139: The Conversation (1974)

Fifty years ago, Francis Ford Coppola made one of the best paranoid thrillers ever, “The Conversation.” A movie about a guy who can’t let it go. Alex and Nick discuss Gene Hackman, John Cazale, young Harrison Ford, Watergate, favorite movies about surveillance, Top 5 Coppola, Top 5 Hackman, anticipating “Megalopolis,” and much more.
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Transcript

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Since when are you here to be entertainment? Here? Sometimes it's nice to know what they're talking about. I don't care what you're talking about. I want some nice. Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex Withrow, and I'm joined by my best man, Nick Doe. How are you doing there, Jack? Just Jack. Just Jack. That's your favorite Francis Ford Coppola movie, Robin Williams. Oh, come on, Jesus Christ, I couldn't think of anything. There's nothing funny. Is that the one that that when I look at his filmography, I'm like, what he. Okay, like he did that. That might have been the first Francis Ford Coppola movie I saw. I'm not even kidding. I don't know, is that the one where he. He reverses and dies, like, aging? Well, it's not it's not like a Benjamin Button thing. It's that he's born. When he's born, he looks like he's like, already aged. So basically. Yeah, he's aging so rapidly, so that when he graduates high school, he looks like he's 70. Yeah, but he's only actually 17. Okay. I think the movie takes place when he's supposed to be like in fifth grade. Diane Lane is his mom. Jennifer Lopez is his teacher. That's right. Bill Cosby is his tutor. What a fucking what a moment in time. What a role. Check. We're not here to talk about Jack. Thank God. You know, I though I get that movie confused with another Robin Williams movie around that same time. But I hate movies. Like, I hate that it's called Jack. Like, you don't like, name titles, especially first names only. I'm going to get you one these days. I'm going to think of one where you're like, all right. Yeah. That works. I'll give you. Like, I came around to Michael Clayton. I'm still a little good. It's good. It's it's it's a good start. I think Jack isn't good. I think Jack is indicating that it's like it's simple because he's just, like, simple, dude. I don't mean like, he's done, like he's simple. Jack and Tropic Thunder. Yeah. Not that. Which has to be where they got it from. Partly it has to be right. Is it? I wonder what Robin Williams movie you're getting it confused with. There's another one around that time. Where is it like the the concentration camp on that one. No Jacob the like oh I would, I would not get those two. No there's I swore there was like another one where he's like in school patch Adams patch. That's the one I'm confusing it with. Oh you are. Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean it's kind of school, like medical guy. That's. You can, cure any disease with laughter. What a great message. It's a true message to. I mean, seriously, though, that's kind of like. Yeah, whatever. We can't go down that road. Okay? The conversation could. The conversation. Francis Ford Coppola, we're already having one. We're really excited to do this today, smart ass, because, well, a lot of reasons. Our next episode, if time properly, if they actually it sounds like they're going to let us see it. We have secured tickets for Francis Ford Coppola, let his 23rd feature film him. I'll get their 2020 third feature film, Megalopolis, because they announced this big thing like it's going to be available in Imax September 27th. Oh, everywhere. And then. No, they're really just doing like one Imax Showtime. I think what happened is he did not get in touch with Imax beforehand and reserve these screens because there's like kids movies coming out in September that already have Imax reserved. So we are going to be able to see it with friend of the Pod Dan live and in person in Imax at 10 p.m. at night, because that's the only time they're letting us see it. Jesus, I'm getting to old 10 p.m. like epic movie at night getting too old for this shit, but we wanted to tee up that film, which we're very excited about with a Coppola movie. There are some obvious ones to pick. We didn't necessarily want to do that and wanted to go with something a little more down low. But absolutely a major passion project for Coppola as Megalopolis is. So we went with the conversation, and I've always loved this movie, but it is. I mean, it's buried right between two of the most, you know, iconic movies ever made, The Godfather and The Godfather two. And it's such a good movie, like it's this amazing paranoid 70s thriller that I've always been in, in love with. I've always had a really fond appreciation for it, but I've watched it. I've watched it a total of five times to prepare for this episode, because when I knew we were going to do it, I saw it in the theater. And then I've been watching it with commentaries. We'll get into all of it, but I've just had this new investigation with I've surveilled the conversation and what I find I've loved. So I'm really excited to be here surveying about you. That's it's surveil. Surveil. That's the verb investigated for for survey. Survey. Not surveilling. We surveilled. Yeah. We. Oh, yeah. Those people. Yeah. Like they dumped all our surveillance. Yeah, I love that. That's good. That was good. Thanks. All right. The conversation. How you feel? This is a one of the first movies you recommended to me. I don't remember how this movie came about. It was in preparation for there I go. I was we had you never seen it before? I had never seen it before, though. Fuck, I didn't remember that. And there was I think it was I the only the only reason that I can think that you recommended this movie to me for, like, because you gave me, like, a bunch of movies. You're like, check these out. Like, as just as a director going into making your first movie. But there were like reasons behind each one of them. Well, his authorship is all over, I see. I mean, it's an original story. The Godfather is not an original story that's based on a a pulpy book like this is this is an original Coppola story, and his director and writer authorship is all over it. Maybe that's why I don't remember. You know, I think that could very well be a good reason for it. But I think it was also because in my look book, in terms of the apartment, that I wanted, I found a picture of Gene Hackman in his apartment. You must have just thought that I had already seen it because you're like, oh, okay, that's from the conversation. But yeah, so much of what we end, like that apartment stuff was kind of utilized in a way. But we I ended up we used a lot of the conversation type stuff for there I go. Yeah. And the jazz. So of yeah, some things are kind of clicking in. Yeah. And it's, it's one of well, okay. So the movie is a character study about a professional eavesdropper who really does not seem to let any warmth into his life. And he's such a stringent professional that he gets records, conversations, records, whatever the hell he needs, sells them to the person who hired him, and moves on to a different thing. And as he tells his quote unquote friends, more like colleague in the movie. But it's this constant repetitive theme of I do not care what they're saying. Also wants a nice fat recording. He said, nobody is that, that is such. It's such a Coppola line. And the way Hackman just rubbing his chin, that's why he's fat. Recording Coppola really doesn't get enough credit today by today's standards, of how good of a writer he was. This guy won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for Patton. That was his first Oscar win in 1970. He's an oh, yeah, he's an amazing screenwriter, such a good screenwriter. Watch Patton The Godfather in the conversation. Just watch their first scenes. All of their first scenes are extremely long. Single takes. Yeah, usually of dialog. It's like in Patton, he's giving that big speech in front of the American flag at The Godfather. It's I believe in America. And we reveal, you know, the camera pans back and we reveal Don Corleone and the conversation. It's literally that opening conversation where we're slowly zooming in on Union Square. That's all just genius screenwriting. So, yeah, that this is a character study a lot like there I go, was there. They do very different things, but we're mostly it's a POV movie. The conversation is one of my favorite POV movies where the entire thing is told. We only know the amount of information that Gene Hackman's character knows. And when you watch what you know, we're about nine, ten minutes in here. We're going to spoil the whole movie and we're going to do it really early. This movie, it is the 50th anniversary of this movie. The conversation gets so much better with repeat viewings when you realize where the thing is going. So we will spoil it. I want everyone to watch this movie before we spoil it, but when you know where, it's when you find out eventually where it's going, you're like, oh, because this was so dedicated to his POV, we have been fucked with the entire time. Yeah, because he was so stringent in his belief that we had to be two and he was dead wrong, dead wrong. This hyper professional got it wrong. And it's just fascinating. Yeah, fucking fascinating to watch and to see him unravel because of that, even I think I've seen this movie now I think probably altogether five times. Oh that's cool. And every time I that that's what happens is I actually it's not that I forget what's going to happen. I'm so locked into his rigidness that I'm always like, wait, like I'm confused with him. And I say same, same here every time are like, did they killed him or did he kill her? Or like, how did it go? And then when you realize it does go the way that it goes, it is a very, very like powerful realization because you're stuck in such a head space with this guy that the movie refutes, like, you do not leave it. You don't want to be there, but you're you're stuck right in it. And so when all of a sudden something happens that forces him to kind of deal with the fact that he's wrong, and then where it goes into the apartment where he just spirals even more. I mean, it's just yeah, it's fucking great, man. It's such a good fucking movie. I agree with that, because when the first time for this, for preparing for this episode, the first time I rewatched it was in the theater. He rerelease it. It's in 4K. I haven't bought the 4K disc yet. The only version I can find is like $90. I mean, sure, I don't know if I did like a cassette tape that it comes with, but, you know, cool. I just have the chance to buy it yet. But I got to see it in the theater as you did too, which is awesome. Even when I saw it in the theater, I did not remember all the nuances and all the beats. I definitely did not remember how the inflection of one word in one sentence can become so crucial. Oh yeah, recontextualize the whole movie. I forgot about that. So watching it because it's so intricate, it doesn't lose you. Sometimes when you're watching, you're like, man, okay, you don't have a full concept of what's going on because he doesn't. He's trying to figure it out. But you will be left with supreme satisfaction in the story. You get everything that it is laid out and you're like, goddamn, man. But yeah, it's his rigidness and the process and the falling into everything and just watching him or long portions of this movie when we're just watching him listen. That's it. I mean, during the actual recording of the conversation, it's kind of dynamic because we're seeing it from all these angles. But when he's building that nice fat recording in his, you know, work or makeshift shop there, we're just watching him build it. And it is fascinating. You don't have to understand everything he's doing. I know a lot about audio, sound design, sound engineering. I don't understand everything he's doing, but I get that he knows what he's doing to achieve that nice fat recording, putting like different modulators on it. And it's just it's amazing that something like that pops out and you're kind of like near and closer to the edge of your seat. Like, what? What are they going to say? What are they going that you get? There you go. Oh wow. Okay, cool. Now what? And it is cool because you are like the, the, the technology that they're using on one hand is so dated. But it doesn't. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't really feel like that was a distraction at all. No. Me either, because the physics, it's kind of like what I always think about action movies is like, the more simple you can ground, like the task into, just like, oh, he needs to get up a hill like that's. And but then all the obstacles are in the way. This is sort of the same thing where it's like, okay, these tools he's using look archaic, but he's plugging a different thing in to get a different sound. And he's using these knobs to actually like, alter and smooth out and do all this. You get it like it's sort of one of those things where it because there's something that just do feel dated. When you watch a movie where it, it almost is, it, it pulls you away from the movie as opposed to draws you in. I'm trying to think of an example. Yeah, probably like The Departed with the old cell phones, like. That's right. You know, such a novelty in time. Yeah, exactly. That one really doesn't hold up. But this one even date going back to the 70s, I'm just going to refund The departed as much as I can. And, why not? Why not? And even when they're in the convention, it's just sort of like they're looking at all these new tools and all these new things, and you're like, oh, I love it. What would these conventions look like now? Do they even have these anymore? I know they're probably all like secret and underground. I just love that there's this, like, wiretap convention of all these dudes walking around. Yeah, you call it, someone calls your phone or you call them, they don't start recording. You're like, what? What is all this? You know, a lot of this is why commentaries are so useful. There are two commentaries on the good old fashioned DVD that I own for this. One is, of course, by writer director Francis Ford Coppola gives a lot of context for everything. Such a good listen. I think I like the second commentary even more, which is by editor and sound designer Walter Merch, which is so fascinating to hear him explain. This is the first movie he edited. That's nuts. Like, this is one of the best editors. This is a guy who has made he's so life has made a name for himself being the editor of movies, but then also doing the sound for movies. So this dude edited and did the sound for Apocalypse Now. This dude won Oscars in the same year for The English Patient, for editing it and doing the sound. Extremely talented man, a very clear, focused communicator. So he's not losing you in technical jargon, something that he says right away when you see all that gear. I think they recorded the commentaries in the year 2000. So like a lot of time has passed, he says. All the gear that Hackman is using this is very outdated. By 1974, to all looks old. That's because Harry Cole, Gene Hackman's character, builds everything himself. Yeah, which we learned at the Wire Tappers convention, and he and I think an analogy he uses is, like a mechanic could drive around a seemingly shitty looking car, but what's under that hood could be perfection and could be magic. So that's part of the Harry Cole appeal. Is that all of his stuff kind of looks junky, kind of looks like junk, but it's all better than anything in that convention. Yeah, better than anything. That's why he looks it. You