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a16z Podcast Episode Summary: Marc Andreessen: How Movies Explain America
Episode Overview In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Marc Andreessen, Katherine Boyle, and Erik Torenberg discuss the cultural significance of various films that reflect and explain American society. They analyze works like *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*, *Tropic Thunder*, and *Fight Club*, exploring how these films contextualize pivotal moments in American history and culture.
Key Themes and Discussions
- *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*
- Cultural Significance: The film captures the critical transition in American culture during 1969, a pivotal year marked by the end of the counterculture movement and the emergence of darker societal themes.
- Hollywood as a Lens: The discussion emphasizes how films about Hollywood can serve as reflections on broader American identity. Andreessen describes Los Angeles as an "archetypal American city," representing themes of ambition and illusion.
- Counterculture and Its Downfall: The film serves as a narrative of the cultural revolution of the 1960s, exploring its initial promise followed by the turmoil of the 1970s, particularly focusing on the violence associated with figures like Charles Manson.
- Historical Context and Alternative Narratives: The guests address how Tarantino’s film rewrites the historical narrative around the Manson murders, presenting an alternative history where violence is confronted with unexpected outcomes.
- *Tropic Thunder*
- Satirical Commentary: The film is characterized as a brilliant satire of Hollywood and American culture, particularly addressing themes of identity and the extremes actors go to for their craft.
- Cultural Relevance: The episode discusses how the film’s satirical elements were timely for its release in 2008, coinciding with significant socio-political events and showcasing the absurdities of Hollywood while also critiquing cultural appropriation.
- The Transformation of Comedy: The guests highlight how *Tropic Thunder* was one of the last films to push boundaries in comedy before the cultural landscape shifted, making such humor less acceptable in contemporary discourse.
- *Fight Club*
- A Dual Perspective: The film is noted for its complex themes on masculinity, consumerism, and nihilism, which were interpreted as leftist critiques upon release but are viewed with different lenses in today’s society.
- Cultural Evolution: Andreessen points out that *Fight Club* serves as a prism through which societal changes can be understood, evolving in its interpretation as cultural attitudes shift.
- The Role of Capitalism: The discussion emphasizes how the film critiques capitalism and societal structures that alienate individuals, raising questions about identity and purpose in modern life.
Conclusion The episode encapsulates how cinema not only entertains but also serves as a mirror reflecting the evolution of American society. Through analyzing these films, the hosts emphasize the importance of understanding cultural narratives and their implications on individual and collective identity.
Key Takeaways
- Movies can profoundly capture and explain pivotal moments in American history and culture.
- Films like *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood* and *Tropic Thunder* invite critical engagement with societal issues, from the evolution of counterculture to contemporary comedic boundaries.
- *Fight Club* illustrates the shifting perceptions of masculinity and consumerism and continues to resonate with audiences as societal context changes.
Listening Recommendations
- Follow Marc Andreessen and Katherine Boyle on X for more insights:
- [Marc Andreessen](https://x.com/pmarca)
- [Katherine Boyle](https://x.com/KTmBoyle)
- For more episodes, visit [a16z Podcast](https://a16z.com) and subscribe on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX) or [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711).
Disclaimer The content discussed in this episode is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. For more details, please refer to a16z.com/disclosures.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00LA in a lot of ways is sort of, you could describe it as like it's the archetypal American city. Here's the larger significance of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, or my view of it, which is it captures a time and place that was absolutely critical to the evolution of modern America. The reaction from the audience is extreme laughter. You are laughing during the most island sequence for 20 minutes. Some movies don't just entertain, they help explain America. On this episode of Moderate the Situation, Catherine Boyle and I are joined by A16Z general partner Mark Andreessen to talk about the films that capture the country's turning points.
0:33from Hollywood's golden age to the counterculture, from the comedies we could once make to the stories that still define us. We look at how different directors across decades have reflected and sometimes predicted where America was heading and what its art reveals about the culture behind it. Let's get into it. Well, excited to have the Modern Situation crew back for another episode on movies. Mark, thanks for joining again. Yes, excited. So we wanted to go deeper into some of our favorite movies. Mark I know from watching movies with you that one of your genres you enjoy is movies about Hollywood and so we want to start with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood why don't you talk about what's so remarkable about that or why you wanted to talk about it the reason I want movies about Hollywood I mean one is they tend to be very entertaining because of course the people who make movies about Hollywood are from Hollywood they know where all the bodies are buried and they tend to put them all in the movies and so they're you know oh run up spectacular Hollywood movies so for people who haven't seen I would recommend Mulholland Drive it's one of Eric Sabret's.
1:30And then The Player, which also is an all-time one. You know, there's a bunch, of course, famous ones like Sunset Boulevard. But, you know, the iconic Hollywood movie, you know, now is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, you know, by Quentin Tarantino. And so the reason I like Hollywood movies is because, you know, there are a handful of cities that have a claim to be like the ultimate American city. And, you know, New York City is one of those, you know, I think, you know, San Francisco in some ways, you know, where we are is. But LA and Las Vegas also put on the list. By the way, for Las Vegas, see Bugsy.
1:57I'll talk about that another time, but that's the iconic Vegas movie. But LA, in a lot of ways, you could describe it as like it's the archetypal American city. Literally, it's a, there's a great book we can put in the notes called Thinking Big, where it goes to actually the creation of the city of Los Angeles. And basically, like Los Angeles, you could argue, is the ultimate American city because it was the ultimate fake it until you make it thing. Like it was the theranos of cities. And very specifically, like it was desert. Like there was absolutely nothing in LA. And then, you know, literally it was like a land development deal by a bunch of wealthy families in the late 1800s.
2:26And they literally placed newspaper ads in Eastern newspapers. You know, this is before, you know, photography made it into newspapers. And so like, you know, when there was like a picture of something in a newspaper, it'd be a drawing. And so they would list land plots for sale in Los Angeles. And they would have like line drawings of like, you know, orchards and like, you know, beautiful, everything's green and palm trees. And then, you know, people would like buy the land, move cross country and discover that it was just like blasted out desert. And then, you know, they famously created the city.
2:49They carved it out of the desert. And then, you know, it's a famous saga of how they went to get the water, which turned into another great LA movie, Chinatown. and you know as you'd expect you know Hollywood kind of goes for a certain interpretation of history and so it you know sort of painted in retrospect as like a purely evil activity but you know there's actually like a very kind of straightforward reading which is like this is what was actually required to create a city but it wasn't as black and white as sort of the Hollywood history has it was a more complex story but still you know very very interesting amazing story and you know cities like Los Angeles are created every day so you know that's a pretty big deal so anyway like movies about LA I think when they reach the level of capital A art you know they become movies about America.
3:24And so it's like a great test bed or a great subject, you know, sort of a great lens through which to look at the history of America. And Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is, I would say, one of the top movies along that theme. Let me start by saying, if anybody watching this hasn't seen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, pause the podcast immediately, go watch the movie, and then come back, because we're going to spoil the shit on it. And it's tremendously fun to watch if you haven't read about it. By the way, I'd also say, like, it's a tremendously entertaining movie. Like, it's one of the most entertaining, Puffer Pond movies, you know, it's like infinitely rewatchable.
3:53The cast is ridiculous. Every frame of the thing is amazing. So it's also a very fun movie. So, okay. So here's the larger significance of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or my view of it, which is it captures a time and place that was absolutely critical to the evolution of modern America. And I think Catherine, you'll remind me, but I think of the year, was it 69? 69. Yeah. 69. Yeah. 69. And so to put this in context and the movie, you know, kind of goes through this, but the movie doesn't explain all the cultural backstory. It shows you what happened, but it doesn't explain the backstory. So I'll just go through the backstory.
4:21So, you know, basically like what we now consider to be the kind of a cultural revolution of the 1960s, you know, really started, you know, probably in like around 1964 with the Berkeley free speech movement and then kind of expanded or metastasized to include, you know, the sort of hippie movements and then, you know, the sort of birth of like modern rock and roll and the rise of the counterculture. And, you know, all of a sudden everybody's, you know, has long hair and they've got beads and they're, you know, they're wearing suede jackets and they're not washing their Levi's and, you know, sort of that whole counterculture.
4:46And so there was this like incredible explosion of the baby boomers were, you know, becoming of age as basically high school and college kids. This incredible explosion of art, culture, creativity, social innovation, you know, the birth of the communes, you know, the entire hippie movement. And then, of course, this is also a world where the Vietnam War was wrapping up. And so this was, you know, the wrap up in conscription of people, you know, American kids being sent off to Vietnam, but, you know, kind of, you know, I'd say non-volunteers. And so, you know, the kind of anti-war movement kicked in, the college protests kicked in.
