, and The Phantom Zone is a real thing, and I think it really is in James Gunn's Superman, but they never refer to it that That way that I can recall. Okay. So comic book people should get that. We are not those. Rory Dunn in Vancouver, BC says this massacre theater is from the Lego Batman movie. The obvious tie in is that everyone is the superheroes having fun and enjoying the new Superman. And Adam and Josh are the Batman or the Batman who got left off the invite list.

1:06:48Josh Larsen:So true, Rory. Is this, is this going to be, I was thinking about this the other day, Adam, is this going to be our Raiders, the lost Ark? Like, are we just going to have to live? Oh, that's right. Because Raiders of the Lost Ark is a good movie.

1:07:01Adam Kempenaar:You know what? I'm going to rue the day that I say this, but so far, maybe, maybe they just thought we were beyond hope so far. The email bag feedback at filmspotting.net. We've gotten more emails supporting our take than those telling us we were intriguing.

1:07:19Josh Larsen:Okay. Cause that's, that's not the case on the film spotting family discord. The Discord, we're taking some heat. And, you know, again, more reason to join the Film Spotting family if you want to give us that heat. You can do it there. I just think they heard it. They heard it and they were like, there's no point.

1:07:35Adam Kempenaar:It's probably true. So reach into the Film Spotting hat and pick out this week's winner. Our winner is Steve Whitford from Rhode Island. Congratulations, Steve. Email feedback at filmspotting.net and we will set you up with your very own Film Spotting t-shirt or tote bag. or if you're not a member of the FilmSpotting family, you can have a trial membership.

1:07:57Josh Larsen:How did I come to this? Not again. I plugged Richard III. Five curtain calls. Five curtain calls. I was an actor once. Damn it, now look at me. Look at me! I can't go out there and I won't say that stupid line one more time.

1:08:11Adam Kempenaar:We move on now to this week's edition of Massacre Theatre. It is a sort of funny voice. We'll see how funny it is. A funny voice edition of Massacre Theater and Josh will be the one taking on that heavy burden. It's a pretty short scene and it's one in which we will be cutting out some extraneous voices so we can focus in on the two main characters. There's one line in particular here that should give it away if you know this film. And I think maybe we can leave it at that.

1:08:44Josh Larsen:You're kind of insulting the original actor, Adam. I don't think they intend this to be a funny voice. That's a good point. I think it's intended to be quite cool. I am actually fully insulting you.

1:08:56Adam Kempenaar:That was my point. All right. As long as things are back where they should be. Okay. I'm going to start it off. You're going to give me the action. And action. This may seem like a really stupid question. There are no stupid questions. You inherit$5 million the same day aliens land on the earth and say they're going to blow it up in two days. What do you do?

1:09:20Josh Larsen:That's the stupidest question I ever heard. I don't know. Probably row out to the middle of the lake somewhere. Bring a bottle of tequila, my sacks, and some Bach. How very? Later.

1:09:39Adam Kempenaar:Definitely. And? And scene. There will be no insults here. I practiced that earlier today, and it was 150th of the performance that you just gave.

1:09:51Josh Larsen:Oh, wow. I did hit a few beats with 110%. So I'm glad it came through. Yeah, it's not the performance that actor gave, but it was a performance.

1:10:00Adam Kempenaar:I think in his head, that's the performance he was giving. Maybe so. If you know what film we just massacred, email the movie's title. We think you do. Email the movie's title and your name and location to feedback at filmspotting.net. The deadline is Monday, August 11. We'll select the winner randomly from all the correct entries and announce it in a couple of weeks.

1:10:20Josh Larsen:How much are you worth? I have no idea. How much do you want? I just want to know what you're worth. Over$10 million? Oh, my yes. Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford? The future, Mr. Gitz. The future. Sure. Now, where's the girl?

1:10:38Adam Kempenaar:Man of the hour, Jack Nicholson there with John Houston in Chinatown. Before we get to our top five Nicholson scenes, some poll results. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to choose one and only one Nicholson performance. I said there was one role running away with it. Turns out it was neck and neck. The options we gave you. Giddes in Chinatown. Badusky, the last detail. Joker in Batman. McMurphy in Cuckoo's Nest. Torrance in the Shining or Other Josh. How did it come out?

1:11:10Josh Larsen:Other is in last place with 5%. Joker got 6 % and Badusky got 7%. A little closer here with the top three. Torrance in the Shining, 21 % of the vote. And yeah, 1 % separates the second place finisher with 29%, McMurphy from Cuckoo's Nest. That means that Giddes took it. Chinatown got 30 %

1:11:33Adam Kempenaar:of the boat. I'm surprised. I really thought McMurphy would maintain that lead and run away with it, though, of course, Chinatown, an incredible film. And I do love that character, Jake Giddes. Here's Jan McDaniel. McMurphy in Cuckoo's Nest is a singular Nicholson performance, primarily for the honesty of his portrayal. All these roles are powerful, but there is a stylized quality to them, either because of the era, Chinatown, or the genre, The Shining, Batman. Nicholson puts a layer of artificiality into his acting, but with McMurphy, he transforms from a Khan turning into a reformer that so shakes the establishment he's redacted, well, we spoiled it, to eliminate his power.

1:12:09Adam Kempenaar:This is high water Mark Nicholson, in my honest opinion.

1:12:13Josh Larsen:We also got a comment from Bill Van Zandt. These are all great choices. I finally watched The Last Detail not too long ago and considered it for my vote here, but I just can't get Nicholson's Joker out of my head, deranged and clearly having a good time with it. Might not be his best performance, but it's the movie I'd most enjoy watching again.

1:12:31Adam Kempenaar:Here's Josh. Of the nominees, it's got to be Chinatown. Cuckoo's Nest is a close second, but over his career, five easy pieces. Fatally flawed again, he says, exclamation point.

1:12:41Josh Larsen:Man, harsh, Josh. Here's a comment from Taylor Cole. Not a bad choice among the options here, but I had to go other. I spent most of my youth thinking of Jack as a caricaturist, a talented, supremely watchable caricaturist, but never thought of him as being particularly subtle or nuanced. Catching up with five easy pieces changed all that for me. So I had to give his performance

1:13:01Adam Kempenaar:there my vote. Here's Sean Means to close us out. Is it possible that the deeply flawed film spotting poll can't handle the truth? Oh boy. Of all of Jack Nicholson's great movie performances, I have to pick his turn as Colonel Nathan R. Jessup and Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men as the topper. Giving Nicholson a chance to chew up Aaron Sorkin's dialogue was a brilliant choice and Nicholson runs with it. Thank you. That he does. To everyone who voted and everyone who left a comment that does nicely set the table for us as we transition into our top five Jack Nicholson scenes. We should note, or we like to note, that there are three of these films that, or two, actually, two films that you just heard mentioned that are in the film spotting pantheon.

1:13:49Adam Kempenaar:Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. That doesn't matter for one of these career retrospectives. We are allowed to choose from Chinatown and Cuckoo's Nest. There's also a film that probably should be because it's certainly been referenced and praised enough on the show, and that is The Shining. Doesn't matter even if it was in the Pantheon, but I wanted to acknowledge The Shining has come up a lot. We'll see if it gets mentioned here by one of us. What else do you want to say about how you approached your list, Josh?