know, Stan, he's like, it's all junk. Like all armor and stuff is just junk. You gotta build it. I love that, I love that little detail that I would have had no context of. But you know what you get from today's standards? Me knowing about audio, it's just painful to me. It's painful for me to watch it, like painstakingly sync all the audio with you. I could just drop it all into premiered, like, but it's all sunk, like immediately. But having to do that to start everything at the same time. But it would have been harder work. Like much harder work. What he is doing is you could all do digitally now. Oh my God. And it just the way, you know, he's got that little thing that he like has to pull out. Kimmy, the Steven Soderbergh movie. Definitely watch the conversation a few times. That's why I love him so much. Yeah, yeah, I'm really into like, surveillance movies. This is tapping into something that I'm, like, working on for an idea. But, you know, surveillance. I love just kind of listening in. I love these movies. The Anderson Tapes is a great Sidney Lumet movie that I never seen, but I'm in my Lumet binge, 1971, Sean Connery. It's fantastic. It's basically Connery is going to rip off like, an apartment complex and just rob everybody at once who lives there, like, they got a crew and they're going to do it. And what they don't know is they're being listened to the entire time by the police. Like the that the movie doesn't even fool you. It's showing you right away. We're just tapping these guys and listening to that. And like, the cops are good idiots. Connery has no idea they're being listened to. Parts of it are funny, like, it's great. It's I, I, I can't believe I never heard of it, but I can't believe I never seen it. I'm like, oh my God, this is like tees up the conversation. Well, because that's just three years later. That's cool. Blow up by yeah, by Michael Michelangelo Antonioni. It was a huge influence on the conversation. That's where a photographer takes a picture, thinks he has captured a murder in one of the pictures. Great movie. Later, after the conversation, we get blown out by Brian De Palma, which is, just a direct nod to Blow Up. And the conversation that's John Travolta records audio, and he may have captured a murder on audio enemy. The state is one that's going to be brought up later in this conversation. I love that movie. Such a good movie. Well, I'll bring it up now. Gene Hackman is it's been widely reported that he's essentially playing Harry Cole, an enemy of the state. Whoa. It fits. He's wearing the same type of rain jacket, the transparent rain jacket. Despite if it's raining or not, his shop looks like the 1998 version of his shot. Like it's the same thing. The gates stay out of this room, but you can go over here. I don't know if Tony Scott pitched it to Hackman that way, but it's too obvious. Like I even said. Oh, parts of the fan, Tony Scott's movie, The Fan feels like the Niro is kind of playing Travis Bickle. That's just all me. I'm bringing all that to it. Enemy the state in the conversation. There are a lot of similarities down to wardrobe, like if you just imagine that after tearing up his apartment, he just left and like, he goes and lives in obscurity. But then, you know, ten years later, so he's like, I got to make money and starts up in Washington, DC doing his thing again, and then gets eventually, you know, killed for it. It works. They they make a great double feature for that reason. A great double feature. Man, that is that just blew my mind right there. That is such a wild thing. There's nothing in common like nothing in the script. But those conversations just had to have come up. They had to have had to have, the Lives of Others is a great foreign film about surveillance. I really like that one, a German movie. So yeah, I'm really into movies of this kind, but it was the conversation that kicked all of this off, and I'm just I'm really excited to be talking about this. Another thing as it relates to all the gear and stuff, they never could have anticipated this when they are filming the conversation. The Watergate scandal breaks, and this is the first time the general public is hearing about bugs, water bugs, surveillance, wiretapping. Like, what is all this stuff? What's all this weird, all these weird devices? So by the time conversation drops, mass audiences are kind of primed for it. Because this was not a big movie. This was they made this for $1.6 million. He barely got this made, but it did get a little pop because of Watergate. And in the Coppola commentary, he's like, I, you know, when we're filming it, this news broke and I thought, bad for the country, but great for our movie, just like teeing it up naturally. So it's it's crazy that the, the public's fascination with surveillance was probably peaking right when this movie came out. Yeah. Came out. It's like an I have a bad joke. Never mind. I was going to make it. Never mind. Moving on. Nine. No, not 911. I was going to say in a year from now, when the directors making a movie about eating dogs in Ohio, it'll be like everyone just perfectly ready for it. You know, Armie Hammer is going, it's going to be great. Armie Hammer starring, who's directing? I think they're going to Michael Bay because it's a really serious topic. Paul Greengrass maybe. Oh, I think Greengrass might be a good one. The Paul Greengrass starring Armie Hammer. But yeah, let's give Woody Allen in there. Jesus Christ. No. Okay. Bad joke, bad joke. Jesus. Fucking hell. Bad taste. Moving on from that. But yeah, let's get into Coppola here. Where is he at when the conversation is about to come out? Because conversation is his sixth movie of 23. And he made The Godfather, a movie a lot of people have heard of. Yeah. And Paramount is like, please, for the love of God, do The Godfather Part two, because everything from that book, from Mario Puzo's book, a lot of that is the past stuff is that was in the book, but they didn't have room for it for The Godfather. So he had this idea, like, if I do Godfather two, I could bring in young Vito all this. And he says straight up to Paramount, I will only make Godfather two if you let me make the conversation. This weird little movie that I wrote before The Godfather, and they go, oh, okay, fine. But in order for this, they give him $1.6 million and they agree to this. They agreed to distribute it. Paramount does. But in order to get this done, this means literally, when they are done wrapping the conversation, Francis Ford Coppola is gone. Walter Merch has all the footage. He is going to edit it together, but Coppola is gone. In pre-production on Godfather two and then production, they filmed the conversation for three and a half months. They ended in late February 1973. He immediately begins pre-production on Godfather two. They start filming that in October 73rd. The conversation is released in April 1974, so that's a long editing job, but also because Coppola is busy. The Godfather two is released Christmas time, 1974. That's wild. These are two of the best movies ever made. Yeah, and they just come out months, within months of each other. And Coppola has long said that his favorite film he's ever made is The Conversation. And I think a lot of that is because it's his own story, and he talks about this a lot in the commentary that the only reason he wanted to make movies was to make right his own little weird original stories, as he calls it, and make those. He had no idea he was going to adapt a pulpy, entertaining, entertaining kind of airport thriller, which is what The Godfather was considered, and he makes it into this masterpiece movie. But obviously that's based on a book apocalypse now is based on a book, The Outsiders. Rumble Fish, like a lot of his stuff, is based on other material and Bram Stoker's Dracula. And that honestly does bring up Megalopolis, because this is a unique story just from his brain. As the conversation is, it's going to be much larger in scope. It's going to have computer graphics. Okay. But I think I think everything is simpatico here. I think this is a good one that we're doing for this reason. I think so too, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you know that he made this movie as part of the director's company? This is a company he started with Peter Bogdanovich and William Friedkin. It was a way for they were each going to make like 2 or 3 movies. It was going to be ten total little original screenplays. Not a lot of budget put up for them. They tried to find a distributor distributor together. They only made three movies before the group disbanded Paper Moon in 1973, The Conversation 1974, and Bogdanovich's Daisy Miller in 1974. Regarding Friedkin, I remember there's a little excerpt from his memoir Where he says he watched an early cut of the conversation with Francis Ford Coppola, and as soon as it was done, he looked at Coppola. It said, Francis, this is the worst movie you'll ever make. I hate it and Francis didn't really even touch a thing about it and release it in freaking psych. I guess I was wrong. Jesus, Hurricane Billy. So that's where Coppola is. I mean, just sandwiched right between these two massive epics. He makes this tiny little thing about a guy, you know, kind of losing his mind, I love it. Yeah, I love that. There's that. That was a thing. There was like, this little like, I mean, and the only thing that I can think of that's even remotely like that now are, Geronimo del Toro, in your RE2 and, Carol. Yeah, yeah. So Carol. Because like, like those guys have always been like, they're like their little, little group of directors that are always kind of championing each other and like, yeah, I know a lot of directors do this, like, a lot of directors are in each other's ears, but like to actually have like an, a director's company. It's a cool idea. Yeah. And they because they the three of them all break kind of at the same time like they had their movies in the early 2000s. But in 2006 seven, it's when we've got Children of Men, Babel and Pan's Labyrinth, which really puts them all in a new light. And then ten years later, they're all, they all have Oscars, the best director Oscars. And I mean, Karen has to so does in your read to what am I saying yes to like it's it's wild how quickly it went boom boom boom. Yeah. Mexico took over the Academy Awards for a little bit. I love it I loved it, but yeah you're right. Just kind of building each other up, thanking each other in their speeches for all that stuff. But yeah. Coppola conversation. His favorite movies ever made. You know who else said that? Fucking Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman went on record and said Harry Cole was, probably the best work he's done. He thinks that conversation. I don't know if he ever said, this is the best movie I've been in, but he thinks it's his best work. And, you know, Hackman is Hackman. He didn't have. It's not that he had a bad time making the movie. He had a lot of trouble finding Harry, finding the character. Yeah, I understand that. Like, I was watching this, this old video on YouTube. I was, like, searching just for the conversation. Whatever you could find. And there's, I love doing that. Yeah, yeah. See, you probably seen or even to the commentary. Maybe he talks about it, but like, we're we're skipping ahead. But to that big office scene where they bring the girls back and like, it's a it's probably the oh, the party, the party. The longest scene it it's 25 minutes, it's 25 degrees. It's a long scene. And if you know it I would almost feel like as the actor, like because you read what is on that page, it seems so sparse and disconnected that it's really kind of hard to make sense of, what are we actually doing here? What are like, I see, like there's certain emotional levels that switch, but like what is actually going on here that I can use and like turn into something. Watching Gene Hackman and Francis Ford Coppola navigated because Gene was like, I don't really know what I'm doing here. Like, I don't know, like, I know we need to get here. But like the mechanics, the logistics of on the day shooting because, yeah, like, as you can imagine, like as the writer and director, there are probably certain scenes that we have in our head that we see how this is going to play out. And like in the film, it makes sense to us. Yeah, right. We created this fucking thing. Yeah, makes sense to us, but it may not make sense to everyone else. And especially like to the editor too, because like you think about how you're you're trying to sandwich all this footage, we have like, all of these, like, far away shots of, like, the rest of the cast talking about nothing. But we need to hear certain things, and then, you know, and then for Gene Hackman to be like, all right, I guess I go over here now, and I can, maybe I get upset about this. Like I go back to the folder watching the two of them kind of figure that out. Was very cool to watch and maybe had a new appreciation for that scene because the scene is constructed so well that you wouldn't have it at a thought at all. But then I thought about all men. If I showed up on set for this, been like, what are we doing? Like, how are we going to make this work? Yeah. And they both Coppola and merch have a lot to say. During the sequence. There's that great little moment when Hackman goes off to talk to the woman, you know, and they go off on their own and she's asking questions and the camera will just be like, on half of his face and then like, go and, fucking pan around and then she'll ask a question, it'll boom, he'll come back in a frame, then it'll come out like really explains in exacting detail why the shot construction is like this, how that informs the character. But yeah, I think Hackman Hackman was a star. He had just won an Oscar for the French Connection, Popeye Doyle. So like, mean and loud and antagonistic and very in-your-face. Harry. Carl, it's not like that at all. I mean, even the character he played in, he was nominated for an Oscar for Bonnie and Clyde. Very loud, you know, kind of happy and high and up here and all this stuff and get it being very down low for every called like the the way he is dressed, he kind of looks like a, like a dork. And that's all intentional. I mean, the raincoat, the glasses, the hair pushed back. So Hackman, he didn't like the way he looked, but knew it helped the character. And yeah, would have trouble kind of piecing stuff together character wise. But that all plays at that party sequence, because every time I watch that, I'm like, would Harry do this? Like, would he really invite all these people over? But then you go, he likes to drink as much as the next guy. He is clearly interested in women. Like, yeah, why not? It's, it's perhaps a lapse in judgment, but, I infer I firmly believe it was all set setup to get that woman to sleep with him so that she can steal his tapes in the morning. So, yeah, he's like, don't you know? Yeah, I, I think young Harrison Ford hired Shitbag Moran at that conference and said, I need these tapes. If you can go back to his office. And then if Moran's like, yeah, I can get my this girl to sleep with him. Like, we may have to give her some money, but. Yeah, I mean, she'll do it. I don't know, I but it's that's what's so great about the movie. Yeah. That's what's so cool about the movie is that it can be investigated in all these ways. And I think he wakes up and maybe, you know, he wakes up from, like, that weird fever dream, and then he realizes it. He even says, like, when he figures it out, he's like, bitch. Yeah. You know? And he's realized that the tapes are gone. So yeah, that it's a that's a fascinating set piece of the movie. And they were Hearst it like like with all the props