5:14And like the entire thing was like, you know, we kind of remember it as like this, like incredibly like sort of spontaneous and, you know, largely positive explosion of kind of, you know, breaking out of the stultified cultural norms of the 1940s, 1950s, you know, the creation of the modern kind of liberated American society. by the way obviously also right alongside that you know the civil rights movement and the feminism the gay rights and you know kind of the whole explosion of modern morality through that period and anyway if you read the histories of the time basically from 64 to 69 it was just basically this like just glorious wonderful thing with like absolutely no downside like you know these kids that were like rioting on their college campuses or protesting in the streets or like you know getting stoned all day or you know having their whole hippie thing or moving to communes and going back to the era it's like they had discovered a far superior way to live right they had discovered a far superior way to like coexist with nature and to fight against the man and to fight against you know evil corporations and you know you know fight for the environment to fight for the planet fight for peace and the whole thing and so it was this like incredible kind of wave of positivity and like you know the very good argument that there was a lot too you know a lot of people do believe that and that it was like a time of great cultural creativity that you know led to enormous amounts of like amazing art that we still have today and so that you know there's a lot to like about it and then basically what happened is in 1969 it sort of came that the sort of positivity it came to a screeching halt.
6:27Yeah. Sort of the movement, you know, basically like, you know, turned, you know, very much the dark side. You know, that sort of began the long slide into the sort of 1970s. And that slide was basically a slide into, you know, variously among other things, you know, it was a slide into like drugs, you know, very bad drug overdoses, you know, the shift from sort of soft drugs, hard drugs. You know, a lot of people who participated in the sort of cultural movement in the 60s ended up like dying. We'll talk about the death later on because, you know, the movie directly hits that. But like there's just an extraordinary amount of death that followed, you know, degradation and that, you know, turned it to, you know, sexual liberation.
7:02It turns out has dark sides. You know, maybe it doesn't so great for everybody. And specifically, maybe it isn't so great for women, at least in some ways. And then, you know, and then look, you know, in the 70s, it was like, you know, Vietnam went very bad. And then the energy crisis, that economic recession, that inflation, you know, just, you know, this very kind of, you know, bitter, divisive, you know, politics. You know, in a lot of ways, you know, sort of the beginning of the political kind of dynamic that we see playing out today. So in the 70s, kind of things went really bad. And then, you know, the bookending movie, Once Upon a Time is the movie sort of about that pivot point.
7:30I'll talk about that. And then, you know, Boogie Nights is maybe the movie on the other side of that, right? Which is like, once the culture is kind of sliding down a hill into chaos and madness and disease of death, Boogie Nights captures that on the other side. But for the purpose of today's discussion, we can focus on 1969. And so if you read the histories of time, basically what happened was it was the Charles Manson murders, specifically in Los Angeles. And then sort of on behalf of America, it was the Manson murders that basically were the turning point. The Manson murders are the thing that people point to and they kind of say, oh, that was the moment when we all kind of realized, oh, shit, there was a dark side of this whole thing.
8:01And like, oh, my God, here we go. And so let's talk about that. Like, let me just close off this introductory part, though, with kind of the most amazing thing about the movie that I found, which is if you know the history of that period. I mean, the Manson murders were super famous at the time. They're still famous in American culture. Kind of everybody knows that there was this guy, Charles Manson, that had this death cult. He was implicated. These kids still, like, go out and kill random people. and you know there's still like all these you know questions like how the hell did he do that right and so uh everybody knows that he was kind of intertwined with hollywood and intertwined with the movie industry and the music industry and he was part of that whole thing and so you know everybody kind of knows that oh you know and then specifically for people who know anything about that they're sort of famously the manson murders are also known as the sharon tate murders because there was this like incredibly you know vivacious attractive bubbly you know enthusiastic young blonde actress named sharon tate who at the time famous that was actually married to roman polanski who was, you know, one of the leading, you know, kind of new, you know, Hollywood movie directors of that time.
8:53And they were this new Hollywood glamour power couple. And then Sharon Tate, among other people, you know, Sharon Tate was one of the people murdered. And so Quentin Tarantino comes out, you know, when he first announces the movie, he comes out and he says, you know, Quentin Tarantino is going to make the movie about the Charles Manson murders. And if you've seen, you know, any other Tarantino movie, like Pulp Fiction, for example, you're just like, oh my God, you know, it's going to be like, this is going to be horrible. like you know like like the manson murders are bad enough but like you know turning them into like a you know tarantino style you know mass slaughter violence you know reservoir dogs you know just like blood and guts you know uh exploitate you know basically super high of exploitation movie as he's done in the past uh it's just like it was a horror show and i was actually i was actually personally worried about it because my wife got all excited to to see the movie uh because you know she you know because it's gonna start leo dicabrio and brad kent and It's going to be about Hollywood.
9:44It's going to be about fashion and, you know, all this, you know, design and all this creativity. And she's like, we got to go see this movie. And I'm like, I'm like, we can't go see the movie because you are going to be so traumatized by what he puts on screen. But like, you're never going to want to ever see a movie ever again. And you're going to hold it against me for the rest of my life. But it didn't prevent you from seeing this movie because it's obviously just going to be a complete horror show. Like, it's just a disaster. And actually, Sharon Tate's family actually came out and basically said when this movie was first announced, basically said, like, wait a minute, hold on.
10:10Like, you know, we don't want the memory of our, you know, of our, you know, of our, of our family member, you know, who, you know, we still love, you know, many decades later, you know, kind of, you know, turned into basically fodder for, you know, basically Hollywood exploitation. And then there was this like amazing thing that happened and nobody knew anything about the movie, which is Tarantino, at least the way the story is recorded, Tarantino actually let, I think it was Sharon Tate's, it was either sister, it may be sister or something like that, read the script. and immediately the family did a 180 and they came right out and they said, we completely approve.
10:42And I remember at the time reading that and I was like, what the hell? Like, how is it that he could possibly get the Tate family of all people on board with putting this on screen? And of course, you know, that leads to kind of that, you know, the movie sort of turns into a Valentine, a Valentine to Hollywood and to America and specifically to Sharon Tate. You know, it's like, you know, It really kind of restores her memory in an amazing way. Can I say something very smart in the movie for those of us who love Tarantino and follow his work. So I think that was like the common theme was like, oh God, this is going to be horrific, right?
11:18Especially if you've read about, if you know the Manson murders, if you've read about how gruesome they are, like, yes, that was sort of the dominant theme. But his, you know, he made a few films between, but like I'd say the last other fantastic Tarantino film was the revenge fantasy Inglourious Bastards, which is, of course, you know, again, like could have been, but it is extremely gruesome, but at the same time, it's a revenge fantasy of what could have happened. What could have happened if someone had killed Hitler? And so in the very beginning of the movie, there's a scene with Leonardo DiCaprio, also at the end, but there's a scene in the very beginning where it shows all of his films and he has the famous flamethrower from Inglourious Bastards.
11:59And so if you're a Tarantino fan, You're like, wait, wait, wait, which direction are we going in? Are we going in gruesome violence with no purpose, which I would argue Tarantino is always misunderstood in that way? Or are we going in a we're going in a different direction, a little more fantastical, a little more what could have happened. and so for those of us with like the eagle eye in the theater I think we kind of knew you know especially as you said like the family said oh it's great it's going to be fine we kind of knew okay this film is not going to be nearly as bad and Tarantino is going to take us in a different direction but he did put that little Easter egg in there for us in like the first 10 minutes of the film.
12:35So it's funny you bring that up because I of course totally missed that when I was watching the movie. I just thought it was like it was like a really so for people who haven't seen it Leo DiCaprio plays a sort of a Steve McQueen style movie star of the 1960s, May Rick Dahl. As the movie starts, his career is imploding. He's trying to figure out how to turn things around to stay relevant at times. And it does. It shows these clips from his prior movies in the universe. But I just figured it was just like a throwaway. Oh yeah, I see what's the flamethrower. That's funny. Ha ha. It didn't even for a minute occur to me.
13:04I mean, the flamethrower plays a critical role. It's a pretty critical role. Have you ever been happier to see the flamethrower get taken out? than at the end of that movie. But yeah, I mean, I just, I was like literally, I enjoyed the movie so much when I was watching it, but I did not know. I mean, I knew it had to be something amazing that I wasn't expecting in order to get the Tate family on board, but like I still was like sitting there in a state of dread for the entire movie, you know, still anticipating that he would somehow. Anyway, so to spoil the movie, what's one of the time in Hollywood, he basically tells you the story of the Manson cult of Hollywood at that time, at sort of how that all intertwined.
13:43And he takes it all the way up to the night of the murders. But then he takes a left turn in the history as he does. It's an alternative history. And so the kid, the Manson cultists who in real life culture are taken in the movie. They go in the house next door, which is Leo's house with Leo's friend, Brad Pitt and Brad Pitt's character. By the way, I don't know. I don't know if you know this, Kevin, I'm curious if you know the backstory of the Brad Pitt character is it you just quite see this in the movie but explains a lot which is basically tarantino's conception of him is he's basically the most deadly man in the world at that time so he's like a you know he plays not just a war hero but like a green beret like you know super highly decorated you know basically super soldier uh but he's become a hollywood stuntman um and so basically the um you know the the man's the killer is basically walking exactly to the wrong house because number one they're up against this guy who basically like you know spent the proceeding whatever, you know, 20 years, you know, kill a people for America.
14:39You know, basically Captain America. And then number two, it turns out Leo still had the flamethrower in his barrage. Well, there's also the backstory that you're not totally sure how good Cliff is. Like there's a whole backstory of did he kill his wife, which is actually in the film and also in sort of the backstory. But like he is, you know, a deadly, as you said, like a very deadly person. But that final scene. And yeah, there's no way you can anticipate, like, even if you knew, okay, maybe it's not going to be as gruesome, or there's going to be some sort of like revenge fantasy, there's no way you can anticipate how genius, like the run up into it is.