1:14:18Josh Larsen:I think it's right to describe this list as career retrospective. I try to treat it that way, do a lot of homework. Of course, I can't be exhaustive, so there are still gaps in his filmography, but it's kind of an excuse to do our best right now. And when doing that, we look at different eras, the decades maybe an actor or actress is at their strongest or made some of their best work and maybe why that was. And it did strike me, Adam, that it's no wonder Jack Nicholson broke out in the 1970s. We didn't do a ton of discussion about the politics in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. We kind of touched on it, but that film and his character there falls into the same type that I would say I describe as the charismatic iconoclast who's bucking the system.

1:15:09Josh Larsen:And there are variations on that for sure, but it was a character made, a persona made for that era. And I think that's why he resonated. I think that's why he broke out. He captured the frustration of trying to buck the system in that era in Nixon's America and its aftermath because the reality was you could only push things so far, right? And so many of Nicholson's characters mesmerized us by trying to do that and then they would tragically hit a wall. So I definitely have a couple of scenes that speak to that quality, but going back to the career retrospective element, Nicholson's career is so vast and varied that I wanted to be sure to represent that as well.

1:15:46Josh Larsen:Represent his range, represent some of the other eras that he was still vital in. It wasn't just the seventies. So, so I didn't stick only to charismatic iconoclasts, even though I think that was his essence. And again, the era he offered it, that's what cemented him so early as a legend. It was like, within a couple of years, he became a legend. I think that's the reason why.

1:16:08Adam Kempenaar:A lot of crossover there. I definitely considered how I wanted to, or if I did want to represent his entire career, he made films from the late 1950s up to 2010. So you've got a full five decades to cover. He has Oscar nominated work, Josh, technically in five decades because Easy Rider is a 69 film. Yeah, it's incredible. And was celebrated at the 70 Oscars. Ultimately, I did keep it pretty focused on what was undoubtedly his most fruitful period. A little bit of trivia about him. He has 12 Academy Award nominations. I did not realize that until I looked at that chart. Eight for best actor, four for best supporting actor.

1:16:49Adam Kempenaar:He's the most nominated male actor in Academy Awards history. And what an interesting mix too.

1:16:56Josh Larsen:You usually think of maybe getting the supporting when you're breaking out. And then once you get in that lead actor category, that's where you stay, even if you're a multiple time nominee. But yeah, to have that mix speaks to the different space he could take up and was willing to take up in a film, even though we think about him as having an outsized personality.

1:17:16Adam Kempenaar:Right. One last bit of trivia with three Oscar wins. He also ties Walter Brennan, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ingrid Bergman, Francis McDormand, and Meryl Street for the second most Oscar wins in acting categories. So here again, a lot of crossover like you. I considered the types of Jacks I wanted represented, the range. There may be one Nicholson impression that everyone does, but that doesn't actually, of course, capture the range of characters he plays, the shades he brings to those characters. And maybe I was inspired by Spinal Tap 2 coming out. And in Spinal Tap 1, they talk about the Jack the Ripper musical they considered, Saucy Jack.

1:17:56Adam Kempenaar:So I'm going to offer up some different Jacks that made my list. But there will be a through line and it does connect to what you said, Josh, about the iconoclast, the rebel. But it's not so much about picking the rebel character. It's more about what the rebel character stands for, which will make more sense, I think, as we get into my picks here. So which scene are you going with at number five?

1:18:23Josh Larsen:And number five, this one I think does speak to his range and also that ability to not take up as much space in a film. And in terms of endearment from 1983, this was a supporting actor win. You can almost sense not the relief, but just the fun he's having not needing to carry the movie because he's not. He's not the main character, but he's so good in it. I also wanted to include something from terms of endearment because I did want to represent his romantic side on screen that he had that. And he did have this run of films in the eighties that were in this vein, two of them. I hadn't seen before terms of endearment.

1:19:03Josh Larsen:And then 1986 is heartburn heartburn failed me. I got to admit, I mean, Nicholson and Meryl Streep, they're doing their best to bring it to life. But, uh, yeah, terms of endearment that I found to be a performance bonanza. So I am going to go with a moment from terms for my first pick here. The clear strength of this James L. Brooks best picture winner are the performances. You get great work from Nicholson, Shirley McClain, my goodness. And Deborah Winger, who Winger's probably the strongest of the three. She might be. Even though McClain and Nicholson, they both won Oscars. He is Garrett Breedlove, a former astronaut who lives next door to McClain's Aurora Greenway.

1:19:44Josh Larsen:They're both flirtatious. They're frisky and middle-aged. They each have their own sets of admirers. And yes, initially they despise each other. The movie eventually gets around to them having this fling and it's full of passion. It's full of real honesty for a short while that only two people at this stage of their lives together, I think, can have. But Garrett just can't commit. So there is this heartbreaking moment where he makes that clear. and this is even at him after he has flown to meet Aurora at the hospital where her daughter, played by Winger, is terminally ill. And you feel like this is the turning point in the movie, right?

1:20:23Josh Larsen:His appearance there, it's where maybe he's going to fully give of himself. He has a surprise arrival at the hotel. It's incredibly romantic. But then when she brings him back to the airport, she puts herself out there and he just can't do it.

1:20:37Adam Kempenaar:I was curious. Do you have any reaction at all to my telling you I love you?

1:20:43Josh Larsen:I was just inches from a clean getaway.

1:20:48Adam Kempenaar:Well, you're stuck, so face it.

1:20:54Josh Larsen:I don't know what else to say except my stock answer.

1:20:58Adam Kempenaar:Which is?

1:21:00Josh Larsen:I love you too, kid. I love you too, kid. That's my pick. That's my scene. You've got to see Nicholson smile. the one he gives here, it's irresistible and maddening because Garrett knows he's being awful and he knows he's going to get away with it. And so that just really, really hurts for Aurora, of course, but for the viewer as well. So I'm going to go with a supporting performance pick here at number five. That's the Oscar Nicholson one. And I just really like it because it does allow him to be in that romantic gear, but he's not betraying the flagrant charisma. that was also a part of his persona.

1:21:39Adam Kempenaar:So for me, it's I love you too, kid. He is. He's so much fun in that role. He's irresistible, even as he won't commit. He seems to stand for everything that she doesn't stand for. And yet, you know he is, as you said, going to get away with it. There are people like that in the world, very few people like that in the world, maybe. And that Nicholson character is one of them. He inhabits it so well. I'm going to go with another supporting role, another Oscar nominated role at number five. We might as well begin at the beginning with not his first screen role, but certainly his breakout role and that first Oscar nomination playing George Hanson in Easy Rider.

1:22:21Adam Kempenaar:And I'm calling him poignant Jack. back there's there's no or very little gilding the lily with george hansen he's got one recurring tick if you will the noise he likes to make a little physical tick as well he likes to say swamp you'll hear it otherwise he's very mellow and that's because he's so damn high in 2016 for Rolling Stone, Noel Murray, and Tim Grierson anointed the movie stoner hall of fame. And here's how they describe George. Tagging along on Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper's cross-country drug odyssey, Jack Nicholson's football-helmeted Hanson stands for all the squares who could easily be cool if they'd just turn on.