and everything just to know because I mean there's a lot of movement. They he said they rehearsed it like a, like a play. Yeah. But you know, did it grabbing your props. What props? When does he go hide behind the plastic? There's a lot of, like, plastic transparency. It's very big in the movie. It's a theme from his raincoat on down. It's great shit. I, I always sort of imagined that the reason why he went there was because, I mean, we're we're we're we're already dissecting this scene now, but so we're it's fun to start the movie. But I felt like up until that point, he became aware that he was, ostracizing himself socially, you know, because coming from and seeing stand take the other job. Yeah. He's jump ship. Yep. And and people are kind of being like, Harry, what are we doing? What are we doing? I 100% think that Harry actually wants nothing to do with, party, but. Right. I kind of took this as, people are are making choices and doing actions now that are that are not for my benefit. So I'm gonna I'm just going to go and go with the flow on this and do something that he probably I don't think that they probably ever had a party up in that warehouse. I 100% agree. I think that is the first and last time it has happened. Yeah. I also made a note. I think he he's showing off a little bit because he knows that his gear and there is the best gear on the market. Oh it's self-built. Yeah. And if Moran walks in and sees it he'll be impressed. So I think he's shown and he still has his little areas where it's like no access. Like you need a key to get into this gated area. He has his areas, but yeah, I there's no way he's thrown down like this in there. Well and that's also why like he's so like I, I also think that he makes these switches during that scene because he gets very angry. But then at the same time you can see him shutting it down and go, okay, I don't like this feeling. So I'm going to go and start to brag about myself. Like, now I'm going to take this stance where, like someone said something and he doesn't like it, but then he corrects him and then he kind of like shows up and he's like, like smile on his face. I'll tell you how I did it. It's just sort of like, this is all born out of something that had just happened that you didn't like, that made you feel a certain way, that you weren't comfortable with. So now instead of causing a fight and kicking everyone out, which is eventually what he does. Yeah, but but up at this point now it's like, all right, I'm going to go into ego. I'm going to I'm going to take this road like everything is mapped out psychologically when you're in his head space. And again, someone else could have a very different opinion on it. But it doesn't matter because it's that the fact that you have the opinion that like, oh, you the movie and in his character made you feel certain when you're like, so you would say about Harrison Ford setting that up. I never thought about that once. And now it's such a cool idea. And I mean, maybe it doesn't mean it's right. Yeah, we don't know. Yeah, it I mean, it does make more sense because why would she steal the tapes unless maybe Moran put her up to it, but I could. I think Moran was paid by. Because we find out the the director or Harrison Ford is in possession of the tape, so I, whatever it is, there's just. It's this. He he's introduced us to this whole world of, like, San Francisco surveillance. Guys. I just love it. Big. Throw it into this, and. Okay, maybe we should, describe what the movie's about. Yeah, let's get into it. Okay, so you really start with the movie opens. You can start anywhere. Opening credits. Minute. One minute. Second one. I mean, the long and short of it is that the movie begins with this ten minute segment. We don't really know what's going on, but essentially, this guy, Harry Cole is hired to record people, and this one job he's on is a man and a woman having a conversation outside. A lot of noise around. There's a mime who's just, like, distracting. They're having conversation in Union Square, San Francisco. They recorded he has a whole teams guy playing a homeless guy, you know, microphones everywhere. It's all good. That's the first ten minutes since the actual recording of the conversation. The next 20, 30 minutes or so. The movie is him realizing what was said in that conversation and growing increasingly paranoid about it. In short, have I just overheard two people who are afraid they're about to be killed? And then what does that mean? If these people are afraid, they're about to be killed. And I hand these tapes over to the person who hired me, like the second they get these tapes, does that mean these two people are dead? Well, you know, that's where it lies. And because, as we said, the whole movie's through his point of view, we are forced to see it. That way. But there are little, you know, holes in his thought process and even like, man, it's a fun exercise. I did it on one of my viewings, just imagining every interaction with Gene Hackman's character through the eyes of Harrison Ford. Like, if you do that, if you're like this hot shot, there's this hotshot director and you're his assistant and you just you hired this guy to give you tapes, and now he won't. But when you know what the director wanted the tapes for, it's like the director's cut. Bad guy. Harrison Ford is not a bad guy. Like they're trying to fucking save his life. It's, bad. I love it, but, yeah, it opens with that brilliant three minute long zoom shot. It was a scene. This whole scene was so complicated that the original cinematographer, Haskell Wexler, ended up. He just left the sequence. They shot it, and he's like, I'm not doing this shit, man. There's too many cameras, too many things. So he hired oh. What's his name? Shit. Bill Butler, who's about to get a huge pop because he eventually shot jaws night, eventually shot jaws the next year. So very good switch. But it was a complicated scene. Yeah. Six cameras going for six minutes because it's a six minute long conversation. Mirch says editing the scene was like editing a documentary. He said there were ten times the amount of footage that one would normally shoot for this. It was just so much footage. You have Cindy Williams, you can imagine, oh my God, Cindy Williams as the woman and she was in The Killing Kind, American Graffiti, and then Frederic Forrest as the man Mark, he's chef in Apocalypse Now, an Oscar nominee for the Rose. He's in Valley girl plays a neo-Nazi. And falling down, falling down. So it's just these two. And the main line that comes out, the main sentence of the conversation is, is he'd kill us if he had the chance. That's the line that Hackman, Harry pinpoints and goes, and there's that great scene. I mean, I'm jumping head, but when the recording clicks and he's alone in his workshop and he gets it, it's like, oh fuck, I may have just captured a potential murder. Yeah, it's great stuff. But yeah, just this opening scene, it's like incredible. And of course, ending with meeting Stan, our darling John Cazale there, which is probably the only time we talked about this movie on our John, because I believe it has to be. Yeah, yeah, he's remarkable as stand and he stands just like there. It's just a job. Like I wonder what they're talking about. It's just a job. And Harry's like, this is my life. I mean, don't take the Lord's name in vain. Oh my God, when he does that, that I mean, these are again, like those little, like, tiny little details about Harry that are just sort of like, oh, yeah, super religious and. Right, right. And but if he's that religious where he cares about the Lord's name being taken and being, then maybe he's shouldn't be having sex all about town. Yeah, exactly. With just like he's got this one woman stashed off in a park, literally underground. He's like, does she even leave? Like she's not allowed to leave? You know, he's hooking up with maybe prostitutes. Yeah. Things I thought about as well. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, but. And then stans not even doing anything wrong, that's like, the best part about him is like. Yeah. And you know, and I love again that's the way that comes out plays it is that like you know he's got his little personality. Like when he's taking photos of the girls you know. But at the same time like when they're sitting down and like the very next scene and he's just trying to have a conversation, you know, that's not out of out of line or in, in a way, annoying. Like, that's just like a guy that's like, hey, like, like we're doing good work here. We can, like, take a break. Let me buy you a beer. Let me, let me like, you know, and Gene Hackman, it's like, no, your work's getting sloppy. Yeah. It's like, is it those pieces? Yeah, I think so. It's it's like it is. He says it later. That was just a silly argument. It's like, yeah, that's probably why Stan is gone to Moran. Because, yeah, he didn't do. Just wanted to have a beard. Do you like, beat his head off for. And then you insult his work and then basically, like, kick him out like, yeah. Jesus. And but you're right, that all is motivating him, letting all these people over for the party. Yeah, that really is like a turning point in the movie. But yeah, where we open brilliant long extended, sequence, don't really know where we're going to go. And then we follow Harry and okay, this is going to be Harry's movie. In this next section I call Happy Birthday Harry. Oh this is great. Mid season landlady says happy birthday to him. That gives him some pause. He opens his door. He's got a bunch of locks on the key. You know, locks on the door. The alarm goes off when he opens it. So this guy is obsessed with privacy. That's very obvious. And he walks in. He's got this bottle of wine there, and he puts everything together kind of quickly that first of all, how does she know it's my birthday? And then how does she get into my apartment? Does that? I just love this whole sequence. It's because he comes into the apartment and right away does something that I think a lot of us do, but we never see it in movies. He just takes off his work clothes, like as he's on the phone, takes off his shoes, takes off his pants. He's alone. He's trying to relax in the way the camera is so stationary it is just stationary and letting him walk in and out of frame and then almost like it, like the camera wakes up. It's like a machine that just boom and then pans over to him late on the couch. And then we're always making these late pans. I just love this shit, and I love that he's talking to her and like, well, how did you get my apartment? It. I think I'm the only one that should have kind of does this fancy word play. Great scene. But now we're actually meeting him, you know, in earnest, and we're like, all right, this dude, not everything is okay. Like you said, there's no there's nothing being let in. I mean, the the apartment, Coppola says, was dressed to look like a motel room. Yeah. Anonymous blank. Yeah, I love it. I love Harry's apartment, I love it. It's got so much personality for not having a personality like it's. Exactly. Yeah, exactly like that. Even just like that big radiator. Like it. But then, you know, he's got his little corner where it says he's got his two, he's got his, his saxophone. Virgin Mary. Yeah. Saxophone. He's got his stuff. You know, he's got these little things. And this is that was something that we definitely did for there I go where like, you know, trying to find the things about the apartment that you kind of remember that clue you into who this person is because of the lack of everything else. I agree. Well said. We go from Harry's apartment to Harry shop, and here this is the first time we're actually in his shop, and. And then we get out. My, you know, he's got to deliver the tapes. He's figured out the tapes. He calls the director's assistant. I love that little scene in the that phone booth because the the lighting like that neon is just cutting through. And there's a guy outside just tapping, like, let me get it. I love that movie. You're like, go to another phone booth. Like, there's got to be a billion out here, but that guy just has to tap, tap, tap. Good note in the commentaries is that Harry always takes public transportation. He always takes the bus. Probably because he's afraid of having a car bugged like an automobile. Bugged. Good detail I never really picked up on. I just love the shit. I love the even this thing about the shop. Just because it's so specific. It's yeah, it's a giant room, but the workspace is just like this. Like the sliver of the corner of that of that space, right? Of that giant loft. Yeah, yeah, it's all the way in, I swear to God, I think. I don't mean to say this like that as well. I think he just has it kind of tucked away to the side. And it. Yeah, there's all this, these weird things, like this girlfriend. The girlfriend is only in one scene. Terry garb. My favorite scene of the movie. Really? Yeah, 100%. Well, tell us why I have some trivia about it that I. You may. Well, here, I'll tell you my trivia just up front. Then I'll let you go. Coppola says he had a dream that was a lot like this scene and just wrote that. And so it plays very dreamlike because he said he had a dream of like a woman being kept in an apartment. Oh, I love that. This is your favorite scene. Yeah. Tell me why I want to hear. Well, I mean, one, it's just sort of like she's literally like underground, like. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, I'm not saying that, like, he's stashing her away, like, she clearly has her freedom and she is of her own will it. But the idea that he's keeping this person private. But you don't know that at first, because at first he's like, oh, he's got keys to another place, or we don't know where he's going. And the way that he that he walks in is like, you notice it. And then she comments on it and you're like, oh, he's got a girl. And then it's very, very clear that this is her place. And I just love the camera setup there. There's not a lot of movement here. It's really kind of just until we start getting some of the close ups, it's really just positioned like next to the bed where it does pan a little bit like to see him walking around, but really he's doing all the action through the doorway that is in the in the background almost. She's laying in bed and we're just stuck here with this converse that they're having about basically her just wanting more and wanting to know things about him and the way that he's dodged ING, the way that he's not participating in the conversation and still just trying to I mean, he's I mean, I don't even really think I mean, I'm sure sex is a part of it, but I think he really just wants just to, like, lay down and not talk about anything. Yeah. And, and she just won't let him and that's it. He's done like, is or like the. I'm done with all these questions. Yeah I love yeah I absolutely love this scene. I think it says so much about him. It's, it's it's I'm such a fan of scenes that don't need to be in movies. Like this scene really does not need to be here. Like there's nothing here that we wouldn't get otherwise, but it's just an extra layer of something. And like in this one scene for Terry, GA, we get like an actual character. She's not just she is serving his character in terms of like, this is how closed off he is, but we see a human being here that is a girl that's like younger and she looks like she's we don't I don't know if it mentions her occupation, but you get the idea that a girl living on her own, she's doing her thing. And yeah, somehow she got involved with this guy. And because who knows where they met? Like, he probably fucking recorded her on a job, I mean, or. Yeah. Or he's like, yeah, I don't know. And but like, and she's just asking simple questions to get to know somebody. She's so sweet. She's just very, very there is a part of his sort of like, oh my God. All right, enough, enough. But at the same time you can't have a relationship with someone that refuses to speak about themselves. Well, yeah, exactly. It's a little it's like a one way street here. And she's set up with it. I get it, yeah. And but I, I love someone like the little things. Like, I like what she says. You always walk in the same way. I always know that it's you. As if like, there's other people that come in just like these little tiny details of when you are in that kind of relationship with somebody, come out in this scene. So much happens in this tiny little scene that's just very, very, full of life. And then we never go back to it. I love that shit. Fucking love that shit. Yeah, I do too. And you're right. It does it. Just the only intention of the scene is to give us more layers of Harry. Because with the exception of him trying to call her. And it's like this number isn't listed. He never talks about her again. We never see her again. But yeah, it's to give just a lot of weird shit. Like. And I love that line of I can tell it to you because, you know, you unlock really, gently, and then you, like, burst in. Yeah. Expecting to catch me doing something. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's just another way to set up these kind of walls around him. To where? Yeah, he just wants her for one purpose, seemingly. But she's like, can we have, like, an actual relationship and maybe have a conversation? No. Yeah. Your rents do. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Really good. I'm so glad this is your scene. It's why I have you here. Because you call stuff like this out. You like the tenderness, like the tender connection? That's right. That's the sequel to The French Connection. Well, this the second sequel, the Tender Connection there, actually. Okay, I was about to say there was this French connection. Yeah. Two. You've seen none of them. I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and lie. That's not something I do. The fans already know. I already told the fans, you know, I mean, I don't I don't know who this freaking guy is that you keep talking about, but I would love The French Connection. The French Connection rocks the movie. I mean, I mean, he's said one thing about that one movie with the demon, and I was like, yeah, that's all right. Funny you mention that demon movie. I'll go to that right now. That's a little movie called The Exorcist. I'm going to jump back to the party scene. That dream that he has, that's what it reminds me of The Exorcist, when he's, like, having the dreams about his mother. A dream is so kind of funny in the conversation because he dreams the hotel room and like the blood, but he hasn't seen that yet. But it's just his great little fever dream. And I made a note that it reminded me of The Exorcist, which most people had seen years ago. How many? How many? Shaking my head. How long do I got to what? So they're. We're done with this exorcist. I know you're two timing it. Oh, the years. Yeah. Years will be your punishment subside soon. All right, next scene, the director's office. My favorite thing about this is that when he goes and checks in at the front desk, this is an exterior. Like it's meant to be an interior, but this is outside. And they just dressed it and chose their angles. Well, to make it look like an interior. I love that we get Harrison Ford young Harrison Ford as the director's assistant. I love the way he plays this. I love his his whole performance in this movie. And he's an American Graffiti the year before. But Star Wars is three years away. I love this guy. He's so nonchalant about the exchange. He just wants you. Give me the tapes, I give you the money. This is what I'm supposed to do. He offers some Christmas cookies that he made. Like, really? You made these? But Harry only wants to give the tapes to the director himself. They have that. It's this rigid professionalism to where he's not going to give them up to anyone else in that set. Really tense moment, like everything's okay. But then when he slowly reaches back for the tapes and then Harrison Ford grabs him and there's like a crab grab grab. It's like his face is like, what the fuck are you doing, buddy? Like, this is. And then again, would you have finished the movie if you go back and watch this through Ford's perspective, he's probably like, what the hell is this guy's deal? Like, don't get involved in this. They're trying to kill my boss like you don't. This is not for you, dude. Like you served a purpose. Go. I love it. It's just so much miscommunication. It's a great it's a great scene because, like, you don't know what to think of it. And Harrison sports face is so good because he almost like laughs a little bit because it isn't all yeah. Like what are we doing here. Like what are you doing. And I'm going to take this like stop it. Yeah, yeah I just gave you the money for these. These tapes are mine and it. Yeah, it's a really everything's just on the edge. And I love the way he's like he doesn't, you know, you expect in scenes like this in the movie it's Harrison Ford. He's going to like tackle Gene Hackman or you know, you need to listen to me take the damn money. But instead he's just, like, gently following him around the office. And when he gets to the elevator bay, he's all the way to the end of the hallway, just like waving the packet of money like hello, don't get involved in this. Like, do you want the money? And then, of course, as he's leaving, he spots the two people who had the conversation. He spots Frederick Force in the building, and it's like, what the woman from the conversation gets on the elevator with him and we along with him are going, what the hell is going on here? Because these people, where it should not be in this building, do they know they're about to die? Oh, it's so good. It's so good. But yeah, just the the really careful, play between Hackman Ford is great in this. And, you know, everything's just right on the edge until it kind of boils over. But God, I love that. And we still haven't. I kind of jumped ahead because he still has not figured out the full, what is in these tapes, like the real danger of it. He hasn't figured that out yet. It's this weird interaction with this, like, young assistant where he's going, wait a minute, I need to give these literally another spin and, like, figure this out, because something is what? Why is this so, like, protective. And then that's when we're back in his office with Stan and they get into that fight. Yeah. I wonder what they're talking about. Let's go have a beer. Yeah. And, and and because Gene Hackman is not going to tell him I love. There's one point that Stan makes in here where he's where he's basically. Didn't she already give these tapes to him? Like why are we like, actually this is a done job. Like job's done. Yeah. What? Like, why are we going back? And and Gene Hammond doesn't answer them, and, because he doesn't have an answer. Yeah, yeah, he's breaking his own code. He's contradicting. Contradicting himself. I don't care what they're saying. I just want a nice fat recording. This is not true. And Stan is a little confused by it. Stance. Kind of like what? What's. Yeah, like this is done. Come on, let's go get a beer. Like. Yeah. I love it though. Yeah. The don't blasphemy thing. It's it's just so good. It's so good. But then yes, once Stan leaves, it's, there's been a silly argument. That is when we get those, like, close ups, just straight on. Have Hackman in the background is so just out-of-focus and creamy. It looks so, so good. And. And that's when we hear he'd kill us if he had the chance. Yeah. I. Do killers. If he got the chance. He'd kill us if he had the chance. Emphasis on kill is very, very important. That's what he's hearing. And then when it all clicks and he just, like, pauses, it tapes and goes, oh, I mean, he doesn't say, oh, that's stupid. But his face says, oh, shit, this. I'm holding on to some something hot here and it's coming. We're kind of coming up of why this may be a trigger point for Harry. It wouldn't have been before, but he has been through something somewhat recently to why maybe he doesn't want to be involved in work anymore. That leads to the death of innocent people. And we'll get to that in a second. But yeah, it's a it's just it's a great it's a great reveal. It's another layer of yeah. Going back man. It's funny you said that. I never kind of put it together of Stan pestering him about like, jobs on jobs on. Let's go get a beer. And then that pisses off Hackman. But I think he's getting pissed because stands right. Stand it in terms of what you taught me, dude, you taught me. Don't care about what they're saying. Deliver the work, get paid, walk away, go to the next thing. And that's not what you're doing here. I love it every it's like every scene in this movie has so many layers to it. Yeah. Pending on your perspective. Yeah. And none of them are wrong. And and exactly. And they're all, they're all played. So well by everybody. Like Stan is just like I think I even said this probably on their causal podcast episode, where he is that guy that we've all worked with just, oh, yeah, that like dorky guy, like he's probably he probably like in today's world, he's probably like a Dungeons and Dragons guy tour, you know, like outside of work. Like, he's got, like his, like, little like, you know, just this is a nice, nice guy in innocence 90s. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, you know, just trying to you know these you know it's John Cazale. You know he's probably trying to get lucky with the ladies out there and probably not successful at it. But but these are all things that we can kind of like ascertain just based off of the performance that he's given us. But it's so real and lived in that we're like, we know this guy. We and we know that he is good at what he does and he's not getting treated very well for not doing anything actually wrong. Yeah, just kind of asking questions and throwing back his mentor's ideology in his face. And the mentor doesn't like that having characters who are contradictory is part of what makes cinema so great, because it presents conflict. So we already talked about the Catholicism thing. He is not a dedicated Catholic. He's not Catholic, not lapsed. He is a, Catholic. That, as it's my understanding that a lot of people that religion in terms of cinema have this Catholic guilt that he is just playing into that so, so well, I love it. And, you know, and what's cool about the Cazale character too is that he you could like there's a version where he could have played this guy almost like a moran where like when we get to Moran, like, there's nothing good about Moran. Like, no, we showed this guy a snake. He's a weasel. But, like, if you surround, if Gene Hackman was surrounded by people that were like that, then you'd almost side with Gene Hackman's kind of, like, closed off ness in a way, because you were like, well, this is the world that's given to him. It's just all these annoying people that are all. But Cazale is not annoying because al is actually, like, without that performance the way that it is. We don't look at Harry the same way because. Because if we didn't, we'd actually be on his side. The manipulation of the film would tell us that everyone around Harry is annoying. So that's why he is. But no, he's the way that he is even in the face of people who are good and actually probably have his back. Yeah. Even that that like a cop that works for him. Like this is a good dude who, like, works for him and they leave the the convention again jumping ahead. But I love what he calls in that car that they're like racing cars. Oh yeah. So he just cosseted and gets all the information about him. Yeah. He has like quote unquote normal people around him who like to have a drink, have a beer, who just consider this a job and then they go out, or maybe they're a cop and they're moonlighting or like an ex-cop moonlighting, doing surveillance work. He just takes it so damn seriously. But yeah, it's he is the issue, not necessarily the people around him. And yeah, if Stan were some blowhard asshole, like, asking, asking questions for nefarious reasons and we saw that it would. We've seen that so many times. But if it was revealed that, like Harrison Ford hired Stan to do it and we'd be like, all right, cool, great. But it's not. He's just a normal guy who's trying to make a little connection. Like that's all he. I think he likes Harry. Like when I think he's like. He's like, tell me how you did it, Harry. Like, this is really cool. Tell me how you did it. Yeah, but yeah, before we have the wire convention over the wire tappers convention, which, yeah, I just love this thing. It feels. Coppola said he wrote it and didn't even know these things existed and then found out they definitely do exist in there. It's a real thing, and people just kind of show up to them, swap, you know, stories. But yeah, we've heard of this Moran Joker a lot. But before. Before. Okay. Before we get to Moran, I love you know, he's testing out different gear and he spots Harrison Ford, who's like, been, you know, kind of looking for him. And they finally have that confrontation. He does Harrison Ford just sitting there having a drink I got your drink sitting there like by the elevator bay. And he goes, you're following me. One of my favorite lines from the movie. What are you doing here? Take it easy. I'm just a messenger. Brought your journey. I don't want you. Why are you following me? You know, following you. I'm looking for you. It's a big difference. How did you know I was here? Oh, it's a convention of wiretaps or. Excuse me? Surveillance and security technicians. There was a snap. Look, I'm telling you, I'm not giving those tapes to anybody. But. Yeah, I know what you told me. Mr. Carr. What's the message? We want you to deliver the tapes on Sunday, 1:00. The director will be there. It will accept the tapes from you in person. You tell him. I'll think about. I'm not following you. I'm looking for you. There's a big difference. And he is probably just one to look at. To be like, hey, buddy, can we, like, settle all this up? Because I really just want the tapes and I'll give you your money and then everyone can walk away. Like, I don't know what your deal is, dude, but, it's. You said on the podcast that Ford is, like, the king of subtext, and this is a really good subtext performance from him, and he needs to be given more credit for it. People, this is not like an apocalypse Now Ford Performance where he's giving, you know, he's in one scene. And as being the most memorable quote of the movie, you know, execute, execute with extreme prejudice. This is this is a genuine supporting performance where absolutely is good nuance work. I love him in this. Yeah. And I love that idea of watching the movie from his perspective because like because the the way it's a perfect kind of like performance, because the way that we are angled to look at it, he is smarmy. He is a little dangerous for do you mean. Yeah. Ford. Yeah. Yeah. He seems like a threat. Yeah he does. And but like, that's the that's how good this movie is because you're right. Like from his perspective, he's he's not doing anything wrong and he's just trying to help his boss. Yeah. That's it. And it it's not even like he's playing it like a dick. But yet if you chose to take it that way, it's delivered like that. But if you choose to not take it that way, it's not. I don't know how you that I think that's just that's pure Harrison