15:17And then also the final scene, because there's this whole other thing that happens in the movie where you forget that you're watching a movie about the Mansons. Like you forget that you're watching this, this horrific, like what, what it's supposed to be. And there's a, there's like a 30 minute scene of Rick Dalton, who's the who's sort of this, you know, aging, like he's losing his place in Hollywood. He sort of, you know, is sort of at a loss for why he's no longer powerful. Right. And he has this moment where he stars in this like kind of cheesy Western with this like 11 year old girl. And it's like a movie within a movie.
15:53And it is like probably the best encapsulation of like what happens to actors in Hollywood. So you kind of lose track of the fact. It's like, here's Sharon Tate and she's at the Playboy Mansion. She's dancing. She's this new generation. But here's this old generation of like hyper masculine figures who can't get work. And there's it's just a genius movie within a movie where the little girl says to him and it's probably like one of the most memorable lines. She's like, that's the best acting I've ever seen in my whole life. And I mean, it's like just even if they'd stopped the movie there, it would have been just as brilliant.
16:24Right. But then it goes on to this other sequence where you're like, oh, yeah, we're watching, we're about to see the most gruesome, you know, possible like this. I mean, and, you know, I wasn't alive in 1969, but I can imagine it's like, if, you know, if Jennifer Lawrence, if it happened to Jennifer Lawrence, or if it happened to Margot Robbie, or Robbie, who's actually playing her, right, it would just be this horrific thing. But you kind of forget, because there's all of these just beautiful, hilarious sequences that run up to it, you forget that you're watching a movie that's supposed to end in this horrific violence.
16:55And of course, I'll let you continue, Mark, but it doesn't it ends and it ends at a different type of horrific violence, but not female on female violence that characterized the Manson murders, which I think is another kind of subtext of of the of the film. It's just how how gory and violent the actual episode is. But you don't actually see that. So I'll let you continue. But there's a whole other part of the Hollywood story that's really fascinating. Yeah, no, that's that's exactly right. And by the way, a pop quiz, Catherine, the little girl, the little girl actress. Who was she? Who was that intended to be in real life?
17:27I don't know, actually. Jodie Foster. Oh, is that? Oh, that's who she's supposed to be. Yeah. Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay. She's not under that name, but that's basically the character that's supposed to be on Jodie Foster. That makes sense. And so, and I just bring it up because like she's representative of New Hollywood. So, so, so, so Jodie Foster was in that, in that era was like a rising, busy child star. and then she had her breakup role in, I think in Taxi Driver, you know, where she's just like, you know, it's like incredibly revelatory, you know, acting performance. So she's sort of representative of the quote unquote New Hollywood with the much more naturalistic, like the actual naturalistic acting style that took over from the much more stylized style of the 50s and 60s.
18:09And so I'm just bringing that up because to your point, part of the story there is written on, you know, basically trying to get out of basically making cliched, Hattie genre stuff, right? Where he just plays the same tough guy over and over again. So the running joke up until that point is that Rick Dalton started out his career as a tough guy movie star. And then basically over the years that archetype was kind of fading in 1969. So he was increasingly being cast as the bad guy. And then the thing is, the bad guy is not the guy who punches and knocks people out. He's the guy who gets punched and knocked out.
18:41And he's sort of on his number of slide. And he has absolutely no idea how to adapt himself to this new world. In fact, and again, the way the movie, the way this intersects with the other, the other part of the movie is, you know, is literally what Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate would have been next door, you know, to his character. And he, and literally he's like, oh my God, if I could just figure out a way to get invited over for like a barbecue or something where I could just meet Roman Polanski, who's like the, you know, the, the, the leading kind of new Hollywood movie director of that time.
19:06If I could just get captured in one of his movies, then I could stay relevant, you know, for the next decade. and he just had like absolutely there was just absolutely no reason for like roman flasks for your share take to give to give this rick dalton character you know the time of day because he just he represented the past they represent the future um until of course at the very end of the movie uh you know rick dalton saves you know saves her life um and that in that she isn't you know that's the significance of of him being invited over at the end of the movie is is that sort of his entree to new hollywood having basically been taught by jodie foster as an 11 year old and actually how to act.
19:40Basically, it comes together. It's such a genius way. Anyway, yeah. So basically like the sort of macro, the macro relevance of this, just to kind of restate the thesis is, you know, like if the Manson murders were kind of where the cultural revolution in the 1960s went bad, then Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is sort of the, it's sort of the fantasy or the love letter to a different America in which that didn't happen. Right. And basically things kept going in like a much more positive direction. But by putting on screen the alternate direction, my view is like he really highlights how bad it was that that's not what happened.
20:18And so the tragedy of the Manson murders was not just the tragedy for the people who were killed and for their families, which was a profound tragedy. But the tragedy was like for basically for all of LA because like LA, if you talk to people who were around during that period, like things got dark in LA like very quickly. Like people were so freaked out by the Manson murders, Like they didn't know how many other serial killers were running around. They didn't know how many other cults there were. They like everybody all of a sudden had to like lock their doors. Like people stopped going out. Like it became like, and by the way, this was the beginning of the heyday of the serial killer, you know, Ted Bundy.
20:47And, you know, like it was the beginning of this like wave of these things where people got like really, really seriously freaked out. And so that was the other. But then just generally in America that, you know, as I said, like that was the beginning of the downward slide in the 70s. And so by making the what if positive kind of, you know, counterfactual so clear, to me, it sort of highlights and illustrates in maybe the way that nothing else has been able to do kind of the darkness that actually played out in real life. Totally. Totally. And like I went back and watched the beginning of the sequence because it's actually a long sequence of violence.
21:21But what I remember so much, I read the reviews before, not know, you know, they try to not have spoiler alerts and critics were very divided. it was like this is so violent this is extremely violent and what what's funny about seeing it in the theater um which was i'm so glad i saw it in the theater is that the reaction from the audience and these are again it's like if you've been opening weekend these are people who like really wanted to see this movie or are tarantino fans is extreme laughter yes as it is you are laughing during the most island sequence for 20 minutes and what's what's really funny about what's happening on screen too is that cliff cliff who's the you know the stuntman um and again this is a spoiler like turn this off i'm going to go into detail that he takes an edible like or lsd i can't remember if it's an edible or smokes smokes an lsd cigarette yes so so right before so he is like high as a kite when these guys come in which is also like a funny part of it and then the other part that you have to like tarantino is so particular about details and so the music that is playing when they come in is actually this like psychedelic rock band.
22:27Like, and he shows the kind of transition of the sixties through music, through the entire thing, which is really important. But that scene, he's listening to, um, uh, the Supremes set me free. Why don't you, babe? Right. Like, so it's this perfect moment of like, set me free. And these guys come in, he's high and he's like, is this, is this real? But, but Cliff, Cliff's response is like laughter. He's laughing at these women. Right. And these women, you know, they have their their knives like they are ready to to do to do the deed, you know. And and and he's laughing. And I think it's in some ways it's, you know, Tarantino always has sort of these like takes on like masculine violence.
23:05And, you know, can you kind of can you can take the power out of whatever situation in history by just like this extreme violence? And like, you know, it's about to happen. And there's like I won't ruin the pit bull part. but like there is something where it's like, let's ruin it, we're ruining it. I don't know, kind of like he, he sixes Pitbull on, on these women, right? But he, but the, would, would, watching it again, you're like, this is, it's fascinating because if, if the Mansons had been met with laughter, right? Like instead they were met with, these are the most evil, they're, they're, you know, they're, they're taken by the devil, right?
23:37Like they were met with fear. And, and to Mark's point, like that set off serial killers. Like it gave power to this extraordinary evil for, for decades. and I think the point of it is like what if Cliff the most masculine deadly man in the room had just been high and laughed and like you know sicked his pitbull on on on these on these women who you know are kind of silly and high themselves and like the whole thing had become a comedy which it turns into like 20 minutes of just sheer hilarity like just absolute hilarity even though it's the most violent thing you've probably seen in the last several years.
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24:13The Bradford character beats a him to death with a telephone. It's just the funniest thing you've ever seen. It's like, yeah, it's like, and the flamethrower shows up, right? Like, I mean, it is, you could not conceive of the type of violence. It meets the most horrific violence that we know is coming, right? And like, that's the backstory to this too, is like, you know what really happened. So you have this weird end of response that you know what actually happened and it's so tragic. And it was women on, you know, I always think it's interesting that it was like the Manson family, right? They called themselves family.
24:45It was a perversion of the family and they actually killed a woman who was eight months pregnant starting a family. So it's like this horrific, that's a whole other narrative to this. But like the fact that it's met with even more extreme violence. And at the time it was during, you know, it was during Me Too as well. So it was violence against women. But of course, everyone wants that violence to happen because you don't want the alternative to happen. So it's this very strange movie going experience that is both delightful, but also like, you know, a lot of mixed emotions that I think, you know, probably that's why I think critics were so divided on it.