1:23:07Adam Kempenaar:A slick-talking Southern lawyer with a thirst for booze, George tries grass for the first time while hanging out with his new hippie friends and soon finds himself deeply relaxed, philosophizing about Venusians and bullfrogs. Though Nicholson's part is small, Easy Rider helped make him a star. He's the salt of the earth guy next door who makes dope smoking acceptable to the everyman by turning it into an exercise of our nation's divinely bestowed freedoms. God bless America indeed. So I'm not picking the part of the scene where they're talking about Venusians and bullfrogs and UFOs. I'm going with the end of the campfire scene.

1:23:43Adam Kempenaar:It's almost a monologue, but it is a conversation between George and Dennis Hopper's Billy. I said George was high. Reportedly that didn't require much acting because Nicholson, Fonda, and Hopper were all partaking during this scene and I'm sure many others. And it starts, I do love this touch by Hopper, the director. It starts with Nicholson talking right to the camera.

1:24:08Josh Larsen:You know, this used to be a hell of a good country.

1:24:14Adam Kempenaar:I can't understand what's going on with it.

1:24:42Adam Kempenaar:I can just imagine, I've never asked my mom about it, but I can imagine, I know they liked the film. I know they liked the soundtrack. I can imagine a whole lot of 17 and 18 year olds at the time, like my parents, who definitely would not be classified as hippies, who saw this movie in the theater, heard those words and Nicholson's conviction speaking them. And all of a sudden started thinking about what freedom really means.

1:25:10Josh Larsen:what the hell's wrong with freedom then that's what it's all about oh yeah that's right that's

1:25:14Adam Kempenaar:what it's all about all right but talking about it and being it that's two different things

1:25:21Josh Larsen:i mean it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace

1:25:29Adam Kempenaar:of course don't ever tell anybody that they're not free because then they're going to get real busy killing and maiming to prove to you that they are.

1:25:38Josh Larsen:Oh yeah, they're going to talk to you and talk to you and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's going to scare them.

1:25:50Adam Kempenaar:No, don't make them running scared. No, it makes them dangerous. It wasn't planned at all, but I mentioned that there was a through line for me. I realized how many of the scenes I was considering and the characters I was drawn to with Jack were fundamentally about this question and not always politically. This question about freedom and it all comes back and what it means to be free and the different ways that you can be free. And it all starts with Easy Rider. And that's why I wanted to start with this scene.

1:26:29Josh Larsen:Yeah, his dynamic, the dynamic he brings to that movie is so crucial. It just opens it up, you know, to speak to walks of life that aren't these guys who were otherwise embedded with. Right. So I think he's he's so important to the movie in that way. Wow. Watching the scene today, Adam, though, like just pluck a lot of that speech out and and put it out there. Don't even say who it's from. Exactly. And the way it is speaking to where we're at and how ideas of like freedom and individual liberty have been perverted and distorted is my eyes just kept getting wider and wider as the scene went on.

1:27:08Josh Larsen:I know. I know. It's depressing and harrowing, but speaks also to the intelligence and awareness and political vision of a film that I think is sometimes thought of as like a drug movie.

1:27:22Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. I definitely had a similar reaction rewatching it. And it was funny that this popped up, you know, the, the bots somehow know what you're thinking about and talking about. And so you get served this content. I saw a video on Instagram over the weekend of Fonda and Hopper accepting some award, or I'm sorry, I think they were presenting Nicholson with an award. And so, of course, they were reminiscing about the making of Easy Rider and they were talking about how Nicholson got forced on them. They had someone else cast for the role and they didn't know really who this Jack Nicholson was. They didn't want him for the role.

1:27:59Adam Kempenaar:And whoever they were working with as the producer of the film was like, no, he's the guy. You have to put him in the film. and they were initially against it. And then they started working with him and they put him in the film and they saw how good he was. And they saw, of course, what he went on to be. And, you know, Fonda said it was, it was the best money they ever spent. Obviously it was casting Nicholson in the movie and you see it, you see, even in that film, even though what we think of as charisma, the big Jack, the one flew over the cuckoo's nest, Jack isn't in that scene at all. No, you still, you still get the star power of Jack delivering those lines.

1:28:35Josh Larsen:All right. Well, let's get to some big Jack because I knew I wanted to make one pick at him from a performance, a performance where Nicholson leads with his eyebrows. That's how I was thinking about it. Basically a crowd pleasing turn, one where he's playing a little bit with his own persona and making those famous eyebrows jump. And so a couple of films came to mind immediately. A Few Good Men, The Departed I'd put in this category, and of course, Tim Burton's Batman, which is where I went. Now, listeners might remember when we talked about our top five Michael Keaton performances not too long ago, I put his turn as Bruce Wayne at number two, and I did go into some detail about the let's get nuts scene between Keaton and Nicholson.

1:29:22Josh Larsen:That's probably the best moment for both of them, but I wanted to provide a little variety. So instead here, I'm going with another Joker confrontation moment. This one he has with Jack Palance's crime boss. Jack, listen. Maybe we can cut a deal. Jack. Jack is dead, my friend. You can call me Joker. and as you can see, I'm a lot happier.

1:30:00Josh Larsen:I love how, speaking of the meta and parody elements, I love how Palance is also doing a bit of a Nicholson impression in that line reading, but I do think there's more. So the performance is fun on that level, but I think this is more than a meta performance or even one that's verging on self-parody. I mean, yes, he gets as big as he ever has in Batman. here in this scene when he's dancing around as he's shooting the cackling. But I would suggest it's still in service of an actual character. And in fact, the character that I think we talked about this when we did a Sacred Cow review, it probably was, of Tim Burton's Batman.

1:30:40Josh Larsen:The character of that movie is about Nicholson's Jack Napier, the gangster who becomes Joker after are nearly dying in a vat of acid. Merton's Batman is, it's the story of mirror identities. You've got Napier slash Joker, which is a, he's a fun house reflection of Bruce Wayne slash Batman. Both men are broken. Each have responded to that in a different way. And you have Napier embracing madness to this chaotic conclusion. So I really think Nicholson roots even the silliest moments in that sensibility of who Napier is and what's happened to him. maybe not when he's dancing to prince that still doesn't entirely work but really most of the movie he does more than offer a brilliant bit of self-parody this is even that actually serves one of the great comic book characters so gonna make this one my eyebrows pick you can call me joker and yeah he really wiggles those eyebrows even under all the makeup he manages to do it but that's where I'm going at number four.

1:31:39Adam Kempenaar:I love it that you've started off with two of the all-time great, super fun Nicholson scenes, and I'm going really serious out of the gate and small. I don't know that you can go smaller in Nicholson's oeuvre than I'm going to get here with my number four pick, and I'll pluck out my favorite line of dialogue here or the identifier. If you were mine, I wouldn't share you with anyone or anything from Warren Beatty's Reds. Yet another Oscar-nominated turn, Best Supporting Actor Oscar-nominated turn that he did not win. And this is a romantic turn. You've got one. I've got one as well. He's playing Eugene O 'Neill, the Eugene O 'Neill, in this true story or based on a true story film that Warren Beatty directed.