Ford. Like, that's just like, yeah, we need an actor that's going to be able to pull off a little bit of like, I don't trust this guy. I don't know what he's up to. But then when you realize it, you're like you. You immediately. Just because when we finally get to that scene where we realize it, he's got such like a pure, like reaction and just sort of like, can you please leave now? Like you've done that, you've done enough damage. Yeah. You've done exactly. And you yes, it makes you rethink everything. And it's like so that was just some guy's assistant genuinely offering Christmas cookies, just like, yeah, here you go. There's nothing. He's not like a bad I mean, they're probably into some shady shit, you know. But he's not in this in terms of this interaction, this transaction. He's not the bad guy here. No. Harry Cole, who will give up the tapes that the director paid for. It's kind of the bad guy, but, Yeah, well, the hostage. Yeah. I mean, there's that great reveal when we see that Stan is working for Moran. We've been introduced to Moran, who's played by Allen. Garfield is so, so good. He plays it so well. You're gonna. This is going to kill you. Do you know who's originally cast in this part? They're about to shoot with him. Oh, man. The great Timothy Carey as Moran. Yeah. Can you imagine? And Coppola says he doesn't really go into details, but I think it just got a little a little nutty in the hell. There we go. That's. Yeah, that's Eddie's track. He said he was huge. He's like, Tim Carey in real life, was just a massive, huge guy. And obviously he's half field. It's not like that. So what a different dynamic that would have been like the antagonistic nature of Carey. It could have. I mean it would have worked really, really well. But just another instance of him being a little hard to rein in. It would have been a very different scene, like very like like because the way that the Garfield plays him is like, you know, that guy like that is a oh yeah, that's. Yeah. Shark salesman. That's, you know, that's just after all of his products are based on his name, he's like, here's the Moran so-and-so. And you're like, oh my God, dude, you're that guy. Yeah, you know exactly who he is. With Tim Carey, there would be like, a menace that would be in there. There would be a there would be there would be so much. I love that guy. I made it be good. I want to see every single, like, potential movie that he could have ever been in. And just think of. Did I tell you I watched like the one movie he directed? Oh, nuts. I started watching on criterion. It's awesome. Dude, wait, no, no, I got it. I totally forgot what it's called. The world's greatest sinner. The world's greatest sinner. Thank you. Good pool. Yes. It's like hilarious. But it also the editing. Good. Like the way it's done is like his acting, so. Oh, my God, I loved it. I burned through it, I thought I was hysterical. Dude, that movie is crazy. Yeah. It's nuts, it's nuts man. I fucking love criterion. They have, I just love that opening that app and being like, all right, I only have I've like 80 minutes. And I mean, something weird that I haven't seen before. Boom. There it is. Well, they've got the live thing now, which is really cool if you ever check that out. Yeah. Now. No, I know about it, but I've never hit play is a movie like literally in progress playing or does it start a new for you? Okay. So it's like a TV channel. It's like a TV channel. The only one problem is that they don't tell you what movie it is. So when you when you hit the live thing, you just get thrown into whatever their live content is. And I've done this many times where all of a sudden I just get sucked into whatever I'm watching, and maybe I only have a little bit, but I don't know what the movie is. So it's not like I can, like if I have to leave, then be like, oh fuck, I got to look up what this is. I think it is. Yeah, yeah. This makes so much sense because Nick and I share a criterion account. It's the only thing we share. We share one. Well, I will often log in. Yeah, I meant streaming flat for Jesus. I'll go in there and see something that's been watched for like ten minutes or something that's been finished. And I'm like, I didn't watch this. When the fuck did he watch this? And it's probably these. It's probably like your clock. It's some time. Oh yeah, dude that's great. I want to go. That is weird though, that it just it doesn't say like in progress, World's Greatest Sinner or something directed by Tim Carey. I don't know, that's where they should either do a thing where I don't know how you do it or if you like, if you paused it, it would tell you what the thing is, because that's what. Yeah, yeah, maybe there's maybe there's so much content where they can't do that, but then they should do a thing where maybe you just off into the corner. It's just the title. Yeah. Something pops up occasionally, some decent. How the hell are you supposed to know? There's no Shazam for movies, as I've found out, I got fucking tortured on a road trip because they're playing some damn Western in a bar, and I could not spot what it was. It was some John Wayne movie, and I mean a John Wayne western. Well, hard to narrow down. I just. And I finally figured it out, like I had to use my resources. But it was tough. It was tough anyway, to use IMDb. Yeah, but I mean IMDb. What are you going to type in John Wayne and then look at all of his Westerns, like he couldn't I couldn't recognize any other performer from it. I was kind of dead. So then look for the other actors. Yeah. So then I was like in Google describing John Wayne, like shootout Western Town that come, you know, getting like everything. Yeah, it's I wasn't getting specific, but I found it in their town. Well we got kind of intense. Oh no I don't remember it got so said all of this alley posted it on Instagram. And then Dan Stark chimed in. It was trying to help. Big Jake is what it's called. Big Jake, starring John Wayne and Richard Boone. See, I didn't have a relationship with Richard Boone, so he was on the screen. It was actually Maureen O'Hara popped up and I was like, oh, I know who that is. So I type that in The Big Jake. Never, not, never even heard of it. But yes, that was on it, a fucking bar. And I was like, I have to, what is this? Just because it was on at the bar and they told me we only played the same John Wayne movie. I was like in, Wyoming or something. No, I was yeah, I was, I was in Wyoming and they just played the same John Wayne movie. And I'm like, what is it? The bartender goes, I don't know. Oh, it's me. Okay. I got four TVs and they just play the same John Wayne movie. No audio though, so it's not like I could type in. Yeah, that was my old bar. You were saying that? Yeah. Big Jake, you know what? It would it would have made that Jack movie better if it was called big Jack. Exactly, exactly. Should have been called big. Should be called Big Janet. Called, fucking Coppola. Big Jack. It's big Jack, baby. Big Jack. All right. Party. This long central set piece. The party which we I love when we just. We don't even talk. We didn't know we were going to open that scene up early, but we did, which is great. A lot of my notes that I had, we've already said what's really interesting, Moran, is very detailed about this job that Harry has done. It's the job where he bugged the president of a Teamsters union, and as a result, three people were murdered. So what? Moran is really, really honing in on what he's hammering Harry for is tell me how you did it. Tell me how you got this guy on the wire. Because did you go out to his boat? I know the boat was bug proof. You couldn't have done it. How did you do it? And Harry's like, I'm not first. I'm never going to tell you that. But he's also. It's his stance of what they do with the tapes is none of my business. It's on them. I just deliver the tapes. That's my job. But what happened was this the president of the Teamsters union thought his accountant had ratted him out. So the accountant was killed. The wife was killed. Their kid was killed. That shave their bodies of all their hair, their heads were found in different places. It's a really gruesome story. And I'm like, Jesus, he did this to a kid. I did research, apparently that is based on RFK and Jimmy Hoffa. That's like that story because I'm like, what kind of fucking teamster union boss would chop off a kid's head and put it somewhere else? And I'm like, oh shit. Yeah, Hoffa. Hoffa could have been off because RFK was like JFK and RFK. You know, once JFK got elected, he was on him. RFK was on him, the attorney general. Boom. So I think that's who they're talking about. I don't know if Hoffa actually did that, if that's like a real thing, but that's kind of where they're going with it. But I, I it's the law. It's the law. And I love that Stan starts playing the recent recording that gets Harry pissed. And then Harry realizes Moran has bugged him the entire time with his shitty pen. So he's heard that really the only intimate conversation you had in the movie, which is with that woman when they went off to the side, but then later, you know. Yeah. Is she was she hired by Moran to steal the tape? So it's like he opened himself up to this woman for the first time in a while. And not only was that was he being recorded the whole time, which is, I mean, his greatest fear to be recorded. That's like. But also, she was not. Whatever the deal is, she's gone and the tapes are gone. So maybe it's like him justifying to himself, damn it, I should, you know, I never should have done that. Never should have had the party, never should have slept with her, yada yada. But now I did. So here's the outfall of it. I love it, you know. I'm. I'm thinking about it all now, and I'm thinking that maybe you're right, because she. I was wondering the entire time why she was so invested in him. Because the cop dude is, like, into her. He they have a vibe going on. And when Harry's like, I want to stay here and she goes, I'm going to stay here. The cops like, okay. And kind of throws her coat down and they all leave. That's that really long of all of leaving I lose here by here. Like and she and she's like working for it too because he's not here at the time of day. Really. And. Nope, not after she is. Yeah, but she's, she's strategic. Like there's times where she like, she's like, okay, I'm going to pull back a little bit, but then she be persistent and then go back in and then just dig the hooks and, you know, and I'm thinking now I'm like, man, I don't know. It's just a girl who is just plain just interested. Would deal with everything that Harry's doing. Yeah, it'd be annoying. You just leave. Yeah, yeah, just being rude, really. And, But then if you're thinking about it from, like, oh, no, I have a job to do. I need to seduce this guy. I need to get the eventually. I need to get him to a point where I can steal these things like it. And and it's sort of like that's a big uphill battle for her. And she climbs that tree. You know that? Damn right she does. I'm like that man. Like a tree. Then out. Bridesmaids. That's like one of my favorite scenes. It will be history the first time we meet Melissa McCarthy. And she confuses Chris, that black dude next to Kristen Wiig. She's like, I'm so sorry. This must be your boat. This must be your man. Hi. It's like, I've never met this guy. He walks away. I'm climbing like a tree. Oh, God. Yeah, but that's. Yes, I do think that's what's happened, I think. Yeah. Oh, man. She, Yeah. She definitely. You think about somebody? Yes. You. Somebody. She's. Something happen. But he has that dream and we learn. I mean, if what if we believe what is said in the dream? He's like, I was sick, kid, I couldn't. Yeah. I almost drowned in the bathtub. And when I realized I was alive, I was upset by it. That's like when he's five years old, you're going, oh, okay, this guy is some history. But yeah, weird like 70s. Trippy dream sequence. I love it. I love that shit. Yeah. I love when they do that. The fog. The fog is another cool thing. He goes home, makes that phone call, you know, he's got the phone locked in the drawer, all that stuff. And then probably for the first time ever, as soon as he's done with the phone call, that phone rings and he takes a long time to answer it. He's in the bathroom. I don't know if he's ever heard that phone ring. Like, the number's unlisted. So he picks it up and all bullshit aside,

meet the director Sunday, 1: 1:15:19

00. Let's do it. You know, you get you're going to get paid. That's going to be that. And then, man, he goes, this office again just walks in, you know, all slow. And who's listening to the tapes because they already have them because. But I love that they're still paying him. They're still going to pay him from the work for the work, even though they are now in possession of the tapes. But they're listening to the tape and you walk in. And who's this director, Robert fucking Duvall? One scene wonder absolutely kills it, but he's not like, blowing up. He's not mad. He seems more like dejected spending his dogs. Maybe he's disappointed. This is the guy. He's about to kill. These two people. Okay? And I just love. Can you count your money outside, please? Yeah, just. And again, like, this is a first kind of sign when I rewatch in the theater, because I did not remember every beat of the movie, I went, I honestly, I kind of still thought the director was bad. I don't think I'd seen the movie in 10 or 15 years. Now I watch it for the John Gerstle episode, but then I hadn't seen it before that in ages, and even that was like, what, four years ago at this point? Oh, and I love that. Like when you go back and rewatch it and you're just watching Duvall, like, kill this scene. Yeah, it's a Sunday. He gets paid, tosses the money in like, the grass, and then we stay with him as he goes and picks it up. He's got to get paid. You know I love that. Yeah, I mean, but but he hates that money because he he doesn't want it. Yeah. How about that sweater that Harrison Ford is, wearing in that scene, All very deliberate. Coppola talks about that specifically that it's your just the look of the sweater is supposed to make us a little more just untrustworthy, untrusting of this guy. Like it's this little web. So, yeah, good call out. Everything is going in here. You know that line? You know what that's called? What? Costume design. Oh, they have award for that. An Oscar for that. They do. Yeah. We don't talk about it as much as we should. I feel costumes, costumes are very important to this movie. All joking aside, like the way he's dressed, Harry. The raincoat. Yes. Very important. I hate that raincoat. I know that's kind of the point. At that point. Yeah, it looks like it provides no protection from the rain. I'm a buy one. I know, and he wears it even if it's not raining. It's just. Yes, but it's such a part of, I don't know, his look and his lack of appeal. Like, I don't want people to talk to me. I don't want people to approach me. You know, it reminds me of, like, a shower curtain that it doesn't like a shower curtain. That, that, that. But it's one of those shower curtains without the magnetic strips. And it's so light. Just the liner. Yeah. That when you just. And you go in there and then you turn on the shower and then it's just flailing up, I hate that. Yeah, I hate it. Mine's like it old right now. Start by. Yeah I was going to say when you get older you start buying more expensive liners. I'm almost 40 liner I know you get. I'm aware I'm closer to that. Holy Christ, Jack star hotel, 3:00, room seven, seven, three. He still cannot let it go. Oh. Based on the conversation on the recording based on the recording, these two people are meeting at the Jack Star Hotel.

