Blank Check with Griffin & David - Schindler's List with David Ehrlich

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your  pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blackjack with Griffin and David Blackjack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blackjack All around its bits lie the golf Wait, is Nosferatu in the room? How do you do that? Ben, I love- The podcast is life. I do the podcast.

I can't stop doing Nasferatu. It is a problem. Yeah. No, I think that was a very good Ben Kingsley in Schindler's Life. Oh, that was supposed to be Ben Kingsley? Well, who else was it supposed to be? I was, like, debating whether to put the word bits in the quote, because I was, like...

Well, no, because I was, like, look, this might be a more serious episode, no bits, and then within 15 seconds, we're doing Nosferatu again. Yeah, we're going to keep the Becker talk limited to, like, a tight 20 for this episode. I am also a fan of Becker. If we're doing Decade of Dreams, Becker Talk is in the top ten most hated sections of any episode ever that people will not stop bringing up.

But then there's the ten percenters who are like, wish they'd do more Becker Talk. Yeah. I like the Becker run. Come to my castle and watch Becker with me for an entire night. I think they should have talked about the movie less. We could get into all the ways that Count Orlok is coded as Jewish and the legacy of those characters from the history of vampires and abuser. You guys, if you're learning, Count Orlok isn't coded.

In the original Nosferatu, it's pretty plainly painted out. And that only was made as, I'm checking, what's the way to go to Germany? Wait, what's this country? Which decade though? Don't worry, it must have been after the World War II stuff, right? Oh no, way before, cool. Would you mind turning on daylight switch for me? It is the Sabbath.

Cut all of this out. This is a terrible way to introduce... What if Spielberg listened to this episode? Oh, he's definitely bailed by now. He's already ready to start reordering letters. Can you even get to hear me meta-acknowledge him listening? We've done two fucking series on his career, not to mention all the new release episodes, and he was like, I just want to see how they handle Schindler.

Yeah, he's like, that's the way it is guys. They take a lot of swings. Yeah. And I haven't bothered to listen until now. Is this the first time that somebody has been on two episodes about the same filmmaker? Good point. Oh, no, no. Let's go through. Let's go through. But this is a good... This is a good list. This is a good list. Sorry, I'll stop.

Lawson's on both. Lawson did Saving Private Ryan and Always. Right. Fuck that guy. Well, Always is not aired yet. At the time of recording, I think you guys have only gone up through ET. Correct. Erlich has done, now will have done... Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and an inferior film in Schindler's List.

Well, we'll determine its inferiority at the end of this episode. Here's my question though. Has anyone, are those, are you two the only two to have been on both parts? And if so, if not, has anyone done two masterpieces? Cause I think both of you guys have gotten one uncontested masterpiece and one kind of left-handed oddball movie. Is that fair to say? Oh, you mean within this Spielberg series?

Within the two parts of Spielberg. I believe those are the only two Griffin. Wow. I think left-handed oddball is too generous to always and rude to Indiana Jones kingdom. Well, that's what I thought you were gonna say. Do, do, do, do. Hello.

Our energy today is normal. I don't. Look, I'm excited to talk about this wonderful film with you, my friends. I just had a big bowl of noodle soup and a couple of peanut butter cups, which is not two foods that matched up, but that's how it went today for me And here we are introduce the show. Please this is blank strike with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I am David great

We're not we're certainly not Nervous about how to talk about this Sweating bullets for eight months since I was on the treadmill you like I put this across the bear on my shoulders. There was no question you were doing. You and I have had so many... I trust you with speaking to the legacy of all the Jewish people. Because Sims, I was like, how are we going to handle Schindler?

Do we just do that without a guess? And he was like, no, Erlich really wants to do it. Erlich's got a lot to say. Erlich and I have had... Please finish that. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmography. These directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby. Baby. It's a pretty wild, clear. This is... Yes, but obviously one of his more passiony projects. Yeah, but a passion project that makes $96 million domestic, wins many Academy Awards, including finally his only best picture win,

his first best director win. It is the movie that in terms of this half arc we have done, Podracic cast, the early films of Steven Spielberg, this is, we're zoom out, the narrative has been a man trying to figure out how to grow up, right? Of course. And I think that you guys chose a pretty natural point to split the filmography,

but I also don't think... It's possible that in the history of Hollywood filmmaking, there has never been a more distinct inflection point in a filmmaker's career. I agree. Your lovely wife's birthday was last weekend. And I was talking... Can you introduce who he is? David Erlich!

Thank you. Decade of Davids. IndieWire, fighting in the war room, Decade of Davids. David. And we were talking about this exact idea and just saying, like, man, I know why we justified starting where we did seven years ago, but man, has that paid off beautifully for us now. It paid off beautifully because imagine if we had one more episode to go

and it was The Lost World. Like, that doesn't make sense as an end point. And he has the four-year break and he has the Dreamworks. But the inflection point is... What do you think he did in those four years? Jacked it. He set up like a fucking LLC. Like, he was starting a studio. He finally set up that LLC. He called his account. He was like, I think I should set up an LLC.

But I also want to clarify that we were not talking about Shenmue's List just because we were about to record this episode, but that's just always what I'm talking about. You and I have had a lot of drunken conversations about Schindler's List over the years, and that is why I immediately thought of you for this episode. Also, you've been on the show before. It's my go-to subject whenever there's a lull in any conversation, really.

Exactly. It is kind of the Schindler's List of movies, I would say. It's one of them. Look up, I was thinking this while watching it. It is one of those films where it's like used as shorthand almost in a like monolithic way to represent like a larger idea of a type of movie. Not just the film itself, but like the cultural reputation of the movie. Like a prestige sort of gotta see it.

The way people will say like, look, it's no Citizen Kane, it's Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane. Why am I fucking Schindler's Listing every day? The way people will say it's no Citizen Kane or going like, look, they're not trying to make Citizen Kane here. I feel like Schindler's List has a similar kind of shorthand

for like serious well-made movie. But I think that... Deeply serious. It has as much to do with the film's quality as it does with the fact that it's become synonymous with the historical event that it depicts, you know, in a way that it won't get into it, but it's sort of like inextricable now from our visual idea of a portion of World War II, specifically the Holocaust. Throwing out like, come and see is like, no, that's a deeper cut letterbox nerd joke

for a movie that is like purposefully kind of challenging to watch, versus Schindler maybe being the most successful movie that is this difficult ever, like the most mainstream movie that is this challenging and upsetting? I can't begin to reckon with what that list is. Sorry. I mean, I guess I sort of know what you mean.

I'm trying to think of like, well, yeah, what are other mega upsetting films that became somewhat appointment? Bohemian Rhapsody. Yeah, so true. Wicked. Now, wait a second. I know I can't back up that statement, but you get what I'm saying. Yeah, I know what you're saying. Of course. Where it's like you can make the reference of like, look, it's like Schindler's List or whatever, and everyone knows what you're saying.

Which I do think, perhaps, in the last 15 years, has started to become an albatross around this movie's neck. I would actually, I mean, again, we'll get deep into it, but I think we're on an interesting part in the arc of Schindler's I think we're on an interesting part in the arc of Schindler's List's reputation and esteem and place in the culture right now, because I think it was freighted with a lot more baggage immediately after its release and now is, reclaimed as way too strong a word for a movie that already occupies the place that it does in the public imagination, but I think it is easier with distance to appreciate its

virtues. People watch it and they're like, oh, this is fucking good. I feel like it had 15 years of basically being like... Homework. Well, but also just like undeniable kind of like largely uncontested, this is one of the great movies, Spielberg like proved himself, shut down all the haters. I think about... It is one of the great movies. Spielberg proved himself, shut down all the haters. I think about... It is one of the great shut down all the haters movies.

It is. I mean, he created a lot of new haters in the process among the Jewish and telehensia in particular, but he shut down a lot of them. Yes. I think about the original AFI Top 100 list, which I wanna say came out in like 98 or 97, and Schindler made the top 10.

And going over that list with my parents and being like, whoa, they put a movie that recent in the top 10. And my parents, who are noted Spielberg skeptics, were like, yeah, but it's Schindler's list. There was this feeling of this... It's just very interesting to see Griffin's relationship with this movie so far. But that's stuck in my head. Which is basically like, you know, it's the word you use for a serious movie,

and it really crushed the AFI top 100. I'm talking about this immediate canonization, which I then think turned into it being like homework, which then turned into a notion of like, well, like Spielberg doing the Holocaust. Is that thing like... I like how in Griffin's head, Spielberg's relationship to Schindler's List, how it's somehow separate from him is kind of similar to Griffin's relationship to his own lateness.

Oh, wow. We're going right to these. We were talking before you came here. You guys talk. You guys say stuff. I will say the first Oscars I really remember watching is the 94 Oscars for the 93, films of 93. And guys talk, you guys say stuff. I will say the first Oscars I really remember watching is the 94 Oscars for the 93, films of 93. And I remember, you know. You're like seven? Yeah, it would have been almost eight.

And like a lot of those 90s Oscars are defined by movies that sort of sweep. So Schindler, English Patient, right, Titanic, where you're watching a three plus hour ceremony where it's like, okay, time for another award. Schindw's listing and obviously let's keep it going, you know. And I do remember being like what, you know, because it's like, I'm watching the Oscars, people are laughing and dancing and, you know, and then occasionally they'll play like very somber black and white footage and someone will come up and be like, this is a very important

thing. And I'll say to my parents like, so what's this movie? And they're like, eh, we'll get to it later. Look, they're not mad about it, but they're just like, we can't start to explain the Holocaust here right now. Let's add another wrinkle to that too, which is like by 1994, if you're a child, right? And you're interested in movies in any way, not only are you like, oh right, Steven Spielberg,

Jurassic Park guy, ET guy. I guess I sort of knew, I was pretty young. Yeah, I might have right Steven Spielberg Jurassic Park guy ET guy? I guess I sort of knew I was pretty yeah I'm yeah, I might have known who Spielberg was but there are also like four cartoon shows that all have Steven Spielberg presents on them They're like dominating 90s pop culture. This is the Animaniacs guy But no, I don't think that was true for me. Yeah, I don't think I knew about Spielberg the Whatever, but what you're talking about. Pop culture creature. Those shows all had him baked into the top.

I know, I just wasn't watching them yet. Like when is Animaniacs? I think it's like, I think it's like 94. I think it's actually after Simms Blitz. Tiny Toons. But there's a bit in the book that I have in front of me because I always like to bring a prop. I'm also clutching the...

You're clutching the Par ancient symbol of horror and despair. The giant, yeah, pink puppy, it's my comfort animal during this record. But there's a bit in this book by Franceszek Palauski, the making of Schindler's List, which was written before the movie came out, before the author had seen it, where he talks about how some of the young extras couldn't will themselves to be afraid in some of the background scenes because they couldn't imagine a Steven Spielberg movie,

those who are familiar with him, like the guy who made AT. Like how scary could it be? Right, exactly. Sure. And I was like, well, clearly you never saw 1941. But in terms of the... Jeez. In terms of the sweetness of it all though,

I mean, it's so hard to parse Clint Eastwood's delivery when he's giving Spielberg the best director trophy because he says, he's like trying to make a joke about how... First he tries to give it to a chair. Everyone's like, Clint, Clint, Clint. But he's like, oh, big surprise. And he looks at it, but his delivery is so stilted that it sounds out of context like it was a huge surprise,

because Spielberg had never actually won the award before. Big surprise. This fuck. I mean, surely Clint Eastwood was happy for... I've never really thought about, like, what is Clint Eastwood's relationship with Steven Eastwood. Have they ever interacted? When Spielberg... When he wins Best Direct... Best Picture about five minutes later,

he's standing backstage waiting in the wings, and he hands his Best Direct Oscar to Clint Eastwood to hold. And Clint Eastwood just fucking throws it at his head. No, he seems fine. Seems like he smiles. Animaniacs premiered September 1993, so it premiered in between Jurassic and Schindler. It was the new hotness,

and Tiny Toons had actually finished its main run. It's story driven. It's story driven. I'm looking at the Oscars of this year trying to think if there was any movie I had seen that was nominated, because I remember those early Oscar years when The Mask had like a makeup

nom, I would be like, The Mask better fucking win. And then they'd be like, English patient. I'd be like, what is this crap? Children across the world these days, or like this year are going to be thinking the same thing about a better man. I don't think I'd see, you know, I don't think I'd made it to the cinema to see the remains of the day or the fugitive. Had you seen Jurassic in theaters?

So that's in the tag categories. I don't think I saw Jurassic. Did I? I don't, I can't remember. Also fucked up that they had Harrison Ford, star of best picture nominated the fugitive, handing out the best picture award that year. They do that all the time. Do they? A star of a movie? That's why, who is it? There's one year that it kind of does, it's a Shakespeare in love year. They do that all the time. Do they? A star of a movie? They do that all the time.

That's why, who is it? There's one year that it kind of does. It's a Shakespeare in Love year. Because they have Harrison Ford do it again, thinking that Saving Private Ryan is about to win Best Picture. And he goes, Shakespeare in Love. And everyone's like, huh? Like, that was them assuming Spielberg was about to get his second crown.

He takes three red Hulk pills to prevent himself from hulking out. He's grabbing one of the big Oscars, and then he crushes the big Oscar statue with a big red hand. I was late, quote unquote, to seeing Brave New World, to entering the Brave New World. Well, you really wanted it to, you know, to matriculate, to stew in our culture for a week or two. I unclogged it. You really wanted it in the air.

Exactly. You wanted those t in the air. I unclogged it, water breathing. Exactly. You wanted those tannins to mellow. I was astounded that that movie is explicitly about a prescription pill refill. That is what that movie is about. I need my pills, leader. And leader's like, I won't be giving those to you anymore.

In the proud legacy of the born legacy. Right. There truly is a monologue. Be by Kems. Where it's like, Harrison Ford, how did you allow this bad guy to rise to power? And he's like, I needed the pills. They were so good.

He red-hulked me by mistake. I guess no one was under the impression that the fugitive was going to win Best Picture. It seemed like a safe bet. It wasn't like cock up of the father level. The piano was the big second. How many times has Harrison Ford handed out, or that was Best director, right?

