Wesley Morris: How Critics at Large See the Stories We Miss

31:04How about this? The same tournament, Coco Goff, she was the other story of the tournament. And that was the story of the tournament until she lost, right? They stopped talking about Alcaraz maybe by the third round. She loses in the fourth round. And the story of the tournament is she's getting her serve fixed in real time. she's getting her forehand fixed in real time let us count the double faults let us keep track of every time Coco Gauff double faults she fixes her serve she needed to fix it because she's got the most double faults on the tour but she knows that and she's working on it should she have stayed home and just worked on her serve until January I don't know that's not my business but this woman had the bravery, courage, determination to enter the tournament and see how this, you know, technique surgery was going in real time.

32:10And the tennis commentators, that's all they would talk about during her matches. That's all the press conferences were about when she won the matches. And when she lost, she had to explain that too. It's just like, it's such a burden. It's such a burden having to, And this is not necessarily because she's a woman, but I don't recall any man changing how they play the sport that they play in real time and having to like constantly talk about it. And that gets in here. And I was worried with Alcaraz that all of that talk and self-explanation would get in his head. But he played, that was the best tennis I have ever, it was not the most exciting tennis but he wasn't going to keep winning like this with exciting tennis he just went in he became a bull he he reminded me of nadal in some ways it's like the spanish that's a great that's pushing through similar outfit but i want to go back to what you were saying about i sat on the couch and i thought should i write this should i write this for 30 minutes yeah and then you went no i'm not gonna i want to get into that like how do you decide what you should write and what you shouldn't write like what was what was the last piece that you put out let's talk about that uh well you know well it's funny because i'm making this podcast yeah it's called cannonball and a lot of my time is being spent like figuring out you know how much time to spend making our show okay and how much time to spend writing these pieces um and it's i'm now at a place where like i'm like oh i think i've i've struck a balance where writing i can write pretty much as often as I used to and still make this show.

33:57So the answer to your question, the last thing I think was published that was a piece that had nothing to do with the show was about how to look at art in museums. How to look at art in museums. I'm going to be extra clear. How one should position oneself to not be cut off by some other art looker. How does one stand? How should one stand? how far away from a painting do I need to stand to keep your ass from cutting in front of me while I'm looking at it? And to make sure I still enjoy the full experience of looking at the art. I'm having a moment with this piece of art. What? Is it two feet? Is it six inches?

34:37You know, I mean. Now you see, that's such a left field turn for me. Why did you think that was significant? Art seems like such a niche world. It's such a highfalutin world. why did that what did you get to in that piece that wouldn't be obvious when I read the headline I think it's not the deepest thing I've ever written well I think it's just that everybody makes this mistake and nobody really thinks that it's a problem it's the kind of etiquette you know I am probably 15 % Larry David you know only well no no really because the 85 % is why I'm I'm in this job and not, you know, doing Curb Your Enthusiasm.

35:26But I think the degree to which, you know, there's a Larry, David, and a lot of us, it meets up in these areas in which decisions are made on our behalf, allegedly to make them easier but make them worse. I would identify packaging as this, you know? I mean, famously, there's a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode. Yeah, the episode where he buys the scissors that open the package. Yes, yes. But then he gets them in the package and he can't open the package without the scissors because the scissors to open the package are in the package to open packages. It is the deepest, realist, but obvious, most obvious, one of the most obvious problems we humans face is like how to get something out of something, how to like remove something from something else.

36:12But another one is each other. Like how do we deal with each other? Like strangers. How do we comport ourselves in public space? That's a huge Larry David question. And for me, I hate it when I am looking at a painting, a sculpture, whatever the museum is asking me to stand here and look at. And somebody is just like, boop, boop, boop, breaking this connection that I'm having with the work. I'm not trying to take a picture with my phone. I'm twigging with my eyes you're standing there but maybe you're standing for too long I've got places to go to you've been here for five minutes I've been behind you Eugene Eugene have you ever seen a queue for Mona Lisa does not count where's the queue oh Guernica at the Prado there's another I've seen a line to look at Guernica how do you know that's my one thing that I want to see here is what Guernica oh it's in Spain are you being serious Yes.

37:17You got to go to Madrid. But what is that painting that Picasso has at the United Nations building? Oh. What is that? You should go. Yeah. You should go right now, though, because they're coming next week. UN week is next week. So get over there now. I want to see that. Oh, there is a Picasso. That is Guernica. It might be a replica of Guernica. Might be. When you go there, you should stand there. Yes, that makes sense. And then I hope Wes cuts in front of you. I would never. While you're staring at... What was your conclusion? Where did you come to? What's the rule? How far should you stand? How long should you stand for?

37:53I just don't... Were you wrong? Who was wrong? I mean, I'm sure there's a world in which, like, I need to get over myself. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. I'm open... See, the thing about me is I am open to the possibility that there's another way. Okay, cool. Which is why I'm not a world leader. And I'm just a critic. because I know that there's another opinion or another way of doing things that might be better than the one I've got. But I think that, I mean, conclusion, I think you should just - Oh, it was. It was removed. Oh, okay. It was removed. Unceremoniously so. Oh, sent back to the Prado.

38:30The Prado took it back. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, in 2022, it was unceremoniously removed. The Prado, it comes home to the Prado. I mean, it really should be in Northern Spain with the Basque people, honestly. That's where it belongs. it should not even be in Madrid but we'll take it because the Prado is one of the great museums more people will probably go to Madrid than go to wherever they would put it I mean maybe at the Guggenheim Bilbao do you think all art should be back where it's from? no that's a great question that's deep Trevor what do you think? you can't throw it back to me you said no I feel like it's not art if it's with its people I feel like it's art when it's not home when people get to view something that doesn't belong there and they get to stay at it longer.

39:15It happens when people are people watching. I love that. Someone looks unfamiliar, they stay longer. I love that. So it becomes, it has significance when it's not at home. That's why I think it was more at home here because I've been doing my research about it and the one part that I missed was the fact that I'm three years late. Oh, yeah. I didn't even... Because when, in his think piece, did not think to inform me that it's gone. Wait, okay, so I like this for you. So you're saying you don't necessarily think that art should go back Think of anything exotic. I really like this. I like this. Women, home design, athletes.

39:48The way you guys speak about Alcarez now, he's reminiscent of the Spanish bull, like you guys were saying with... Nadal. Nadal, yes. He's foreign. There's no way anyone local would have captured you like this because anything exotic and foreign is always going to be attractive. It's going to be... I look at the Pagani Zonda, for example, and I'm like, what a horrible car. Those teardrop mirrors, those gear knobs the metal the clanky clank I mean we buy cars now because they're quiet and you buy that thing because it's loud and there's metal clanking on metal inside with the gear levers so I'm like we love it because it's exotic it's one of a kind and it's foreign anything foreign will do ice cream is the same ooh it's in lies it's just not from here okay okay wait so let me think then anything foreign so you want every art to go where it's not from yes well wait There are some complications here.

40:41Tell me. Well, I mean, looted art, for instance. What is looted art? The Jews in Austria, Germany, Poland, who had the Nazis came in, took all the art. Got it. That wound up in museums. The museums claim, well, we didn't know. We didn't know the providence of these great artworks, these Klimps and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Yes. These Modigliani's, we didn't know how they got here. But that's personally owned. That's theft to me. Of 100%. Yes. To me, looting is more like... But I mean, just like think about... Let's just... But I'm thinking about this as like absolutely philosophically Okay, go, go, go.

41:21Yeah, yeah, go. I want to present the... Maybe the worst case scenario. Sure. What's the difference between looting and putty? That is a very valid question. You're not wrong. You're not wrong, actually. Yes. Just don't loot the putty. Just don't do that. That's no good. So, let's go into the philosophical idea here. So, art exists somewhere. Yes. It is held by someone or something. There's a moment in time. It shifts. It moves. It whatever. I think we can break it down into, wait, let's start by breaking it down into like a few categories, right? There are things that have been owned by people directly.

42:03Yes. That was stolen from you during a war, during a raid, during a theft. that's just theft I think we can all agree on that it's like theft yes looted right no that's theft theft okay stolen well looting is a class of theft yeah but no but what I mean is like by looted is let's say somebody goes to like Egypt is a great example of this yeah I mean like let's go to let's go to ancient civilizations yes right one of the big conversations people are having now is should all the Egyptian art that is everywhere in the world be given back to Egypt no Now you're saying no again, okay? I don't, well, okay, no, but there's an asterisk next to my no because I think who says, right?

42:55Does the Egyptian government say? Do the Egyptian people say, right? Does the Egyptian exhibitor class have a say? Like who makes the decision about where the art that's already like, for instance, at the beautifully redesigned ancient civilization sections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wait, what? Oh, how long are you guys here? Till Sunday. Okay, Eugene. Yeah. Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And like in the wake of this conversation, and keep it in mind, as you walk through this, you know, very pristinely renovated portion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art where all of this great craft work, you know, civilizational craft work, they call them antiques.