3: 1:18:30

00, room seven. Seven, three. So what does he do? Moses? On into the hotel. What is so funny? I just like, even though we're talking and we're explaining the movie as it's happening. I can only think about if you were just talking to somebody and you're all the way through the movie. He still can't let it go. He's obsessed. I mean, it really, it's the it's it's the whole entire movie. Can't let it go. He just can't. And he is so wrong. That's what's great. That's the ultimate fuck you is that he's wrong. He is wrong. But he goes, yes. Checks into the hotel. Great shot. When he's talking to the front desk. And behind him are those pinks and blues. Just great shot. He's like, can I get the room next door to it? And this is I mean, what an amazing sequence a lot of from this movie. You know, bending down next to the toilet like trying to listen. So he's doing all the, all this weird now, not weird, efficient, surveilling things. He's trying to bug the room, the hotel room next door, and he starts hear an argument. It's clearly Duvall in an argument. And then it's like his dream manifests itself, and we go out to the balcony and, you know, there's blood being smeared on the glass, the transparent, you know, sort of glass plasticky thing to the other room. So he sees and he's like, oh my God, the woman's being killed. The woman that he's arguing with, who I believe at this point, we know that's his wife. That's the director's wife, the woman in the conversation that's been. Yeah, to us. So, oh my God. And then he just like, I guess, flips out to the point where he passes out. And then when he wakes up, it's nighttime and he's like, okay, oops, didn't mean to fall asleep, but now I gotta like, go get into that room. So we get to really see him do his work like he picks the lock. It's old school. He's going in and he's checking. It's spotless. It's been cleaned by the maids. Everything's perfect. Can't find any fault anywhere. And then just a real iconic image of flushing the toilet. Toilet looks clean, toilet looks spotless. Flushing it. And up comes all the shit. The blood, the whatever they were trying to flush down. But we don't know whose blood it is. We don't know what the hell's going on. No evidence of murder, no foul play except a toilet of blood. The whole hotel sequence is great. It's. Love this. It's. It's one of the one of my favorite, like, mental breakdown scenes. Because I. Me personally, I don't think any of that's real. What, like the killing or anything? No, no, obviously the killing, because he eventually he's dead. There's a part of me that doesn't think that he actually went into the into the room, that the, the blood to the toilet didn't actually happen. I could vibe with that a bit, that it's just like a manifestation of his paranoia. We really don't see that much of it. I think maybe he got into the room, but I could see there being no toilet of blood or there being no kind of anything. It's, you know, it's a it's an interesting take either way, because I don't think you're 100% wrong. I don't it's a possibility because clearly like there was a murder that that did happen in there. I mean, we see flashes of it. It looks gruesome. It shit. It looks. Yes. But they're also from his dream to like the one where he's on the rooftop, where I'm like, I'm like, this is like one of those situations where your paranoia is necessarily not wrong. But the with what you're seeing, I think, is that it is a manipulation. It's just his thoughts. We are never inside that room actually for the murder. It is just his point of view and perspective. So how it all went down. Maybe he's putting the clues together and oh I saw this thing. So yeah it was plastic over his head. Okay. I could have, Okay. I get how I got that wrong, but we don't actually know. Yeah, we don't know. So that's just my take on it is like, I was like, whatever's happening here, I think is more the visuals that we're getting is the manifestation of his paranoia. And because ultimately he he is wrong about the murder, but he's just he's only wrong in the sense of who got murdered. I mean, honestly, when he wakes up from that dream and realizes the tapes are gone, the movie just cooks from then to the end. Like going to the director's office, going to the hotel, going to this press conference of sorts, and he just shows back up to the director's office. The last place he should probably be tries to get in, but they don't let him. And then who does he see come down in the lobby? But the wife and he's still not figuring out. And then he sees Fredrick Forest and he's like, oh, it was not. He'd kill us if he had the chance. It's he'd kill us if he had the chance. And then presumably then the next line is, so let's go kill this motherfucker before he gets to us. Yeah. He'd kill us if he had the chance. That's what Harry listening to the tape reappears, and that changes his entire perspective. He said the whole thing wrong. He was not listening to two people who were afraid they were going to be murdered by the director. He's listening to two people planning the director's death. It is fucking genius. It it tricked. It really tricked me. When I read it in the theater, I knew that everything was at face value. I remembered that much, man. Just seeing their faces. And they seem to know who he is. And they're like, Harrison Ford's there. Is he you on it? Harrison Ford is the assistant in on it. You know, you can make an argument that he is like, but I don't know, I gather that he's not. I part of me thinks like, yeah, I don't I think he's been duped by all this too. But then how does he know that that's what they did. And then are they going to leave him on because I presumably with the director being killed, the what the this wife will take over everything, take over the company, the corporation and then eventually marry Frederick Forrest because, you know, that's just that's what they're planning. Just make a lot of money. Sequel. Re re conversing. Well, the sequel because enemy of the state. Enemy the state. Exactly. Yeah. But I mean, he figures it all out. We see it play over his face. And then the movie ends with a truly ingenious sequence of him home alone, slowly, methodically tearing apart, losing his mind, losing his mind first doing, you know, looking for surveillance, piece of recording equipment, a bug. He's taking apart that radiator. It's going through all the things. And then he's not finding anything. Taking apart the the lights and the editing is happening with more and more rapidity. You know, coming quicker and quicker. And that he's unsatisfied with the quote unquote, normal places it would be. So he's just ripping off wallpaper. Then he starts digging up the fucking floors and then, you know, he's got these little, statues that look religious. He's got one, the Virgin Mary that he he doesn't want to touch. He can't touch it. And eventually he even breaks that open. And it's not in there. It's just he cannot find the microphone, but he knows there's one in there. Because when they called him. Yeah, they it was him. It was a recording of him like, very recent recording of him. So he knows it's in there. And we just, we end in such a brilliant way, like a surveillance camera going back and forth in his apartment as he just kind of wistfully plays his saxophone. And the one place that he did not check for microphone. It's the most obvious place in the world. The saxophone. That's what I love about it. And it and it's what we hear when they tapped us. What exactly? It's was the saxophone. I remember I had this thought when we did the John Cazale episode because, I, I became very familiar with anxiety attacks. And I think in a way, like both the scenes that happened to him in the hotel and in this are brilliant encapsulation of, like, anxiety attacks. Oh, yeah, when you're in it, there's just there's no way out. Like it's at least in my experience, it was just like, you have to ride this out until it's over. But then what would happen to me was that after, like, hours, like your body or my body would just get tired of it. And then it was just super relaxing. Yeah. Because it was so like when he's just playing the saxophone, just chilling I'm like yep it's all good. Now you're to your house is a complete fucking disaster. Fucking mess. Like yeah yeah. But you know what he's playing with. Nothing can really bother me right now. I love them and it's I don't know if that was Coppola's kind of like, creative way of like putting that to his art, but I totally resonated with it in that way, which is a very cool thing that movies can do. Movies at their best can reveal things about us that maybe we didn't know were there, or we talk about this all the time that they can make us feel not alone. We're like, oh yeah, I really I always appreciate that, always can make for a tough watch. But I always love that shit. Well, there's something that we try to put in our stuff too. It's like we're trying to even if it's if it doesn't even necessarily work. We're trying to communicate our own idea, like if I can somehow channel the way that I feel when this happens through this scene, through something generally speaking, it'll still work because the, the intention behind it is meaningful and you're trying to do something. But it's a little it's an abstract idea. So it's not necessarily guaranteed to land the way that you think it is, because I could see so many people watching this movie and then being like, why is he just playing jazz, right? Like, you know, but then for me just to be like, I know why he's playing jazz. He's fucking calm. He is calm and relaxed and, you know, tomorrow is going to suck. But right now it's all good. And, but that's my shit, though, like ease. But that's what we get to do there. And leaving us that space for it, instead of just giving us something like that, like a, like a oh, here's a hard, like, stamped reason as to why it's happening. It's kind of boring. Of course it is. Let's. Yeah. There's another thing I love about this movie is it doesn't exactly end where it began, but we start with this conversation, meaning one thing. By the end of the movie, it means something completely different. But tomorrow is a new day. Life is going to go on, Harry. Carl is going to have to wonder if his apartment is still bugger. He's going to have to find a new apartment. It's just there's a whole world that still exists here. There's someone has been killed, but it doesn't mean the story is necessarily done. And I love the ambiguity of that. What's his next thing? I guess he's going to hide out, pack up, change his name to Brazil, move to Washington, DC. Exactly. Tony. Tony Scott's gonna help him, and then he gets involved in a what is that? That's like a political assassination in the beginning of that movie. I love that movie. Despite its main star. Yeah, I can't help it. I know I can't help it. I know, you know, someone wants to ask, you know, like, so what is the conversation about? I mean, like, a guy can't let it go, can't let it go, guys. Can't fucking let it go, man. Still can't let it go. Yeah, let it go. We talked about the sound design and the editing. How those are both done by the same person. That's extremely impressive. The great Walter Murchie has written books about. There have been documentaries about him. Highly recommend them. He there's this documentary about. Oh, God, what is it called? It's like through the cutting glass. I don't remember, but you get to see him in real time editing Cold Mountain on Final Cut Pro, just like actually editing it. And he stands up while he edits and it's a job done. It's like, yeah, I come to work and then I leave work, and it's just fascinating. This is one of my favorite movies ever made, but it's fascinating to see him have all this footage of this huge movie and just doing it all on a computer, and he's very, you know, kind of it's his job. It's not unlike not as certainly stringent as Gene Hackman in the conversation. But, you know, it's his job and he's very, very good at it and knows how to cut and make sound all in a way that enhance his story, Coppola said he was the most profound collaborator on this movie, no question. Oh, I mean, the sound of this movie is just, it's it's everything with without without what we have. So much of this movie just does not work. Or very least it's not. It's it's not in engaging. Yeah. The music very simple, but effective. Piano music was by David Shire. That's Talia Shire's husband. So that was Francis's brother in law at the time. He recorded the score before the movie was shot. That's wild. That's not usually how it's done. Keep it in the sand. We'll do it after him. It's true. Exactly. Yeah, I as an editor, I much prefer that because that way I can shape a scene around the music. Yeah, that's exactly music around the scene. I don't want to give some musician be like, this track has to be four minutes, 38 seconds and ten frames. That sounds fucking terrible to me. You know, maybe like if there is such as, like, but maybe if you've got something so specific where you do have that like a montage type thing where like, okay, I want sure like hell yeah. Yeah. But if you know what the tone of the music is like and you can give that to your crew like that music in that tone will help everybody because they'll all kind of get like, oh, this is the feel of what we're doing here. Actors will get well with it. It's a good I mean it's yeah, yeah, yeah. Cinematographer talk about Haskell Wexler had a lot of trouble. So he was replaced after the opening Union Square sequence. Replaced with Bill Butler shot jaws. Some Rocky sequels. Grease also replaced Haskell Wexler on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And so Haskell was just having a tough time in the 70s. I mean, he's also an amazing DP, don't get me wrong. I mean, that's the conversation. That's it. We've done it. It's