No, no, no. He does picture. I'm saying the pianist year he does the pianist year. He is the one who announces Roman Polanski. Oh, is he? Oh, I'm sorry. OK, you're switching. I was switching that. OK, I was trying. Well, I can tell you Harrison Ford has announced best picture three times to Schindler's List,

Shakespeare in Love, and of course, Everything Everywhere All at Once. More words than he said in a row in several on-screen performances. And also Coming to You Everything Everywhere All at Once, me on streaming television. I mean everything, everywhere. All at once. All at once. Give me my bells. Who's done it the most, you ask? Nicholson, eight times.

Do you think they might get him back this year? Post-50th SNL appearance? I look, I'm really happy. It was lovely to see Jack for a moment. Didn't strike me as a guy who's ready to like, say more than a couple of words on camera. What if he came out and announced that the best picture was going to Adam Sandler?

That they were like, oh, there's only... There's only one thing he can say at this point. I hate to, you know, I hope he's doing well. Nicholson announced best picture two, the French connection, Rocky. Wow, starting that early. Yeah, I mean, that's how fucking major he was, I guess. Already. And also he was just always there.

They were like, come up. Hey, you're in the front row. Rocky, Annie Hall. Driving Miss Daisy, which he did with Warren Beatty. Beatty was probably trying to like, say it was do the right thing or something. Like, reading from the back of the envelope. Oh, no, I'm sorry, it was Faye Dunaway who fucked up that thing. Okay. Unforgiven. Then a long, long rest.

Then he comes back to say crash. Crash. And he holds up the two fingers. Yes. And then the next year he did announce The Departed with Diane Keaton. Conflict of interest. How dare he. We're back in this zone.

But he doesn't remember being in The Departed, if you've seen that performance. Then I have no memory of this. He gave it to Argo with Michelle Obama? Was Michelle Obama. Oh, was Michelle Obama like teleconferencing in or something? Yes, he comes out on stage and presents Michelle Obama live surrounded by military vets. I want to act of military. OK, sure. Yeah. No memory of that. The thing about Best Picture is you're really tired by that point.

And the show is kind of rushing it at that point. And usually Best Picture is actually kind of a forgotten award because it's some producer who comes up and is like oh I'm so proud of all the money I spent on that you know like it's not always the director look we're obviously not avoiding talking about Shann Louis List but you pointing out that Nicholson had presented best picture twice already by the 70s pretty crazy what is the last time someone under the age of 50 presented Best Picture? Uh, Rita Moreno's under 50, right?

I just feel like that award is exclusively saved for living legends. Lady Gaga, who is only 38 years old, Lady Gaga, who's almost exactly my age, presented Best Picture to Koda with Liza Minnelli. Okay. If you remember, she was kind of helping Liza. They balanced out to be about 73 on average. But if you want to go so low... Let's go so low.

Because Liza fits into the living legend category. Julia Roberts presented best picture to Green Book, which we all remember so well. She would have been about 50. Like 50-51. So kind of on the cusp there. Sean Penn, we all remember, gave it to Birdman and was like making jokes about him being an immigrant

or whatever, and everyone was like, it's his ribbled sense of humor. Right, he said like, check his green card. Okay. People were like, don't, please. He didn't mean it rudely. They're friends, they love joking like they did on the set of 21 Grams.

Tom Cruise presented to the artist. I remember none of these. Yeah. And he was about 50. Yeah. So it's like, I feel like it's when you hit 50. I think so too. You're sort of like, it's kind of like, all right, you know, welcome.

It's like you're 50 and you've been a movie star for three decades. Congratulations. You're officially part of the tapestry. Denzel gave it to No Country for Old Men right around the age of 50. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Kirk Douglas, when he gave it to Chicago, I remember he was like 22 or 23 years old, right?

He's the one who goes, and the Oscar, like, and the winner is, like, he says the old way of saying, rather than, and the Oscar goes to him. Right, and then he said, Merry Christmas. Yeah, right. Famous Jew, I don't know what that joke is. Yeah, Ehrlich, I feel like you have things to say. I mean, I was just hoping that we'd still have some time for some Becker talk

because I have some thoughts. I've really done a deep dive since the... Okay, go ahead. And here's a promise also, end of this episode, we're ranking every single Steven Spielberg. And we're ranking every season of Becker. I was basically just lost in thought, imagining if on the set of 21 Grams, Alejandro Gonzalez-Nuritu needed a phone call from Adam Sandler or Robin Williams

every night just to cheer him up. Similar to Spielberg on Schindler's List. I think, you know, he was like a soul vampire though. He probably was making 21 grams and being like, this is making me stronger. More misery! Just put the camera point at Claire Duvall for a minute, she's gonna cry. I don't know, I'll fit it into the movie somewhere. It is funny that that is quietly maybe, like,

one of the biggest parts of Schindler's List's lasting legacy. The lore around it of, like, he was editing Jurassic Park. He needed phone calls from Robin Williams to cheer him up. Robin Williams would just do a jazz set over the phone for an hour every night to, yeah, keep him above water. I mean, that's some serious heavy Jew work, like having to get on the phone every night and talk to Steven Spielberg and do a tight five

just to keep him off the brink, you know? But it's also the Spielberg thing where he's like, yeah, I called my friend to kind of cheer myself up. My friend, Robin Williams circa 1993. Like, he's like, I'm friends with the most funny person of the moment or whatever. Okay, can I throw out a big take, and this ties into this, that I had watching it again last night. This feels to me like the kind of movie that fundamentally cannot be made in a world with cell phones anymore.

Wait, wait. Explain. Even that anecdote is pointing to something which is like the level of like immersive concentration around this movie, right? Like not that they were like method living the Holocaust, right? But the way he talks about it, like we were really trying to like evoke something and there is like a disciplined sober focus to the idea of like bringing this thing like back in front of lenses, that I feel like the second anyone is able to like after cut check their cell phone, there is a mood and a tone that is sustained in this film. Yes.

That I think speaks to him being like, I need to call Robin Williams at midnight because I've been living in this for 12 hours without break, versus being like... Look, I'm not accusing Spielberg of being performative at all. I also just think that there is a whole like, how do you do press for a Holocaust movie? Yes. You have to kind of acknowledge whatever like, oh, it's so hard and serious and like, you don't want to be like, oh, we were fucking cutting it up on set.

And I don't want to be disingenuous or, you know, or unkind towards Spielberg, but I do think he's also happily performing the act of making the great film that is going to catapult into a new level of skin. And he really sold how serious and how grown-up he was making this movie, which I think he was! I agree. But I also want to say, like, to Griffin's point, I think it's more... It feels more pressing to me that there would be less of a need

to make this movie in the age of cell phones, because so much of what is galvanizing this production is the act of sort of concentrating, collecting memory and serving as much of an arc in its production. We just had an incredible movie about the Holocaust that kind of felt like it was made without cell phones. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas? No, but I... The Zone of Interest!

Forget there. I'm not saying you can't make a movie about the Holocaust in a world with cell phones. I'm saying that I feel like there is a type of like... And it's less about how much Spielberg was suffering and living in this world, which I do agree he, like, not overstates, but that is part of the narrative behind this film, which he's very good at selling his own,

like, mythology. And the mythology of the movie. The making of Schindler's List this book makes the set sound positively buoyant. So I think a lot of this... It feels like there was a one for all, all for one vibe on this set too, right? Of like, you know, this isn't an ego thing, right? Like there's not really any stars in this movie and Neeson is, you know, a little famous where he finds he's not at all, right? And Ben Kingsley is the biggest...

Which is crazy that he's in the movie in a way, although he had quickly become a character supporting guy. But what you pick up when you're reading about day-to-day life on the set of this movie is that every day, there would be another one of the Schindler-Juden who would come to set. And it would be... These are people... These would be people who may have been thought dead,

or have been off the radar, who were summoned, like like lost to the flame to the production of this movie that sort of reconstituted the collective identity of this people and this group and of what Shinnin was able to do. Joe Joe Rabbit? There's a movie that feels like there's no sort of cell phone influence on set.

Here is what I'm trying to say. I think more than anything is the level of like sustained concentration this movie has that more than anything is like holding on to a feeling without overstating it that feels like it very much makes sense with what you're just saying of like daily reminders of this is what we're doing that is less about Spielberg because that's his job to stay in it and more about like you feel like the entire crew was on the same wavelength, you know? That like the hundreds and thousands of background actors were all on the same wavelength.

In a way that I just like, as someone who now works on shitty modern productions, and you just feel that sense of like, they call cut and everyone goes off and they're like, I gotta check other shit, you know? Yeah, there was definitely a sense of purpose that was very cohesive on set. A Brutalist feels like a movie

where people are checking their cell phones. And I don't say that out of disrespect. All movies feel like that now. Once again, Chris. It's just, I just wish the sets I was on these days were run with the professionalism of shit. Yes. No, I'm not complaining about it.

I'm just like, this is what it is. This is how we all live our fucking lives now. When did you first? The sense of just like shipping so happy though, like we're all just gonna fucking focus on making Schindler's List for seven I'm so happy though. There wasn't like a universal Studios marketing intern who had to come up with tick-tocks from the same torpedo their own life Respect to Reese Feldman the king of tick-tock. He was not sent to Schindler's List. I'm closing the book to get content When did I first see it? I first saw it when I was like 14. Yeah, that makes sense Yeah, and it was in it. You haven't seen Schindler's List. Aren't you supposed to be the movie guy?

Yeah, I think probably was similar for me my friend dog hood It's like the Jewish equivalent of hot fuzz been you ain't seen Schindler's List. Basically. Yes. The five nominees for best director, I'm watching this now, the Oscar clip, are Jim Sheridan, Jane Campion, who I think was only the second woman ever nominated. Correct, after... You know, for the...

Yes. James Ivory. Uh-huh. Robert Altman, who did not bother to show up. Robert Altman. For shortcuts? Yeah, for shortcuts, who never bothered to show up. And Steve Spilans. Shut up for the Gosford year. Yes, he did not bother to show up. For shortcuts? Yeah, for shortcuts, who never bothered to show up. Shut up for the Goss for a year. Yes, he did, and he looked great.

And he hugged Lynchy. I mean, it's... We definitely were feeling that we were doing everything in our power to delay actually confronting this movie and what it is. But I also wanted to preface this episode, at least personally, if only by way of like as a disclaimer for any sort of future glibness that I hope to avoid of talking a little bit about like how I've lived with this film.

And maybe that's true of how, you know, other people on this record have internalized this movie over the years. But like I am the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. My grandfather was two of nine siblings who survived. He left Poland in 1939 as a member of the Polish cavalry on what he described as the last boat out of Poland.

He was going to the World's Fair, which was his only ticket out of there, and the rest of his family, like so many of the characters in Schindler's List, did not believe the severity of the crisis that was coming towards them. So they elected to stay. My grandfather, who ended up owning movie theaters,

and unfortunately I don't have any memory of talking about Schindler's List itself with him, which I'm sure he played. When did he die? He died in, I don't know, early 2000s. After, he lived just long enough to tell me that he was thinking about voting for George W. Bush, which was really difficult. But anyway, people are... He's so fucking complicated.

I mean, it was all about Israel and again, we'll get to it. But he was always the funniest person that I knew. And he would always talk about his memories of growing up in Poland and like of the early years of the Holocaust with, not with like, you know, not as if it were a comic event, but with like a certain levity that he always made it very clear to me that it was important to confront these things honestly and with a hint of, you know, humor, albeit gallows humor,

in order to be able to reckon with them and not make it so sacrosanct that became impenetrable and therefore something that would be allowed to repeat itself. And I don't know. I think that sort of seeped into my relationship with the movie Schindler's List, which I've always talked about, you know, despite what the first 30 minutes of this episode may have sounded like, with a certain, like, casualness.

Um, just because it didn't feel right to hold it in this sacrosanct, rarefied space. It does no favors to the movie itself. I think that's the case with basically all movies, you know? And there are other, serious important movies that have kind of like things like The Godfather are always framed around it's so watchable. Yeah. The Godfather is undeniable despite it being like this like totemic best picture winner and blockbuster and that's uniquely problematic for Schindler's List in a way it isn't for The Godfather. Right, right, but Schindler's List did play in a similar way and part of the accomplishment of this movie

is without belittling its subject matter or the import of the messages trying to communicate the Spielberg X factor is it is so fucking watchable. It is watchable in a way that somehow skirts around being like exploitative in my opinion. Some certain old European filmmakers disagree, but like you watch Color Purple and that's the first strike of him trying to do something like this and it's like he can't stop making it like it's a popcorn movie.

Right, but I also think- And this he's not doing that and yet it's got the Spielberg kind of magic of just like, you're so locked into every scene. I think it's power, it's lasting power, and it's value to me and to the culture at large, and to the memory of the Holocaust lies in how it straddles the difference between those two parts of his self as an artist

and also the parts of his career. But I also had very humble beginnings at the start of this movie and that I watched it on a 13-inch TV with a built-in VCR in the break room at the school where I taught woodshop one summer. There's never been a human being less qualified to do that. So while Timmy was sitting behind me, standing his arm off,

I was locked in the Schindler's List on TV and just watching it over the course of a day. And that was just, I don't know, and when that movie ended, I popped it out and put in like Rambo 2. Right, you're just like, it's a very well-made movie. Yeah. But I've seen it, I've seen it,

I think an unconscionable amount of times since then. I've seen it so many times. It's weirdly a movie that would be on TV. And there's a sort of aspect that I would be like, this almost shouldn't be be on TV. And there's a sort of aspect that we're like, this almost shouldn't be just on TV in between Rambos one and two or whatever. But I would watch like chunks of it all the time. I've seen it so I but the first time I saw it, I had the opposite I was like, I need to know a lot more about that. I was, I guess I knew plenty about the Holocaust in a sort of vague history sense. But when you're watching that, you're just

like, I don't understand. Where was this? Where's everyone else? Why don't people know? Or why do people, you know, like I immediately sought much more context. I'm a context seeking boy. You're saying the context of the actual historical events? Oh yeah.

Well, I mean, that was a big, you know. On Holocaust. There's a big part of the motivation for making it was just the idea that the Holocaust, it was sort of this you know, twinfold thing that was happening where I think among Jews the Holocaust was starting to assume a more central role in the collective identity of the diaspora.