43:48Antiques, no, we're not doing that. Okay. This is art that's just old. No one at their house looked at this and go, It was old 300 years ago. No, it's just in the possession of a major art collection and therefore blah, blah, blah. But antique implies for sale to me. There's a... Okay, there's a negative connotation. There's a monetary value associated with antique to me. All right. These are great craft pieces that both tell a story of a people, of a time, of a place. They've done a really good job of positioning where in the world and in time these pots and tiles and little tiny statues are from, you know, shields.

44:37Ceramics. Everything, everything, everything. But the question is, like the way we've been talking is, where should Sumerian art go back to, right? Where should Babylonian art be returned to? you know, these great Western African pieces, like what nation, what nation gets them? They claim to them, yeah. Right. So in that sense, it's funky to say, well, let the American institution have them because I don't know, they've taken really good care of them at this point. Yeah. The provenance of a lot of these things is really still in question, right? Like we don't know, we know neither the makers' names or in some cases how they got in these collections.

45:30Well, we know, sorry, how do I put this? We know by and large it's a white person, who the white person was, who went, you know, the stories that these places tell are like, you know, this very rich person liked to go off and load up his Jeep with spears and shields and skulls and stuff. And in a moment of absolute generosity, he dumped some of it at the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Smithsonian. So the thing that I love about no matter where the art winds up is responsible institutions will tell a story of where it was and how it got to be where it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And the mythos of the pieces becomes important to the way the art is framed and positioned.

46:23To want it back for the sake of having it, it kind of only gets you so far with art. Exactly. Especially with older art, because there's a story that you're then, I think, responsible for telling. I think art is sometimes meaningless without it being attached to some suffering of some sort. Pieces being stolen, an artist that cut off his ear because he was frustrated. You're not wrong. the Mona Lisa is the perfect example it was nothing really not nothing let's you know let's calm down Trevor this is like me I went to a party and was like the constitution's a stupid document I had like 17 gay men looking at me like

47:11I'm just saying I think that like the following anyway I'm not saying it I'm not saying it's but I do find find it interesting to exactly what you just said that the mona lisa owes a lot of its fame to the fact that it was stolen and that begins its journey before that there was no line there was no famous anything that it was just one of the paintings but when the painting got stolen the law of the painting yeah made it what it is today yeah and so many many art scholars will sort of argue you know obviously there's the mainstream they'll go like no no this is it's the mona lisa and it means this and it means that it means that and then others will go like actually this thing wasn't anything special in that way until it got stolen and when it got stolen it became this story of like the greatest art heist and where's this painting and what is the and why was it stolen so it's interesting that you say that because sometimes that is you know like to come back to like a critic at large it's like it's funny how these things are shaped in ways that we often don't look at oh yeah but even art and value and not like when you said that you said these people are generous driving a jeep going and picking up spears and shields and dropping them off at a museum anonymously no no no the first thing i think of beyond anonymously is i think to myself what a brilliant way to create value for your collection oh yeah so if i went somewhere in the world and i found six pieces of ceramic art right wherever i am from 500 years a thousand three thousand years ago what better way to make that that ceramic collection more valuable than by giving some of it to a museum because if i give them three pieces and i keep the remainder those three pieces can become prominent because they're on display and they get a story told and then someone will be like we still wonder where the other pieces are and then you're like ah look who has the other piece surprise surprise well and you create you can create you can create value that and i'm not even saying it in like a conspiracy way i just you can create it's the same way artists big great artists will have some of the biggest jumps in their prices and their prestige when their art is on display in these museums and in these in these galleries yes the art was already there yes but because it is now in the space it's hallowed in a different way but this is now raising these other concerns to me like we have not quite settled the question of like does egypt get its shit back no but here's here's a question actually you know what you know what I wonder this is I like that you both asked the question through the lens of people but I didn't hear either of you ask the question through the lens of time and I think that's actually the more complicated one to answer right is like what I mean by this is if your people your family your city your country your whatever you want to use have agreed or done something in a different time to you whose time gets to supersede the other person's time so this is what I mean there was a time when the egyptian government welcomed um archaeologists from england who were funded by some rich person who just wanted to have like stuff nobody else had yeah they paid for all of these expeditions they paid for the like they were the ones who like yeah go and do this because we get to benefit from what you're doing in some way but that's a time and then you find like today's government not just of egypt of any country might go no we want to we want our stuff but you were given it by another time and that's where i think it actually becomes more complicated yes a hundred percent because again like who who adjudicates who votes yes like what you know i think with respect to time i think you learn from it right yeah you just give the looted stuff back to the people the descendants of the people from whom it was stolen but i think maybe we're talking about a statute of limitations yeah like there's a statute of limitations and anything let's just let's just i don't there could actually be one and i don't know but i've never heard of of of these collections spoken of in this way but like let's just say that the statute of limitations is like a century right yeah there's like beyond a certain point in 1900 with exceptions for for looting um and or theft right like just outright theft but that's sort of more of a that is a sort of interpersonal um legal question whereas we're talking about kind of international law yeah I'm talking more like a thing that didn't even happen between people per se.

51:51Right. I think that a statute of limitations really does kind of make the questions of claim and reappropriation a little easier to adjudicate. And so I would say that anything that is in these great museums or even like these small museums, but it's work that has no known owner. you know no known maker just leave it and when I was sorry to disturb you here we were talking about houses someone was renovating a former school building to become their own personal house they went antique shopping they found pieces decorated the house very beautiful and myself and Ryan said if someone buys this house two years from now they'll look at all of this as trash they'll be like what?

52:43no but that person was like I love these things These things are so beautiful to me. And here's the thing for me with African art, West African art and all those places, and also Egyptian art. And like there's two distinct differences that I draw here. West African art and that kind of art, East African art as well. How sure are we that when it was acquired, it was art? It could have been an arts and crafts market and a European was walking around going, I like this, I like that, I like this. There was no museums. These were things that were used by people. They bought a plate from a flea market.

53:12Yes. If you bought, if you got yourself as a sailor all those centuries ago, a Ming Dynasty vase, you probably bought it. You didn't have to steal it. Where are you going to run to clanky, clanky, clanky with a gigantic ceramic vase? I don't think they were running anyway. Exactly. They just put it in a bag and walked off. And Trevor said it quite well with the Egyptian art. And I think the Egyptian art, even the battle of getting the art back does a lot for Egypt and its popularity than getting the art. I mean, than getting the... Because that is not art that was stolen there. It was stuff from the valley.

53:46It was craft. Yes, and burial rituals. And the mask of Tutankhamun, which I'm a big fan of. I've seen it in a couple of exhibitions, the copy of it, is what made me interested in the story of Egypt. I think Tutankhamun as a king, he didn't do much to be lured as a great leader of Egypt. In fact, he wasn't a leader long enough for Egypt. It was just the process by which... But the mystery of the chariot and the mask and the burial chamber is what attracts me to Egypt. So if anything, it made me realize that there's a great King Khufu who's done far more, who built the pyramid of Jesus. It's the stories.

54:21It's truly the story of the lore of the pieces themselves that sort of create an interest not only in the pieces. Because, you know, it's crazy that like, I don't know how I became the person who's now talking about artifacts in museums. Because that's the part of the museum I always skipped, right? I'm just in love with somebody right now who that's one of his favorite parts to go in the museum we just met but give me a second just give me a second I can see it I can see it but just hold on I feel like now I go and I'm really paying attention to all the stuff that I'm asking these questions I'm much more aware of or I'm much more unsure of in questioning what the difference is between craft and art, right?

55:20There's no doubt that these people are artists, right? Yes. I mean, because it's the question around the way that

55:31all diasporic black people are sort of talked about what inheres in us and what we had the skill, education, knowledge, prolonged experience to do, right? It wasn't that, you know, for instance, you know, enslaved Africans just were born knowing what to do with soil. Yeah. They had to, this was a cultivated knowledge that took, you know, centuries of

56:03studying, learning by trial to figure out. And so I think that the point at which artisanship yields, can yield the craftsmanship, right? Or the places in which craft and art meet, sort of where they meet. Those are the places in these artifact collections that I'm fascinated by because the parts stand in for a whole. And you kind of need one, you need these big institutions in some way to have the capacity to have enough pieces to tell a story. So I, the reason I love these places now is like, oh, plates, forks, bowls.

56:54But, but I'm like, wait a minute. They had Tuesdays. They had Thursdays. days, like, they ate with utensils. Yes. Yes. With vessels. And I would love to know what they look like. They took time to paint these ceramic bowls. Yeah. You know, like, just, there will be times when I'm sitting there looking at a comb, and I'm just like, wow. They took the bone, and just, I don't know how you turn a bone into a comb, but, like, somebody did it! Don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. It's destroying athlete, creator, and YouTube Maxer.