25:22I loved it, but that's why I think critics were divided on it. Yeah. And then if you can tell us about, you know, one notch, it's a point. It's like it's like the ultimate square in the form of Rick Dalton is like, you know, still putting bro cream in his hair and trying to be like, you know, James Dean, tough guy. You know, you know, when that's not what the world wants. And then, you know, basically, like I said, you know, Captain America, like an icon of the American military, you know, at the time, you know, by the way, at the time of Vietnam in which, you know, the military was, you know, not, it was not viewed at the level of respect that American culture has right today.
25:53You know, the fact that those two, you know, end up basically beating and roasting a bunch of hippies to death at the height of the counterculture. It's an incredibly crowd-placing movie. and as you said, it kind of happened in sort of, you know, very, very close to Pete Woke kind of during our cultural revolution in the last decade. I don't know if this properly characterized as like a reactionary movie, but it definitely not, it was definitely not the arc, the moral arc of other attempts at arc during that time period. Totally. Totally. And just even the final scene of, as you said, him getting invited over and her sort of being blissfully unaware this happens.
26:31I mean, that's all magical of it. Like she had no idea that somehow this happens. And you see like the camera sort of pan up. And it's like this, like it just genuinely feels like this is, you know, in the same way that Glorious Bastards was a revenge drama of what could have possibly happened. This is also like the once upon a time in America story, like what could have happened? And it was a weird movie going experience in 2019 to be surrounded by people who were laughing, who loved it. you know, it kind of went against everything you were reading in the news, which is that like, you know, no one agrees with, with sort of this, this alternative history.
27:06I mean, it was, it's just a brilliant film that, that, yeah, I'm excited. There's a sequel coming, right, Mark? There is a deed, there is a, there's a deed, which is going to be, and let me also say, number one, there's a sequel coming, which, you know, it's going to be just incredible, I'm sure. But also there was a, Tarantino is so funny. So you guys may both remember this, but back before the internet and even back before like DVDs and video rentals, if you didn't see a movie when it was in the theater, you didn't see it. And like it might show up on TV like two years later, but they would have cut all the good parts out and they would have stuck in all the commercials.
27:40And so you like have this in one shot to see a movie in the theater. And then if you wanted to see it again and it was out of theater, you couldn't. And so there was this genre of paperback novelizations of movies. And so what you would do is you would buy the paperback novelization and then you could read that as many times as you want. So, you know, I had to show all these things when I was a kid, you know, Star Wars and all these things. you know read them all like 14 times um and so anyway so tarantino being you know sort of a child of this era you know like like i am um tarantino actually wrote a paperback novelization of the movie once upon a time in hollywood and he specifically wrote it as a paperback novelization uh and so it came out in paperback um uh and it very much is an homage to this but of course being tarantino it's it actually turns out of course it's not just a paperback novelization it turns out it's like an entirely new novel um and so and and it's actually funny because it It doesn't, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, the novel is set in the same world of the movie and has, and, and, and, and goes much deeper into the themes of the movie.
28:33But like, he doesn't even get, he doesn't care at all about like having the plot of the movie actually in the novel. And so he just throws away right up front in the novel. Oh yeah, yeah. And then Rick Dalton, Rick Dalton like wrote to a bunch of hippies, you know, his clearing pool that night. Right. So like, it's like the plot's not the point for the novelization. So the novelization, I think, I think it's a, it's a very few people have read it, you know, kind of just by, by ratio of how he, how he came out with it. I think, because I think people didn't know what to make of like literally a paperback novelization of like 2022 or whatever came out.
28:59But I think it has, it has a reasonable claim on being a great American novel. And the reason specifically, I think you enjoyed it a lot because it just, it goes much deeper in all the themes of the, you know, that we're talking about. And so it like, it goes really deep into the transformation of Hollywood that was happening at that time. You know, it goes really deep into the making, you know, the Western show that happens inside the movie, which is actually a real show called Lancer. it was actually a real show with that you know with that setup and with those actors and it goes much deeper into all the characters and it goes deeper into the Manson family and so it's yeah it's really amazing and by the way I should also say the movie does have a scene in which it is left ambiguous as to whether or not Cliff Booth killed his wife by the way let me just say the wife played by Rebecca Dayhart who just like I think she's in the movie for like 30 seconds and she almost steals the movie like she's just hysterically funny and she plays like the meanest like wife in the world she's just like hectoring and like screaming at brad pitt and then literally on a fishy boat brad pitt has a spear gun in his lap um and it's sort of and in the movie it's like set up as basically you know there was a spear gun accident um you know following this argument and and did brad pitt actually actually deliberately kill his wife or not um and of course in the novelization it makes very fair yes he he in fact yes he yes i think it's i think it's in the i think it's in the novel i think it's like yes Brad Pitt definitely killed his wife and got away with it.
30:21And then I think he says the novel, he says, and that was one of the three times that Cliff Booth committed murder and got away with it. So anyway, for those of you who've only seen the movie, it turns out the Cliff Booth character actually, yes, has a real dark side. And yes, the hippies picked the wrong house to stumble into. And so we were talking offline about how there's some relevance to today. is the connection that, you know, the 2010s to some people was seen as a sort of glorious march towards, you know, progress. And then, you know, whether it's the 2020 Floyd riots or more recently, the Luigi, you know, Mangione murder or the murder of Charlie Kirk, there's kind of this moment of, oh my God, this thing has gone off there.
31:06Is that kind of the, yeah. So I would say whichever side of the political and social spectrum you're on, like the world that we live in today is a much darker version of what everybody thought we were going to be living in. I mean, like, so for people who were like 100 % on board with like the social president, so back up a second, Eric, to your point. So like, I think there's a very direct analogy of what's called 1964 to 1972 or something with the re-election of Richard Nixon. Like that cultural revolution that happened during the 60s, kind of the hippie Vietnam, you know, kind of revolution.
31:37I think what we in America have been through the last decade is sort of another version of that. Like, I think we went through our version of that. It started around, I would date it to like 2015, 2014. And then, you know, it basically, that era sort of ended November, November, November, 2024. You know, obviously if you're on the right, you're like, oh my God, thank God that's over. And, you know, the world could move on. If you're on the left, of course, you're like, oh my God, what just happened? How did, you know, how did the revolution go so bad? But that is precisely what happened at the end of the revolution in the 1960s.
32:06And specifically, I mentioned 1972. So Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968 and it was like a hard fought race and very dramatic in the soda right but then he was reelected in 1972 in a landslide like I usually was together it was like a 49 state landslide or some crazy thing like it was just like an overwhelming landslide so it was like the American people basically rose up and basically said yeah no more of this it's over and so we I mean the echoes are just like profound of how this played out and they're echoes it's not exactly comparable in Iraq and Vietnam play different roles and so forth and the economy has developed in different ways and, you know, Trump and Nixon are different people and so forth, but the social movements are different, you know, and times have changed.
32:46But still, like, there was a cultural revolution. It was, you know, either glorious or terrible for some period of time and then get ended, right? It was just like a sequence of events happened where just like it was over and you're out the other side and you're in a new world. And I would argue, like, that's exactly what, that's exactly the process kicked off in 69 of the Massenburgers and then sort of bookended to 72 with Nixon's reelection and then kind of slide into the 1970s and then ultimately the 1980s, like that transformation. And then I would argue like that's precisely the same kind of transition that we're going through right now.
33:19And I think it's either thrilling or horrifying people in a very similar way at the end of the 60s, either thrilled or horrified people. Catherine, would you agree with that? I would, I would. And I also, since you mentioned Vietnam, I want to transition to the best Vietnam War film ever made. Okay, this is, everything we've said, up until now is noot toast as compared to the extremely controversial plane that kathleen is about to make please go for it it is it is by far the best vietnam war film ever made um and of course it incorporates every vietnam war film every ever made including deer hunter full metal jacket um you know once uh or um born on the fourth of july apocalypse now the best vietnam war film ever made is tropic thunder uh but it also happens to be one of the best films about hollywood um Actually, I would actually say that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, while it is an incredible film, is more about America.
34:14But Tropic Thunder is also about America in different ways and reveals a lot about America, but is by far the best Hollywood film ever made. I'll let Mark talk about why that is. Well, let's all this data. Tropic Thunder was what year? It was 2008, which is actually very important. Because I think one of the things that people forget is that 2008 was also the year where we had a POW from the Vietnam War running for office against the first black president in history. And that is a very important context for all of the themes dealt with inside of Tropic Thunder, which, of course, is a comedy. It's a satire, but it satirizes everything in the kind of before times 2008.
34:572008. But I think that is a very important subtext to what came out during an election year where those two themes were on display. But I'll let Mark get into the summary, since it's also one of his favorite films. Well, it is, although I'm going to defer. So, you know, I think it's a start of a fun, you know, it's maybe the funniest movie, funniest Hollywood movie the last 25 years or something like it. It's just like an incredibly entertaining movie. And just for people to just have a sense of like how much times have changed, like the most, I mean, there's many amazing things about it, but one of the most amazing things about it is, you know, the great actor Robert Downey Jr.