Because for decades there had been, and again, I'm talking sweeping generalizations, a feeling of trying to sort of minimize and move beyond it amongst our people. sweeping generalizations, a feeling of trying to sort of minimize and move beyond it amongst our people. Like the Holocaust survivors in my family, it was like never spoken of. And I do feel like that's a bit of a stereotype. Yeah, I mean, it was part of the idea of founding the nation of Israel and was just sort of like, you know, this idea of trying to move beyond that. And I think its power to be galvanizing for the diaspora was coming into focus at the same time as

a decreasing awareness of the Holocaust on the whole among the Goy population of the world and a rise in people not believing that it happened. I mean, there's a poll that it's something or statistic that I read that something said in the early 90s, something like 22% of people had expressed sentiments doubting that the Holocaust ever happened. It's crazy to me when you get to the end of this film and you have the real survivors appear on camera, right, in this very profound, affecting way, and my immediate thought is,

God, I can't believe how young they all are, right? Sure, right, whereas now it's like there are very few living... How many are still alive? I mean, this is the same thing with, like like how many World War II veterans are still alive. It's a number that's... I remember when like the last World War I veteran died when I was a teenager or whatever. It was like some ancient man. I remember being in like eighth grade in the early 2000s.

About 245,000. Close to a decade after this movie comes out, and at my school they were like, a Holocaust survivor is coming to speak, and everyone from every grade above, third, this is required mandatory, whatever. And it was at that time an old woman who talked about having been a child. That's the thing.

The one Holocaust survivor I know very well is a child. Was a child. Right. She's not currently a child. She's currently a very old woman. But it's like, the fact that Spielberg options this, gets universal option, it spends a decade being too afraid to touch it, says that kind of the inciting thing in the early 90s

was like, I am seeing this level of denialism starting to grow along with a kind of like edge lord neo-Nazi kind of normalization had no idea how bad things were gonna get over the next couple decades. You used those exact words. Weirdly. Yes. That it was like I have a cultural responsibility from my vantage point, my power to get stuff made and communicated, my like megaphone basically, to make something to make this feel vivid and present and understandable to people.

And then to see the survivors at the end of the movie and you're like, these people still have colored hair. You know, a lot of them haven't gone gray yet. This is such a... These people are kind of hot. Hotty brigade. You watch this and you're like, it's crazy how much more recent this history was to feel that disconnect from it versus now. He should have shot the scenes at the end there in Israel, like Coralie Farge shot the substance,

you know, just like really slow motion. I think it is very interesting to watch this movie now as there are like four or five huge tracks of what is happening in the world around us that echo this movie and the events that this film is representing in different ways that are terrifying that feel like going back to this question we have of like, how does this happen? What do you mean? How does this just happen overnight? And this movie is really trying to break down like the steps of understanding psychologically, like through a certain little prism. I think that's what's smart about it. Yeah, this is not a history of...

No, I don't think it's its main goal. And I think through picking one specific story, it does find a way to dramatize in certain ways the gradual shifts of how these things happen. But now what's scary is you're just sort of like, this feels far enough away from our present that people are losing their connection with it in the classic, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it kind of way.

And the fact that it felt so urgent to make Schindler in the 90s is wild to me when it's like, this is still kind of fairly new. Yeah, I mean, I think Spielberg's own trepidation in approaching the subject matter, again, very meditically reflected in our own approach to the start of this episode. Very great job, boys. I think so. Can we just make Jurassic Park quickly before we have to go off and do this? And also, I think, you know, the distance between the 90s and the Holocaust has been

compounded in interesting ways between the distance between the release of Schindler's List and today in a way that we'll talk about, especially in relation when you look at some of the reactions to Schindler's List at the time. And I think also all those things you're saying about it being the right time to make it, it does—and again, I don't mean to be a cynic about it, but I do think he was sort of at a point of his career after Hook, after always, you know, these movies that weren't really connecting. I mean, Hook is the ultimate, it's time to fucking grow up movie. And, you know, whatever, it's charms. And, and while I haven't listened to that episode yet, I have to say, this series, this mini series,

has been revelatory in so many ways. Like, Dan Candyman is from Montreal. That's big. I never, I never would have known. I told him people were gonna like the lore drops and he was pushing back. He said, cut it down. And I said, they need to know he's Canadian

and part of a polycule. One thing Dan Candyman is always saying is, oh, cut that down. You should cut that down. That really blew my mind. Holdek Pfefferberg, I'm cutting off. And we're going to the dossier. Can I say something off of what Ehrlich just said

and then you can crack open the dossier? Talking about this inflection point, a anecdote I found very interesting is that Sid Sheinberg, when he was negotiating to do Schindler and Jurassic, was like, you have to do Jurassic first. I feel like that is also a huge part of Spielberg selling this movie,

is that something I've known my whole life. Like this lore of like, he had to do Jurassic first, because he never could have done it after making Schindler's List. He had to call Robin Williams. He was editing Jurassic Park on like a video. I think it was a lot further along than that. I think he was mostly just doing the mix. He was doing the final stuff. George Lucas was quietly overseeing a lot of the special

effects. Was overseeing some of the mixing. Right, right. All this stuff where you're just like, right, this is all Janusz Kaminski, you know, in my head became, it's like, yeah, there was like a newsboy on the streets of Krakow and Spielberg sort of discovered him, you know, like all this stuff. It'd be funny if George Lucas was like, can I just pitch in on Schindler's on the crack control there and someone else can do Jurassic Park? But I think the subtext of what Schindberg was saying was not just like, look, after Schindler, it's going to be hard for you to mood pivot back to Jurassic.

I think there was this notion of if you pulled this off, it's going to fundamentally change you as a filmmaker in a way where it's gonna be harder for you to ever go back to that. Which I think is kind of- And yet the next movie he made was a Jurassic Park movie. But I do think it was the rationale there. It was as artistically motivated as much as it was, do the thing that's gonna make us a billion dollars first.

I think- Get that done, and then you can go do your fancy black and white little art project. Do the thing that comes out in the summer before the thing that comes out of that old to check? I think part one is if you pull off Schindler, it's gonna change you forever. Two is Please just give us the safety movie before you you cash in the blank check, right? And the third part of it is if you fuck up Schindler, it's really gonna stick to you I think if you if you there was no way he was gonna fuck up this movie.

But there was a possibility, I think Spielberg thought, that it would be a less seen movie. That it was Empire of the Sun? Yeah. That it would be, you know, it's a three-hour drama with a lot of Polish. I do think there are ways... I mean, I do think there are ways he could have fucked this movie up. Well, obviously, he could have fucked it up, like, in my opinion.

But I don't think people would have been like, "'F, what a stinker!' I think if he fucked it up, though, it would have been, I don't think people would have been like, -"F, what a stinker!" I think if he fucked it up, though, it would have been, like, conclusively, he is not a grown-up film. Is he ego? He can't handle it. I mean, I admire him for having the chutzpah to make this movie,

to take on so transparently the weight of what this project entailed. And, but the ego required to be like, I can do this, I'm going to do this. It's extraordinary. And I think that if the movie had disappointed the people that it was meant to represent, you know, en masse, it would have been a really difficult blowfrag.

I agree. Who had already made Empire of the Sun? Which people didn't like. I don't know if that's quite the same. Empire of the Sun got good reviews, made okay money, got some Oscar nods. Empire of the Sun did okay. If Schindler had gone over the way Empire of the Sun did,

I think it would have been. It would have been a big blow to him. If Empire of the Sun did okay. If Schindler had gone over the way Empire of the Sun did, I think it would have been... If Empire of the Sun had been a disaster, he could have gone home for the holidays without having to like hide in the closet. I think that... Guys, guys, guys. We're getting into a very similar argument here. I'm just trying to say like,

he had made grown-up movies, they had gone over okay. Like it's not like he'd never made a grown-up movie before. I'm just worried we're narrativizing this a little too much. I'm gonna stand by this. I think if Schindler had gone over the exact same way as Empire of the Sun, the response would have been, okay, for every five blockbusters you deliver us,

you can make one of these. Versus this being the time where it's like- We need a Schindler's List every six months from now on. Anything Spielberg makes becomes this important, whether it's like... We need a Schindler's List every six months from now on. Anything Spielberg makes becomes this important, whether it's a dinosaur movie or a Holocaust drama. Sure. I mean, there's nothing like what happens after you make Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in the same year. Correct. It's one of one.

No one will ever do anything like that again, probably. I mean, have you guys gone deep on his predilection for making two movies a year? We've talked about it so much, but mostly on the other mini-series, because he kept doing it more and more. It feels like this rhythm that must work for him. I mean, for whatever reason, he's done it four times. Obviously it's over now.

Now we slow down. But yeah, I think it's a tonal balance thing. And it's a... And it worked, so why not try it again? Right, like it worked here, so why not do, well, I'm a stud in Lost World, that didn't work out perfect, but then Catch Me If You like, why not do, well, Amistad in Lost World? That didn't work out perfect. But then Catch Me If You Can Minority Report, that works out pretty good.

I mean, the ending of the Making of Schindler's List book is just like, and it's just been announced, he's about to make Amistad and it's going to be Schindler's List all over again. And they were just like, waiting for the next great American epic. Munich and War of the Worlds, you know, sort of like a, I'll be a single version of it working out. And then Ten Ten and War Horse. Which is sort of like a, okay. He just did it five times. I think part of it is, in the same way

that the making of this movie is Spielberg being like, I need to tie my arms behind my back a little bit to like limit myself and challenge myself and like put some restrictions on my filmmaking language and all of that the way Soderbergh talks about like the compression of of time of crew of Soderbergh wants is right like faster faster faster but part of that is he's like in order to stay sharp I have to make this challenging for myself. I have to put restrictions on it, because both Spielberg and Soderbergh, I think,

are so fast in their kind of brain processing of these things, that I think for Spielberg, it helps him to be like, I need the challenge of the other movie to feed in. Yeah, sure. I'm so happy Soderbergh didn't make Schindler's List. Would have edited it on the train ride home, and it would have just been musty colored frames of... It all actually just takes place in like an office, like one office room.

But I do think it is a self-challenge, right? It's like sort of like this feeds... For Spielberg, say one movie ends up informing the other movie in a way I'm surprised by. Yeah, I mean, he was working in a radically different way than he'd ever worked before. I mean, he was working with, first of all, with the predominantly Polish crew. I mean, this is the first movie with Janusz Kaczynski. There's the storyboarding. There's storyboarding.

Handheld camera, which he's often carrying himself. And he's like literally... He's got his biggest dick to star ever. Oh, yeah. Evian bottle. I think he's having to deal with that. The kind of Doug Maddock, like, I'm not allowed to use steady cam. I'm not storyboarding.

Like all these things where he's just like, I'm banning pieces of equipment. I'm banning the approach of how I conceive of scenes Griffin David, can I read you guys a poem? What's going on? title my cat pig, okay, my cat pig elegant good Deserves the world. Okay. We all agree. So why am I bringing up my cat pig? Apart from that you love your cat pig.

Bring her up a lot. We just started recently using pretty litter at our home. Okay. Tell me all about it. I don't know if you guys have ever noticed if you go over someone's house who has a cat. Yeah. And they've got that litter box stink. Yeah, sure.

It can be a little, I know I try not to judge, but it can be a little gross. There's just something about that odor that can just really ruin your day. Agreed. You know? Hard agree. Spring is in the air, but you know what's not part of the air of my house?

Litter box stink. That's because we use pretty litter. The odor is nothing but wonderful scents of spring. It smells like flowers in there. It's got a non-clumping formula that traps odor and moisture, it's ultra-absorbent, it's lightweight, low-dust, and one six-pound bag works for up to a month. Don't tell Eddie Murphy.

No clumps? And Pretty Litter gives me a peace of mind. It changes color to indicate early signs of potential illnesses in my cat, like urinary tract infections, kidney issues, and more. That's huge for me, because I want to be able to monitor pigs' health. Yeah, and you might've won back Eddie Murphy now that you've outlined some of the other pros

of the product. Just the anti-clumps dance is hard for him. Now, since Pretty Litter ships free right to my door, I never run out. I don't have a huge kitty litter bag taking up space in my small New York City apartment. And that was the facts. Hercules.

I don't have to go out in the cold and lug those huge tubs from a store to my car. Yeah, that actually does seem like a big winner. I mean, that all sounds very annoying to me. I've never had a cat. I mean, that process, what you just outlined, I don't bloody love the sound of that. My past experiences using other kitty litter, the scents were always really artificial smelling and were really ineffective.

Making the switch to pretty litter has been a huge upgrade. And again, pig deserves the world. So for anyone out there who might be interested in trying this product out, Pretty Litter helps keep my house smelling fresh and clean. So try it today. You'll love it. Go to prettylitter.com slash check to save 20%

on your first order and get a free cat toy. That's prettylitter.com slash check to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy. Prettylitter.com slash check. Terms and conditions apply. See site for details. Poldek Pfefferberg. Polish born Jewish managed to survive the Holocaust

thanks to the efforts of Oskar Schindler. Met, well, this is where his story begins. He emigrates to the United States in 1948, becomes temporarily changed his name to Leopold Page, starts a leather goods store in Beverly Hills, continues to know Oscar Schindler as people who know about this, probably know Oscar Schindler survived on the goodwill of the Schindler Union later in life when he was a broke.

They were Venmoing him every month. Truly. It was like the Little Caesar were Venmoing him every month. Truly. It was like the little Caesar CEO paying for Rosa Parks' apartment. Yes, exactly. That's real. It sounds like me just making a dumb joke. I was like, did Griffin just tell a joke?

But then I was like, no, that can't be. Turning in the 50s, he's like, someone should make a movie of this. Like this is a good idea for a movie. What happened to me? Like what Oscar Schindler did. I think also was like, how do I repay this man? Yeah, sure.

Perhaps he needs to find like a vehicle to forever pin him in the annals of history. A deal is reached to make a film called To the Last Hour, possibly starring Sean Connery as Oscar Schindler at MGM written by Howard Koch, the writer of Casablanca, one of the writers. And it almost happened since even like Schindler got a check for 37 grand, like, you know, to sort of get the rights or something dies, you know, doesn't make it. At one point Pfefferberg approaches Fritz Lang,

who must've been quite old at that point, to try and get something off the ground. He goes over to, like, you know, MCA of Germany. He's like, maybe I can make it in Europe. Like, doesn't happen. He dies at the age of 1974. He dies at the age of... Sorry.

...1900 and... He dies at the age of 66 in 1974. Makes slightly more sense. But a few years later, Thomas Kennelly, Ken-ah-lee, Australian journalist, Kennealy, walks into his leather goods store after he's died and... After Schindler has died and Pfefferberg is telling everyone who comes in...