1:32:32Adam Kempenaar:Despite that Oscar nomination, I know that there are a lot of other films and roles people more closely identify with Nicholson, especially when they hear what I'm leaving out. I don't care. I love Reds. I love Nicholson in Reds, where we get what I'm calling Josh, piercing Jack. Jack Beatty is a journalist and a communist activist, John Reed. He's in a relationship with a writer and activist, Louise Bryant, played by Diane Keaton. O 'Neill is the playwright who was friends with the couple, and Bryant acted in one of his plays, and he was, or in this scene, he is in love with Bryant. So this scene between O 'Neill and Bryant, it's about five minutes long, and it opens with Nicholson delivering maybe the greatest slash harshest bit of feedback an actor could ever receive.

1:33:27Adam Kempenaar:Brian says, I like your play. I like your play. I only hope I can do the part justice. I think your dialogue is beautiful. I really do. I love it.

1:33:37Josh Larsen:And why the hell don't you just stand still and say it instead of wandering all over the stage? You're supposed to be looking for your soul, not an ashtray. Would you rather I didn't smoke during rehearsals? I'd rather you went up in flames than put out your cigarette in the middle of a monologue about birth.

1:33:50Adam Kempenaar:I'm sorry, you're absolutely not. Now that may be familiar, that response there from O 'Neill, from Nicholson, to longtime listeners, because that has been used over the years. That's a massacre theater clip that I worked into our massacre theater theme music. But just can you imagine saying to someone, you're supposed to be looking for your soul, not an ashtray. and I'd rather you went up in flames than put out your cigarette in the middle of a monologue about birth. A little harsh. And he doesn't take a breath, it seems, while delivering it. And yes, he does it following his own direction. He's standing still.

1:34:31Adam Kempenaar:He delivers it directly in front of her. He's not wandering all over the set. And he's so quiet. They have the type of relationship where he can be that candid though without hurting her. That's what makes this scene so much fun to watch in its own way. And so fascinating to watch. Candor is what this scene and this relationship is all about. O 'Neill is not allowing any ambiguity around what he feels and he's being really vulnerable and he's forcing her to be vulnerable, whether she's ready to be or not. And as always, we list these scenes and when we have links to them, we usually do. We put the links as well on our top five page.

1:35:11Adam Kempenaar:So you can go to filmspotting.net, click on lists, you'll find these lists. And I just really encourage you, we're not going to play the whole scene. I encourage you, if you haven't seen it or you don't remember it or it's been a while, watch this entire five minute scene because it feels as finely written to me, Josh, and performed as aside from any O 'Neill play. We're going to jump ahead closer to the end. O 'Neill confronts her about Jack, about John Reed running off to do his things and leaving her alone to do her things, which he, O 'Neill, doesn't approve of.

1:35:39Josh Larsen:He's a real mean son of a bitch, isn't he?

1:35:42Adam Kempenaar:What do you mean?

1:35:44Josh Larsen:Leaving you alone with your work.

1:35:47Adam Kempenaar:You think I mind?

1:35:48Josh Larsen:You should. It's the one thing we mustn't be left alone with.

1:35:53Adam Kempenaar:You may feel that way. I don't.

1:35:55Josh Larsen:Good. Don't let those village radicals keep you from being what you should be. What do you think I should be? The center of attention.

1:36:06Adam Kempenaar:Well, you must have been with some very competitive women. let's just say possessive possessive that's something else it's a waste of time i'm not you can't see it of course but when she says she's not possessive we get a fantastic cutaway to a devilish nicholson smirk and what you were talking about with your last scene the eyebrow arch. And go back to what I said about the volume and how quiet the scene is. We do think of Jack so often as this big performer. And the more piercing he gets with her, the quieter he gets. It's almost like he's softening the blow because he knows his words are going to get harsher and harsher.

1:36:52Adam Kempenaar:He's also countering her because she's getting a little bit louder and louder. He's getting more agitated the more piercing he's being with her. And, you know, I credit the writing for these layers. Beatty and Trevor Griffiths are the credited screenwriters. But the way Nicholson so wonderfully blends self-righteousness and sarcasm with this earnest proclamation of his feelings. I'd like you to go. Why? Because I don't want to be patronized. I'm sorry if you don't believe in mutual independence and free love and respect.

1:37:26Josh Larsen:Give me a lot of parlor socialism that you learned in the village. If you were mine, I wouldn't share you with anybody or anything. It would be just you and me. You'd be at the center of it all.

1:37:40Adam Kempenaar:He does it so powerfully while never doing anything more than standing or sitting perfectly still with his eyes focused the entire time on Keaton. And that's why I labeled him piercing Jack because he tells her he wants her to look for her soul on stage. And he is staring right into hers and just kind of taking her apart psychologically. And what is this scene really about? Ironically, Jack is always playing the characters. And I'm talking about characters who can't be or are unwilling to be contained physically, emotionally, spiritually. And he's making the case here for a sort of containment as an expression of love.

1:38:23Adam Kempenaar:You can proclaim as she does to be against that notion and to respect and crave total freedom in a relationship. But when another man says, and if he delivers it with the conviction that Jack does here, if another man says to you and looks at you the way he does, if you were mine, I wouldn't share you with anybody or anything. It would just be you and me. You'd be at the center of it all. I think you'd start to question some things about your beliefs. I love it.

1:38:57Josh Larsen:So I have not seen Reds, but I did watch this scene and it strikes me that more than any other performance or even sequence of his I've seen that this is the only time Nicholson, the persona, has completely disappeared. It's gone. Maybe it's because he's playing an actual, a real life character. And he decided I'm doing something different here and going to absolutely leave myself behind. I don't know if that was part of the process, but it did strike me that this is just the man in this story in front of me and no one else. So yeah, at some point I'll have to catch up with the performance as a whole.

1:39:34Josh Larsen:So Adam, we talk about when we do these retrospective actor lists, are we doing performances? Are we doing scenes? And at the end of the day, we usually say we're doing the same thing and we like to do scenes because we can drill down into the details. But sometimes what happens is that you get a movie like Chinatown and I realized great scenes in Chinatown, right? Iconic scenes in Chinatown, but as a Nicholson scene, it's the performance as a whole that is so rich. And I had a hard time choosing one, but I wanted to include this part because you could say on the one hand, Jake Giddes doesn't immediately fit the 1970s Nicholson charismatic iconoclast persona that I talked about at the top.

1:40:22Josh Larsen:Maybe it's the period setting. Maybe it's that Giddes isn't exactly bucking the system, right? He has left the police force because of corruption, but he's kind of floating around its edges as a private detective and still involved. But this movie drips with the disillusionment of being helpless within a corrupt system. This is why it's a 1970s movie. And it's all about Gideas, who thinks he's above that, coming to realize how helpless he actually is. So I had to have a scene from here. And thinking about some of them, I decided to go with an early one. This is before his helplessness really starts to sink in for him.