35:30plays the entire movie in blackface. And not only plays the entire movie in blackface, like I would say extraordinarily commits for the bit. He's a method actor playing a method actor. The entire movie in method playing another method actor, you know, playing an actor in a type of blackface. Again, which to your point on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, when the film was first announced, this was known that Robert Downey Jr. was going to be playing an actor in blackface. And as you can imagine, it was the same thing that happened with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where it was like, like, you know, in the same way that the Tate family was terrified of what would happen in the film, there was a whole kind of, you know, terror of what is going to happen.
36:14Like, Robert Downey Jr., like, like, like he's destroying his career. Like, who does Ben Stiller think he is doing this movie, right? Like, no one actually knew the backstory or how it will be satirizing Hollywood actors who will go through any extreme length to win an Oscar. But when you get into the film, it is handled so beautifully and delicately. And actually, I was reading about sort of how they handled it when they were producing it, which was that they invited a number of members of the NAACP. They invited a number of different, like, very thoughtful critics and said, you have to see this film first and see.
36:47And it was, again, the same sort of thing where it's like everyone saw it first and they said, don't worry, it's perfect, right? It's hilarious. And so I'll let you continue. But like they handled it in a way. Did they have to apologize in the 2010s? I remember Jimmy Kimmel had to apologize for blackface or one of these people. Did they get away with it? Interesting point. So they didn't. So when it came out, it was so clearly satirizing white actors who were trying to win an Oscar. Right. Like so it was clearly satirizing everyone. It was not it was you know, it was it was sort of universally beloved so much so that that Robert Downey Jr.
37:22was nominated for an Oscar, which is a whole other backstory to how they made that happen, because it was kind of a continuation of the movie that they, as a joke, petitioned the Academy, you know, said for your consideration. And the Academy actually nominated him for an Oscar for the role. So it was so it was so beloved, like what he did and how how how brilliant the role was that no one cared. But I believe it was like 2017 or 2018 when this sort of like new crop of young people came through journalism and said, like, this is horrible. They tried to sort of cancel him. You might know Mark better if how he handled it.
37:57But like it clearly they did not cancel Robert Downey Jr. for doing a satirization of of the role he played. So just to fill this in and then we'll get to that, I'm going to get to the, Catherine, the Vietnam aspects of this, but Vietnam war movie aspects to this. But yeah, so just specifically what happened was, correct me if I have this wrong, Robert Downey Jr., a white American actor, plays a white Australian actor who is a method actor who I think was sort of loosely inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis as sort of a, you know, sort of that kind of sort of, you know, super elite. You know, there's a couple scenes where you see Robert out of blackface, but dressed up as the Australian actor who has, I forget what, transmusive green eyes or something.
38:41It's this very striking look and this very plummy Australian accent. And so it's a white American actor in real life playing a white Australian actor playing a Southern black man in blackface for the entire movie. On top of that, I believe Robert Downey often improvises throughout his movies. And I think a fair amount of the portrayal was him on the spur of the moment, which is fairly incredible when you see it because he fully inhabits the world. And then, of course, he's actually in the movie. He's actually in the movie, inside the movie. He's in a platoon with, of course, an actual black guy.
39:19It was a young black actor whose name I can't recall, but he just was impressed having this. it was such a thrill to him. He's a brilliant, it's a brilliant, like the way they play off each other is brilliant. His name on the film is Al Pacino, but Al Pacino. Al Pacino. He's a rapper. He's a rapper who becomes an actor. Yes. And there's a. Go ahead, sorry. Oh, no, no, no. I was going to say, there's a whole other through line there of his, his role, because I think one of the things that everyone remembers of the film is they have the fake trailers before the film starts. And he is Al Pacino, know the rapper and he's telling a drink that he calls booty sweat uh and and what's so funny about like how brilliant this film is because not only like not only do they satirize hollywood in the film they were like first barbenheimer like what they did they're like we're gonna market this in so many funny ways they did incredible things before and after the film but one of the things that the that they did was they made booty sweat into an actual drink marketed it through the entire Oscar petition.
40:19Like they, they went so far. I mean, the only film that's done this as, as exceptional as Trop of Thunder was, was Barbie. But they, they, they, they figured out how to turn every aspect of this film into a marketing genius. The other smart thing that they did, by the way, that one of the actors that Ben Stiller, Ben Stiller plays this guy named Tug Speedman, who is based on a dumb Tom Cruise. His name is Tug Speedman, right? Like where did they get that name, it's Tom Cruise. But they also have Tom Cruise in the movie as the producer who's based on Harvey Weinstein, Les, I can't remember his name.
40:54Les Grossman. Les Grossman, yes. And so, but they didn't want anyone to know Tom Cruise was in the film. So they actually sued anyone, any of the paparazzi who took pictures of him before, because they wanted people to come to the theater and not know that Tom Cruise was in it. And of course, he like wrote his entire role, like he, to your point in improv, like he improvised that entire role and wrote it. Like it was kind of Tom Cruise's brainchild. I think they originally offered him something else and he's like, no, no, no, I want to play Harvey Weinstein. And it is genius, but they did so many things to make sure that the entire sort of cult of the movie outside of the movie was like Hollywood produced.
41:30Where you, to Mark's point, you have this method actor playing a method actor who is trying to get an Oscar through his method acting, who ultimately ends up getting nominated for the Oscar, losing to Heath Ledger the year that Ledger died posthumously when it was awarded to him. But it's like they could not have, it is a 20-year project. That's the other, that's the very interesting thing about this was like Ben Stiller has been working on this since the 80s. And it was just that year where they were finally able to get it made. And it is this brilliant commentary on all of Hollywood. And we can get into the Vietnam stuff too, because I think it's also a commentary on that.
42:08But it is the best Hollywood film ever made, even in the fact that they were able to successfully sway the Oscars. Right. Well, it was also, Catherine, your point, it was also the reset of the Tom Cruise image issues at the time, because this was after the sort of run of controversy around him and psychology and his personal life and all those things. And there was this run of very bad publicity. A lot of people in the industry were worried that he was not going to be a bankable movie star anymore. And I think this role in this movie was basically his recovery from that, which was pulled off absolutely perfectly.
42:37And of course, he then went on to be an even bigger movie star than before. Totally. Yeah. So it's a career resurrection in the middle of this. Yeah. And then, yeah, just in terms of like how much times have changed or, you know, somebody once said that the past is a foreign planet or another country. Yeah. Like you had an American actor being nominated for an Oscar for a character performing in blackface in 2008. directed by a Hollywood filmmaker who is obviously a genius, but, you know, within 10 years was like, you know, Ben Stiller subsequently became one of the wokest Hollywood figures, you know, in the years that follow, like, you know, all through the last decade, like Ben Stiller has been like, you know, to the leftist Shea Guevara on every social and political issue.
43:20And so, you know, I don't know, I've never met him. I've had great admirer in his art, but like, I wonder how much of his shift to the far left politically and socially was a reaction to having made this movie. Well, and the other thing is, I mean, everyone focuses on Robert Downey Jr., but there are like at least four other untouchable things that happen in that film. So the disability advocates, actually when the film came out, the people who were most upset in 2008 were the disability advocates because of the commentary on what's, I believe it's comment on what's eating Gilbert grape, right?
43:53Never like, I'll just say. Well, and Forrest, Forrest Gump, and Forrest Gump. And Forrest Gump, yes, yes. And Raymond, and Raymond, but yeah, Simple Jack. Simple Jack, yes. So the, the, the famous line that is said is, and again, I'm, I'm quoting the film, never go full retard, which was okay to say in 2008, except for the disability advocates who were, who were very upset about it. And of course, like they were sort of on the fringe in 2008. But that was actually the thing that Ben Stiller had to apologize for because they didn't test the film on Simple Jack, but it was commentary from Robert Downey Jr.
44:29in blackface saying everybody knows and then saying the line, right? Because Tug Speedman doesn't play it as he should. He does the full Leo DiCaprio, what's eating Gilbert Grape sort of like, you know, full on, right? He doesn't be a rainmaker. But there's two other things that happen. So the other thing that I think people didn't realize is that it is so much of a commentary on Vietnam War film. It's a lot of Vietnam War memoirs in later years have been proven to be completely disingenuous. Right. So it's like people who said they went to Vietnam didn't go to Vietnam. And so in the storyline and the film, the guy whose memoir, Tropic Thunder, the movie is actually based on.
45:09Right. Is a is a member of the Coast Guard who never got sent to Vietnam, who worked for the sanitation department. Right. So like that's like a whole theme in the movie. And so there's this like brilliant commentary also on like, you know, veterans issues. And I think some veterans groups were upset about it. There were also people who were very upset with Tom Cruise's portrayal. And it was, you know, it was before we kind of all knew who he was portraying and everything. But there were people who were very upset that they felt that that was the stereotype. So like pretty much every character, like there was there was people who were.
45:39And again, these are fringes. It wasn't like mass commentary on this, but they're like they managed to insult like every protected group in a way that like like everyone kind of was like, well, yeah, but it's satire. Right. So it was a totally different time in America. But it wasn't just, you know, focus on race relations. I mean, it was on, you know, we had a again, we had a Vietnam POW running for president that year. And basically a mockery, like the greatest mockery of Vietnam film ever made. So in some ways, it's like this film was just like so perfectly timed for the era we were living in.