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59:10It makes me think of the idea that maybe the mistake we make sometimes in society is we search for a concrete answer that'll exist for all time. But maybe the answers are always shifting. And if we can get comfortable with that, maybe then we'll be better at answering the questions because we understand that the question is not permanent. Trevor, you should just run. Just run. Run away. Away from here. No, because here's why I say this. That's a good one, yeah. I love what you just said about stories and art and the people. Because let's start with, you know, a simplistic idea of where this journey begins.

59:54There's a tribe somewhere in Africa. They're making their craft. Pottery. Pottery, plates, whatever. They're making jewelry. You know, the Zulu were smelting gold long before Europeans were, etc., etc. So they're just doing their thing. In Mapunguwe, they were making rhino statues. Exactly. Exactly. So they're just doing their thing. At that point, I would argue, a lot of the stuff that they have is not art. I would argue, right? You find some of it is, but I think for the most part, it's just a thing that they're making. It's crafts and they're enjoying it. Then you develop a world where there's now global trade and then obviously pillaging as well.

1:00:33The two coexist at the same time. So some stuff is traded. So the Europeans bring hair dye and they bring different spices and they ding. And then they get traded, mirrors. But whatever, people are trading. People are trading. So some things go legitimately, some things go illegitimately as in they're taken. Okay. They go to museums, they exist in different places, then people's houses, you know what I mean? I would argue at the time when Africans are making this stuff originally, it doesn't hold that much value even to African people because they're just making it and they make it at the time.

1:01:05I mean. No, but now, but now it then leaves after a combined period of both trade and pillaging. other people presented in their museums telling a story whatever but i think when africa is now in a place where the narrative about it is that it can get nothing done it has come from nowhere it means nothing it has no intelligence it has no advancement it has no now all of a sudden that plate that comb that statue is no longer just a plate a comb or a statue it's now proof that these people whose stories was whose stories were stolen actually happened it's now it's now like do you get what i'm saying so now it becomes even beyond art i can see it now being you know like in a civilization exactly and in a perfect world i would almost argue that a new york museum should go, hey, we have a bunch of your stuff, but right now the stories that are being told about you are that you've never had stuff.

1:02:11So we're actually going to give you this stuff so that you have an opportunity to showcase to your people and to other people who come to you the fact that you had stuff. See, I actually think it's the converse of what Eugene said. Because I think, I mean, I think both things can be true I think that a people needs to know its story and the value of the story that the artifacts represent a whole that kind of dignify or re-dignify a people and I also think it is important to advertise the dignity to the world of these other civilizations That's true. Because, you know, I just will say as a black American, the points of pride, just to stay in the museum space, right?

1:03:10The idea that some curator thought to put a Horace Pippen painting. Well, no, in the Prado, in the Prado, in Madrid, there are no, there's very little African American art. There's lots of American art, very little art by African Americans. There's a Horace Pippen that is just in the American 20th century art section. Yeah. It's just sitting there next to Ad Reinhart and, you know, I don't know, Mel Gusow.

1:03:49And wait, Mel Gusow is a critic at the New York Times. Forget that. He should be there. Like he should not be there. Like right next to Joseph Stella. right and there's like Horace Pippin is just like a little tiny or not insignificantly sized Horace Pippin is just among these great white artists and it just fills you with pride like I came all the way over here didn't need to see any black yeah yeah yeah right but here we are just like a great and it's like it is a story you know I don't remember which one which Pippin is at the Prado but it's Or is it a Bearden? Now I'm just all over the place.

1:04:29You can just say names and I'm going to stay here because I don't know the names of any artists. I believe it's actually not Horace Pippen. It's Romare Bearden. You can call it, you can say Judith. You can say Arnold. I'm just going to be like, mm-hmm. There's a great Romare Bearden that lives at the Prado. And it's just there among all these great artists and these great white American artists. But he's just, to the Prado, an American artist. Yes. Right? They're not like the great black artist, Romare Bearden. He's just like, this guy's the same as everybody else in this room. We probably don't.

1:05:06We might know he's, well, I mean, at the museum they know. But that's not the story they're telling. The painting tells the story. But I think there's a real power in letting these, like I guess the sort of literary poetic term is like um like it's a metonym it's like a piece that can stand in for the whole and that piece signifies something to everybody who bothers to go look in the look in the vitrines and you know like me who skipped it for years and years and now like you know I want to talk about Indonesian art let's just talk about it because I didn't have any feelings 10 minutes ago but i got a lot of feelings now because i spent two hours just walking around looking in these cases i have a lot of questions is that is that why is that why trump and his people are so adamant about trevor you know the answer no no i don't necessarily know the answer i never assumed that i know the answer you you have a sense yeah but that doesn't mean i know it but complete your thoughts sorry i we might get we might get further together is we talk about the world of art and you know these museums they're very hoity-toity you know it's very like most people would go like ah who cares and who doesn't i like where you're going i found it particularly interesting that like trump and his close cohorts took a special interest in museums on day one basically i was like this is such a who cares world is what people often say i was like why does he care about this so much why does he care so much about what the exhibits are and more importantly what the exhibits say i think you have the answer do you do you get what i'm saying no but but what it made me realize is as much as people you know will roast trump and maybe his people for being uncultured and uncouth and i was like what do they realize about art and its power that a large swath of the population doesn't you get oh 100 like most of the time when people have conversations about museums and galleries people are like art is such a niche but for trump on day one to go yo museums we need to he's not saying my kid could do that he's saying this shit is powerful.

1:07:37That's what I mean. And it needs to be stopped. Right. And you know what's crazy? I don't know if you remember this. He went to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, like, the month after the inauguration. Got a tour from Lonnie Bunch, like, who now is the director of the entire Smithsonian system. And he left the tour and like gave remarks and was like, you know, this is some powerful shit. I don't think I saw everything, but I'm going to come back. And everybody needs to see this because this is a very important American story. This is very important. And, you know, there's a lot to be proud of here, but, you know, there's still, I mean, I'm now paraphrasing, but like there's a lot of work to do.

1:08:34and this museum is an important part of that work. Lonnie, I salute you. This museum's a real success. Can't wait to get back. To your point, the question isn't why is he doing this now? I mean, you were right, Trevor. He's doing it because he already knows the power. Now, the real question... I love the fact that, because I didn't know that part of the story. Yeah. I only knew No I only knew the part Where like Trump Very recently said Hey National Museum of African American History And Culture You guys get a You guys better get Your shit together And stop being so Anti-whites Right That's like basically The Yes The mandates He was like You are very Very anti-whites And the way you make it seem Like slavery Was just white people It's not cool man Who else It's not cool But now the way you tell the story but the way you tell the story now almost feels more like it's weird that like what he was like walking through this museum I have been thinking about this like what was he doing when he was do you get what I'm saying?

1:09:46I really have been thinking about this I don't know I don't know what you know there's a kind of person who just doesn't have the patience to try to sit in his brain to figure it out but I want to Like, I'm not scared to be in there, right? Like, I have a shower. I know it works. But I think that because I do think that to the extent that he is like no other American, he also is quintessentially deeply, like inexorably, like the apotheosis of America. The what? The sort of ultimate example of quintessential. Wow. Damn. Apotheosis. Well, quintessential, no, in some ways, because quintessential implies that there's something...

1:10:42To measure you against? Well, preservable. Oh, yeah. Like worth, like this is like the absolute essential. Now, I could be displacing my own feelings about my own word choices. I would not use quintessence or quintessential to describe Donald Trump. Unless we're talking about the quintessential cheeseburger eater. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. He went from the burger to a cheeseburger eater. What's wrong with you? This guy just said the quintessential cheeseburger eater. Okay. Yo, I'm going to use that for somebody. You've just got to walk past somebody having a meal and be like, well, well, well. If it isn't the quintessential cheeseburger eater.

1:11:31Oh my goodness. Who isn't the Hamburglar, by the way. It can't be the Hamburglar. Hamburglar, wow. But I think that he is the apotheosis of this country in many ways. He is a very good example. There are lots of great Americans. Trump is, Trump at the end of the day, no matter what you say, is one of the great Americans in like the purest sense of the word great. Like it is enormous. It is vast. It has great capacity to contain lots of aspects, things, ideas, moments. Wow. And I think, oh God, like in his mind, to just be in there for a second, you know, to listen to him talk about the things he thinks he deserves, the Nobel Peace Prize.