1:41:03Josh Larsen:and Gideas is still cocky, really sure of himself. So he's telling this crude, racist joke to his two employees in his office, not realizing that Faye Dunaway's Evelyn Mulray is standing behind him. Walsh, just listen to me for a second. I'm really gonna love this. Now, then they go back and they screw a little bit more and then they go out and they contemplate the moon or something like that. Makes it more exciting. So now the guy goes home and he starts screwing his own life. So he screws her for a little bit, and then he stops, and he goes out of the room, and he reads Life magazine. Then he goes back in, he starts screwing again, and he says, excuse me for a minute, honey, and he goes out, and he smokes a cigarette.

1:41:43Josh Larsen:Now his wife is getting sore as hell. He comes back in the room, he starts screwing again, he gets up to start to leave again to go look at the moon. She looks at him and says, hey, what's the matter with you? You're screwing just like a Chinaman. Ah,

1:41:56Adam Kempenaar:Jesus. That Barney.

1:42:01Josh Larsen:So smart of Robert Towne's genius screenplay to undercut Gideys in this comical and somewhat quiet way early on because it's setting everything up for what's to come and this character's downfall. And Nicholson is totally in sync with the deconstruction of this character. I think that's why he's playing the scene this way. And what I do like about it from a performance perspective, he is dialing the charisma up almost to a clownish degree, right? He's taking Giddy's past that we admire or are kind of like attracted to his iconoclast. Here we're kind of like, even before we realized that Evelyn Mulray is behind him, we're kind of embarrassed for him.

1:42:44Josh Larsen:Like, this is an awful story. It's not even that funny. It's not even that funny. You're overselling it and now she's hearing it. And, you know, Nicholson is willing to push it that far, preparing us again for Giddy's fall so that when it happens, what does that mean? It's not only a matter of plot, it's a matter of performance. So, so I'm going to go with the bad joke in Chinatown.

1:43:06Adam Kempenaar:It's such a good point that you began with because that's the dilemma. I love this film. It's in our pantheon. I love this performance as Jake Giddis. I couldn't pinpoint the defining scene and that's why I don't have one here, but this is one I did strongly consider. I have a couple honorable mentions. And my favorite part might be after he turns around and finally sees her, he then turns and gives his two associates a look that's like, why didn't you stop me? Even though of course they did. They tried. And they did try. And then I looked at my notes and back when we discussed this, I pointed out, you know, you were discussing that we see that he is not as sharp as he thinks he is.

1:43:50Adam Kempenaar:That we know that he is a bit of a, if not a hypocrite, he is someone who is constantly undercutting himself. And just a scene or two before, he was telling one of those associates how important it is as a detective to have finesse.

1:44:09Josh Larsen:Yes.

1:44:09Adam Kempenaar:And what does Polanski then do and Towne do as a screenwriter? He walks him into a scene like this where he displays the least amount of finesse maybe any of us have ever witnessed, right? Yeah.

1:44:22Josh Larsen:Yeah. It's just good choices, smart storytelling, and delivered upon with a great performance.

1:44:27Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Okay. Number three. My number three Jack Nicholson scene. I am finally setting aside the low-key stuff. We're talking about Nicholson. Let's rip some shit up. It's time for Ornery Jack. I'm going to the last detail. Take a poke at me. This film, of course, is about Nicholson as badass Bidusky with his partner, Otis Young's mule, Mulhall. They are Navy lifers. They've been assigned to take Larry, played by Randy Quaid, to a prison in New Hampshire from Virginia. Virginia I'm not choosing here right the I am the effing shore patrol scene that famous one but I need to reference it Josh because it's the setup to my scene they go to a little dive bar they're trying to school this poor innocent naive young young boy really that Quaid is playing and they try to buy Larry a beer but he's underage and the bartender won't serve him and that leads to badass absolutely losing his mind, but it doesn't lead to Larry getting a beer.

1:45:35Adam Kempenaar:After that, the three men are back at their motel. Clearly, Badass has picked up some beer along the way, and he and Mule have definitely had a few. And Larry wants to know why they got so mad at the bartender. He was just doing his job, he says. Badass wonders whether Larry has ever gotten mad at anyone. As that conversation continues, Badass gets more and more irritated with Larry. And not just with Larry, but on Larry's behalf.

1:46:29Adam Kempenaar:I love Nicholson's physicality, which you might be able to feel coming through your headphones or speakers because you can't see it. When he says, just do it, just to get it out of your system, even though he's sitting down, he's almost acting out the thrill of laying in to someone, what that electricity, what that charge feels like. We feel it as he explains it. And then when Larry admits that he did get mad at something once and badass asks him if the grunts beat him up, he gets that Nicholson twinkle in his eye like, oh, finally, something good is coming. I can't wait to hear this. But his answer completely disappoints.

1:47:15This Marine guard, he asked me if I believed in Jesus Christ.

1:47:22Josh Larsen:I said, yeah. and he said that from now on, he was Jesus Christ, and I shouldn't ever forget it. What'd you do? Did you hit him? Now, can you imagine that? That's awful. Did you cold cock him? Better hope that Chapman don't catch him at that.

1:47:44Adam Kempenaar:Hal Ashby film, Robert Town, here again, on the screenplay with Daryl Ponickson. Badass like the bartender, Josh. He's just doing his job, taking Larry to jail. He's putting him away, though. He's taking away his freedom and he doesn't like it. And Larry, the guy who's having his freedom taken away, can't muster a single bit of anger about it or towards badass for it or towards the military or anybody. Badass is angrier at himself, clearly, than Larry is at him, which is where that rage, I think, is coming from. And that rage against being confined physically or by society's rules, that feeling sometimes like you just need to get it out of your system, that feels to me like what Nicholson fundamentally represents as an actor and with the choices that he makes.

1:48:36Josh Larsen:The last detail was my personal discovery in doing homework for this list, meaning the movie I knew I should have watched probably decades ago at this point because once I finally did, I realized, yeah, how good it was. I think for our Hackman list, I put Scarecrow in this category. Yeah, incredible film. And this scene you're talking about, Adam, I think is particularly important in thinking of Nicholson, not only in the terms you described, which I'd agree with, but also as having political relevance in the 1970s. Because that bit about just to do it, just to get it out of your system, you read about, we were obviously not around then, but you read about this sense of impotent anger that was a hallmark of the Nixon years, right?

1:49:22Josh Larsen:And I think Nicholson in a number of his performances, but here is Badusky is fiendishly channeling that. And I think this is evidenced by where the movie ends because it is another case of pushing the walls against the walls, bucking the system and only getting so far. Right. And, and it kind of ending on this point, this moment of impotence. And that's what's interesting to me about Billy Badass Padusky is that he is, yes, and I'll get to my number two pick here because it is coming from the last detail. He is a quintessential charismatic iconoclast of Nicholson's, right? Think about he even chews his gum rebelliously.