46:13Well, we still have to this day. Let's not name names on what's otherwise a fun podcast. There are sitting United States politicians in serious offices who like literally faked Vietnam War records. Like that's not over. Like that's actually still the case. And so to your point, like, you know, there were many people obviously who served very honorably in Vietnam. And then there were people who like made up completely fake stories and wrote them the rest of their career. and like, you know, yeah, so the movie takes like, it's your point of movie. Among other things, takes direct aim at that. And I believe the guy wears a hook the whole film with his hand.
46:47I mean, like, there's like, this movie is so brilliant. It's so brilliant. And the levels of commentary just are remarkable to this day. Yes, yes. And so, yes, yes. Cute, yes. I mean, just like, so, yeah. Maybe this bookends the previous conversation of just like, yes, this is clearly made before the culture before our version of the Cultural Revolution. And so it's like an ancient artifact. Like, I would say, only now are we reemerging into a world in which a movie like that could be made. Like, a movie like that for the last, probably, what, 13 years or something would have been totally off limits.
47:22And we're coming out into a world now where movies like that can get made again. Yeah, Jimmy Kimmel's not going to bring back the man show. Her return to his roots. For people who follow, yes, for people who don't get the reference, For anybody who followed the recent Jimmy Kimmel sort of affair and all of the outrage, it is worth going on YouTube and just looking at clips from a Jimmy Kimmel show 20 years ago, which was literally called The Man Show. And just to get a sense of the long and twisty road that some of our highest, most famous public figures have followed. And also a tale of two comedians, right?
47:58Because it's him and Adam Carolla, right? And it's like their careers have detoured dramatically. Like, send some of the show. Yes, that's right. Two other films we wanted to discuss were Oppenheimer and Fight Club. So let's start with Oppenheimer just because it's more recent. So I will make the case, so I'm an enormous Christopher Nolan fan. I've seen all his movies. I love all his movies. I think they're really tremendous. You know, I think that, you know, I say this, I think Tenet is one of the best movies I've ever seen. And like, I sat through Tenet with a giant smile on my face the entire movie.
48:34Like, I just thought that was just like absolute magic. Obviously, I love Deception. I love many of his movies. But I think Oppenheimer was like an incredibly well-made movie and had, you know, incredible performances and was like, you know, put together really well. It was, you know, tremendously interesting to watch. I will argue that it did not reach our level of capital A art. I think it actually quite badly fell short on sort of, I would say, morality and ultimately an importance to our culture. But yeah, I'm happy to give my feel on that. But let me just start by saying, Catherine, just out of the gate, would you agree with me on that?
49:09Or would you like to take the pro side that Oppenheimer was greater? No, I agree with you, but I probably concur. Like I probably have different reasons than you as to why I didn't think it worked. And I should preface it with, like I had hyped this movie so much where my expectations might've been so ridiculously high that when I finally saw it, I was like, meh. but I do think it's interesting Robert Downey Jr. was all he won the Academy Award finally for Oppenheimer. He deserved it for Tropic Thunder. He was fantastic in the movie but I will say he deserved it for Tropic Thunder and if not for Heath Ledger he would have won it for Tropic Thunder and I feel like that that would have been really the role he should have won it for but he was fantastic in Oppenheimer as well.
49:50So to your point like there were there were many good performances. My sort of criticism is probably different than yours but it probably has a lot more to do with like the actual sort of storytelling and filmmaking than the actual content of the work. Okay, got it. Yeah, so because I would say, so for people who haven't seen it, we're going to spoil it. So Robert Downing plays a real life guy named Louis Strauss, who was a very high ranking, like sort of important person of the 1950s, 1960s in the government, and ended up, I forget the exact role, but basically ended up overseeing Oppenheimer having a security clearance stripped and basically being booted out of the military industrial complex after, you know, basically leading the creation of the atomic bomb.
50:36And the movie kind of goes through that whole story. And, you know, it's a fantastic performance. I mean, look, all the performances in the movie were fantastic. Gillian Murphy was just outstanding as Oppenheimer. And then I think it was Benny Safdie, one of the Safdie brothers, played Edward Teller and, like, almost just stole the movie just with that portrayal. And again, a real person, the leader of the creator of the hydrogen bomb. Anyway, so fantastic form. It's this fantastic direction. I will argue, my critique of the movie, though, it involves the following claim, which is that Louis Strauss is actually the hero of the movie.
51:08Yes, maybe go into that history so people understand, because that is definitely not the takeaway from the film. Yes, that is not what the film intended. You know, the film intended, I think the film intended, see if Catherine would agree with this, the film intended to contrast basically a great man Oppenheimer to basically an aspirate to greatness who fell badly short in the Louis Strauss character who sort of brought the great man low in a fundamentally unfair way. And then the movie sort of sets up both Oppenheimer and actually also specifically Albert Einstein as sort of the key moral authorities of the era with respect to using nuclear weapons.
51:41Both claims of which I believe are like deeply incorrect on softness. And this is my critique. So my critique of the movie is not a mass execution or any of the performances. My critique is the morality of the movie I think is very badly upside down. And it's upside down. in a way that kind of flatters our current politics, but like is very badly upside down in terms of what actually happened at the time. And so the movie basically tells the story of course, Robert Oppenheimer, the sort of person who ran the Manhattan Project, created the atomic bomb, which was then, you know, at least a story where he gets credit for, you know, helping to end World War II.
52:11You know, when the U.S. dropped, dropped, dropped, you know, they'll be only two uses of the atomic bomb in wartime, you know, to date where the U.S. dropped and dropped the bomb on Japan twice in 1945. And, you know, and there, you know, there's even still to this day debate about this, But, you know, generally accepted in history, I think, is that that, you know, that ended the Pacific theater conflict, you know, sooner than it would have. It prevented the need for a land invasion of Japan, you know, conceivably, you know, save like a million lives or something like that. Now, by the way, it was dropping a ton of bomb on two civilian cities, right?
52:41So, again, you know, like the morality of the time was, you know, quite a bit different than, you know, than maybe ours today. But anyway, so that's kind of the history of it. And then, you know, famously, the Manhattan Project was sort of this assembly of sort of the finest minds in America. Many of them, by the way, were, you know, refugee, you know, not often. I'm often I'm a star-skinned actually as a, in reality, and in the movie is German-Jewish whose family, you know, whose family had arrived much earlier. but then a lot of the other key members of the Manhattan Project kind of in one of the great voices of irony were Hungarian Jewish refugees from basically the Nazi kind of rampaged through Europe who came to the U.S.
53:18and basically helped arm up the U.S. as what Edward Teller was an example of that. And so anyway, so the movie tells this kind of amazing story of the Manhattan Project but specifically the arc of Oppenheimer I guess I'd say that the conventional let me back up for a sec. I think the first half of the movie I think is actually quite historically grounded and I think has at least I agree to this interpretation of history. And so there's a following so the first half, and I think the movie is maybe a little bit schizophrenic and I should give it a little bit more credit than I was. But like the first half of the movie is actually a, it's one of the only recreations on film of what American elite culture and society and American research establishment of kind of the leading experts at the time in the 1820s and 30s, like how thoroughly saturated that that world was communist.
54:06And specifically, it sort of recreates, you know, this sort of, there's actually a joke in the movie. There's a line in the movie that's sort of one of these jokes. It's not really a joke, which is the joke is, you know, because a lot of the movie takes place as set up as at UC Berkeley. And there's sort of a joke in the movie, which is like, you know, well, you know, it's so-and-so on the Berkeley faculty, you know, as a communist, somebody else will say, yes, like half the Berkeley faculty are communists. Like everybody knows that. Like it's just completely taken for granted. And of course, you know, the politics in that aside, the issue becomes, okay, now they're working on a classified weapons program.
54:38You know, the U.S. is, you know, is kind of variously at odds with not just Germany, but also with Soviet Russia. And, you know, there's this very big concern, you know, we're, you know, this effort is inventing this, you know, super weapon. and there was a very high degree of concern that the secrets of the atomic bomb were going to just walk their way out the door from Los Alamos and were going to end up in bad people's hands. And one fear, obviously, was they ended up in Hitler's hands, but another fear was they ended up in Stalin's hands. And by the way, spoiler alert, that's exactly what happened.
55:09So in fact, the nuclear secrets will walk right out the door and basically both the concepts of the atomic bomb and that actually the specific wiring instructions for the atomic bomb were actually walking right out the back door of Los Alamos into somebody's hands and Stalin got the bomb very quickly after that. And it was directly derived from the work that actually happened on the Manhattan Project. And so it turned out the Manhattan Project, like it really was riddled with time to despise. And there's these famous names in history, like the Roseburgs, the Greenglass, that you can go through and read about if you want.
55:40But like the fears of all of the people who are worried about this were actually correct. It is actually what happened. And by the way, there's a character in the movie, Boris Pash, who is sort of a security officer at the Manhattan Project, if both in real life and in the movie. In the movie, he's sort of portrayed as this like guy with basically essentially a stick up his butt, like this like guy who's like, you know, like constantly like, you know, cross-examining and not trusting the scientists and thinks that I'm a higher oppenheimer is probably a spy and the whole thing. He's kind of portrayed as this like over the top, you know, kind of thing.