1:12:25Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore, the Kennedy Center Honor. There's a world in which I think, depending on like how, depending on what the Smithsonian body body chooses to do in response to the threat. I think there's a world in which, you know, forget the presidential library. Like, one of those museums becomes his. Right? And it is filled with not just his version of American history, but the history of him. Right? He thinks, I mean, I can't recall a person who simultaneously, you know, I'm not a historian. Like, I'll let, like, the Smithsonian staff, like, come at me when I say this. Because they would know better than I would.

1:13:22But I can't think of a living person of that level of prominence with that degree of power who also simultaneously knows nothing about. history, but also has a deep understanding that he is making it as he goes. That's fascinating. What a conundrum. Right? Yeah. And so he, I'm going to say he doesn't like that history, not only because it defaces white people, like like blames white people it's that he honestly can't imagine himself in that story he can literally say he never owned slaves right he can say he never enslaved anybody he can't say he never rented to a black person he can't say he can't say i i i never he can't say i never didn't right he can't say i never denied a whole you know there are lots of things he can't say he didn't do.

1:14:27He can't imagine himself. He cannot, he can't, he doesn't have the empathy to understand the degree to which, or he's denied himself access to an empathy because he performed it once. He went on that tour and came back and was like, works for me. So I think you might be a little more generous in your reading of him than I would be. Probably, probably. I am. No, and I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. The thing that in many ways scares me more with Donald Trump is I feel like he is completely shaped by the people he is with at any given time. That's true. That is true. That is true. That is true.

1:15:14And so I think his worldview in any given moment can change depending on who is next to him telling him the story now someone would go no but he's been pretty consistent he hasn't really been he's in fact he's shown these blips of inconsistency that that like one of them was um do you remember when there was that bombing in syria i've got to get more specific but it was the image of a kid who his face was covered in white ash and dust and it was this image of this young boy in an ambulance and this picture went around the world and that's when trump was like he launched a strike against Syria.

1:15:51Do you remember? And people - I didn't remember the causality. This was his first term. And he was very proudly even then saying, we're not going to get involved. He's like, we're not fighting. No fights for us. Nothing for us. Not getting involved. And then he launched a strike, right? And then they said to him, what changed? And he said, Ivanka showed me a picture of the little boy. So sad. Little boy. No, but that little boy. And I remember at the time, a lot of people were like, oh, he doesn't care. And I was like, no, no, no. he did in that it's a weird thing but he did because ivanka showed him the picture right it's the same way he didn't tell the line do you remember when the the the images were coming out from palestine of the of the children starving and then netanyahu was like no no these images are fake this is not a thing there's not someone showed it to trump and then he they asked him and he's like he's like those are real i know start that's that's real you can't lie about that it's terrible it's terrible and it completely went against his position quotes unquote and you see it with all of these things like i've seen trump i'm sorry you've seen these moments when trump gets surrounded by like let's say uh the heads of hbcus or something oh well the famous yes yeah trump is in a room with black people and they're telling him something trump will walk out of that room and he'll be like what has happened to african and terrible terrible times and we gotta fix it we gotta change it we gotta fix it and people go oh but then he doesn't do it and i'm like yeah but i know this sounds crazy if you took his administration and just replaced it with like yes the obama the obama people yes we would be we would be in a different situation but that's what i mean because i found every time because remember the hbcu presidents visit him so they don't stay with him what is the hbcu um historically black colleges and universities spellman howard you know fisk i mean many many others black there was a famous moment in i believe 2017 yeah where all of these was it 2017 where all of you know the presidents and chancellors of all these historically black colleges and universities are going to the white house for what they think is just like a visit.

1:18:10And at some point, they, I don't know how this happens to people, but it apparently happens a lot. They're going for a visit and then all of a sudden, they're walking down a hall and a door opens and they're in the Oval Office. Yes. And these 20-something, like, very senior, very executive-oriented Negro people find themselves in the Oval Office with Donald Trump, who is ready to take a picture. The meeting did not occur in the Oval Office. This is a photo opportunity. And there's a very famous photo of these people standing around, some of them looking really like... Yeah, what just happened?

1:19:00Are you... And Donald Trump, it's an amazing photo because Donald Trump is standing at the desk and just looking so pleased with himself. Like, I got him. I got him. Look at this photo. It's amazing. I can dine out on this photo for four years. And the composition of it is great. Like his tie clears the desk. It's just an amazing image. But to your point, like if those people were also suddenly, if they also found out that day, by the way guys guess what you've got new jobs you're no longer going to be heads of these elite universities these great black american institutions you're working in trump administration good luck i actually think if those if the people who found themselves i mean i guess that's slavery actually that actually is exactly a surprise one minute people were walking the dogs were there the next thing they're important powerful people the next minute they're working for some white man forever but let's say in this instance but let's just say in this instance like they signed a document and there was a paycheck involved and they had the option to say no but they sweetened the deal whatever just let's play Twilight Zone for one second like how different would things have been according to your theory of his impressionability would it have been if you had had you know a room full of black men and women helping him advise the country instead of Stephen Miller yes I'm down I'm down to find out but I'm not that down because this is nobody's been cast but no but this is but this is what I'm trying to say is like strange about him in that way is that I don't think that Donald Trump holds any values beyond Donald Trump okay so he said many times if you like me I like you he says it very simply doesn't matter what you say about him in the past if you just cool with him now he's cool with you he like well this is he brushes it away like quite quickly actually because he it's almost like wrestling to him he's like no no let's keep it moving let's keep i understand that plot's done and now we can move on right but but i love that you you said he is the say that word again the apotheosis apotheosis of america because in many ways i would argue or an apotheosis i would argue that like he's an apotheosis of most people in that he holds the ideas of the people who are closest to him and he feels that those are the most important ideas and so i argue if mar-a-lago was predominantly black if the golf clubs that he was in and around were predominantly hispanic if the places where he was think think of the small things that trump has revealed right he said immigration i don't want it but then he went well except for of course like all my all the people in my life who i know right no no no but then he said he said but i'm not not i'm not talking about sommeliers no no he said he didn't say sommeliers i'm saying sommeliers he said he called them wine choosers or something like that i don't know if you remember that actually wait what was this no no he said that was like second term right now now like he said it oh man he didn't say sommelier because i remember correcting it in my head but he said wine choosers yeah he said wine waiters wine choosers what did he say ryan it was wine you gotta find it the people who work on the he's not talking about the actual he's talking about the person who comes to you and helps you select your wine i know that for a fact the wine picker but you could see it was so interesting that in his head the good type of immigrant is the one that he encounters all the time who brings him his food and his wine and he's like that immigrant should stay of course but the one that he sees on fox news and on his social media crossing a border and then killing a family he's like that one mustn't come in you hear what i'm saying yeah of course and so like i i the reason i say that he is he's a great apotheosis in that way is it's very seldom that a country is run by somebody who is swayed as much as the average citizen of that country is swayed the only difference is they have so much power exactly like that like that that thing always gets me with trump is where i go like man just you just get him in the right room in the right you know who knows this almost all the leaders in the middle east well it's well saudi arabia and europe too right they no you get him in the room the man will come out and all of a sudden he'll say something slightly different to what he said coming in because he's had time with you but the problem is like talk about shaking an etch-a-sketch it's so easy to shake his etch-a-sketch yes right his etch-a-sketch gets shaken every day yes and somebody somebody's always gotten the knob so to speak um i just but see the problem with that i mean what you're saying is i believe that that is a very cogent way of thinking about trump but then there is i mean the part that does feel like he is like a metaphor in in action is that it never amounts to anything because he's also so aware of his own if he understands the value of anything it's him yes definitely and so it's never like you know I'm for immigration because my homie from Wharton you know came up from Chile to get an education just like me it's never no one is ever equal to him he's rarely has an equal his equals are you know Putin Kim Kim Jong Un yeah I mean but even or or conversely you know in the business world right like who are the people he's never really aspiring to be Steve Jobs no his I mean he's never said this but I mean he's much closer to like the obvious people like a like a like a Gatti or something like that I mean those are the and those would be that's a that's an applicable model to an aspect of his governance, which is, you know, using a kind of threat tactic, bullying tactic, to get people to just yield.

1:25:44Strong arm. Or give him what he wants. But, you know, and then, but these never sort of make their way into policy, right? It's not like the whispering in the ear for good things ever results in, you know, more housing for people. But I'm saying it's because they're not around enough. Right. And I mean that honestly. I believe that. I genuinely think they're just not like, you can't do it in one meeting and you're not going to be around him for more than one. Yeah, long enough. But the people who were around him long enough, and I think that's why there's so much infighting around him amongst his own people to get other people away from him.