1:50:04Josh Larsen:He chews his gum like he's insulting the person who's watching him chew his gum somehow. But he's bucking the system from the inside, right? As you described, he's this Navy signal man. And so the question is, how far can you really push things if you're a cog in the machine? That's where some of the rage comes from too, I think is Bedusky's awareness of that. And so this is a guy who is not sure who he is or where he should be, but feels like McMurphy does in Cuckoo's Nest that it's not in his control anyway, in a sense. And so the scene I want to pick is when he says, I am the badass. This is early on.

1:50:49Josh Larsen:And he's talking about how he got this badass nickname. I always used to have trouble with my name too. Badusky. Always wanted to call me badass. Badass. I am the badass. and ants. Another case, Adam, I think of the levels of performance going on. This has come up a couple of times. I think you mentioned it in Cuckoo's Nest and that is a dual performance. I think as Joker, he's giving a dual performance. And here you see, we're getting performances from Nicholson as an actor and then Boudoukian playing a tough guy. On some level, this goes back to the chewing of the gum. As he's telling this story, he's making fun of the choice of his nickname, right?

1:51:40Josh Larsen:He's rebelling against his own nickname that other people gave him, kind of laughing at it. But at the same moment, he's embracing it and kind of reveling in it. The brilliance of this scene is you can feel that push and pull as it goes on, the number of times and different ways he says badass. It's like he's mulling it over for himself, trying it on for himself, seeing how he feels about it, but not wanting to commit to it. it's just an incredible movement of persona here in a small scene. And of course, later in the film, you talked about the bartender sequence. What does he say back on the street full of adrenaline?

1:52:18Josh Larsen:I am a badass, ain't I? He that's, it's almost like now I believe it about myself and this is what I'm going to commit to. So, so yeah, I'm going with, I am the badass as my pick at number two.

1:52:30Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. It's such a good articulation of who he is in that sense of impotent rage. You're right, because it's a movie I haven't seen in a long time, but really love. And that entire scene that I picked, you're right. It's an expression of that. The bar, he raises such a ruckus. It doesn't succeed in anything. They end up having to leave. They don't have any success. And for all of the shouting and for everything he yells about there and tries to get Larry to do, it just ends with resignation, right?

1:53:03Josh Larsen:Resignation and them doing the job they were assigned, which he fundamentally disagrees with.

1:53:07Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Okay. On to my number two and we're here over the top. Jack had to be here. I mentioned as you did the eyebrows earlier, I'm not breaking any news here. But man, what a tool for the actor's toolbox. That peak that they both have that make them arch so demonstratively. And then, of course, when you turn into the Joker and you've got the mouth to match it, right? But in The Shining, this scene, the bar scene, a momentary loss of muscular coordination. this scene you could watch it again and again and just stare at his eyebrows i think we talked about this a bit during our sacred cow review a few years back the thing about nicholson's performance for as gargantuan as it is it never to me feels wrong for the movie because nicholson is capable of the theatrics for one because the force of kubrick's filmmaking and what we think is inhabiting this space, this force, needs to be reflected and expressed in a force like Nicholson for another.

1:54:25Adam Kempenaar:And while I'm not suggesting that the Jack Torrance going into the Overlook, the one who enters the Overlook is the monster he becomes once he's there, all of the guilt and the feelings of insecurity as a husband, father, provider, writer, that the overlook exploits, they're all there under the surface. So this isn't some progression. It's not a gradual descent. It's immediate and it's immense. And that's what Nicholson is able to give us. The bar scene is the confession. It is the expression of all of those anxieties and shortcomings. And to go back to my theme of freedom here, it's the expression of his imprisonment.

1:55:09Adam Kempenaar:He's trapped at the overlook, but more than that, he is entrapped in his marriage. He's trapped by his wife's view of him. He's stuck in this feeling of guilt. He's stuck in their little apartment. He's stuck in this career as a teacher that he doesn't want. He can't break out. He is maybe the biggest embodiment we have on either of our lists, Josh, of impotent rage, isn't he? He causes a lot of destruction and damage, but it's not leading to what the character, at least the character coming into the Overlook, wants to achieve. And where it gets really amazing from a performance standpoint for me, and look, I'll say, I think it's all terrifyingly delightful is when he admits to hurting Danny.

1:56:01Adam Kempenaar:And it culminates with that line that I mentioned, the scene's most famous line.

1:56:07Josh Larsen:I did hurt him once, okay? It was an accident. Completely unintentional. Could have happened to anybody. And it was three goddamn years ago! A little f***ing thrown all my papers all over the floor. All I try to do is pull them up.

1:56:33Josh Larsen:The momentary loss of muscular coordination.

1:56:40Few extra foot pounds of energy per second per second.

1:56:47Adam Kempenaar:Before he says, I did hurt him once, okay. he looks dramatically to the left yeah he looks dramatically to the right and then he takes this big sigh this big deep sigh and other than the bartender he's the only one there and yet somehow jack torrance still feels the need to look around and be discreet and then he basically uses jazz hands and i don't know if anyone at the time thought he would make a bad joker but if they did all you would need to do is point them to that scene. In that moment, you'd be like, oh, of course he's going to nail this because that's the Joker, right? When he repeats at the end per second, that physicality again, he makes the snapping sound and he kind of throws his hand in the air.

1:57:36Adam Kempenaar:Like, what are you going to do? Basically saying, what are you going to do? Those little physical embellishments, they're just so brilliant. And he's clearly possessed. If you saw a man talking about his wife and child like this, you would think he was the most vile person ever without the slightest redeeming facet. And for what it's worth, that AFI villains list that Nurse Ratched is number five on, Jack Torrance is number 25. But here's the brilliance of Jack, and we've talked about this throughout this list. It's the layers. And the word I had in my notes, I like your word earlier that you used when talking about McMurphy.

1:58:12Adam Kempenaar:There are glimpses. I like your word better, the flicker. I don't know that there's a better actor, as I did all my research for this list, of giving us flickers of other emotions, of other feelings, of other ideas, of other insights, of other windows into a character's psychology than Jack Nicholson. It really feels like all of a sudden for a split second, you saw another version of a man inhabit him. And then he immediately goes back to who that character is in that moment. And the flicker here, Josh, and there may be one or two other flickers that happen. But the one I'm speaking to here is he says, all I tried to do was pull him up.

1:58:58Adam Kempenaar:and for a flicker, a moment, a second or less, his eyes become totally human. He looks like a father genuinely feeling remorse over hurting his son. And then like that, it's gone. The monster takes back over as if reminding him, no, it's not your fault. It's all their fault. It's a remarkable scene.

1:59:18Josh Larsen:This is a performance I've come around on thanks to your talking about a number of times and kind of convinced me of the usefulness of the bigness. Let's put it that way, because there is a ton going on in this sequence. And there is one detail that also involves the eyes is I believe it's right after he takes a drink finally, and they just go dead. And that's where the possession almost seems to take place that you're talking about. And it is more layered than that, because then there's a back and forth as you're describing From that point on, that instant, you almost see he's completely lost his soul, and then something else comes in, which is what he wrestles with throughout the rest of that scene.