David's looking at the dossier like... Oh, okay, I misread this. I misread this. Schindler's dead, Pfefferberg's alive. Schindler is the one who died in the 1980s. Correct. I was like, what? Sorry, I misread this. He's the disembodied spirit running a store in Hollywood.

In 1980, Thomas Keneally walks into this other good store, and Pfefferberg tells him the story. Like, I was saved by this Nazi called Oscar Schindler. I mean, you get the sense that anytime anyone came into the store, it was even like tangentially related to Hollywood. He was like, sit the fuck down. I'm about to tell you my life story for an hour where I slice up your feet. He knew at this point how to put some, you know, spin on the ball, right? Where he's like, you don't get it.

It's not just that this guy was a Nazi. It's not just that he was this kind of like good looking, charming guy. He was like fucking his way through Germany. He was carousing and drinking. He's like a lush and a party animal. He's this interesting guy. With cheap labor. Right, he starts out with this kind of amoral,

sort of like, hey sure, you know. Not to be crass. It is like a perfect Hollywood hook to making a Holocaust movie. Of course it is. Which is just like, Guy slowly gains a conscience in the Holocaust and does a great mitzvah. Um, and Keneally initially is like, look, I'm a Catholic, I'm no expert on the Holocaust,

like, I don't know if I should write this book, but he can't drop the idea. Uh, so he writes Schindler's Ark, which, have you read it? I have not. It's, it's... I've never had any desire to, weirdly. It's good. It's, it's a novel. It's like a sort of like, you know, a historical novel, right? So it's. I've never had any desire to, weirdly. It's good. It's a novel. It's like a sort of like,

you know, a historical novel, right? So it's sort of written in this way that has, you know, he's using documents, but he's also sort of filling in gaps with kind of, and it's good. And it's about, you know, the paradox of this man, right? Like, you know, it's about this person,

more than anything, it wins the Booker Prize. Spielberg sees the book, had never heard the story before, and is very interesting, and so very interested. So Universal buys the rights in 1982. And his first response is, is this real? Like, he's just kind of like- Yeah, it sounds fake, it sounds Hollywood. This feels like Hollywood bullshit.

If this is real, it's incredible. Yeah. So Spielberg, of course, as we all know from watching that movie, Grew Up Jewish. The movie you're talking about is Jurassic Park. Babe Woman's.

And new Holocaust survivors when he was three years old, his parent, he has a story about like someone coming to the, you know, to family dinner and telling stories, his grandmother and, you know, whatever. Like he has a vivid memory of someone like rolling up their sleeve to show the tattoo to him with dinner and telling stories, his grandmother, whatever.

He has a vivid memory of someone rolling up their sleeve to show the tattoo to him with the numbers. But nonetheless, kind of like you were saying, or generally it's sort of like, that's not dinner table conversation. We don't talk about Nazis in this house, right? We don't dwell on it too much. We're happy.

Shel Williams is playing the piano and buying monkeys. Dano's getting cucked all over town. I mean, like, three-fourths. Just kind of move states to avoid getting cucked. Three-fourths of my family are Eastern European Jews who immigrated to New York State before the Holocaust. Yeah, in like the early 1900s, probably. Right. That's when my family mostly immigrated to New York State before the Holocaust. Yeah, in like the early 1900s, probably. Right. That's when my family mostly immigrated.

Yes, right. All of my grandparents were first generation, but were born here. After the programs. Right. And it did, I feel like whenever any of them would invoke this era, it was like obviously a great tragedy thing,

but it did feel like there was this feeling of, we don't even wanna touch that. Like this is too profound and serious, and we're lucky that none of us had to live through that. And there was the kind of like general Holocaust museum like nod seriously, of course a great tragedy kind of thing. I think it must also start to seem unreal at a certain point.

I think so. When you're like living in America, you're making a life for yourself here. Yes, because you're here in America. Things are okay. And it's like this dream that happened to someone else. It is very bizarre for me to think about like my grandparents being like children and teenagers and whatever and just hearing that this was happening. And I think, right, you like needed to apply a certain degree of cognitive dissonance to

not go insane, especially when you're like a powerless American child. But this is the one thing I wanted to understand when I start learning more, like where I was just like, when did people know in America say, right? You know, like they didn't know during the war, they knew the war was happening, right? But like they didn't really know the extent of this until after the war.

And then how quickly, obviously the Nuremberg trial start to have, you know, like how quickly does this start to come out? Like is this information widespread? You know, I was just fascinated by the development of all that. I mean, you can see that chronology take place on screen over the decades. I mean, it's... It's one of the things that's so interesting about Holocaust cinema.

I mean, it starts, I mean, it starts, I'm not saying this is the first Holocaust movie, but like, I think in terms of just the weight and the gravity of what's happened and sharing that raw imagery, I mean, you think of Alain René's Night in Fog. And that's right in the middle. I mean, it's pretty soon after World War II. Obviously, you know, in historical terms, we think of soon to be like instant information.

It's a decade later. That's what's hard to think about now, that you had to wait years to really start to get the gravity. But we started getting Holocaust movies in a relatively modern sense, not long thereafter, and great ones, but we'll talk about in terms of Schindler's List,

like none of the ones, none of them had really penetrated mass culture in a way that any of Spielberg's movies ever had. I mean, like, you know, I could wax poetic all day long about Lena Vertmuller's Seven Beauties, or about The Boxer in Death or about Kapo. And these are great films that have had a lasting impression on me, but only because I sought them out. Yeah, The Boxer in Death is a Slovak film.

I don't think that one was burned in the box office. It was screened to me in the Holocaust cinema I took with Annette Insdorf in college. And not something that someone was just going to catch casually on TNT. No, and then there's movies, but there's movies like The Pawn Broker or whatever, where it's like, this is about a Holocaust survivor. It's about the legacy of this, but it's not about like the history of what happens. Right. Great movie. Right. There are a lot of movies about the kind of the ripple effects in the aftermath.

And yeah, right. Sort of psychological studies. Universal buys Schindler's Ark. But literally Spielberg says to Feffenberg apparently, it's gonna take me about 10 years to make this list. Like he basically knows even then. And he tried to shop it the whole while. That's the thing. He kept it as he says.

For someone, right. For someone, right. For 10 years he was a critic. We're gonna talk about that. Because he says, I needed more films to make more films. I wasn't about to go from Temple of Doom to Schindler's List. It would have been impossible. Right. In my burning desire to entertain, I kept pushing it back.

He hadn't had children yet. Talks a lot about how having children kind of changed everything for him. It is hard to imagine. He was like, make those guns flashlights. It is hard to imagine someone making this movie before they have children. In a way. I mean, it's an unfair I think I care I could say but you think you could just you're like Ben getting the simple plan money You're like I could make shit. There's less the camera over there

I could roll out of bed kidless and make this move. I haven't seen a simple plan in a while Does one of the characters decide to spend all their money on making a Holocaust movie? I Know I I agree with you that this feels like a fundamental, you are not the most important person in the world kind of movie, in a way that Spielberg wasn't always making autobiographical films, but they always felt very tied to his kind of experience and world outlook. If that makes sense? I mean, I think, and what you're seeing in this movie is him, and I don't know if the right moment to go like too big picture,

but you're seeing the defining interest of his films philosophically go from being about the family, being, you know, stemming from divorce and things of that nature to in the process of this movie, and literally you can see it in the span of a single scene, becoming about the value of a single human life, which becomes the, you know, defining theme of his career. You see it obviously front and center in Saving Private Ryan, then again in AI, and of course in the BFG.

So I think that these are things that... The value of a single jar of hearts. Vars, vampars. But yeah, I mean, this is him entering a new phase of his existence as a person really beyond, that's just sort of reflected through the art. Spielberg, presumably talking about Hook, LOL, says J.J. Bersch, our researcher.

I was seduced by my own success. I'd always played to the adult audience who were able to remember their childhood and enjoy the movies, along with their own children. But when I began playing to kids directly, I found I stumbled on my own shoelaces. I realized when you're making movies, you can't do things consciously.

It's interesting to hear him say that because Hook is indeed him being like, I'm making like essentially a film for seven-year-olds. And like, sure, he's made ET or whatever, but ET is sort of indefinable magic. But it's like, yeah, he mostly made movies for like everybody, teenagers. That's the hook for the seven-year-old in all of us.

Yeah, sure. Seven-year-olds in all of us are always like, I gotta put my cell phone down and stop working so much. I think it's almost always a problem when filmmakers this talented try to put those kinds of limitations on themselves. Like, not filmmaking challenge limitations, but are like, this is just a movie for kids. And I'm like, well well now you're not playing

Yeah, now you're hurting your own movie. Exactly. Like I mean that's What George Lucas were you he's just like I don't know it's for kids and I'm like this is about Senates and shit like take yourself seriously used to be about everything right and it used to work for kids as well What's your magic the second you're like? Well, if adults don't like this or not take it there they're up their own ass But then again if I made some fucking movie that made a billion dollars and children around the world enjoyed

and adults were like, you're more criminal for making it. I'm talking about like the Phantom Menace. I would be like, well, the warmth of children's love sustains me. I don't need you grownups. We were talking about this a little bit before we started recording,

but there is, you know, I literally just last night sat down with my son and watched the first 30 minutes of Star Wars, A New Hope, which is the fourth film and I don't know if you guys know. I think we never got to that one. We never got to that. He, he...

Is it a Bulba in it? Not a Bulba picture. Is it a Bulba picture? Whenever Bulba's not on screen, Asa's saying, where's Bulba? Bulba and Nosferatu, those voices aren't that far from me. Wait, okay, we did this bit about the record. Wato's the one who's similar.

During Sundance, when I checked my phone between movies and saw that Watto had died, I immediately texted Griffin with horror in my heart and got nothing back. I think Griffin got 400 texts along those lines. This is true. We were in the middle of recording, you will not believe how many texts I got. It was more than my birthday.

But also, I didn't... I went texting you today, do you want coffee for the episode record? Only then realized I hadn't responded to your water text. I mean, I was... Not that you expect something back when you send someone a condolence call, really, but like, I just needed information. I was like, what's happening?

You know, oh, God, that makes... But I... No, what were you gonna say? I was gonna say, I showed... You've been paltry heroes. I showed you the first 30 minutes of Star Wars. We had... I've never in my life fielded more questions about Jawa. I showed this to the first 30 minutes of Star Wars. I've never in my life fielded more questions about Jawa.

I don't think anybody ever has. Or really just the same question over and over and over again, which is, are they bad guys? Which is usually the question I ask. The thing with Jawa is they're in the right of the gray area. And hate, that's one of the first things you meet in Star Wars. It's kind of an example of what a cool movie it is. But Star Wars is, ultimately, one of the reasons it you meet in Star Wars is kind of an example of what a cool movie it is. But Star Wars is, ultimately,

one of the reasons it appeals to children so much is it's this Manichean, Manichean, however you want to pronounce it, story of good versus evil. Of course. Yes, I mean, obviously there's a black-clad sadist who appears before the jobless. I thought Darth Vader made some good points,

but you're what's not mine. But I think that you have that good versus evil thing that kids whose only question at this age is, are they a bad guy, can understand. And that, you know, I'm not saying that I'm showing my five-year-old Schindler's List anytime soon, but I'm saying that, you know, it's an interesting parallel when you're looking at Spielberg maturing

and making a movie for adults. Here he is making the most black and white, you know, morally black and white movie he's ever made is the closest thing to the spirit of Lucas in some ways. Aside from maybe Indiana Jones, do you? Yes, but also building it around like a weirdly gray character in a lot of ways. Quick sidebar, because you guys were starting to get into this before the record, and I was like, we gotta fucking get this out on mic.

At your wife's birthday last weekend, both of you, we were talking, and the question came up, what is the first Spielberg movie we will show our son? Right? You were like, when will he be, because it was like, is he ready for ET? Will ET be the first one we show him? What is the right age for ET? In theory, ET should be the first one, but then you kind of get into like,

do I want to traumatize my child with ET? Your wife was like, I'm imagining his response, we maybe have to wait until he's stronger. And I was like, I think part of the rite of passage of ET is seeing it a little bit before you're ready. It's sort of true. You have to time it out. I'm saying that too early.

He's also just better than any other movie that you could show your kid at that age that has someone dying or getting sick, where it's like they might be upset by that too, but ET really, you know, avoiding the risk for trauma is sort of a futile endeavor because we're talking about a kid who is currently so scared of everything we're watching Wreck-It Ralph and when someone just perked up.

Great movie. What's her face? My daughter calls angry man. What's the name of that actress from Jane Lynch? Oh, Jane Lynch's character shows up. Sergeant Kelsey. Yeah. Asa decided that she was absolutely terrifying. Wait, wait, he didn't even see her shooting bugs? He was out on just the Jane Lynch. Jane Lynch's character shows up. Sergeant Keltham. Yeah, Asa decided that she was absolutely terrifying.

Wait, wait, he didn't even see her shooting bugs? He was out on just the Jane Lynch? Like, dad, you have to pause the movie now! And shrieking at me. And so- You continue to tell me that your son, more than anything, reacts negatively to authority figures in film threatening to discipline characters.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, that would paint a picture for your listenership that- Yeah, I would say that that's very absent from his life. No, that's what's funny is you're like, if a character comes on screen and feels like they might get angry at the kid, your son freaks out, and you're like, when I try to tell my son to do anything, he laughs.

Yeah, maybe the problem is that, like, I've done such a bad job of disciplining my kid that the idea of having any sort of discipline has become this very alien, traumatizing sprint. Asa was at my daughter's birthday. Yes, he was. And he was very well behaved. He was throwing himself from the tops of chairs.

I will send you a video where he is having like a demonic possession over in the side of one of the booths and talking about venom. And I thought he was talking about venom, the cartoon. And I was like, how did you hear about venom? And then it came out to me that he was just talking about like being venomized Asa, which is like Asa but poisonous, which is, I guess, poison spider. I was like, how did you hear about Venom? And then it came out to me, they were just talking about being Venomized Asa, which is like Asa but poisonous. Which is, I guess, poison spider. I was like, okay.

More poison spider-like. Venomize is a big initiative in Marvel Universe. But all the characters are getting Venomized. Who knows what their team, Eric Adams Administration is teaching these kids at school these days. But I do think that, you know, fucking him up with ET is fine.