1:26:17So Steve Bannon fights with Stephen Miller and then that person fights with that person because they know. Once you've got his ear. If you can keep his. I want his ear. Yeah, you keep his ear. Yeah. You've got his power. but if you if it's like that's why the Elon Musk thing threw everyone off because it's like Elon's whispering this the other people are whispering that and then he's like I like Elon but I hear this about him but at the same time I also think Elon's annoying Elon wasn't there 24 hours a day and he wasn't he was when he had the most power right right right there was a point where there was a point where he was at Mar-a-Lago 24-7 he was basically living there he was around Trump all the time but he had to doge you see and doge was work and it meant he had to actually go to these agencies there you go and when he was out doging then now someone's whispering in Trump's ear, yo man, what's up with this Elon guy?

1:27:03When he was out doging. Yeah, when he's out doging. But listen, I don't want to spend all the time talking about Trump because everyone does. But he is like a fascinating cultural figure, right? Yes. Because he's the defining cultural figure for now. No, I mean, and so it is, he is fascinating to talk about even though there is a kind of danger in,

1:27:27you can't forget the other things that that that figureheadness is is is also doing right um and that's always the the sort of moral tension among discussants when it comes to trump like like also yes keep in mind though that like there are people being disappeared Keep in mind, though, that, you know, he's about to take over another, you know, American city with a predominantly with a significant black population. So I don't know. It's tough. Like, you know, I'm a person who loves to try to figure out and unpack cultural figures, including presidents. But, you know, it kind of runs aground. I mean, for instance, you know, I wouldn't have spent, I didn't spend very much time talking about George W.

1:28:23Bush during his presidency. Although there was, because there was so, because also there was so much culture around that presidency, like responding to it in real time. There's no culture. He is the culture. Right. Oh, that is true. There's no filmmaking that is like responding to this presidency. First or second. But how could you? People are terrified. I think though - And when I mean people, I mean like the money is terrified. I don't mean like the people. Oh, yes. But what's interesting is these things have a way of happening anyway. Anyway, yes. Right? So I think that's really fascinating that like the horror movie is like the most interesting things happening at the movies in at least in this country involve horror right involve you know the on like the darkest grimmest and not just like you know there's a there's a crazy person at the door but like there are mysterious things happening that don't seem to make a lot of sense and it's interesting to me that like our death drive is on the charts right like i am obsessed with the fact that Die With a Smile, this Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars song that won't die, is called, like, is still in the top 10.

1:29:42As of our conversation right now, it is number 10. It has been in the top 10 for a year. Like, when we were kids, songs didn't last. Like, if you got a song to last in the top 10 for a week. You were that guy, yeah. so the idea that you've had a song that's been in the top 10 for a year like probably more than a year at this point is just mind blowing to me and maybe it's not more than a year but it's definitely almost a year and it's about like you know I'd rather like you know it's coming back to me the melody just hit me just like washed over me you don't have to deal with this I don't know if you're doing the Grammys this year but you don't have to deal with this song it was last year's cycle I thought that was the lyrics of the song I was like no I think it's just fascinating to me that that song is about not about like spending the rest of my life with you not about like but you know if I get like you know another bit of time with you I will die with a smile Like, it's just a beautiful sentiment, but it's just telling.

1:31:00The song is going to die with a smile. I'm kind of a literal-minded person. You put it on a plate like that, I'm going to put my fork in it. Don't press anything. We've got more What Now after this. Law transforms agreement into reality. A word becomes an agreement. An agreement becomes a contract. A contract becomes law. Today, Harvey, the AI platform for legal work, is writing the next chapter. More than 200 ,000 lawyers and 80 % of the AMLA 100 are building with Harvey, accelerating review, sharpening negotiations, and more. This is how the future of agreements is being crafted now. Harvey.

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1:32:50i i wonder then when so when you you see that that's what i mean about like how you see these things and how you think about them going back to what you said about horror movies i don't think i would think about that just off the bat but we do have to ask ourselves why certain things are more popular when they are and what they're tapping into when they're tapping into it like you know there's there's more obvious ones that you can see in hindsight like movies like rambo and all of those things america was telling itself a story and it needed to tell itself the story and it did it successfully you know and even in like the cartoons and stuff like that like when i think of like popeye popeye was telling me a story you know and and and domestic violence who was oh bluto bluto and olive oil oh no no i thought you're saying popeye i was like Popeye hit all of us like damn bro which ones did you watch no no no no but I mean but I'm saying the stories and human trafficking no but if you look at the stories there's a lot going on in Popeye Superman the stories that Superman was telling you know and it is interesting so now when I'm when I'm thinking through your brain I go huh it's fascinating to look at when Superman movies come back and when they don't and when they do well and when they don't it's like there's a moment when America's telling a story about itself being exceptional and fighting the Russians and fighting communism, Superman's the thing.

1:34:13And then that story like fades away. Superman fades away. And then the Superman that becomes popular and comes out is like a gritty, non-Superman-y Superman. That's the Trump, that's the first Trump Superman. Yeah. That's like the, and then now the, now the American Superman sort of thing is like back and the parents are even more folksy and the, you know what I mean? It's like, it's interesting to think about like what we're experiencing in our world. And then the question, then the question becomes is the art imitating life or is life imitating art? Like, you know? I think that art has a weird way of corresponding to moods.

1:34:52Because the people that make this stuff are basically us, right? Like they have the same neuroses or like not dissimilar neuroses. Part of the problem truly with movies right now is that I think there aren't enough geniuses who aren't like us to show us how we could be, right? Say more on that. Or to elevate. Well, I think that... Talk about... We're talking about... We never quite got to the bottom of the name thing. But there is a way in which because Hollywood is no longer making as many movies as it used to, just to stick with the movies, because the movies are an important... Talk about a thing that you put in a museum to tell a story of a people and its priorities and who it was.

1:35:46Like, the movies are the museum in action, right? Like a video store when we had them, those were museums of world civilization. It was time traveling. But it was both that and artifacts of peoples. Yes. and without them it's really hard to know well not really hard because we've got this whole I would say quarry of social media right where like you could dig through there to find that one chunk of marble that like is worth keeping but there's just a lot of rocks in there but the movies are this kind of like determined like cultivated art form where even when they suck or like don't have aspirations to greatness still wind up telling you a story.

1:36:43They do. It's, it's, it, and it's, it feels true. And I think that we are no longer, we are so addicted now to whatever it is the superhero gives us in terms of a feeling of, of, I'm giving these movies more credit than they probably even need. But like there might be something here about the way these movies make us feel as a people. Yeah. Right. Like it's great to watch these people stop the world from ending over and over and over and over and over. And what no longer happens is regular people no longer exist in this world. Right. Oh, wow. There's a world in which I for as strange as I found Clark Kent's parents in this new Superman movie.

1:37:31I was kind of fascinated by how these two people raised that Are they black? No, unfortunately You'd have heard about that You'd have heard about that You know you would have heard about it Thought we got Ariel Yeah, you got stuck with Ariel That's as good as it's going to get But I think that, you know I grew up in a time And this is not a nostalgia This is not nostalgia that I'm talking about It's the value of storytelling, which is not a nostalgic observation. But you got a really robust menu of stories. Even when they didn't explicitly feature people who were black, were Asian, were gay, you got stories that were human enough to trick you into thinking that you were Molly Ringwald.

1:38:28could trick you into thinking you were Clint Eastwood for as problematic as that even is, you would be seduced into identifying with lots and lots of different people who did not wear a cape. You're right. It's almost like there's certain parts of making a movie that have been removed. The kitchen, the dining table, the couch and the TV, the remote, holding the remote, the driveway, the garage, the car, have all been removed and those were the things the bicycle lying in the driveway you know and the lawn and the sidewalk those things have been removed to make movies more efficient and if you look at old movies those things were always there always there even when they looked fake right they were still present I always say the first time I experienced a beer in cinema was through cinema I mean when someone just opens a can of beer after coming back from work and holding a six pack It told a story.

1:39:27For the longest time, I never thought you drank beer cold. So when you see commercials in South Africa and the beer is cold, you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. After a long, hard day's work, you take a six pack. And then I experienced a hangover and I'm like, how do you go to work tomorrow after drinking six warm beers? So all of that has been removed. You're right. A real human being and the aspirations that a normal human being would want to have of having somewhere to go to and somewhere to depart from have been removed. They don't exist anymore. Looking through a window has been removed.

1:40:02Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, because you now have these giant, like, hangers where all the action takes place, right? Yeah. Like, they call them headquarters. You know, I mean, there's these giant sound stages that seem like sound stages in the movies themselves. And so, I don't know. I just, I'm not saying I want more farm movies. but there was a value to watching Sally Field try to keep her farm from going under. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the kind of movie that happened every week. Like Jessica Lange, Sally Field. There was a farm movie a week with some great white woman trying to keep the farm going.