2:00:06Josh Larsen:I never laid a hand on him, goddammit. I didn't. I wouldn't touch one hair on his goddamn little head. All right, we're down to our number ones, and I'm going with one from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I think it's probably his career performance. It's also interesting in relation to this idea of the thwarted iconoclast, right? Because somehow, we touched on this in our review, he's an inspirational one, even though he fails, and somehow it's not hokey. That's the magic trick. And I think the delicacy, I'll go back to that, of the performance, but also Foreman's direction, I think is key to why this doesn't strike me still all these years on as a hokey turn.

2:01:01Josh Larsen:This is a case, Adam, unlike Chinatown, where almost every scene McMurphy is in would be eligible for this list. So true. You cannot go wrong. I decided not to go with one of the hits because a somewhat smaller moment captivated me on this rewatch. It's when he bets his fellow patients that he can pick up this massive marble sink in the bathroom and throw it through the window.

2:01:41Adam Kempenaar:I don't know, but he's a homeless lady

2:01:58Josh Larsen:But I tried, didn't I? God damn it. At least I did that. This really has it all for me. It has the Nicholson charisma. It has the bluster. It It has the rebelliousness, as you've described them, and then this ultimate frustration. But there is a nobility to it here. And I think this speaks to a couple of things. Why Cuckoo's Nest feels honestly inspirational while being truly tragic. And I also think it speaks to this idea of McMurphy as a mythic figure. Life straining against death, even though life can't win. Even though death is inevitable. he's still going to live in this moment, or at least try.

2:02:46Josh Larsen:As he says, I tried, didn't I? And I do think that maybe Nicholson and R.P. McMurphy, this might be one of those true born-to-play roles. I think that's a phrase that's tossed around maybe too often, but this might be a case of where he has honed in on and perfected that persona he'd been working on very successfully in earlier 70s films and found the material to give it a different nuance that has this inspirational element. And I think there are a couple other moments in the film that count as I tried moments where McMurphy is creating life from nothing, even though ultimately death comes for us all.

2:03:32Josh Larsen:So I'm going to go with I tried, didn't I? From One Flew Over as the cuckoo's nest at number one.

2:03:37Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, I thought that was a very powerful scene on this viewing. And I had actually somehow forgotten about the symmetry with Chief later in the film. You know, it's futile. You know, there's no way he's going to be able to lift that thing. It is all about the trying. And you mentioned this earlier, we didn't really get into what I had a lot of notes about the movie representing the conflict of the time, but really going back more like a decade, that decade before the establishment and the counterculture. And clearly, very clearly, Nurse Ratched is the establishment and McMurphy is the counterculture.

2:04:18Adam Kempenaar:And I wonder, as you look at this film in 1976 and in the years after, I suppose it depends who you ask, but there are plenty of people who say, you know, the counterculture didn't necessarily succeed. Nixon got elected again. The war raged on. Lots of things continued to go wrong. The great sweeping change didn't happen. But you know what? At least they tried. They tried to make a change. And I think that McMurphy saying that, uttering that is an expression of that. It's a great scene. It actually will nicely connect to my number one, which is also from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And I did pick a hit, but I picked it because it ties back to something I brought up during our conversation about the film earlier.

2:05:04Adam Kempenaar:It's the baseball game. And it's number one because I agree with you. I think RP McMurphy is the quintessential Nicholson character. I'm calling this unbridled Jack. And here's the politics element that really struck me this time. Nixon famously talked about the silent majority, right? It was a 1969 TV speech. He was talking about all the people out there that weren't against Vietnam, who weren't engaging in protests, who weren't part of the counterculture. And he thought the media was showcasing the vocal minority, all the people that were protesting. So what happens in the baseball scene? The second time they vote, he gets the nine votes.

2:05:48Adam Kempenaar:And I really love that Cheswick is the one who initiates it. It's not even McMurphy who gets the second call for votes. They get nine and she says, that's not enough. Here's her rigging the game, right? And what does she say? There are patients on the ward, Mr. McMurphy. This is what cued me into it, Josh. And you have to have a majority to change ward policy. So you gentlemen can put your hands down. And he says, are you trying to tell me that you're going to count these, these poor sons of bitches? They don't know what we're talking about. You want to talk about the silent majority. They're literally on the floor.

2:06:25Adam Kempenaar:They don't they don't talk. They don't talk. They don't know what's happening. And yet she's saying they're not tuned into anything, but they're there. They're part of the country. And she's saying, of course, their vote does technically count as much, I suppose, as everyone else's. And she's saying you have to get their votes to the silent majority. And he does get at least one. He gets the key vote. He gets chief's vote. And the key here, right, for me, why I thought this scene was so important besides being a classic, maybe being the most famous scene from this film. It might be the most famous Jack scene.

2:07:02Adam Kempenaar:But we were talking about Jack playing two characters as R.P. McMurphy. And the first part of the scene, I actually see him as very much even in front of Nurse Ratched. He's playing Randall. He's playing by all the rules that Ratched has established. and it doesn't matter because she can change the rules as she goes, which she does. And there's a line delivery that's one of my favorite in the entire movie. When she reiterates that the vote was nine to nine.

2:07:27Josh Larsen:No, Mr. McCarthy, when the meeting was adjourned, the vote was nine to nine.

2:07:33Adam Kempenaar:Oh, come on. You're not going to say that now. You're not going to say that now. The way he says that, oh, come on. That first, oh, come on, is such a genuine feeling of disappointment and resignation. It's not anger even. And it's just kind of resentment and resignation. And then when he sits down in a huff and he's still breathing heavy, he still hasn't, you know, gotten over it. And he starts looking at the TV screen. He sees his reflection in it. And then we have the turn. He has a literal turn, right? He turns and looks at her as the idea crosses his face. That's when I think he becomes his version of crazy Randall.

2:08:09Adam Kempenaar:The one who's going to act like he's supposed to act in this institution. The one that's going to get Nurse Ratched. And he begins to do what he knows will upset her more than anything.

2:08:22Josh Larsen:Koufax. Koufax kicks. He delivers.

2:08:26Adam Kempenaar:He's going to imagine that the game is happening on the TV screen, even though it's turned off.

2:08:31Josh Larsen:The ball's in the deep right center. Davidson over in the corner. Cut the ball off. Here comes the throw, which is around him. He goes into second. He's in there. He's safe.

2:08:37Adam Kempenaar:He is going to defy her. And he's going to start doing the play by play.

2:08:43Josh Larsen:All right, here's Kresh to the next batter. Kresh looks in, Koufax.

2:08:47Adam Kempenaar:Koufax gets the signs from Roseboro. He kicks once, he pumps, he fires. It's a strike. Koufax's curveball is snapping off like a firecracker. All right, here he comes with the next pitch. Kresh swings. It's a lot of fly ball, the deep left center. It's going. It's going.

2:09:07Adam Kempenaar:Somebody get me a wiener before I die. It's totally harmless. It's surely a healthy group interaction. It brings smiles to all of the men's faces. What's her reaction? Gentlemen, stop this. Stop this immediately. And as we discussed in detail, you know what? She has all the cards. She holds all the cards. Ultimately, she wins. But here, regardless of that power and all of her rules, the locks on the doors and the windows and the TV that's turned off, she can't control their minds. She can't stop their imaginations. there, they are totally free. And this might be Nicholson at his most free and charismatic.