a great movie. It's one of the best paranoid thrillers. Okay? A guy who cannot fucking let it go. Coppola I want to know. You can give me a top five. But moreover, I want to know where the conversation ranks in your Coppola. Well, you have a top five or what you have. I'm holding out my head right now. That's got my top five. Coppola in the top five hack. Same here. Good. All right. Yeah okay. So we'll do top five. Coppola first do you want to go back and forth or should we just do 54321. Oh we got to keep it the way that we always do it I do five you do five. You two four or however okay. My number six is The Godfather part three. And I just wanted to start had that. Yes six. I only told you to go to five I went to. Why do you even ask if I want to go first? When you have all this, this, this. Because you're going to go first to the top five. But I want everyone to know that The Godfather Part three is not as bad as you all make it out to be. It really isn't. It has a lot of strong stuff. It's just nowhere near as good as the first two. But that reedit he did. I don't always agree with his re edits. The Apocalypse Now read RedOne RedOne ducks is not it? It's too much. The final cut shapes and shapes it in a little more. But his reedit, it's called like The Godfather Part three, The Life and Coda, the life and death or the Death of or Michael Corleone. I fucked that up, but it's so much better. Like the the whole, he arranges it so that it follows kind of the narrative path of the original one. Like we start at a big party, so I like it. So I just it did not make my top five. I thought it might, but because it didn't, I just want to let everyone know I'm putting it at six. That's all. Number five from you. She's the least get all mad. We got to be a six or in here. Rumble fish baby. Well, it's called Rumble Fish. Well. Oh, shame number five. Yeah. Rumble fish, not Rumble Fish, baby I do. I really like that movie. I really like it. And I do not like The Outsiders and that no made them the same year. It's same author. And I think Rumble Fish is just so damn cool. Mickey Rourke that's a good movie. Yeah it is. I like it a lot. Simpatico. All right, number four, Apocalypse Now. Holy shit. Me, too. Oh, maybe. Me too. I know, I swear, I know how this is. Oh, wow, I don't know, I don't know. Wow. That's okay. Okay. Number three. Actually, no, we're going to with this. There's no way it's gonna be the same. Oh, great. Three, three. Is the conversation same here? Shit. Holy shit. We're gonna get to the age old question if if this. Oh, yeah. If we have the same top five, I think this would be a first time for any director. The age old question is one I've thought about so many times, and I have litigated this so much, and it was solved for me when it was solved for me, a few years ago. But go ahead. What's your number two? All right. I'm going to say this. I do have a number one and a number two, but I've always stood by the stance of whichever one I'm watching currently, that one, because the better I do have a special place in my heart for the number one spot. I really, when I first saw it for the very first time, I just got it like I got everything that, like everyone would say about this movie and I really appreciate it. So that's the reason number one. So but you know, obviously my number two, is the Godfather part two. Same here. We have the exact same time top five. Wow. Jack number one. Fuck yeah. Big Jack, baby. Big Jack, big Jack. Yeah. Godfather two. It two. Godfather one. Yeah, it's. It was solve for me when they put that in the theater. And I guess that was lost in 2022 at this point because it would have been 50 years. Make sense. And I went twice in the same week. And The Godfather is a movie. I've seen it a lot, but it was going back to back in the theater, realizing that every single strand that is mentioned in the beginning or ever in the movie is closed. Every single thing that is open is closed by the end of the movie. And it is such a satisfyingly perfect screenplay, I you just can't believe that he did it. You can't believe he pulled it off knowing that Paramount wanted to fire him, wanted to fire Pacino. They hated the Brando casting. He had everything working against him constantly and pulled out a definitive movie of American cinema. It's like this in Citizen Kane. It's that good. It really that good. They've really nothing like you can say about it. And The Godfather two is great as well. It's very, very it's. But it's just great. Yeah, man. It you really can't beat these two. I think it's the one thing though, I, I do encounter some people nowadays that watch it because they feel that obligation. They're like, oh I hear this is like one of the greatest things. And it seems to be a letdown for them. Yeah, that's because there's because The Godfather is not it's not even Goodfellas in terms of action. No. So you are ready for some shoot them up saying, yeah, The Godfather is a family drama. Like it is not. It is its primary. Primary concern is not violence. It's deception. I mean, that dude. Turn it. Can you could you put in a good word for me? Oh my God, I just yeah, it's it's great. And just knowing that, you know, his mom Coppola's mom is on set making all the food like it's it's crazy. Yeah. And a family affair. And him going, I'm going to. I mean, maybe more than even not more than The Godfather and Godfather two. But the Coppola dynasty started with him, and we're still singing it's praises. Sofia Coppola is still one of our favorite filmmakers. Like Gia, Coppola has a movie coming out this year starring Pamela Anderson that is getting great reviews out of festivals. I'm really excited to see it. Jason Schwartzman always has movies. Talia, Talia Shire We talked about huge, huge family. That kind of starts with The Godfather. I mean, not Nicolas Cage. Jesus. I was going to say there's just so many, like, there's just so many. And yeah, it it's it's great to know that it really was a family affair, that he really had to trust himself. And you know, Al Ruddy, the people, a lot of people responsible for making the movie, they needed an Italian guy to make this and that all comes through. But yeah. Godfather, Godfather two conversation, Apocalypse Now, those are all released in the same decade. Those were four movies in a row from him. Yeah, that's madness. That is crazy freak unlike anyone has done in film. And God bless him, I haven't. Hackman. Oh no. No. Favorite Dogman. Well, I was going to say, yeah, I don't I don't think there will ever be a streak like that like that, but I don't think so either. That's The Undertaker at WrestleMania. It's based. There he goes. All nominated for Best Picture. Two of them win Best Picture. Wild. Just really wild. Good stuff. Hackman not nominated for the conversation. Extremely tough year Oscar wise. This was the famed Art Carney win beating Nicholson. Pacino yeah, tough, tough win. He should have been nominated. I would have nominated him over Art Carney, but it just strange that he wasn't nominated. But he had won three years earlier, which probably was why he'd won for The French Connection. But all right, top five Hackman I don't it'd be tough. I don't know if we'll be aligned here. He has a lot. No, I don't think he retired. But because one thing I didn't see this this this connecting movie that you're talking about the the with the connecting movie. Yes. So please remember that Nick Diesel's list of his top five Gene Hackman films will not include The French Connection, which for some unknown forsaken reason, he has not seen. It's like an hour and 35 minutes. Hour 30. I mean, I am a in a freak endless universe. I you not. You saw cruise. I saw one for. Oh, yeah, that's true. I did see the cruising. You seen more than one. You've seen Killer Joe. I believe you've seen bug. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, anyways, you're going to love my number five pick, because that means it's not mine. Because mine's pretty true. No, yours, yours, yours will not be on here. And I will say it probably this pick would not be on here if I had seen the the British New Wave connection movie that you're talking about. Price. And it's not even because of his performance. Because his performance is not exactly what makes this movie great. What makes this movie great is that this movie is fucking great. I'm talking about 2000, The Replacements. Oh, yeah, I fucking love this movie. We're not talking about our favorite movies. He's in. It's fake. Doesn't matter. Performances. Listen, I'm never going to talk about this movie ever again on this podcast, all right? And if I've got one spot to put this in, then it's going in my top five hack. My favorite piece of trivia is that Keanu Reeves gave up a lot of his salary so that it could be moved to Hackman so that Hackman could be cast. I love that I don't think he was very pleasant when he was making the film. But no, that's true of a lot of Hackman, but it's a good performance. I like this movie. I think this movie is hilarious. I fucking love this movie with all my heart. It is, it is, it is a comfort movie. It is. I could put this thing on any time and I will be happy. It's so good. All right. My number five slightly more refined choice Hoosiers, which he's created. He both plays a coach. He's a coach. And both of them he is. He is. Have you seen that one? I did see that one. Oh, God, I love that movie. He is. Yeah. He's a coach okay okay. So we have a little in common. Yeah. Played a hell of a coach. Hell of is number four. Number four. Unforgiven. Same here. Cool. Yeah. Cool. He's really good in this. I don't know if he should. You know what? Let me do the. Let me do the old names here for you. Hold on. You don't know? I was, I I'll try to get them. I'll bring it up and I'll scroll down without looking. All right. So without looking, literally close my eyes. He wins. For Unforgiven, we have Pacino for Glengarry Glen Ross. Incredible performance. We have David Palmer for Mr. Saturday Night, which is a movie directed by Billy Crystal that no one talks about. We have. Oh, it's kind of a spoiler alert, but the, man from The Crying Game was nominated in this category. And if you've seen that. And, listen, let me look. Jesus Christ, you fucking idiot. Nicholson a few good men. What's J. Davidson from The Crying Game? So which is a really iconic performance, but Nicholson, Pacino, you know what they do? They give it to fucking Pacino, Glengarry Glen Ross, and then they do not give him actor the same year. And they give it to Denzel Washington for Malcolm X. That's what they should have done. But no, it's it's a good win. Little Bill Daggett. Unforgiven. It's a good win. He gets choked up and is in both of his Oscar speeches. You wouldn't expect Hackman to do that, but he does. He gets choked up. It's that he gets choked up in his French Connection speech. He only thinks like three people, one of which is one of which is Roy Scheider. And he gets a little choked up kind of saying, like Roy. And then he dedicates his Unforgiven Oscar to his uncle, who had just passed away and gets, choked up, mention that I have Oscar speeches memorized because it's just my, tortured brain. But, I mean, he beat Nicholson and a few good men. That's that's huge. That's crazy. Love it. No good. That's our shared number four. Great film. Number three from you. Number three, The Royal Tenenbaums. Same here. Well, yes, we're guys. We're going in French Connection. This would have been even a I fucking guarantee it would have been number two the birdcage. Good pic minus the French connection but good pic, good pic. I love him in the bird cage playing just that. Like total hard ass. You know, it's Diane Wiese with the wife. So good. And then by the end, putting on the clothes is, brilliant. I think it's like, well, I mean, The Royal Tenenbaums is so over the top, but I think in so many ways The Birdcage is actually very unhinged performance from him, just because he is supposed to be that senator. But everything he says is so outrageous and he keeps it in the perfect tone where it's I think it's a great but I think it's a perfect movie. But, that sets a great performance from him. Good call for number two. I love that my number two, The French Connection, Popeye Doyle, names like Your Toes and Poughkeepsie. His name in the movie is Popeye. Popeye Doyle. It's a nickname, but, yeah, he's great. Jimmy. Jimmy. Popeye Doyle. Nuts. Number one. Well, we're having a conversation about. I didn't know this is going to be your favorite. This is my favorite Gene Hackman performance. It is not as loud as Popeye Doyle or Royal Tenenbaum. Certainly not as menacing as Unforgiven or The Replacements or the. He's that menacing of the Replacements. He's everything in The Replacements, everything you could want someone to be as him. My god. But yes, Harry Cole is my favorite. Hackman performance has been for a while. Some honorable mentions for me. Scarecrow I love Scarecrow Night Moves, the Firm. I really like him in the firm. Love him. Screaming his head off at Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide. Love him swinging Mamet's dialog and heist, which was one of his last movies with The Royal Tenenbaums. I mean, God, Bonnie. When he retired, I was like, Bonnie and Clyde, of course. Yeah, I mean, there's so many Cheez-Its. There's so many. When he retired, like, I got it. But it was a bummer. We're just talking about the big ones. Oh, I mean, Mississippi Burning. He's great and all fine. Like, I will specifically, seek stuff out that he's in. Like, I found one called the Package, which is a really good movie by Andrew Davis, who did The fugitive is in the package also. Oh, yeah, Lee Jones. It was fun. It was just a fun movie made in 1989. It was like on Prime one day I just put it on. But yeah, he's, I mean, enemy of the state did make our list, and I think he's great. That movie. I