1:40:39And Danny Glover was on every single one of them being like, I gotcha. But you know - I'm gonna help. You know, it's funny you just say that. You say that now. I do think there's something powerful in that imagery and what story it tells us. Because let's think of like Danny Glover and that type of story. Lethal Weapon. Oh, here's a great example. Do you know what I mean? Lethal Weapon or Die Hard or any of those types of movies. As much as these people are quote unquote professionals, there was also like a very every man-ness to the story. You spend so much time in Danny Glover's house once they realize that that was a real relationship between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

1:41:19Exactly. You got to know his family. That's exactly what I mean. But to what you just said now, which I've never considered, is you don't have that with the Avengers. No. You really don't. Do you know what I mean? Their family only exists as a device to give them an origin story. But beyond that, we don't see why this is their family or who these people are, who they mean to them, or how they shape them. But what it does more importantly is, I think of the effect that it has on us. in questioning or even imagining where safety comes from. Wow. You get what I'm saying? Absolutely. Think of how, if you just grew up now watching...

1:42:02That was a good one. That was good. No, but think about it. If you grew up watching like Rambo or if you grew up watching like that era of movies, Die Hard, you believed that you as an individual could make an outsized influence in the world. I don't care if a band of terrorists has taken over a building. you can do something about it. In your tank top and bare feet. You can indeed. But you can do something about it. And then Avengers comes along and it's like, listen, listen. All you are going to do is be in your office screaming. That's your only role. And then Superman or Hulk or whoever, DC or...

1:42:41Going to destroy your office. Yeah, but your only role is to scream and run and then pray Superman swoops you off the ground before the thing falls on you and pray that, you know, storm creates a little tornado to protect. But that's your only role. They don't even like help the superheroes. There's not even like a thing where it's like, if it wasn't for you, people of earth, this wouldn't know. It's like y 'all wouldn't be anything without us. Your job is to have your hot dog cart that gets blown up and all you do is run away. Your job is to have your car fall off a bridge and then that superhero comes and lifts it and holds the bridge and then you get out with your family.

1:43:20That's your only purpose. But that's us turning everything over to these powers. But that's what I mean. But I'm saying like, you don't think of the power of that because, and I'm sure some people watching this would be like, come on, man, movies. But one of the best analyses that was like, like of sociology was the Eddie Murphy special when he talked about Rocky. Do you remember that bit? Oh, yeah. And he talked about like, what it did for like white working class men. Yo, Rocko! Hey, Bucko. And I think it was very astute. It made a lot of people who were like, oh, that's me. I'm a quote unquote nobody.

1:43:53But you know what? I'm a somebody. I could come to a draw in a ring with Leon Spinks. Just let me. Just let me. All I got to do is run up an art museum steps. And beat up a hanging cut of beef. Side of beef. Oh, let me at Leon Spinks. I will fucking fuck him up. Yeah, but that's powerful. We take for granted how powerful that is. I mean, just think about what it takes for people of at least my parents' generation. But I mean, really anybody who grew up as a non-white person in a society of oppression, right? You grew up in the Jim Crow South. You grew up in apartheid South Africa. And you get these stories that are asking you to spend some time with white people who don't ostensibly have anything to do with your situation.

1:44:45But it's a story about somebody trying to overcome something. Somebody caught in a plot that they need to get solved by the end of the hour and 40 minutes. You are suddenly forgotten about your situation and you have completely invested your hour and 40 minutes into this other person's situation. And there's a world in which some of the images from this experience, whether it's like terrible, like the movie itself is not very good. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, yeah. Because you're wrapped up in a story and maybe by the end you're like, this doesn't really work. But what you did was you watched an avatar for your own self in some way go through something that you couldn't imagine going through until you, do you think I ever thought for one second that Bruce Willis, like I never thought once about trying to save people from a hijacked skyscraper never once you've tried to help them from someone blocking them from viewing art and that's about it that is a super heroic act that a regular person can do every day but the power of the movies big and small is like when they're focused on what regular people are dealing with and going through you just you learn something about how to be in the world.

1:46:11Just period. There were no CEOs in movies. Well, there were. There were just regular working guys. There was a really real, but here's another aspect of this. To your point about Die Hard, there was a whole moment in the 80s that you probably remember because I know you saw these movies where like every week you'd get some young person who thought they could do a better job making money than the people who went to Princeton to do it. Like Working Girl, Secret of My Success, these movies came out all the time or they were like the descendant they were the children of these people like Ferris Bueller's Day Off the story of a yuppies kid who just decides I'm gonna just act like my dad all day and not even realize I'm acting like my dad that day was yeah you hated it I loved it oh you loved it okay good we should try to recreate it wait you and me yeah I mean you can bring a friend or two and then you could have the longest day ever in a Ferris Bueller exactly what would it look like for a bunch of like old men to do Ferris Bueller.

1:47:10I think, I don't know, but I feel like, Matthew Broderick, right? You know, yeah, just like, he would take, I mean, he's actually, didn't he do a Ferris Bueller commercial or something? He did, yeah. As his old self, as his regular current self. No way. Like, yeah, he did it. But that's the other thing, right? Like, we have given the keys to our civilization over to, I'm going to say the algorithm to decide these executives who make our movies don't care about telling stories that reflect the lives that we are living currently they care about mergers they care about making sure that I don't actually know what they care about but I can tell you what they don't care about because we don't get it I'm not saying I want places in the heart every week but I wouldn't mind it now I was thinking the other day I don't know how long it'll be before we see another movie like Forrest Gump in the cinema.

1:48:09Oh my God. Probably never. That's a great for example. That's like, that's an example of a film where I go, I don't know a single person who could watch Forrest Gump and not find themselves somewhere in the story. I don't care who you are. That story touches everyone. It touches everything. It touches race, class, disability. It touches war. It touches capitalism. It touches, it doesn't matter what it is. It goes everywhere. Yeah, but. It's about going everywhere. Exactly. And can that story exist today? And someone might go, oh, but who cares? And I'm like, yeah, but if you look at it on the smallest level, do you remember what you would do as a kid when you were done watching a movie?

1:48:46You'd watch it again. You'd enact everything you see. You would enact everything. You would go, I'm going outside. Wiz would watch it again. Yeah, Wiz was a critic. Wiz was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. He was like a five-year-old critic. What was that? I want to know how that works. Run it back. Wiz was like a five-year-old critic at large. With a pen. All right. This time I'm making notes. That's one of the movies that you probably shouldn't be reenacting. Oh, damn. When I was 11, I saw Fatal Attraction like three times in the movie theater. So guess what I'm not doing. You don't want to know how much you watch Sharon Stone doing the leg cross.

1:49:21But what I'm saying is what you would do is you would go out and want to be. You would try the kick. Goonies is a great example of that, for instance. You would go on the adventure. You would imagine yourself to your point in that world or you would imagine that that world could happen to you, right? And so as we look at the shift of storytelling, you know, when you tie all of these threads together, the museum, the story that is telling you of you and the possibilities that you and your people may contain, movies, it's exactly the same thing. It's like, yeah, names. It's telling you the story of you, the possibilities that you contain and then within that framework you you now act you now it i just remembered something i wanted to ask you and i wondered how this fits into everything why do you think it is that so many critics at large you know whether they focused on fashion or art or whatever why do you think so many of them were black men what do you what do you think it is no genuine question no i'm thinking about this because there's also margo jefferson who is a great American critic and memoirist and a black woman.

1:50:42I think it really, I mean, we should name some of the people we might be talking about, like Hilton Owls, Vincent Cunningham, Margot, of course, some other great person that I'm not remembering at the moment. But basically, I think Like, well, I mean, I think there's like an innate curiosity about like you get trained to be curious, right? Like, I mean, if you have the luxury of being able to think broadly about things or like making these connections because so much of, I mean, a lot of my life was really about like my childhood anyway. It was my mother sort of encouraging me to just think for myself, right?

1:51:30Like, if you've got a question, you go find the answer because I actually don't know it. So you'll have to look it up. And there was no internet. So I would, you know, I became very good at encyclopedias, for instance, which is where you got the answers to these questions if you had them. I think a lot of the people that we're talking about are basically the same age. I also think, I mean, I'm younger than those guys, But I also, well, and Vincent is younger than I am. But I think that you, there is something about seeing things and wanting to be free enough to not just ask a question, but like to connect them to something else.

1:52:15Yeah. And also it's like, it's a little dissatisfying because you learn this. I was a movie critic for a long time. Yeah. And you realize, at least in my practice, that I was spending a lot of time doing critic at large work anyway. Right. Because movies are a fascinating art form because they already incorporate so many other art forms to exist. Right. I mean, there is, you know, the visual, the audio, the compositional, right? They have to be written. I mean, more than typed, you hope you got a screenplay that was written and not just typed. There's the fashion and what the people are wearing.