What was I going to say? The, yeah, Griffin threw a great pick into the mix, which was the Adventures of Tintin. I was like, Tintin's a fucking... Tintin's good, because even though it has, like, guns or whatever, Tintin's pretty, like, the stakes are silly. I also said in the, is that a bad guy kind of fear that Ace is living with? But also with Tintin, you're of fear that they're all bad guys is living with

But also with Tintin you're like you can tell the bad guys are the way their faces Intention looks normal so caricature. What about I mean I get BFG is also obviously pretty yeah I mean, it's that we mean I would watch the door to lose It's a movie for people who want to go but I said I When he was like two and three, we would do... I don't think this is going to translate at all. And I don't know why I'm just going to keep going with it, because there's no mechanism in my mind that can stop these things.

But we would do this game when he was young, where I'd say like, ET, and I'd stick out my finger, and he would stick out his finger touch, and I'd go hook, and I'd hook his little arm with my finger, and I'd go Jurassic Park, and he'd laugh, and I'd claw at his stomach, and then I would always throw in a curveball just to to make myself laugh or I'd be like always and I try like I do something like shoot. No sugar land express.

Dust some sugar on that bad boy. Yeah, I'd be like war horse. Don't show him war horse. Not happening. He'll fall too. He'd want to fuck that horse too then. He's too sexy. NSFW.

But recommended to all the parents. Thomas... I heard for Canele, Caneeley? Caneeley. I'm guessing. Writes the first script. They didn't like it. It was too sprawling. He couldn't figure out how to, you know, whatever. He's a novelist. He's not, you know.

So then Kurt, I'm not sure how you say his last name, Ludeca, who wrote the screenplay for Out of Africa. So obviously a recent Oscar winner. He is a journalist. Anyway, Ludeca, who wrote the screenplay for Out of Africa. So obviously a recent Oscar winner. He is a journalist. Like he makes a lot of sense in a way, even though Out of Africa is boring, but says that interestingly, he couldn't find his way into believing what he was writing.

He was like, as a journalist, like this almost feels surreal. Yes. Like that someone would behave this way. So that's when Spielberg turns to, well, maybe does Sidney Pollack want to do it? Does Brian De Palma want to do it? No. Steve, I love him, but no. Take it back.

Take it back. I mean, there are sequences in the movie that you could easily, you know, straplink to split screen. Yeah. Does Roman Polanski want to do it? Roman Polanski, a literal Holocaust survivor who survived the Krakow ghetto, Krakow, and Polanski, I think, did take the offer somewhat seriously, but... Here's the guy who want to open this box.

Yes, and he makes the pianist years later. Right. If you are a writer being hired by Steven Spielberg to adapt this book and this story and in your mind's eye you're like, and then this will go through Steven Spielberg to adapt this book and this story. And in your mind's eye, you're like, and then this will go through Steven Spielberg's camera. I think it is tough to figure out how to write it because even looking at things like Color Purple and Empire of the Sun and this story feeling so kind of like unbelievable on its face, you're like, how do you prevent this from feeling like a magical fairy tale?

Yeah, you can't get in the mindset of writing a Steven Spielberg movie. Right. How could this fit into his world? Yeah. Now, Scorsese is the person who really did almost make Shinless List. Marty Scorsese, you've heard of this guy?

Mm-hmm. Spielberg thought, like, he's not gonna back down from, like, the truth, the violence, you know, the sort of horror. Playing sympathy for the devil over the scene where Namacarta shows up. Here's a more serious bracing bold filmmaker. I'm going to guess that this was in the late 80s,

when Marty's taking it on, so it's right around when he's doing The Last Temptation of Christ. He's making strides to whatever, like serious. I don't know. Look, he got a lot of blowback on King of Comedy. He got a lot of blowback on Last Temptation of Christ. Spielberg coming to him and being like, here's a project that everything that's challenging about it

is like challenged because of history in a certain way. You could sort of see him like going like, look, it's something being delivered to me, handed on a plate, supported by the best people. Here, I have Scorsese for you. Okay. I'm being Marty. Yeah, he's raising his shoulders.

But shitless list, I hired Steve Zalien. So he- It's like he's in the room. He hires Zalien, which I didn't know. Steve Zalien, who wrote the script. As he says, it's around 1990. So it's right after he did Last Temptation of Christ. And I guess it's probably after he has filmed Goodfellas,

which comes out in 1990, which is a good movie, but a better pizza brand. And- As long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a Nazi. The whole point of the movie to me, he says- We're doing great work here tonight. Was to start a dialogue about something which is still important to me,

which is the nature, the true nature of love, which could be God. This is what Scorsese says. This is Scorsese. It could be Jesus. I'm not being culturally ambivalent here. It's what's in us. He says it could be the force.

No, he doesn't say that. Is God in us? I really am that way. I can't help it. I like to explore that. I want a dialogue on that. So I did last temptation, I did a certain way. And you know, I did the best I could, I went around the world and

the arguments I took them on. But like in the case of Schindler's List, the trauma I had just gone through was such that I felt like I had to take tackle this subject matter, like so seriously, and he's worried that he's a Gentile and he's not like gonna be up for it. Like he mentions that Jewish people have been upset that the writer of the Diary of Van Frank movie, I guess, was a Gentile. I don't know. Like it's, you know, funny, like controversies long past at this point. But it is one of those infamous, historic sliding doors that Spielberg is seriously considering remaking Cape Fear, which is a real like, Steve, come on, you're avoiding. That is, it's so funny, right?

Like you're totally avoiding this at this point. You were still like, should I just like remake some of my favorite movies? Like, cause that's what always is as well. Like it's just like, I'm just gonna remake these movies. I mean, there are rumors that Spielberg has, has said are not true, that he and Scorsese effectively traded.

Correct. Projects. I mean, the part of it that's simplified in a way that is kind of incorrect has said are not true that he and Scorsese effectively traded projects. I mean the part of it that's simplified in a way that is kind of incorrect is people missing the context that Spielberg was the one who hired Scorsese to do Schindler in the first place. I feel like the story kind of gets repeated as if like they were just doing separate things in separate silos and then he called one day and was like what if we Yankee swap? Well, supposedly according to JJ, they did swap. No, of course they swapped. I'm just saying that it was Spielberg being like, I know I offered you this, but I'm kind of thinking I should make it.

And of course, Cape Fear. And as repayment, do you want to do Cape Fear? Which Amblin produces. Amblin produces, becomes Scorsese's first kind of like mainstream hit. Yeah, makes money, obviously. He talks about it being a huge transition in his career to like figuring out how to work within the studio system and all of that.

It's a big, big movie for him. Everyone kind of wins in this scenario. Yes. But I think that the legacy of English language films about the Holocaust, especially American films about the Holocaust, was really working against Spielberg in that it was all the more reason to make the movie, but it was also, you know, part of what made it so daunting. I mean, you have Theodore

Adorno's declaration that poetry is impossible after Auschwitz resonating in your head, and then you're seeing the diary of Anne Frank movie and some other things that are really sort of trivializing or making it to kitch the Holocaust in some ways that are played with commercial interruptions from Hallmark or whatever. And- Anne Frank feels like the main vehicle for telling stories about the Holocaust in American pop culture. For a long, long time. And-

And then you have like Hitler comedies. Like you have like To Be or Not To Be and Great Dictator and these movies that are made like in progress that are sort of like poking fun at the idea of this guy without really understanding what's going on. There's some animated movie about Anne Frank where it was like Anne Frank but modern in a way. It was set in the Anne Frank house and she escapes into the modern world

that played at Cannes a few years ago and I saw and reviewed and has never seen the light of day. What's it called? Something something Anne Frank. Okay. But then the other huge monolith that you have, I think, in recent cultural memory around this time is Shoa as Claude Lansman's film, which is in a way, you know, it definitely

wasn't a sort of last word in testament, you know, about the Holocaust or Shoa, but it was a definitive in a way and also an opportunity for someone like Schindler, or for Spielberg rather, because it doesn't contain a single frame of archival footage. It's all interview testimony. It is like the filmmaking in that is fascinating and alive. And like it is another movie that despite its epic length does not at all feel like homework.

And I highly recommend everyone who has been afraid of it, sit down and watch it, because it is a really fascinating and incredible document. But yeah, I mean, so that's the other sort of thing where it's just like, it's been kitschy, it's also the most totemic and serious version of this has been done.

How do I thread the needle between these two things? Right, right, which is like, there's something tonally he's getting from Showa that is you don't have to make the stately Hollywood kind of like, and Frank is like a very traditional movie. It is like the conventional mechanism for how for decades Hollywood would turn important stories into accessible drama. The 59 film with...

Yes. Yes. You know? And like Showa is sort of like, obviously this eight hour kind of like monolithic art house sensation, kind of like historically important text. But you can see him going like, is there a way to kind of like bridge the gap between these two, have the embracing like specificity and feeling of Showa and put it in a vehicle

that audiences can, like, go and see everywhere. Yeah, and I think that's exactly what Spielberg recognized, to his great credit in my eye, is that part of the value of him making Schindler's List is that people would see it more than anybody else. I think the things that certain people like to ding this movie for are all part of the strategy of What the intended impact of this movie was which you can't really argue with because it fucking worked

And yeah, I mean it's it's hard to think of any other movie aside from maybe Saving Private Ryan That's so definitively created a visual language for a historical event that Is almost dangerous because it becomes so ubiquitous and limiting in that way because people think of the Holocaust as being sort of visually synonymous as one thing. Just like now, you can't think about D-Day or just like the nature of these ground battles in World War II without thinking of how Spielberg transformed them in our visual memory with Saving Private Ryan.

And so like, you can't think about the huge opportunities without thinking about the danger. And so, like, it's a huge opportunity for this movie, but also a danger. And horses, thank you, sorry. Talked over that important point. No, I talked over your important point. Scorsese gives up the project. He says, I guarantee you, it would have been good, but it wouldn't have been the hit it became. Had some ideas, most of it's there, had a very different ending.

I admire the film greatly. You know, I would, I... It's fascinating to consider. It'd be one thing if it was like, oh, yeah, he took the movie back from Turtletop. It's like, Martin Scorsese almost made this. What does that look like? Yeah. We've had so many chances to see the Turtletop,

Schindler's List over the last few... No, but it just like so many Turtletop-like... No, the thing about Turtletop is he's like, I'm gonna remake it now. He's like, even though it... Anyway, no, he's... Steven Zalien Spielberg likes the script because he doesn't tell the story from the survivor's point of view, but from Schindler's.

And as Zalien puts it, I wanted it clear, he didn't do what he did out of friendship. He didn't feel sorry for them. He eventually does it because it's the right thing to do. But Spielberg's like, we do need to, longer, we need to broaden out. We need, you know, like, yes, it should be from his perspective, but we can, you know, leave his perspective to take in what's happening in Krakow and, like, happening in the Holocaust around him.

He would have, like, a sub two-hour script. Right. He was like, I mean, this is another Spielberg thing, of him being like, I can get away with this movie being over three hours long. Don't feel the need to rush this and compress it to a traditional structure. Yeah, this doesn't need to play a Sundance in 2025. Doesn't have to be a tight 82 minutes. Right. At first he resists, they went to Poland together,

they meet with survivors, I think. They talk about like, what do we put in there? Zalien initially had this sort of hard rule of like, no, Schindler has to have been in the room, essentially to have a scene take place in this movie. And Spielberg's like, no. Iindler has to have been in the room, essentially, to have a scene, you know, take place in this movie. And Spielberg's like, no. I think an incredibly smart decision. But Showa comes out of the same soup,

which is just like this feeling, getting back to what we were saying earlier, of these people are still alive. There are people who live through this who are still like young enough and cogent enough that we need to get all of these stories on record and do something with them and preserve them, archive them, because they're gonna start disappearing.

Which is part of the reason why making something like Schindler's List is so dangerous, and I think was greeted by a lot of skepticism among certain critics because it has the potential to malform the collective memory of the Holocaust, in a way that, as we've seen based on the movie's influence, it's a real power that it had to shape our understanding of it. The biggest thing that they have to figure out,

and Spielberg talks a lot about going to Poland, transforming his relationship with his religion, understanding the Holocaust completely differently if you go there. But what they also don't really know is like, what is the motivation behind Schindler's sort of transformation? Because I feel like the survivors are basically just like, well, he did this thing for us. But it's like, but they don't know, like, you know, why? Why did this seemingly fairly amoral businessman suddenly, You know, why? Why did this seemingly fairly amoral businessman suddenly,

not suddenly maybe, but like, you know, fairly quickly start to behave in a different way. But it happened gradually in steps and it always, I think the thing that makes him so interesting as a character is it feels like for the first two thirds, if not three fourths of the movie, he is fighting against the idea of any responsibility. Where every time he does something that helps someone... He's like, it's good business. Well, and then also is just like, never fucking make me do that again. Oh, yeah. That's an aberration.

I think one of the reasons that this movie is a masterpiece is because it does this very controlled sense of winnowing over the course of the movie in a number of different regards where, you know, this inhabitable space that the Jews of Krakow have comes smaller and smaller and smaller in very understandable ways. You feel Schindler's sort of moral compass. This is a mixed metaphor, but like getting smaller as well as the movie goes on. And there is a geometry to how he is reaching this sort of moral epiphany that is reflected in the scope of the movie.

And every time I watch the movie, I'm surprised all over again by how narrow its confines are. Yeah, I also think all those, the huge shifts and the revelations, and part of it is, and it seems like this is just the way the accounts supported the, I'm backing myself into a sentence

I can't construct properly here. It feels like part of what was fascinating about Schindler was there was a certain degree of inscrutability into like what caused these shifts and when and how and what was going on in his mind and these sort of blurry lines of like, as you're saying, the moments where he's like, it's good for business and denying that there's any altruistic motives versus the moments where he does an altruistic thing and then feels angry about it, that the moments of big psychological shifts and catharsis are like in between the scenes of this movie. And even the thing that is closest to a moment in the film of him until the end, which we'll talk about, the closest to

a moment of him being like, oh my god, my understanding has changed, is obviously the little girl in the red coat. But yet, in that moment, the person who's having the bigger emotional reaction is the mistress on the horse next to him. Like, she is... But there's a... It's the wife at that moment, not the mistress?