2:09:47Josh Larsen:And it's another, I tried moment, right? Because he hasn't really won. And I think that's reflected in the shot of the TV screen that you mentioned with his reflection, right? There's gray emptiness that is putting the futility in his face. And yet even in the face of that, he's still going to try. Right. And that's what it looks like here. And over and over you see this. This is why they're drawn to him is that in the face of this, this purgatorial place, they found themselves. Here's this guy who's going to come in and push back against that and take it as far as he can.

2:10:22Adam Kempenaar:Those are our top five Jack Nicholson scenes. There are a lot of good ones to choose from. I'm guessing you have a few honorable mentions worth mentioning.

2:10:31Josh Larsen:Yeah. Five easy pieces. That was another bit of homework that I was glad to do. and if I had gone with a pick from there, it would have been probably the most famous pick. Even I knew about this scene before I had seen the movie of him in the back of the truck playing the piano and it just goes off down the entrance ramp. Well, let me interject real quick.

2:10:53Adam Kempenaar:Yes, great scene, famous scene, but no, the most famous scene in Five Easy Pieces is Hold the Chicken.

2:10:58Josh Larsen:Well, and that's what I was going to say. A couple of listeners wrote in with that pick, Ben Morin and Ed Redman. And yeah, the showdown with the diner waitress, definitely another highlight. Jon Snow over on Facebook, he had the most clever response to my prompt asking for people's favorite scene of Nicholson, the gif from a few good men he shared. And Jon said, you want me on that list. You need me on that list. Sorry to disappoint you, Jon. But of course, a great one to consider for an honorable mention. about Schmidt, you know, a later career effort that, man, that's a movie I badly need to revisit.

2:11:34Josh Larsen:But both Clint Reed and Jer Moran chose the deer and Dugu scene where he's writing a letter to the Tanzanian boy he's decided to sponsor. So I think those are all worth considering.

2:11:47Adam Kempenaar:They are definitely worth considering. And absolutely the hold the chicken scene from five easy pieces the piano scene at the end but also that father and son scene is a very quiet Nicholson scene that's worth some attention here I already gave some love to the preceding scene to the one I picked the shore patrol shout out that he gives in the last detail what else do I have a respectable man and capable of anything those scenes with Noah Cross in Chinatown there's another scene with Diane Keaton in Reds I'm telling you anytime they're together in Reds it's amazing Of course, you can't handle the truth.

2:12:23Adam Kempenaar:In terms of endearment, how about, I think it's their first date, the first date with Aurora, the honesty, just the brutal honesty. There again, maybe a trait of a lot of Nicholson characters when he just tells her, you need a lot of drinks. That's great. I love that scene.

2:12:39Josh Larsen:Each of their scenes together is just tremendous.

2:12:42Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And I did want to make sure that we at least gave some love to some later Nicholson because I do like some of these movies. I definitely appreciate some of these 90s films like The Pledge and The Crossing Guard. I liked About Schmidt when it came out. So here's Scott Ross in Derwood, Maryland. Jack's run from Easy Rider to Cuckoo's Nest may rank as the best run of any actor. I look forward to potentially hearing some of your choices from this imperial phase. Good word. But I would nominate two scenes from his later roles in The Pledge and About Schmidt. The final scene in Sean Penn's The Pledge is as devastating as it gets.

2:13:15Adam Kempenaar:And Nicholson completely embodies a man whose compulsion leads him to loneliness and heartbreaking madness. And there was a scene in Alexander Payne's about Schmidt where his character goes home again, only to find that it is now a tire shop. Nicholson plays the bemusement as only he can and gives one of his best performances in a career filled with at least two dozen of them.

2:13:33Josh Larsen:Yeah, I think about Schmidt, too, from my memory, might be another case where there isn't any quote unquote Nicholson in it, at least in my memory.

2:13:41Adam Kempenaar:I really do want to watch that again and see if that holds true. Once again, those are our top five Jack Nicholson scenes, and we do have links to all of those scenes and that complete list over at filmspotting.net. Just click on lists. We would love to hear any comments you have about that top five or any other feedback you have about the show. You can email us feedback at filmspotting.net.

2:14:03Josh Larsen:Josh, that is our show. If you'd like to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the show on Instagram and Facebook and Letterboxd at FilmSpotting. I'm at those places as well as Blue Sky as Larson on Film. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the FilmSpotting family at FilmSpottingFamily.com. That way you can listen early and ad-free. You'll also get a weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. For show t-shirts and other merch, go to filmspotting.net slash shop.

2:15:03Adam Kempenaar:on 974. And we talked about Milos Forman's Amadeus on episode 796. That was part of our eight from 84 series. In limited release, the film I recommended earlier, Architecton Cloud is also out. Our friend Mitchell Beaupre over at Letterboxd says, the movie of the year. So maybe Josh, we should be talking about that next week. David Ehrlich. We should be talking more about Kiyoshi Kurosawa in general. I have not seen a single film of his. I haven't either. David Ehrlich says it's an action film as only Japanese horror director Kiyoshi Kurosawa would think to make. In wide release, Bad Guys 2, this is the second film adaptation of the popular kids' graphic novel.

2:15:46Josh Larsen:Can I say real quick, Adam?

2:15:47Adam Kempenaar:Yeah.

2:15:48Josh Larsen:Uncle Josh went to a screening with my nephew to Bad Guys 2. You did? Yeah. I'm afraid a little disappointing. Yeah. I enjoyed Bad Guys. This was a little bit of a lap down, but if you're a big fan,

2:15:59Adam Kempenaar:And check it out. See what you think. The Naked Gun. This is by the Lonely Island guys or the Lonely Island guy, Akiva Schaefer, who is reviving the franchise. No, not with Leslie Nielsen, but with Liam Neeson plus Pam Anderson and Paul Walter Hauser. She Rides Shotgun is out. Taron Egerton plays a man recently released from prison and on the run from enemies with him, his estranged 11-year-old daughter. together starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco as a couple already near a breaking point who have a supernatural encounter that transforms their relationship and their flesh. We are planning to discuss together next week, along with Sunset Boulevard at 75.

2:16:40Josh Larsen:Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Dissot and Sam Van Halgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson. And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening.

2:16:59Adam Kempenaar:This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

2:17:19Adam Kempenaar:film spotting is listener supported join the film spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com and get access to ad free episodes monthly bonus shows our weekly newsletter and for the first time all in one place, the entire Film Spotting archive going back to 2005. That's at filmspottingfamily.com. Panoply. Ugh, hon, the ice cream has turned to soup. I think the fridge is finally dead.

2:17:47Josh Larsen:Hopping on grandappliance.com.

2:17:49Adam Kempenaar:Great idea. They were awesome with the Samsung Ranger microwave we bought last year. Oh, they have matching Samsung in stock and next day delivery. Let me see. Oh, yeah, that looks perfect.

2:18:00Josh Larsen:I hope we get the same delivery crew. Those guys were awesome. Agree. Total pros. Another crisis averted by the team at Grand Appliance. Appliance experts since 1930. Apple Vacations, where your story starts.

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