1:52:58There's the costumes. There's the soundtrack or the score. There's so many. I mean, architecture. There's just an opportunity if your eye is open to making these connections among all these different disciplines and art forms that are being assembled and harnessed to tell any kind of story. And these are things that you frequently as a moviegoer you just take for granted. But I learned at some point, for instance, I usually stay for all the crap. I worked at a movie theater for a number of years, and I would have to stand at the back of the theater while people left and watch the credits. What were you doing at the movie theater?

1:53:37I was an usher. Oh, wow. Yeah, I was an usher from like 16 to 19. Wait, so what did you do back then as an usher? Because I feel like ushers have changed over the years in movie theaters. Like what was your job? Breaking the ticket and showing them? I would rip a ticket. Yeah. Like if it was an older person or a disabled person, I would take them to their seat. Okay, okay. You'd wait at the back of the theater for the first 15 minutes of every show to make sure the picture was right doesn't happen anymore oh no i'm like i'm like where were you you know how many movies are blurry these days and i'm like oh where is i didn't even know there was someone who's supposed to do something about trevor i go and report and now i didn't like doing it in the old days because when something was wrong there was one projectionist at least in boston where i lived for a while who and you know that person might get in trouble if something was But then, and I, you know, there are a lot of things to be happy for James Cameron for.

1:54:31One of them that's not so great is like that momentary advent of 3D. That was terrible. Which changed projection, right? It helped change projection. I'm going to blame James Cameron and Avatar, but it could have been some other thing. I don't blame him. I blame the people chasing the money behind him because Avatar did it for real, for real. Oh, it did do it for real. And then everyone else was just like, it's 3D. and it's like no it's not it's just two pictures man but Trevor they would leave the lenses on they would leave the 3D some theaters would leave the 3D projector on for 2D movies or the lens that you needed to flip off for a 2D movie there's a lot of things about the movie going experience that suck but my job back in the day with a film print was just to make sure the picture was straight, the sound was good there were no issues with the print And then I cleaned the bathroom.

1:55:25A lot of bathroom cleaning. Spent a lot of time cleaning the bathroom. What's the worst bathroom to clean, men or women? Great question. Women, easily. That's the worst? Oh, my God. I've had horror stories. Ellen DeGeneres. One of Ellen DeGeneres' greatest bits. Oh, I thought, you know, I didn't know where this story was going. I thought you were going to say, Ellen DeGeneres uses female bathrooms. I was like, how dare you? I thought he was going to say, Ellen DeGeneres took a dump. So, like, I didn't know where that was going. I didn't know where that joke was, where that story was going. Or he went like, women bathrooms are the worst.

1:56:02Ellen DeGeneres. No, Ellen DeGeneres never came to the Ritz of the Bourse where I worked for a bunch of years. But Ellen DeGeneres informed, I was doing this bathroom work before I saw Ellen DeGeneres' great bit about her own questions about what is going on in the ladies room. And she, at some point, is like, I went into the ladies room and I just thought that a bomb had gone off in here except the dirtiest bomb of all time. This is like from like the late 80s probably. I thought it was cleaner. Oh no. And she's like, I, when I go in there and I see what's on the walls and on the floor, I'm like, what are these ladies doing?

1:56:46Like, and then she's like, they go, do they go into the, were they using the disabled bars? in the disabled stall to not sit on the toilet? Because that's what I did, and I'm swinging around doing a high bar routine in the ladies room. And then I think the punchline is like, so I got down and I looked around what I did, and I was like, oh, this explains it. This is why they're in such bad shape. All the women going in there are doing gymnastics. Yo. Any place with a queue and high foot traffic can never be clean. Also I just I don't know why Okay Because I assumed You know why Because whenever I'm in a man's bathroom It's always There's always pee on the floor It's always sticky for some random reason Yeah No random reason That reason is not random Don't go spreading lies on this podcast There's no random reason Why the floors are sticky So I would always go like This is disgusting Surely the other side can't be worse Because I went people aren't just like peeing on the floor the way the men are.

1:57:54Now you've just blown my mind because I've never I've never worked in cleaning men's and women's toilets. Yeah, the women didn't even want to clean the women's room. Damn. I mean, that's how I mean, it was you know, I worked with I won't I mean Loden was one of the women who worked she just Loden would never clean She would refuse. She wouldn't do it. She's also was too cool. That was one of the coolest people I've ever worked with. Joe Novak, Fritz. We wound up cleaning the... And Greg. Oh, man, I love Greg. Anyway, yeah, it's like, why do you even ask a question like that? Because something I've always wanted to know.

1:58:37Because whenever I talk about it, I really, that's how I remember it, was I can't believe the women's room. No, that's what I wanted to know. Yeah, so, but my question is, where does this model high horse come from when you live with a woman and should always criticize our bathroom etiquette when their public stalls look like that. That's what I, maybe that's also another thing. Because like, that would be like a thing that maybe even my mom would say, just, yeah, would be like, oh, it's like a men's toilet in here. At school, they used to say something similar as well. I don't know. I mean, now I'm hearing it, Derek.

1:59:07Maybe this was like a big conspiracy theory. I'll never be told again to put the seat down. This is wild. But I interrupted you. Sorry, let's go back. So we're in the movies. You're in this world. You are, your job is to make sure that everything works yes rewinding to that sorry i took us off everybody no that's fine i mean i now i'm curious about the mail that you guys are going to get about about pristine about pristine women's rooms but i will tell you firsthand i spent three years cleaning them but cleaning two sets of bathrooms and one one i did not dread cleaning damn well this is good to know so going back to what you're saying i i wonder if the gist of it is is it is it that it's easier to look in when you are not in is that what it is is is there is there a correlation between being able to critique a society and look at it through an objective lens when you are not like held within the the the deepest ven of that of that society is that what it is?

2:00:12Or is it just how your mind works? Like, what do you think informs how you're able to be a great critic at large? It's probably both. I mean, you know, I'm going to answer this, but I'm also, like, in sitting here talking to you and being familiar with the work that goes on. Work? Like, especially with Trevor. You call this work? I mean, it is... Wes, have you seen us, though? Where have you been for the last hour and a half? Work! You've been working. Like, this is a mind. This is an act of mind. But, I mean, I think, I mean, one of the things that, you know, one of the great thrills of my cultural diet in my lifetime was, like, spending time with you during the pandemic.

2:01:01Oh, damn. Thank you. Right? I mean, you were doing the work that I do just in this highly concentrated, I would say almost like vertiginously difficult form, right? Vertiginously? Just, you know, like, oh. Man, we need to like, yo. Doesn't matter. You can cut it. Yo. No, I'm not cutting anything. We just need a, whew. But anyway, the point is like - This man's vocabulary. I think there's a world in which some of my interests, yes, vertiginous, vertiginous, like vertigo, you know, like. No, no, no, I'm with you. Okay. I'm like, yeah, I'll catch up. All right. I learn words, me. Might be a long night for me.

2:01:44Oh, no. Look out. Fasten your seat, bro. He's already there. Wow. it usually takes me a drink to start working for Massa. Just saying, we did just, well, whatever.

2:02:09My point is that I think I'm hearing what you say, and I think that there is, There's something about wanting to understand how the world works. Yeah. And there's an understanding. You develop an understanding, especially as a young person, that art is a version of how the world works. Yes, yes, yes. It is a world unto itself that is also, in one way or another, reflecting the world you live in, even if the properties within that world aren't one-to-one yours. I mean, I think that one of the most amazing things about the way that I grew up, and Nicole, Hannah Jones, and I talk about this a lot, just in terms of with a sense of wonder, which is, you know, we grew up like millions of people grew up at a time.

2:03:01And black people grew up at a time where, you know, if you go back and watch the movies of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, like there were very few flattering depictions of black people from Hollywood, at least. And it never mattered. Right. It never mattered because, A, I mean, I knew what my family was like. I knew I was I was a part of a family that had no bearing. like you know there would be these ways in which like people would seem to overlap with members of my family like this actress Anna Maria Horsford when she would show up like as Harrison Ford's secretary and presumed innocent I knew that movie wasn't about her and I wasn't silly enough to think it should have been but there was also a part of me that was like why shouldn't it be what's she doing while this woman's getting murdered over here in the office like I I just wondered about things like that.

2:04:00But I also was just fascinated by how these made things like had meaning. They meant something like the stories amounted to something. The prolonged exposure to individual stars or individual story tropes, they wound up meaning something like what is a Glenn Close performance when you've watched 10 Glenn Close movies in you know 7 years you know who is Spike Lee who is this guy Spike Lee once you've seen you know 4 or 5 Spike Lee movies what are soundtracks doing like so you're telling me there's a world in which there's music playing in this movie and the people in the movie can't hear it whoa but I can hear it And this music has nothing to do with anything happening in the world of the movie.