Yeah, there is nothing that would have cheapened, I think, this story more than acting as though Schindler's Moral Awakening was schematic enough to be done like a save the cat like version of like him. I'm shocked to learn that. Because the red coat happened so much earlier than I remembered. And then even then, he's like going back and forth and fighting it. And when you get to like the last chunk of the film where he's.

Where Ben Kingsley has to pull out of him that he's purposefully making bad shell casings. But mine worked, damn it. And you're like, oh, a huge shift has happened here. Where not only has he saved people, but now he's like trying to undermine the war and everything. And those scenes happen in between the margins. Right, I mean, it's because, again,

with The Girl in the Red Coat, you are seeing someone sort of awaken to this idea of the value of a single human life. He's witnessing a crime that would have gone, would have been obliviated into history, if not for him having eyes on it. Because no one else is watching this girl. I mean, and...

He's all in for the girl. But, right, but it's, you know, I think also what is so powerful about the movie, again, going back to the good and evil of it all, is that I don't think Schindler's Moral Awakening happens, if not for his relationship with Amin Gupta, who is an evil that is so profound that he has to distance himself from it. That it's only by virtue of being exposed to that degree of sociopathic cruelty,

is he able to recognize of recognize his own morality and step back and find his own humanity? Because basically, most of the other Nazis you're seeing up until that point in the film, even the ones who seem to get some degree of perverse pleasure from it, are primarily the, like, just-following orders guys. Which I don't think Spielberg views as any less evil,

but the level of sadism and perversion in the Ray Fiennes character is, you're right, it's the thing of just like, I am fundamentally a different person than this guy. Yeah, I mean, and there's, I mean, I think the interplay between these two characters is so brilliant. You know, there's that great scene,

I mean, there are several great scenes between them, but especially when he is, you know, talking to him, he's about to bargain for Helen Hirsch's life at the end, he's talking. But like, Goethe, even after everything that's happened and their various negotiations cannot fathom why, why Schindler would want the Jews to work for him. He assumes it has to be some sort of financial trick that he's missing. And I think in Schindler's awareness of that sort of moral bankruptcy, it unlocks something

in him that dealing with a slightly less profoundly evil, but still obviously evil Nazi common dump would not have maybe precipitated the same reaction. Well, right. The difference is the guys he has to fight with to get Kingsley off the train. I mean, okay, so that is the scene of, I think this is the most important scene in the movie in a way, because this is the scene where you're seeing one Spielberg collide with another and sort of knot themselves together in a way that I think makes this movie what it

is and makes him eventually the artist he would become. Which is that, you know, it's a very suspenseful scene of him trying to rescue Itzhak Stern from being sent away to one of the camps. And he tells the guys in this like very fun movie that has owes as much, it's a very fun moment that owes as much to something like Casablanca and like classic, you know, 50s film, 40s and 50s films as it does to Holocaust narratives. He was telling them he's going to send them to the Eastern Russia by the end of the month.

And then a cut is to Liam Neeson walking along the train saying, Stern, Stern. And then who enters the frame are the two Germans who you see have now bowed to his will and are working in his bidding. And it's a completely slick cut that is foregrounding the entertainment in what is ostensibly the most consequential, dramatic moment of the movie so far. And it's a perfect marriage between the entertainment value and a choice that almost no other filmmaker would make

to really squeeze the fun out of that moment. It's almost a joke. And then... It's kind of a comedy edit. It's a very funny, it's a very funny edit. And then it pivots again in the span of a single shot to what is the most horrifying moment of the movie so far, which is when they exit frame after Liam Neeson says, you know, if I had been here five minutes later, then where would I be?

It's like scolding him. Exactly. And saying like, where would I be? I don't give a shit about you. Like, where would my business be? And the camera lingers on the luggage that's being taken from the Jews who were promised that it would go with them to the camps. And we follow that into a back room where it's unpacked and sorted and obviously, you know, organized so that it can be sold

and they're never going to see their own belongings again. And all of this is happening with the fluidity that no other filmmaker would think to approach it. And it's really, it's just so fluidly blending the Hollywood of it all with the sobriety of what the story is and the gravity of it. And I think from that moment on, you know, he's just so in the pocket, as Griffin Newby would say about...

But that's also when the movie has a mission, when it doesn't really before then, you know, like it sort of, it takes half the movie for the sort of plot to come to coalesce, like his plot, I don't mean the... Well, I do kind of... You guys have seen this movie far more than I have. So correct me if I'm wrong here.

I feel like up until that moment, anything that he ostensibly does to help another person is... Profit photo. No, I was going to say is facilitated by Kingsley. It's like Kingsley going like this guy and then Neeson is stamping it. Kingsley is essentially using him as a vehicle for stuff That's true, right? Which Kingsley's incredible and it's my Kingsley's also playing to his desire to save money, you know, right?

I mean, it's part of the magic of the performance and then right that Kingsley is quietly the one who's he's so fucking good is like Running the miracle. She was the Kingsley on Marin on Marin. Oh, my God, it is... Ben Kingsley is... It is one of the hardest listens I've ever endured. I don't... Like, I love Ben Kingsley. He's given, like, many performances that I love.

You have to listen to this episode, Dave. I might, I mean, but, like, he has such a rep now for being, you know, pretty tough. So I'm not surprised to hear that he and Marin didn't exactly fight. Here's what's incredible about it He's really tough in the exact way you expect him to be and he just like immediately clams up at Marin being way too casual and conversational about stuff and him reading Marin is kind of glib and then also clearly like oh This is one of those things where this guy wants me to like break down and like get emotional or start sharing intimate details

And that's not what Kingsley wants to do. I think Kingsley wants to be treated with like a lot of reverence. Correct. Correct. Right. He wants every interview to be like a career retrospective, like a war, lifetime achievement award kind of thing. You're here to tell us about, you know, whatever.

And he talks about like the Ryan Reynolds. What was that like awful movie? He made so many awful movies in the last 10 years, but there's one with Ryan Reynolds and technology. I don't, I mean, I saw it. I know the one you're fucking talking about. Was Ryan Reynolds in it? I don't even know. It's not called Limitless, but it's got a title like that.

It's like Limitlish. It's like along those lines. Wait, what movie is this? It's a movie where like he, Ryan Reynolds' consciousness is in his body or vice versa. Yes, yes. It's a weird fucking thing. The worst part of Ryan Reynolds to have in your body,

one would argue, but I think that, like, the thing about... He talks about that in the same sort of terms that he would talk about Gandhi or Schindler's List. And anyway, that... The thing I was gonna say about that interview is, as much as he is, like, putting up walls and being like, I'm not gonna play your fucking game,

and if this is what your show is like, then I'm gonna give you, like, monosyllabic answers, by the end of the episode, even though he's give you, like, monosyllabic answers. By the end of the episode, even though he's doing it, like, with a very tight grip, he basically admits that his entire life is driven by the fact that his father never gave him an ounce of approval and then gets him to admit that he's too critical

of his sons, who have also followed him into acting, and he disapproves of that. Maren refuses to end any interview until someone makes the same confession. It's kind of incredible. The movie is selfless. Thank you. I knew it had a less in there.

It's a Tarsim movie. Right. But like his most anonymous. Weird. You know that if you go up to Tarsim and tell him that you saw the fall in theaters, he will give you a huge hug, physical hug. That's great.

On the spot, anyone. Two to three people can do that. Guaranteed. I saw it in theaters. Good for you. Let me finish my point I want it in theaters. Good for you. Here's, let me finish my point I want to make here, right? So like, this is the first moment in which

Neeson does something not aided by Kingsley. It is provoked by Kingsley. He is saving Kingsley, but he's not just like, signing off on something that guy put into motion. And Kingsley, the whole first hour of the movie is walking on eggshells. It is this incredible unspoken performance of him just being like, how much can I get away with before I get a little too loud and a little too sloppy

and this guy like clamps down on me? It's sort of like a reverse assimilation that he's performing that is like obviously deeply embedded in the Jewish experience that would follow the Holocaust in particular. But like there's that amazing scene right after the one armed worker has come to him and just to thank Schindler for employing him, which obviously... Never let that happen ever. Right, but the way that Kingsley handles that scene where the driver comes out and Kingsley's like,

fuck off, fuck off, go away, get in the car, we need to heed this off, this has to have never happened. It's a brilliant negotiation in real time. The effort he puts into saving Kingsley, which part of the magic is he doesn't do it with a sense of stakes or immediacy in a way. He's doing his like Schindler bullshitter. I need that guy. Right. Freaking out the two officers kind of thing. And then you think that it's like, he's not going to say anything and he's not going to show emotion but this is an acknowledgement that he started to care about Kingsley a little too much

or at the very least has started to see him as a person a little too much to let him get away that there's some emotional calculation Kingsley gets off the train in in a one broke one unbroken long Spielberg wonder right he gets off the. It's like door open, train stopped abruptly. Kingsley gets off. He is playing the emotion of a guy who was 30 seconds ago convinced he was about to die. This was it. Even though Schindler's running after the train, it's like, well, he's missed it by five seconds.

It's compounded by the understanding that Stern has a greater awareness of the consequence of being on that train than anyone else might. This guy has just to some degree accepted his fate, right? Is now like being saved by a hare, steps off the train, they close the door so quickly behind, the train starts moving, he glances back for half a second at like, holy shit, all of those people are about to die,

just gets behind Schindler and walking, starts apologizing profusely. He's apologizing while he's still in the car. He's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I fucked up, I fucked up. And you're expecting that Schindler's gonna be stoic and Schindler's like, no, you're right, you did fuck up. Fuck you, never let that happen ever again.

It's also one of so many different moments in this movie that hinge on a kind of divine providence, which there were some criticisms when the movie came out about how the Jews were seen as having, you know, just being this faceless mob in the background and not having an agency. Well, guess who took away all of their agency? Yeah, but it's also...

Not see Germany. It's also saying that, like, you know, the flip side of that argument, which is there's this famous village voice symposium that came out right around the time of the movie where someone was arguing that, you know, the Jews don't... it makes it seem as if they didn't do anything to save their own skin. And I think that is countered just by like, you know, only the people who survive deserve to survive. And I think it's countered by like just the role that we see luck play

in this movie time and time and time again. One person, you know, he lines up 50 people, shoes 25 by going to every other one. You know, one person hides here, one person hides there. It's all complete happenstance. I think this movie does an incredibly good job. I want to say better than maybe any other Holocaust film I have seen of really dramatizing the drawn out psychological warfare aspect of the dehumanization.

Where I feel like people who struggle to wrestle with the enormity of the Holocaust are like, I don't get it. How did they just show up one day, tell the Jews to get in cages and no one fought back? Right? Like, how did they just accept this sort of victimization and not fight back against it? And the movie is showing that it's like, their strategy was so complicated, so drawn out, so gradual, that there are these constant steps of just like, we just have to like, accept this thing, and then find our moment to fight back against it,

or to slip away, or to get our exit. And people did get away, and people did survive, right? But it all felt so kind of random and chaotic that there was this gaming of even the women on the train being like, I've heard this rumor about the showers. They're like, the fuck are you talking about? That's crazy. What you're describing is crazy. That couldn't be real.

Yeah, I mean, you feel it's again, going back to the idea of how Spielberg, the gradients by which he introduces different elements, you feel the new tightening as the circle where the Jews are allowed to live, grow smaller, and you feel Schindler expanding in that space. And there's that great scene that could potentially have been too on the nose. I mean, this is not an overwhelmingly subtle movie, but I think, you know, it is very effective in doing this where we see the Jews being kicked out of their apartment in Krakow and then who takes up the apartment is Schindler

and he says it couldn't be any better, which is kind of a ham-fisted and clunky line, but only exists so that it can be mirrored by the Jewish woman then saying, I can't get any word. Like, you know, it's, and you have that scene where they're talking in the ghetto about like the get, one guy says the ghetto is liberty.

They're talking to me, no one stole my business today. Nobody threw me on a truck the constant Rationalizations of like at least I have this at least I have that and you know, like frogs in boiling water You know, it's they had never they had never been witness to a Holocaust before No, and also like you get to a point where people have just so fully lost their sense of selves. You're attacking them from so many strange, unprecedented angles and moving the goalposts so constantly, while also constantly maintaining this looming threat of severe violence, tragedy, nightmarish experience that people just, like, don't even know what to fucking do anymore. People also just didn't understand how you could kill people on mess because that's not something that you know They industrialize something people struggle to wrap their heads around exactly. Yes

One one of the things that makes me very tough to watch like we go We would also have to delve into like pre-war European like Poland these countries are nascent You know They like they've been sort of like overrun by empires many times over the last 100, 200 years. This isn't a country with a sort of like completely fixed, you know, structured government. You know, obviously it's been invaded at this point by both countries, by both Russia and

Germany. We can't, I need to go back to the compelling fact that of course Mel Gibson was one of the people considered to play Oscar Schindler. Along with Harrison Ford, who certainly makes sense both for Spielberg and for age, you know, and like, and the name you want me to name, which is Kevin Costner. Talked about it recently. Probably, but not big enough.

I think he was kind of lobbying for it. Yes. And as Beatty was for him, Beatty famously was as well. In the period where Costner, where Spielberg was reluctant to direct it, Costner also took a stab at like, I think I could direct this.

Schindler's List, part one. I mean, look, obviously Costner is what? Two, three years removed from Dance of the Wolves. The man is... He's feeling confident. What if he ran out of funding halfway through Schindler's List? Had to go to Santa Barbara.

Parts two to four or more, on route. Spielberg instead goes for Liam Neeson. One, wants someone who looks like the guy in his head at least. Two, not an unknown actor at this point, but not a star, won't bring baggage for the character, won't overwhelm the film. Obviously if Warren Beatty was playing Oscar Schindler,

he probably would. Like would he rock it? Possibly. Would he do great in all the scenes where he's fucking his way around town? Yeah. He'd be good at that. Can we talk about Mesa for a bit? It's an incredible performance. It's an incredible performance, and I love when this kind of thing comes up on our show.

An incredible performance, one of his most important performances, and yet, when you step back, you're like... One of? It's no question his most important performances in his career. Complete outlier from the rest of his career. Well, this is like, first off, the movie starts, he starts speaking. Not immediately, right? But when his first dialogue kicks in... The movie starts, they light the candles, and he's like, I'm here too, by the way!

It's not 100% unrecognizable. He's doing an accent. It is the only time I think he has successfully changed his voice to any degree. But he still has a hint of the Brogue and it works. This is some of the best accent work of any movie I've ever seen. And that of all these movies that immediately caused me to roll my eyes at English and various other actors of other nationalities. I didn't want to do subtitles.