56:07But like, if you, if you go, if you read his Wikipedia entry of like what his wife story had been up until that point, he's another one of these guys who are just like, yeah, just this incredibly impressive backstory of wife service to the country and fight the communists. And then, you know, and then like, you know, whether he was right about Oppenheimer would talk about, but like he was right that like, and this is going to lead to catastrophe, you know, with Stalin getting the bomb. And then, you know, the Strauss character was also very worried about that. it again, you know, outside of whether he was right about Oppenheimer per se, he was, he was right about the, he was right about the broader issue.
56:38And so, so, so that is what actually, that, that, that is what actually happened. And so like all of the security concerns that are kind of a setup to what, you know, is sort of portrayed as the persecution of Robert Oppenheimer, like they were all completely genuine security concerns. And in fact, the worst case scenario actually did happen. Like all the secrets, like walk right out the door, went straight to Stalin. The first Soviet, we now know this, the first Soviet atomic bomb was wire for wire compatible with the U.S. Nagasaki bomb. So they got literally the wearing threats. And for people who have read about nuclear weapons, it's actually very hard to detonate a nuke, and they have to be wired in a very specific way.
57:11It's like, you can't, they're very difficult to set off. And the Soviet spies on the Manhattan Project literally transferred that information to Russia-made nuclear power. And so anyway, within that, there's this arc of basically Oppenheimer, was he or was he not? And there's one arc, actually, which is, was he or was he not himself a Soviet asset? Which is, it's generally viewed historically that he wasn't literally a Soviet asset, although I think there are still questions around that in fairness, and we can talk about that. But then there's just this broader thing, which is even if he wasn't, like, was he trustworthy and could he be relied upon?
57:42And then there was a specific thing that actually happened, which the movie presents a version of that I think is not, my understanding of history is not correct, but which is Oppenheimer basically worked his butt off to deliver the atomic bomb for the purpose of beating Germany and Japan. But then immediately upon that happening, the U.S. weapons program shifted into making the hydrogen bomb, which was going to be the, you know, the big one that was going to be used ultimately, you know, ultimately was going to be used in the Cold War, you know, as a deterrent against the Soviet Union, you know, as a project led by Edward Teller.
58:14And the accusation always was Oppenheimer deliberately slow rolled the development of the hydrogen bomb. Like he tried to prevent that from happening at first. the, you know, Oppenheimer's version of the story is it's one thing to like have a new thing to take out a city to end a war. It's another thing to have a new thing to take out the planet. You know, and so like, you know, should we really be doing this? But there's another version of the story, which is you were completely in favor of beating Germany and Japan. And then, but the minute it came to beating the Soviet Union, you know, you got cold feet.
58:39Hmm. You know, isn't that interesting, right? That that's the thing that you didn't want to have happen. And then there's just the reality that like Oppenheimer's backgrounds and political activities and like all of the people around him, including his wife and his girlfriend and his brother were actual, like I don't believe this would be the case. I think his wife, his girlfriend and his brother were all actual communists, like actual capital C car carry communists. And then Alpenheimer himself was like embroiled to communism and it's sort of communist, you know, sort of adjacent organizations, you know, his entire life.
59:10He's not known ever have been a member of the communist party. Although again, there's, there's, there's, there's ambiguity there because the Soviets had a practice of having their best placed assets actually never become members of the kind of his party because of course they were trying to protect him against exactly the kind of persecution that Oppenheimer got leveled against him. But anyway, so in the movie, ultimately his security clearance gets stripped and he sort of resigns to disgrace. The movie paints this as like a great act of moral heroism on his part where basically he won a credit for the little bomb, but he didn't want the big bomb to happen and certainly didn't want to have anything to do with it.
59:41You know, and look, you know, he's dead. They're all dead. Like, you know, I don't know that we'll ever know like what lay in their hearts, but there are very interesting questions around this. And then there's my most stinging indictment of the movie, which is Einstein was the exact opposite of a moral exemplar. Einstein was Stalinist. Like Einstein was like a full on, like Einstein was pro-Stalin, like not even just pro-Condinist, it was actually like pro-Stalin. And Einstein thought that like American democracy was like not going to cut it. And like we clearly needed to get to Condinist dictatorship.
1:00:09And there's a book that goes through this called When Reason Goes to Holiday that came out a few years ago that kind of goes through all of Einstein's writings and speeches kind of reconstructs this history. And so the movie kind of presents Oppenheimer and Einstein as like the adults, especially Einstein as like the moral adults in the room to a degree that I just think is like basically at this point bizarre. And the reason it's bizarre is because, you know, the whole thing is set up of like, oh my God, what if the atomic bomb destroys the world? Oh my God, you know, it's this whole thing and all politics evolved in that.
1:00:37So the ending and so forth. But like we're sitting here 80 years later and the thing that we know today, and I don't know that any of us would choose to have the events play out this way and maybe the world would be better without the bomb or whatever. But like what we know today is World War III didn't happen. And so basically like everybody, everybody in sort of the military political establishment in 1945 kind of took it for granted that there was going to be World War III with the Soviet Union at some point. And it was going to be a land war, you know, in Europe and around the world. And it was going to kill probably, you know, on the order of 200 million people.
1:01:04And it was just going to be absolutely devastating. And like, you know, in any other era, like of sort of geopolitics, like that almost certainly would have happened given how tense of it got, especially in the 60s and 70s. And like literally it didn't happen. Like World War III is the dog that didn't bite. And the reason World War III didn't happen is sort of, I think, fairly obvious, which is mutually assured destruction, right? The fact that both sides had nukes basically meant that neither side did go to war with the other. And that resulted in, you know, it resulted in a cold war, but not a hot war.
1:01:31And so, you know, I think if you kind of stack up Oppenheimer and Teller and these guys, you kind of say, you know, by building bombs that could destroy the world, they prevented at least one, you know, major world war. You know, by the way, it's not many. And by the way, the existence of nukes may prevent another world war for 500 years, right? You know, we don't know yet, but like, you know, like that mutually assured destruction is still in effect. They may be causing us to not have a hot war with China, right? Does the fact that both the US and China had nukes. And so anyway, so, and by the way, that's all debatable and you could argue that, but like, that's the argument.
1:02:04That's the argument that ought to happen, like, especially with what we know today. and I just thought the movie, I thought the movie just like really cheated on the morality of it because it kind of presented this as guys just slammed down that the nuke was bad and that these people were bad and the whole thing was bad and that Einstein was like, sorry, that both Einstein and Oppenheim were moral heroes in some extent kind of trying to line up against this and I just thought that that really cheated the audience. I think you and I are much closer on our critique of it. My sense is very similar to yours that it started out very strong, right?
1:02:33Like the portrayal in Berkeley was a very interesting, you know, like you kind of, you saw this complex figure and complex character. And then there's this whole middle section on the Manhattan Project that kind of culminates in what I would say is like incredible, like visuals and sound. Like actually like the movie excels in both score and sound. And if you saw it in a theater, you were like the sound editing is like the thing that won the Oscar. I think they won 10 Oscars. I mean, they won everything, but it's like, like sound editing and score, like just incredible movie making. And then to use your word, schizophrenic.
1:03:06Like the third part, which is all about, you know, Robert Downey Jr.'s character being like a villain, it sort of ends with this, you know, there's this brilliant scene that I think everyone remembers where they show him giving a speech to all the people at Los Alamos, and then they show like him envisioning bodies in, you know, in Hiroshima, right? And you kind of see the juxtaposition. You see him sort of losing his sort of, you know, conviction that he did the right thing. And I feel like if they had just stopped the movie there, it would have been the commentary on like, okay, like we don't really understand his legacy.
1:03:42But instead they had to tie it up with, it was almost like if, you know, for writers and artists, like if you don't know how to end something, you kind of tie things up with neat bows that have nothing to do with the thing that happened before. And it felt like the third section on the security clearance and on him being a hero was almost like the filmmaker's apology. Like, actually, no, no, I'm going to side, I'm actually going to paint this for everyone and side that he was actually a good man and, And there's no sort of moral ambiguity about this figure. Like he was actually a good man. And actually the real villains are the national security hawks and the people in Washington and the bureaucrats.
1:04:15And then it was just this sort of portrayal of the evil bureaucracy coming for the beautiful scientists. And it sort of mimicked, I think, also a conversation that was happening in 2023 when it came out, which is all of these great AI scientists basically saying, oh, well, no, AI is actually going to kill us all. And, you know, I know this because I'm an expert. It was like the same sort of thing. And I kind of felt like that was also the sort of language of the end of the film is like, no, no, it's normal for people who build incredible things to like actually regret their innovation. And it just felt like way too buttoned up for a film that has a lot more complexity.
1:04:49And that if they had just ended it at hour two, it would have been a masterpiece. Yeah. It felt like if you wanted to conform to presently morale, like very badly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so anyway, so that's my like long extended argument for why Leo Strauss is actually the hero of the movie. he was correct. Oppenheimer could not be trusted. Oppenheimer needed to be rejected from the project. Also, Louis Strauss has shown the movie as being very jealous of Einstein. But if you squint, you could say he also had Einstein's number. He knew Einstein was not to be trusted, which was 100 % true. And then, yeah, Catherine, to your point, like, again, I guess exactly right, what you just said, the comparison to AI, like, if you read the history of those people at that time, specifically people like Oppenheimer, you realize, yeah, the people who invent the technology have no special moral claim.