2:05:00Well, in the world of the characters, but in the world of the movie, this soundtrack is like a conveyor belt of action. And of emotion. Right. And of feeling. I became obsessed with how soundtracks worked in movies. Now there are no soundtracks. Yeah. Right? There's a music supervisor who makes sure there's vintage music in a lot of these movies or cool songs. But at one point in time, you were getting original music. Some of the greatest pop songs ever written were written for movies. My heart will go on. I mean, that is an elite example. Highway to the fucking danger zone. Like a song that...

2:05:46It's so written and could only exist for Top Gun. Like, you couldn't put that out as a song without knowing there was a fighter jet attached to it. What is Kenny talking about? What is he talking about? Highway to the Danger Zone, but you know because you would have known that Tom Cruise... Well, you would have known that Top Gun was attached to it. Tom Cruise was not quite yet the Tom Cruise. He became a star in part because of that movie. But I don't know. I just really wanted to figure out what the meaning of things were. I can tell you reading all of those people as younger versions of themselves that they also had these questions.

2:06:31And frequently the thing that made someone like Margot Jefferson great was that she really wanted to understand, for instance, because she wrote about music for a long time, why all these white artists sounded Black, right? Like, she just was hearing Black music in these white artists' sounds and wanted to try to taxonomize and kind of theorize a little bit about what she was hearing. and you know she wrote one of the greatest pieces of criticism I've ever read about mostly built around Elvis but also just around like 1970s rock and roll and it's relationship to 1950s rock and roll in the US do you guys like are there like South African critics that you like a lot well there was one that trevor brought up the other day who which we grew up watching on television every sunday oh barry runger yeah yeah he was legendary okay i'm into that but he was a film critic but every sunday barry runger yeah okay passed away many many years ago but like he was the first person i think most of us encountered where he would he wouldn't tell you like the movie was cool or fun or he didn't he didn't use any of those words or ideas he He critiqued what it was trying to do And what it meant And how it was But in a way I remember sitting in front of the TV As a 10 year old And I felt like I needed like a monocle And a glass of tea No because of how sophisticated he made me feel Oh interesting Do you know what I mean And then when I would go to the cinema I would stand there with my friends And I'd be like Ah yes I've heard that It relies too heavily on tropes I was like I don't know what any of this means But you know what it made me do is like at least around that time it gave me the first invitation to think beyond what was presented and also include how it was presented and what that meant yes and he like i think he did that in a big way where it was like oh he made you realize when things were derivative he made you consider why it wasn't you know because you'd be like it's a dope action movie and then by the end of his review and his critique, you'd go, huh, this is not really a great story or it's not a, you know, and I would say that's like one of those where he had an outsized influence, I think, in a lot of South Africans' lives.

2:09:07Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I'd never heard of him. I'm definitely, I will spend some time watching some YouTube. Some YouTube. I wonder if they'll be on, you never know. He used to have an interest. Oh, not one of those critics. There's always, you know, I forgot how he dressed. He used to have a waistcoat and like a white long shirt. I actually forgot how he dressed. It was sequined? Yeah, he was flamboyant. Huh. Huh. Fascinating. You don't remember that part? No, no, no. So the important part got through though. Huh. Yes. I mean, I guess, yeah, but I'm like - Trevor got information about a movie.

2:09:42I was like, I'm never wearing a waistcoat in my life, ever. But a jacket with sequins. Count me in! Oh, man. Yo, Wes, this has been great, man. thanks for having me no man like because genuinely i i hope i hope people get what what i get from you and it's like i don't know i here's what it is i think as we've come to live in a world that gives us more faster it means we have less time to digest right so just like food you're just getting it shoveled at you shovel that you shovel but now it's in like tiny little bites and it's like it just moves on and it's gone yeah and when you're in that world you don't necessarily notice the story of the meal that you're getting you don't see the trend you you don't really understand what just happened or what you might be part of or what story you're hearing and what I what I really love about your work is it just reminds us and invites us to do that in like a really cool way like I I think a lot of people love movies but not many people think about what a movie does to them and how it makes them feel how it can make a country see itself or not how can make a people see itself so like thank you man i appreciate your work your vibe coming and hanging with us thank you yeah man i'm gonna i mean it was an honor i appreciate you guys a lot you gotta come back again truly appreciate i will come back you gotta come what's the what's the best movie you've seen uh this year this year yeah i know a lot of them were terrible what's the best one you saw this year from this year yeah okay i mean it's tricky you know i saw this there's a few there's a few movies i've seen that i liked um i just well i liked warriors a lot sorry weapons weapons weapons i liked weapons a lot i don't know why i keep calling it warriors uh weapons you know has all the when you were talking about the the granularity the sort of like like native granularity that has gone out of the movies yes just like you know the things that give a movie or any work of art, be it a novel or a painting, a sense of place.

2:11:46Texture as well. There's a, have you seen this movie? No, don't spoil anything. I won't spoil anything. But I know it's from the same director and I think writer of Barbarian. Yes, yes, yes. And some of the imagery that you're sort of even alluding to is similar. Yes. Like you felt like you were somewhere with people who live a certain life and it felt very like us. This movie has a sense of place even though it doesn't tell you exactly where it is. I see some Pennsylvania license plates. And in the distance, you can see a city that is not Philadelphia. But you know you're somewhere like small townie.

2:12:23But you also, there's a really important shot in the movie. It doesn't spoil anything. But I think about it a lot in terms of the way some production person and perhaps even the screenplay itself wanted us to notice something without drawing our attention to it explicitly. There might be a close-up of what I'm about to tell you, but I noticed it before the camera told me to, which is a bunch of newspapers piled up in a driveway, like newspaper delivery. And they just, these plastic bags of newspaper just littering a driveway in the background of a different shot, of a shot that had, you're not necessarily, you're free to notice whatever you want because it's a painterly image, right?

2:13:14The image is a long shot. It's framed in such a way that your eye is free to go wherever it wants. It's a very democratic piece of filmmaking, this movie, in a lot of ways in terms of what it's allowing you to keep your eye on. But I noticed that and I was like, I don't really care what else happens in this movie because the person who made it cares about the things I care about. He thought about us. Right. He thought about what a regular human might be like living day to day. So I don't know. I mean, that's a great... But also, sorry, I tried to connect that to what we were talking about earlier.

2:13:55The movie's just suspenseful. It's just a very great work of suspense. Okay. It hit my dread area. I rarely experience dread the way I did in this movie you might hate the ending the ending changed nothing for me I like the ending just as much as I liked everything else Sinners you know it's funny I was watching Weapons and was like I think this is a better made movie than Sinners because it almost really is but weapons doesn't have what sinners has which is like an active mind that is really determined to make you wonder what is really going on here yeah right like you're a mad your imagination as a moviegoer is free to i mean i'm i'm still not sure about sinners in terms of like what is going on.

2:14:58100%. Whereas weapons, it's pretty, there's some ambiguities, but... It ties it up. Its ambiguities aren't really its selling point. It's the crispness of its filmmaking and its real attention to how to build and generate and exploit suspense. But Sinners is just like, God damn it. It's a great film. Like the first hour of that movie alone, I could have watched two of that. Yeah, that's just like a film film. yeah and this is like and it's just a very satisfying i work of ideas um and sometimes a work of ideas is almost better than a perfectly made movie um so i mean those are the two and then there's this movie that's going to come out in the fall um by kelly reichhardt called mastermind that's about um that's got um oh my god what's that guy's name i'm not used to saying uh he's the Irish guy who is in Challengers who is not Mike Feist Irish guy in Challengers.

2:15:59Anyway that guy whose name will occur to me while I'm saying this to you he tries to commit you're not going to believe this an art heist Full circle moment and the question is is he going to pull it off and I won't ruin it for you but this movie has it's just it's thrilling because you're watching a director whose movies I've been watching for years been yearning for and she she's just really she's an art house she's an art director she doesn't care I don't think I don't know if she cares where her movies get played but like she just all she's into texture she's into like atmosphere plot is not really her thing this woman was like you know what I want to tell a story beginning middle end suspense surprise this movie is the ending of the year oh wow big words it's called Mastermind it is very very good with that Irish actor that you're going to see all over is it Josh O 'Connor is that it Josh O 'Connor we believe in no googling in our friendship Eugene and I have a pact whoever can say the answer the most convincing we go with it we go with that I've been convinced many times this afternoon yeah we're anti-Google so yeah Wesley this was great man thank you for joining us thanks for having me thanks for having me and good luck in the you have the podcast yes Cannonball is happening every week for the foreseeable future forever forever and ever and ever forever and ever and you know I'm gonna I'm gonna go right tomorrow Thanks for having me.

2:17:52This is dope. Thank you. Thank you. This episode is presented by Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods Market has everything you need for the holidays, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner. Whole Foods Market has convenient and cost-friendly finds that'll delight everyone at your table, plus great gift ideas, all of which follow the Whole Foods Market's strict ingredient standards. Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.

2:18:46by Ryan Harduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

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