Subtitles, you're reading the movie, not watching it. You're not looking at what's happening. There's something about just maybe they're just getting the tones right. Not that I am all that well-versed in what the right accent should sound like beyond my own family. Um, there are a lot of accents in this film. Uh, you know, it all feels right. I don't know. I don't question the reality of it.

No, I feel like every other time Neeson tries to do an accent, he is putting a little something on top of his Irish brogue, and you just kind of accept feel like every other time Neeson tries to do an accent, he is putting a little something on top of his Irish brogue and you just kind of accept he sounds like Liam Neeson. He's making some effort to get away from pure Irish, but he's got his own voice and no one else sounds like that. What about when he played Qui-Gon? Hey, Subulpa, give me that kid. This is what I'm saying.

He never fully sounds American. He never fully sounds British. This is the best I think he's done at finding a voice that is different from him while also retaining some of the core, like, movie star qualities. It is also... They said Ponyo's dad. Did he bust out of Schindler's voice for that?

He's incredible. I mean, I think it helps that part so much about the character that he's playing here is a performance in and of itself. It allows for a theatricality that he can play up and sort of disappear into. And there's that incredible, you know, for sequence where he's, you know, trivia, the maitre d' at the nightclub

where you see it is Branko Lustig, who is not only the producer of the film, but a survivor of Auschwitz. And, yeah, and he goes in there and he's putting on a show, like one by one in this nightclub and bending everyone to his will. And the charisma is just like fucking off the screen. He looks like he just walked out of Casablanca.

He's like, you know, got the cigarette smoke hanging over him. Like this is the best black and white photography. This makes, this movie is like taking a shit on the idea that like just putting a movie in black and white makes it look good. It's like, no, no, no, no, you can fuck it up or you can do it. Yeah new shit here This movie looks this movie. I mean has the eyeshadows and that first scene alone are

He's got an incredible face for black and white Yeah, of course cuz it's got a brow and crag so the shadows can fall on his face The movie also feels like it starts the day after Oscar Schindler has realized that his business has failed because he doesn't take advantage of the fact that he's hot as shit. He's finally figured out that the fact that I am the most charismatic and beautiful man alive is going to be my greatest asset as a businessman because I am not a great businessman. David, two anecdotes. David, not an ad read,

I apologize for everyone who got triggered by that. Sims, if you can find either of these in the dossier, there's the entertainment executive who Spielberg recommended Nielsen's study where he was like, this is the kind of charisma I want you to have. He was the CEO of Time Warner. In a way where Nielsen is obviously a very charismatic guy, right? And can get away with the sort of like Qui-Gon, Aslani,

just like this is the most important man in the world, speaking like the word of God. Spielberg loved Steve Ross. Steve Ross was the head of Time Warner. I am not aware of Steve Ross actually being the greatest human alive. Spielberg seemed to think he was. I guess he was like a philanthropist and maybe he was like, by CEO standards pretty good.

You remind me of Oscar Shindler could be a loaded compliment. I don't know. Well, but no, but he's saying like, no, no, no, study Steve Ross. Like we're saying, like, study how he walks. Study, like I, Spielberg seems like very entranced by Steve Ross as a kind of like good businessman. But I also think he's like acknowledging that this guy needs to have a certain kind of businessman charisma and not a movie star charisma.

That makes sense. Right? Or I'm like, if it's, if it's Gibson, if it's Costner, if it's Beatty, you're too far in the other line of that. Neeson obviously has movie star charisma, but there's also the deep well of Irish sadness in him that is always his superpower. And also knowing that he's like not a guy who's going to be protective of his leading man image, that he's a guy who's going to view this as an acting

assignment. And he's like, watch the way that people who are good at fucking winning negotiations behind closed doors have charisma, not the people who are good at like getting on camera and charming a public. What if Charles Foster Kane enjoyed being Charles Foster Kane? Right. Like that's sort of the vibe. But that's like, what if Charles Foster Kane enjoyed being Charles Foster Kane? Right. Like that's sort of the vibe that he's bringing. But that's these guys who like fucking love making deals, you know?

The other anecdote I wanted to say, I can't remember if it's Kingsley who's the one who gave him this advice, but that he like a week or two into filming was like, I don't know if I have any handle on this thing. Spielberg is like not giving me direction. He's not explaining it to me. I feel like I'm floundering. And I think it was Kingsley who was like, you need to just trust him. Sure, I can find that probably.

Right, like you are a color on his palette. He hired you because he knows you can do what you wanna do. He's gonna make you look good. He's adjusting around your performance. Don't get freaked out by the lack of hand holding. But I think there is a little bit of panic in the lack of communication. I'd be pretty fucking panicked if I was

Liam Neeson making this movie. I'm saying there's a little bit of panic that I think helps the performance. Maybe, yeah, of course, because Schindler is kind of skating the whole time. Yeah, he's got enough money to fall back on. I mean, that's the first thing he says to Stern. He's like, I don't have the money for the kind of business.

That I, like, I need you to trade enamelware with other Jews and figure it out. And I think part of this is Spielberg I like I need you to trade enamel wear with and I Know they're Jews and part of this is Spielberg being like I want to approach this like a documentary I want to just let the actors do their thing and then figure out how to shoot it rather than doing like perfect dollhouse Arrangements which Denise and he's like why is no one giving me direction? I've never really been the lead of a big Hollywood movie like this before Darkman dead in a ditch. I'm sorry, I forgot, that is wild. Darkman's before this.

Darkman is so shortly before this. It would be funny if Spielberg was like, I just loved the way he did Darkman. I love Darkman. I love Darkman Die. Well also, let's call out. This is only the second movie for M. Beth Davids. Her first film is Army of Darkness, Sam Raimaine Universal.

Is Spielberg quietly plucking the Raimi cast? Maybe he is, but you know who it's also only the second movie for? Ralph Fiennes! Voldemort himself! Which, you know, it's one of those, like, Spielberg things where... Or, like, casting things where Spielberg's like, look, the man screamed evil to me, what can I tell you? Like, and Spielberg lays on so much praise of, like,

I really think this guy could be, Alec Anas or Laurence Olivier. Like, you know, like he's the he's the talent. I hope right. Which he kind of is. Yeah. Right. I, I, I. Excuse me. He doesn't want to be the pope. Can I vote for him? Close the loop on my niece and thought to then bridge to the fine's thought. Yes. It's just the way you say these things sometimes.

It's like, you know, you're building another skyscraper. I'm like, we barely talked about the movie, Karen. Yes. It's just the way you say these things sometimes. It's like, you know, you're building another skyscraper. I'm like, we barely talked about the movie. Karen, yes. I think the lack of guidance he's giving him is because he doesn't want to feel like he's controlling the performances and he's trying to let this movie develop more organically, which is freaking out Nissan a little bit because this is a little out

of his wheelhouse. And working on Dark Man, Raimi is notoriously like, here's the shot and I'm going to do this in two seconds. Tilt your head this degree. Like, show hands on. Yes, of course. Whichiously like, here's the shot and I'm gonna do this and at two seconds tilt your head this degree. Like so hands on. Cock your eyebrows, yes, of course. Which to me, I think does subconsciously, and I don't think this was Spielberg's intent,

create a certain energy of am I getting away with this? That helps the performance. It's part of the negotiation that we see in the movie because the first sequence of this movie, the first real sequence of Schindler at the Nightclub is shot like the shadow. I mean, like it's, it It is hyper-precise. And that gives way, almost immediately,

when we cut to, you know, the footage of, you know, foot soldiers running down the street to the docudrama, like, handheld look. But he is almost sort of, like, finding his way into doing that around what the actors are doing rather than collaborating them to get to that point, which I think is mostly what he had done with his movies up until

this film. Whereas Ray Fiennes feels like he just is like incredibly studious and self-sufficient and just showed up and was like, I figured it out. Here's this guy. And Spilgrist was like, great, you're ready to go. Like, fuck it. I don't know how you found this. He talks about it like he had like a voodoo doll. Where Ray Fiennes was like, I just like lived with this horrible creation that I like understood and poked and prodded. Right. I mean, Fiennes talks about, you know, he, like people who play villains all the time, like understood some sympathy for this like broken evil man or whatever. But...

I love that he shows up in the ghetto with the cold from Bridge of Spies. I mean, some of the two great cold acting, I think, films... You watch this movie now and you're like, there's Ray Fiennes. And I joke Lord Voldemort. That's literally, you know, like, that's why him being cast as Voldemort to me at the time, I was like, can we try again? Like, that's too obvious.

Yeah, except guess what? He fucking rocked the house as Lord Voldemort. That performance is unbelievable. I have no... To be clear, he's very good in the role. He's one of my favorite screen actors of all time. Next to Mads Mikkelsen is a villain or something crazy like that. Imagine... Oh, that'd be crazy. I joked the other day on text it's gonna be Danny Houston. I swear to... The Lithgow thing.

I'm in this state where I'm like, well, I shouldn't even care about this stupid Harry Potter TV show. We need less replications of these books over and over again. Like, there's plenty done already, and we don't need to be feeding that beast. I feel a relief that we're not going to let- And then they're like, John Lithgow is Dumbledore and I'm like, fuck that! But also I feel the relief that it's like, thank God we're not tying down Mark Rylance for a decade, which was the rumor.

Yeah. David? Yes? Quick question. Okay. And I've been remiss actually- This question doesn't feel quick. David, quick question. Okay. And I've been remiss actually. This question doesn't feel quick. In our ten years of doing the podcast, we've never asked you this directly before.

Do you love movies? I love movies! Well, there we go. Have you ever heard of an eye of the duck scene? Can you explain that to me? The late great David Lynch, who we covered on this podcast recently, Yes, the best. Said every movie has a scene that defines the whole. He basically said the way to understand a duck is to look into its eye.

This is a very David Lynchian philosophy. It's a sort of a left-field way of talking about it, but okay. And movies have a same thing, one scene that sort of defines the heart of what the film is. You're talking about the essential scene in a film that, right, explains everything. It doesn't mean it's the big plot scene. In some ways, it's the scene that defines why the movie was birthed into existence in the first place. And it's also the name of a great movie podcast.

On each episode of the Eye of the Duck podcast, hosts Dom Nero and Adam Volrich, friends of mine, explore movie by finding its most essential scene. And right now, Dom and Adam are going deep on Batman movies from Keaton to Kilmer, Clooney, Bale, Pattinson, all the Batman in between. I was on recently, I've been on the show many times, I was on recently talking about Batman Returns, my beloved, which we've covered on the show but it had been many years and I had many new takes. What was the scene though that you focused on?

In Batman Returns, it was the scene that we all three agreed on to give you a spoiler for the episode was the Susan the Banshee's ballroom dance scene Between Bruce Wayne and Selena Kyle where they finally crack who each other really is right? And she starts crying and says are we gonna have to fight now a beautiful scene in a phenomenal film But it's a mini-series that they're calling Eye of the Duck Night, it's a very clever title. And you better believe they're talking about

Mask of the Phantasm, baby. Sure. And speaking of Batman the animated series, if you want even more from Eye of the Duck, Dom and Adam just kicked off a new Patreon supported show called Eye of the Duck After Hours. Check them out on Patreon for industry news, weekly recommendations, and the occasional deep dive,

like their recent episode on Bruce Timm's legendary run of Batman animated shows and films. But Batman isn't the only pop culture icon Dom and Adam have unmasked on their show. Eye of the Duck has explored franchises like Alien, Toy Story, I did a Lightyear episode for people who have asked why we never covered that on this podcast.

What was the big scene in Lightyear? Well why we never covered that the big on this podcast big scene in light year Well, my take was that the eye of the duck scene in light year is a scene that doesn't work as a great eye of the duck Explanation for the whole movie doesn't work Which is the conversation about juicy meaty fingers in their universe where they have inside-out sandwiches, you know, I'm talking So bizarre mission possible Evil Dead, Indiana Jones. I did the Dial of Destiny episode with them. Sure. Connor Ratliff, Jurassic Park. They've even cataloged major movements of film history

like 80s dark fantasy, David's beloved cyberpunk, space film, the best, and movies about UFOs. Their next mini series will kick off later this summer. And if you join their discord community, you can decide what it will be. Voting will begin May 1st for their latest installment of mini series May Hem. Head over to Eye of the Discord to make your case for the future Eye of the Duck. Explore the scenes at the heart of your favorite movies and follow Eye of the Duck

wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday and you can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. OK, flights on Air Canada. How about Prague? Ooh, Paris. Those gardens.

Gardens. Amsterdam, Tulip Festival. I see your festival and raise you a carnival in Venice. Or Bermuda has Carnaval. Ooh, colorful. You want colorful. Thailand, lantern festival, boom. Book it. How did we get to Thailand from Prague?

Oh, right, Prague. Oh, boy. Choose from a world of destinations, if you can. Air Canada, nice travels. Ray Fiennes. Ray Fiennes, imagine seeing this film in 1993. Ninety nine point nine percent of people do not know who Rafe. No, a hundred percent.

Nobody knows who Rafe finds. Unless you've been going to the National Theatre in Britain or whatever. You know, like, and like this guy shows up and I do feel like people were just like, they got a Nazi from like the 40s. Right. They just found one like in a time tunnel. Like, that's what it feels like when you're watching him, those first scenes. I find talking to people,

very often people just assume he won for this. I will hear people constantly refer to Academy Award winner Ray Fiennes and be like, he won for Schindler, right? And then he has that immediate, like, it's very similar to the Edward Norton arc, which is like, out of nowhere, who the fuck is the supporting performance? Then like immediate elevation of leading man. I don't know if he should have won. I still, I wrestle with it to this day. I wrestle with it.

It doesn't matter who else is in that category. He should have won, but I also completely understand. Do you know who beat him? Tommy Lee Jones for the future, which is basically the greatest supporting performance ever given in a film. It's a great performance, but there is no performance in this movie that should not have won an Oscar. Well, wait a second that being Kingsley's losing Ray Fiennes You've defeated yourself. They should have both won split the trophy or you could have pulled a big Rames

One of them could have wanted and given it to the other I watched that again the other day It's a really good moment But I you know like your favorite moment because that was bad for you as a kid because you're like this allowed When Michael Caine won the Oscar for Cider House Rules, I was like... Yeah, you said this on our show, right? Sit back. He's gonna do it.