1:05:34They have no special predictive power for the consequence of the technology and they have no basis for a superior moral claim on the implications of the technology. And I will say this, the movie being made by geniuses, there was a scene in the movie that actually did kind of hit that, which was based on a real life thing that happened, which was Oppenheimer after the war visited Harry Truman in the White House. And basically, and this is sort of in the histories, in the real world histories, Oppenheimer basically went to Truman and essentially basically confessed enormous guilt for having built the atomic bomb and for the U.S.
1:06:05having dropped it on Japan. And actually in real life, Truman is, I forget the exact quote, but it's in the Truman biographies. Truman basically said, basically got him out of his office as fast as possible and told his chief of staff, I think the exact line was, never let that weepy son of a bitch in here again. And then I think the line of the movie is based on something Truman apparently actually said, which was, Robert, you didn't make the decision to drop the bomb. It's not on you. I made the decision. Right. Which, right. Which, which is like, which is like an incredibly powerful thing, which is the duly elected commander in chief of the country made that decision as he should have.
1:06:41The scientist does not have the moral authority inside how the technology is used. It's the, it's, it's our, you know, in our system of government, the commander in chief has that authority, you know, in our elected representatives. And so I like to the movie's enormous credit, it did include that. It did show that. and again like in my fantasy cut of the movie that's the end of the movie so they kind of nodded with that but like I said then they let him off the hook at the end Shall we close with Fight Club? Fight Club? Well we could spend an entire we could spend hours on just Fight Club and we probably should at some point I would just say about Fight Club Fight Club's an amazing, I think it's 100 % true art with capital A I think it's amazing, I think it's definitely going to stand the test of time, you know, already is.
1:07:28And it's one of those movies. And it's one of those movies that has that characteristic we talked about last time, where like, if you watched it the week it came out versus a year later, versus five years later, versus 10 years later, versus 20 years, versus 30 years later, like it has new meanings as our society evolves. And you can kind of, at any kind of point in time, you can kind of use it as a prism on our society. It's amazing in retrospect, I guess my sort of social political kind of analysis of it would be like, Like it was clearly intended as a left-wing movie at the time because it was sort of, it was sort of, you know, and the novel that, you know, the famous novel that it's based on, you know, and it's sort of this, you know, almost like, what was it?
1:08:07Remember the original, like, it was the sort of left-wing anti-capitalism of that era, like left-wing anarchism, you know, a little bit like that, you know, the 90s version of like Luigi leftism or something where it's like, you know, capitalism is this, you know, basically this horrible right-wing machine that's like crushing everybody's spirits. and of course in the movie Endor in Place you know it's sort of an office drone who just like absolutely hates his life and you know has no future and like hates himself and you know ends up doing all the things that you know kind of play out in the movie which you know and then by the way the movie culminates in basically the destruction of capitalism you know basically what is it he takes down the buildings containing I think it's like all the bank records or credit card records to kind of you know wipe the slate clean and start the economy and society over again so at the time is just like, wow, that's like a really left wing message.
1:08:52Um, and of course it's, you know, it's like, it's, it's, you know, David Fincher and his Edna or Brad Pitt. And it's like one of the best, most entertaining, you know, most captivating movies ever made. It's, it's phenomenal. But like, it's fundamentally a left wing movie. You watch it today and you're just like, wow, it's like ultra right wing. Like it's like ultra, ultra, ultra right wing. Cause it's a, to start with, it's a white guy. Right. Um, right. And so they're like, it's literally, you view it today and you're like, wow, it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, the stereotype would be, it's a right, you know, It's a privileged white male incel, basically, with every advantage in the world, who nevertheless has built up this persecution complex.
1:09:26And through today's lines, you're just like, wow, that's like an ultra right-wing movie. And then, by the way, the sort of argument the movie makes about capitalism is the great atomization of society, and nobody has any type of anything, and people are just interchangeable cogs in the great machine of modernity. you know they kind of put on this assembly line through complete media list until they die and like all concept of like family community is like completely ruptured and like capitalism is like you know basically the machine that does that you know neoliberal capitalism is the machine that does that like sitting here today that's a Reitman critique and so and so I probably shouldn't name names but I did talk to somebody who was involved in the making of the movie I said I don't want to represent his views but I specifically my name but I talked to somebody who made the movie and I laid out my theory that it was a left-wing movie at the time and now it's a right-wing movie.
1:10:14And this person basically said, oh no, it's very clear in the movie that at the end, that he greatly regrets what he's doing. Like he's filled with regret. Like it's a very kind of sad, tragic ending. And I was like, oh, well, if you just like used AI to just go in there and tweak the final scene of the Ed Norton character standing, you know, watching the building stem down. And if you just tweak the final scene to where he would have like a sly little smile on his face, like all of a sudden, like the entire movie becomes like this, you know, basically ultra right-wing can start to finish. Anyway, I'll pause there.
1:10:45I was just going to say whichever way you interpret it, like I think that movie definitely is definitely, I think it's amazing. I think it'll, I think people will be watching it and discussing it, you know, 100 years from now. Yeah, to bring it back to the original thesis of this podcast, monitoring the situation that's going on on the internet, what went viral this week related to Fight Club was the PSAs that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton put out before the movie came out in theaters. And if you have, I won't, this is one thing I won't spoil, but it was going viral like why don't we make PSAs about like staying silent in the theater like this anymore you have to watch it it's like 90 seconds and it just confirms that Brad Pitt is the goat he is hilarious and that he puts serious thought into everything he does including the please stay quiet in the theater PSAs that went out before the movie came out in theaters 25 years ago so watch it I'm glad it's going viral again and we should definitely make actors do those PSAs for theaters.
1:11:40So Catherine, that really came out in what? 1999. Yeah, 1999. Which is kind of universally I remember just like a year of like absolutely amazing movies. Yes. Maybe that maybe the best single year for movies in the last like 40 years or longer. So question, could that movie, so number one is that movie was at least according to the accounts that I've read, that movie was very difficult to make. And then once they had in the can, like people, the original people who saw it, like were, you know, it's just like a lot of people just like didn't know what to make of it, you know because it is a very simplistic reading of it right which is just like total nihilism and like just destruction and you know sex of violence you know to no purpose it's one of those movies where like you have to have a lens on the movie you have to have an idea of the movie or the movie has to get its idea across to you and you have to you have to catch the idea before you can actually watch it properly because if you just watch it otherwise it just seems like it's just like tremendously nihilistic which i you know very much i very much don't believe that it is but uh you know i think it was very controversial at the time um it was very hard to get made you know it's It was misinterpreted by many people over the years.
1:12:39And by the way, the people who made it, me is misinterpreting it. And so that movie could get made during that era. Could that movie have gotten made after the 90s? I feel like it's the consummate 90s film, right? Like just the, as you said, like the critique on consumerism, like the sort of early critique on, you know, kind of the consumerism affecting masculine like traits, right? Like the whole reaction of, you know, we're going to have a fight club to kind of reclaim our masculinity and sort of our life and our, you know, that felt like was actually, I mean, it's interesting because it's the same critique, it's the same conversation that's happening right now, but it really was also a 90s conversation to sort of, you know, and that's the same thing as, I believe 1999 was also American Beauty.
1:13:29And that's a similar sort of like all of these movies had the same sort of, to your point, nihilism, but sort of this David Foster Wallace-esque sort of consumerism is destroying us. We're moving to the suburbs and we have to reclaim in some way. And like the sort of, I don't, like the portrayal of any man feeling like constrained in there. It was always sort of like the consumerism and the suburbanization of America is destroying sort of like masculine freedom, right? So there were like, that was like a very 90s, or coded end of the 90s film era. Like, I don't, so part of me is like, I don't, it could probably be made, but it would probably be made with totally different ethos and maybe a totally different take on that thesis now.
1:14:12Like the thesis is slightly different than what it was in the 90s, which is that like, you know, like Walmart is destroying you, right? Like, it's a very different, now it's like tech is destroying you, but at the time it was Walmart and capitalism are destroying you. Mark, Catherine, thanks so much for coming on and talking about movies again. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mark. Thanks for listening to this episode of the A16Z podcast. If you liked this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or review and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
1:14:45Follow us on X at A16Z and subscribe to our Substack at a16z.substack.com. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only. It should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a16z.com forward slash disclosures.
1:15:25Thank you.
From the publisher
In this episode of Monitoring the Situation, Marc Andreessen, Katherine Boyle, and Erik Torenberg dive into the movies that best explain America, from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to Tropic Thunder to Fight Club.
They explore how Tarantino’s revisionist masterpiece reimagines 1969 and the end of America’s cultural innocence, why Tropic Thunder was the last truly un-cancellable comedy, and how Fight Club evolved from a left-wing critique of capitalism to a right-wing prophecy about alienation and identity.
Along the way, they trace the parallels between the counterculture of the 1960s and the internet culture wars of the 2010s, and debate whether we’re living through another great American cultural reset.
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