really do think he's so good that. Yeah, it did not do a lot of TV, if any. He was a film actor. He a Get Shorty Cheez-Its. Yeah. He was a tough guy to work with because he took his job seriously and demanded a lot. I think of a lot of people, but, you know, whatever, what's on the screen counts. And he is he's just an all timer. He'll always be an all time or two Oscars best actor for for French Connection, supporting actor for Unforgiven. Great stuff, great career. Love him. And he's one of those people who looks exactly like their name. He really does. Gene Jean Hackman looks exactly like just like that. We didn't even say Lex Luthor. I mean, yeah, he's an iconic performer. Certainly. I always loved his voice, too. He has such a distinct voice that's in there. Yeah. I mean, right from Bonnie and Clyde, he's in there. I mean, he was a marine. This dude was hardcore like he was. He was a hard core dude. Great conversation about the conversation. We're going to move on. A guy who can't let it go, can't let go. We're very excited for Megalopolis. We're going to see it in Imax together. You, me, friend of the pod Dan, does he have to come? I mean, it doesn't. That's on you. If you want to break the news to him, you can. I said I was buying three tickets. If you want to break the news and say stay home, it's good. Yes. Very excited to see it. So, I mean, he cast it all in. He cast in the wine, the wineries. He cashed in a lot to make this movie. Knowing that this is very likely going to be his last movie. Maybe a little sneak another, like, small one in there, I don't know, but it's got a lot of people, a lot of people, a lot of actors who are quote unquote canceled. He did that on purpose. You know, I love Jon Voight. It's Coppola, baby. I'm here for Coppola. It's been a lot of press around it, some not good. But I think all press is good press for this movie specifically, and I'm here for it. And I can't wait to see it. Are you, like, excited for it? I don't really know what it's about and it's going to stay that way. I don't want to know what it's about. And I'm just I couldn't be happier. Will it be good? No clue. I am excited, I, but I also don't, I have zero expectations. Same here. I don't have much expectation other than I want it to just be like an enjoyable film going experience. I think it will be more. I think there's going to be a little bit more to it than something like horizon, and I'm only bringing up the horizon because Kevin Costner kind of did the same thing, cashed in a lot, quit a an extremely lucrative job being the star of Yellowstone to make four of these movies and I didn't like that first one at all. The second one just premiered at Venice, and the reviews are it's just a little bit better than the first one. And I'm going, that is not a selling point, and it's not a selling point at all. I will wait for streaming. I there's just no way he's going to be able to release all four of those in the theater. I think they'll all come out on HBO or something. Whatever, I don't know, very excited for Megalopolis. I can't wait to see it. We'll move to what are you watching? And if you don't mention something, I'm going to ask you about it, but we'll see what you have. Well, I'm going to mention a gene Hackman movie. That's what I was going to ask you about, one that I recommended to you very recently. I believe you did, Do it. I'm so mad. What a surprise to wake up. And you sent me. We. Nick and I will occasionally send each other, like the marquee of the movie we're going to see, you know, the posters, like, outside of the theater. But we'll take a picture. This was very unexpected. I know we had just talked about it, but sent me a picture there that you went to see it, and I'm like, fuck, I hope you liked it. What'd you see? I saw, Gena Rowlands. Yes. In a non John Cassavetes movie. Yes. A Woody Allen movie called Another Woman. I am historically not really a Woody Allen fan. I mean, I've been on the pod, and I've mentioned that Midnight in Paris is, I love that movie with all my heart. So that is the outlier for most of his work. But I, I, I'm hit and miss and there's more misses than hits, but secretly, I'm not the biggest fan of his when he has male characters, whether that he's playing or others that live on that very kind of frantic, where they're playing Woody Allen, it's either a lot of his movies. If Woody Allen isn't, if he's the star, he's playing Woody Allen. If he's not the star, he usually has a stand in. That can be any number of men playing Woody Allen, Timothy Shalom, he did it exactly. And so I never really vibe with those stories. But, there are a few that like any, you know, Blue Jasmine was one that I liked a lot. Yeah. There's no Woody Allen in that. That. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, no one like, with that character, per se. And, but this was something I did not expect. I did not expect this kind of movie. I didn't know what I was going to get at all. It was just a very I mean, it's got this drabness to it in every set, in every costume, the ugliest browns that you'll ever see. And it's all shot by Sven Nykvist, our, beloved Ingmar Bergman cinematographer. Absolutely. And it looks just like it. Oh my God, yeah. Feels like an Ingmar Bergman movie. And the, the places that it goes. And, like, the way that it covers time in both dream and reality. They don't make a big deal as to what is what. But you get it as it's happening. They play with a lot of different theatrical types of ways to go about revealing elements of this person's life and what others say. I just really, I fell in love with every single scene. I couldn't say enough good things about I can't stop thinking about it. It is officially my second favorite Woody Allen movie. Again, I didn't build it up very much. So that's it's not necessarily saying a lot, but I think it's saying a lot. Yeah, yeah, it's been my honestly. So we did bring this up on the Remember Remembering Gena Rowlands episode. And I kind of sold this one to you saying no one's taught no one talks about it, no one's heard of it. 77 minutes long. It is a heavily dramatic Woody Allen movie. There's no Woody Allen ness to it. Genesis star Mia Farrow, Ian Holm, Gene Hackman's in there. Blythe Danner for a long time it was my favorite Woody Allen. And, I said, I would say this is my favorite. I would tell it to people and they're like, what the hell is that? Like, what are you talking about? And some of his movies haven't held up well because of him and because of things that I don't know, whatever the hell you want to believe about him, a lot. You know, Manhattan, which is a really well-made movie, and I like that movie. Some of the themes that movie have not held held up well at all. But I love another woman. I love things like he did make a few movies in this vein. Interiors is a heavily dramatic, very Bergman esque, almost like it Cries and Whispers type thing. Bergman was his favorite filmmaker. Sawdust memories, a comedy, but it's his Fellini movie. He has Woody Allen ness, but it's not. I don't know, it's not necessarily the same exact type of character that he played all the time. Husbands and wives is, he told everyone involved in it, we're going to throw out all the rules, and there's going to be no shape or formality to this. So there's this jump cuts in the middle of conversations. It's nuts. I love husbands and wives. So yeah, complicated director to talk about I understand, but I, I've seen all of his work and yeah there are there are some really shining stars among his body of work. And then there are just some out now flat is held duds. And, you know, he made a movie a year almost since 1971. You know, bananas on down. It is a movie a year until until trouble catches up with him. But that's a tall order in and of itself. Like Midnight in Paris is made between two very bad movies. By him you will meet a tall, dark, stranger, cool title, and To Rome with Love, which is a really bad movie from him. And he he just doesn't care. He just would like. Once done, you just move on. I have to respect that in some capacity. But yeah, I agree, it's tough. Bergman did that. Yeah, exactly. He that was his favorite filmmaker. And he also followed up that advice of kind of only working with the same group, like having your group of people behind the camera and people in front of the camera. I just learned something brand new about one of his movies said, if I possess this knowledge at one point, I have forgotten it. The purple Rose of Cairo I don't know if you've seen that 1985 cool movie. It's where an actor literally comes out of a movie screen, not unlike Last Action Hero. It's that's just what happens. The original star of it, they shot a lot of the movie with him was Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton is one of my favorite actors. I would love to see that. And then Woody Allen was no stranger to doing this. He recast him and reshot everything with Jeff Daniels in the part, and it really made Jeff Daniels a big star. So he would just do that. He would he he made a movie called September, which he shot with four people and then threw the fucking movie out because he didn't like it and recast and made the movie again. Wow. Yeah. So, you know, weird dude, complicated history, some good movies in there. But I'm so glad you saw another woman, I really am. I would if you are listening to this and you don't like Woody Allen movies because of their Woody Allen, this this movie is perfect for you. He is not in it. There's no rambling, fast talking eccentricities, nothing like that. It's just a good, solid drama. I wanted to stay with cope a little bit, and this is another director. I've seen all of his movies for some hits and misses as well, some huge swings. Do you have any movies in your current life, or this happened in the past where you would try to start them and you just couldn't finish them? A phone call, something came up, you got bored, you fell asleep, whatever. Not saying the movie's necessarily bad, but you just couldn't finish it and you had so many false starts with it. Is that ever happen to you? All the time? Okay, okay. I had one one that was like it was a white whale for me for decades was Bram Stoker's Dracula. I could not finish this thing. I don't know what it was. It came out in 1992. It was on TV a lot when I was a kid, and I just, I couldn't, I, I bought it, I would fall asleep. I don't know what would happen. I would just get kind of taken out of it. I remember I was living in LA and I went, you're going to put on this DVD and you're not going to move for 128 minutes, you're not going to move, you're going to sit here and watch it. And I did, and it's not perfect, but it's a trippy little movie. I like it, I'm recommending it. The main thing I'm recommending is that he hired a visual effects team to do visual effects for it, but he goes, I don't want to use computers. I don't want to use any computer imagery. And they're like, that's not possible. The things that you want cannot be done unless you use computer imagery. And he goes, are you sure? And I said, yes. And he says, you're fired. And he hires his son, Roman Coppola, who's a director, and he's also written some Wes Anderson movies. Now, the part of the Coppola gang he and his friends do all the effects in the movie, practically everything using rear projection, using like effects from the dawn of film. And it looks great. Gary Oldman is a great Dracula. Keanu Reeves it's not some of his best work, but we just got to put that out there. Winona Ryder I actually like her. I her accent work is not that strong, but like Michael Ball, Halle shot this. It's great. So you have seen this I did. Oh yeah. I saw it when I was a kid, like when it came out on video. So that was the last time that I saw it. Honestly, I don't really remember much other than Gary Oldman was awesome and Keanu Reeves was not. Yeah, it's it's just a miscast part. It's like we all love Keanu Reeves. He point break was a year before Bill and Ted had come out. I was in an era when he was popping. Keanu Reeves wasn't wanted to go for something more dramatic. Can't accent work is not his thing. It you know, it was just a little too little too early. Like even Carrie always is in this in a different role. He would have been better doing that. You know, it's it's okay, though. It does not. It certainly doesn't ruin the movie for me, but it is noticeable. And you're like, you know, now you just kind of I don't know, you just shrug a little bit. Not everything could be a I'm not saying it's a perfect movie, but yes, there are things about it. Visually, it looks great. And I mean, it won three Oscars. That's a lot for a Coppola movie. That's it. That's it for the conversation. That's it on our Coppola talk. Until next episode when we review Megalopolis and have we're going in with we're going in with our minds open. That's all 10 p.m. shelling. Hell yeah. Los Angeles Friday night. Well, it's going to be a hell of a time. Let us know what you think of the conversation of Coppola. How about that top five? Coppola. We nailed it. Nailed it at underscore. Podcast, Twitter, Instagram, letterbox. We're out there. But as always, thanks for listening and happy watching. Take. Hey everyone. Thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex withrow.com. Nicholas Dose Telecom is where you can find all of Nick's film work. Send us mailbag questions at What Are You Watching podcast at gmail.com or find us on Twitter, Instagram and Letterboxd at wri w underscore podcast. Next episode is going to come quickly. We have indeed seen Megalopolis. It was, a movie. It was quite a time. We had a lot of fun recording our podcast directly after we invited friend of the pod, Dan on wow, that one. I'm going to release that as soon as possible, so get ready. Stay tuned. Okay. You hear me included. Hey hey hey hey. And we will. Hey hey hey hey.