He's gonna do the right thing. He's gonna give it to Haley Joel. He's gonna give it to Haley. The torso. I was so sure he was gonna do it. I was like, it's not over yet. I'm always like, oh, it's crazy fun, so they went right, Tommy Lee Jones.

Nobody has delivered a line better in a movie ever than Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive. I'm not joking. I'm deadly serious. I don't care. I don't care is the greatest line reading in the history of movies. Prove me wrong.

At me, David L. Sims on Twitter, which I don't use anymore. Which you will never be reading. You can just send the replies into the void. I do think... And if he was Tommy Lee Jones. It was like, hey man, you've been in this industry for 20 years. You're a legend. Like, it's time for you to win your Oscar.

Ralph Fiennes, I think it's partly like, well, he's young. He'll be back. Maybe in a conclave. Two, it's like, maybe he's just a fucking crazy person they found for this role who's so incredible. And maybe it's like some magic trick. No, he had to do the English patience to be like, I actually am that hot and not a Nazi. This is what's nuts to me is like within three years, it's like, oh, now you were like matinee idol in a huge sweeping epic that like ran the fucking gauntlet on that the Oscars and

was a hit. Yeah, but he had to lose to shiny McShine. And then they don't nominate again for 30 fucking years. Obviously, I think they should have nominated him for Grand Budapest. Correct. He should have won. Should have won. But there was at the time, category confusion, in my opinion, stupidly. Are there other Ralph Fiennes movies, though, that he should have gotten an Oscar nomination for? I love A Bigger Splash and he's on my ballot that year, but obviously that wasn't a

big splash with voters. I feel like there was the Duchess reader in Bruges year where people were like, he kind of should get a supporting, but no one could figure out which movie to put him in for. The answer is in Bruges, but that movie kind of broke late and obviously is the silliest. David Cronenberg's Spider?

He's amazing in Spider. That is an incredible performance. It sure is. That's mostly Momoa. I give him a supporting actor nom for Goblet of Fire. A movie that I think is otherwise trash. Wait, wait, wait. Goblet of Fire? Because that's the first one he's introduced in, right?

He's in it for like five minutes. That's the one? That's the whole final set piece. I'm aware that it's the whole final set. He is great in a movie that I think has fair share of flaws as The Constant Gardener. He's very good in that movie. Which Rachel Weisz wins an Oscar. The Oscars just seem to make one rule where they're like,

it gets one win and nothing else. I think that's enough for The Constant Gardener. I just think it's crazy how quickly he becomes a take it. Not constant enough. He becomes a take it for Griff. No, no, no, Griff. I disagree with you. That's not true. You're wrong. Make your counter.

The whole thing with him is he makes Schindler's List. This is a star-making one. Of course you've played a villain, a Nazi, the most scary Nazi in this ever. I will say, I do think it is also a case of he doesn't win because the character's almost too evil. It is so upsetting that people are like, we have to nominate him, but it feels gross to give him a win. Unless you're going full clown mode, Christoph Waltz, they do not want to...

It's why Fassbender didn't win. They don't want to reward people for finding texture within people. It's why DiCaprio didn't get nominated for Django. Well, that's a bit of an over-the-top performance too, in my opinion. I don't know if you guys noticed this, but he's kind of like dialing it up slightly in that movie. So, next year he makes Quiz Show, which is wonderful. Oh my God, fuck this.

But that's a movie where clearly the Oscars liked that movie, got best picture nomination, did not know what to do. Because that movie's filled with good performances. Jotaro weirdly doesn't get a nomination. Right, gets the precursor nominations and then Armand Mueller Stahl gets the surprise. I'm sorry. I always make this fucking mistake

between Shine and Quiz Show. And Paul Schofield is awesome in Quiz Show, but it's kind of like, right, old legend giving a couple great scenes. So he misses out on Quiz Show. Also, in Quiz Show, he's kind of playing a dweeb. Like, you know... Guess what? He fucking... He's so good in it.

...rolls in Quiz Show. Okay, the next year... This is his career so far. He's made... These are the only two movies he's made so far since, you know, Strange Days. Amazing performance. Quite a curveball from him.

And people are like, who is this guy? Man, I need my mini discs. You know, like,, amazing performance. Quite a curveball from him. And people are like, who is this guy? Man, I need my mini discs. You know, like, this is Ray Fine? Okay. The next year after that, English patient. Holy shit. Here he is as a romantic lead. He's taking a bath with KST.

Is that gonna be good? I think it's good. I think it's good. It's very sweeping. It's why they think it's good. It's very sweet. It's why they invented the word sweeping. It's sweeping as hell. But here's like romantic Ray Fiennes. He's hot in it.

He's such a handsome man. And he's really good. He loses to shiny McShine. If he hadn't lost to him, he possibly would have lost to Tom Cruise and Jerry Maguire with Greatest Performance Ever. But he's really good in it. Okay, so the next year he does Oscar and Lucinda. Not a bad movie. Young Cate Bl Landship, but that doesn't really...

He gets into some failed Oscar-based stuff. Sunshine in 99. This is what I'm trying to tell you. He kind of goes down a bit of a tricky road. Sunshine kind of fucks though. Well, the next year he does The Avengers. Oh, The Avengers, that movie made a billion dollars. No, no, no! The other one! Right. Right. Hold on! There's a sort of like, okay, this guy doesn't cross over.

He's a prestige guy. The Avengers where it's like 89 minutes, but like the closing credits are like 20 minutes long. That one only made $500 million, right? Yeah. Of course, the voice of Ramses in Prince of Egypt does a great job. 1999, right, you have this sort of sunshine, ungin, you know, the Russian novel adaptation,

End of the Affair, where you're like, has he become history's greatest homework actor? Right? It's like the man does movies based on books you read in school. But here's another thing that's starting to happen. He needed Terrence Davies to cast him in something around that time. I think he's great in the End of the Affair,

which is kind of a forgotten movie at this point. I was gonna say, it's the kind of thing where it's similar to Rachel Weisz. It's like, oh, and look, the actress gets the nomination. Sure, sure. Like you're taking fines for granted being like, oh, this is that thing he does. Okay. So he takes a, he literally takes three years off.

Doesn't make a movie. This is, I'm having fun with fines this career now because it's really interesting. We're having a fines time. In 2002, Spider, an amazing movie, but small. Sure. Challenging. The Good Thief, uncredited. Okay.

That doesn't count. That's a Neil Jordan movie. That's a remake. No, it's a remake of Bob LaFlembeur. Yeah. It's a fun movie. It's a Nolte, a very,, okay, that doesn't count. That's a Neil Jordan movie. That's a remake, no. It's a remake of Bob the Flambor. Bob the Flambor, yeah. It's a fun movie. It's a null-T, very, very normal voice in it and everything. I am a flambor.

Truly that's the movie. I saw it in theaters. Let me flomb. Red Dragon, lazy casting in a way, but he's not bad. Do you see? As Dollar Hide. Do you see? Do you bad. Do you see? As Dollar Hyde. Do you see? Do you see?

And his most unnerving and strange performance maybe in his entire career. Made in Manhattan. Made in Manhattan. Where you're like, why is Jennifer Lopez in love with this vampire? This Republican vampire. Like that movie is unhinged simply because of him.

Everything else in that movie, like, I get it. She's a maid in Manhattan. She takes the train. She's got a kid. She's falling in love with a rich guy. Oh, no, it's spelled maid in Manhattan. No, it's spelled maid. But, like, that's where it's like, well, hey, could Ray Fiennes do this? And everyone's like, not really. But it was a hit.

Yeah, it made money. But, like, again, does anyone walk away from that being like, you know who I loved in that? Yes. And then, yet, another three years off, in 2005, he's in a zillion things. He's in Harry Potter. He's in The White Countess,

which is a late Merchant Ivory movie that doesn't really play. He's in Constance Gardner, which is good. He's in The Chums, Chum Scrubber. Remember that? Go fish. And then he's kind of, because of Voldemort, become supporting villain guy in Bruges. The reader is a supporting role, you know, very heavily.

You know, Hurt Locker, rocks in it, you know, swings it like a wrecking ball. Who does he play in The Reader? Not another Nazi. He plays old, old young men. Have you seen The Reader? Nazi staters. He plays... Once was enough.

He's the older version of... He's the grown-up version of the kid. Have you seen The Reader more than once in your life? No. Has anyone? No. But it is hard to imagine re-watch version of the kid. Have you seen the reader more than once in your life? Has anyone? No. But not even... It is hard to imagine re-watching the reader. I don't think Daldry watched it more than once beginning to end. He is the grown-up version of the kid who has to testify

that she read the book to him. Or he read the book to her? Whatever. What was I going to say? It's just interesting. It's all building, obviously, to the apex of his career. Grand Breeder Fest. I was going to say the re-team of him and Neeson in the Titans films. Ah, of course, he played Hades!

Hades and Zeus. One of the greatest taglines of our time for Clash of the Titans. Titans will clash. He never got bad, but like, at all. No, you're right. It is a weird career. When Skyfall comes around, they're like, yeah, you can play M, James Bond's boss. And it's like, he's like, not that much older than Daniel Craig.

You know, and it's like, no, no, no, Rafe, hey, hey, you're M now, you don't get to run around. There is perhaps a weird lack of strategy to his career that I respect now stepping back and looking at and knowing that he's got a lot left to do. In the 90s, the strategy kind of seems to be like, you know, prestige movies. And then it's, yes, it starts to get more diffuse.

Obviously, he's done tons of theaters. Springfaces is a weird swing. Avengers is a weird swing. Made Manhattan's a weird swing. You guys? Anytime he went studio, it was an odd choice. You guys are forgetting his most unnerving performance, though, which was, of course, the videotaped introduction he sent

into the Toronto premiere of his recent film, Version of the Odyssey Another movie that as I went straight to homework Which unfortunately does not exist on I mean Christopher Nolan kind of Announced I think he waited like right until after the movie at theaters But he he like did a video from a hotel room somewhere in Europe where his eyeball was like against the camera He's probably at the bone temple where he currently is Oh my god he was horrifying I love him so was probably at the bone temple where he currently is. Oh my God, he was horrifying. With our friend, Neon Acosta.

I love him so much. I love him too. I love him. Yeah. No, no, you're, this is, I'm glad we took the time to outline this because it does make more sense. It's a weird career.

It is a weird career. The Grand Budapest Snub is outrageous. That movie is the best movie ever made. I recently watched it and I was just like, I should watch this once a week. I think he and Neeson are the same and that the career is so diffuse and so spread out and has so many weird errors to it that sometimes you're like, who is this guy again? If you were to sort of like Hall of Fame project, just be like, pick the 10 most representative

projects and try to hit the different phases or modes of their career. If you reduce either of those guys to just 10 movies, you're like, that's insane, right? And they still got gas in the tank and are gonna keep making stuff, but they're both sort of... Fiennes has a lot more range than Neeson ever has. Although, 100%.

And Hollywood really sees Neeson as like one of two things, right? Like either the sort of certain thing or the, yeah. But Neeson is, to his credit, a much bigger New York Rangers fan than Ray Fiennes is. How do you know? Because you asked. I haven't asked Ray Fiennes.

Do you see that Ray Fiennes is pointing to the Stanley Cup? Oh God, it's so far in the distance now. But I have not seen Ray Fiennes at every hockey game I have ever gone to, unlike Liam Neeson. God bless him. And I'm just looking over there as I watch the Rangers, like Panerinsky, to puck up the ice, and there's Oskar Schindler on the sidelines.

Been like, yeah! With ladies? You have a bunch of ladies with him? He's there with Margot Robbie, another classic Rangers fan. Good for that. Yanush Kaminsky, of course, famously Spielberg, calls up, you know, Zygmunt, Cundi, Alan Davio, Douglas Sokum, and is like, no thank you, no thank you, no, no. He watches a film on TV called Wildflower, a TV movie,

thinks it's beautifully photographed, and is like, who shot this? And Yanouche says, like, Steven watches a lot of television. Wildflower was directed by Diane Keaton on Lifetime. Crazy to imagine Spielberg being like flipping over to Lifetime, but maybe or maybe he was like, hey, Diane made a TV movie, I'll watch it. And he got offered an Amblin produced TV movie called Class of 61. And I guess, you know, Spielberg at this point, it learns that he's Polish and is kind of like, well, I'm making this movie in Poland, like, and starts to look at him more seriously. It's still crazy, though, because, like, I do feel like Spielberg mostly worked with

really established names as his DPs. Yes, and had his... Janusz is basically a nobody. Had his regular guys, but also, like, until this point, isn't, like, married to one DP. And and but the other thing is with this movie, he's basically like, do this point isn't, like, married to one DP. And, and, but the other thing is with this movie, he's basically like, do what you want. Like, he's not like, hey, this is exactly what I need to do, and like, I have storyboarded this. He's kind of like, you should take whatever approach you need.

We're not gonna do dollies, we're not gonna do steady camera. But this is all part of him being like, I need to throw myself out of my comfort zone a little. But it's all part of him being inspired by Andre Wodz, whose name I just captured even from my Polish background, who he was looking at as like the guy in his mind's eye who he needed to be to make this movie and was never going to be. And thinking about the cinematography in those films and looking for someone who had an understanding of how, you know, a Polish crew would work and what shooting in Poland looked like and

could approximate those, that aesthetic. And that's exactly what he liked to recommend. All of that does make sense. It is fascinating though that it's just like, it's this late at the inflection point of his career that he finds the second most important collaborator of his entire life. Absolutely. Janusz is the king, to be clear, is a god.

The first ET? Yeah, ET, that mother crazy motherfucker. Who is a runner on this one first ET? Yeah, ET, that mother crazy motherfucker. Who is a runner on this one? He was the best boy. It's a slow runner. Someone else. I love this from Yanush.

I know why JJ put this thing, because he knew I would like it. The problem with doing black and white is there's silver, obviously, in the emulsion, as we all know, because we've all seen in Glorious Basterds. And that creates a negative discharge of electricity. So it makes these little, like, spots on the film. So you have to avoid static being in the room. And so you like have to, you would like spray the room before you shoot, because, like, there's all this static electricity. And, like, weather is a problem, like like weird production is a problem for all of this.

So that was the biggest challenge for shooting in black and white. And this movie almost fell apart because of Spielberg's insistence of shooting in black and white because he wanted to, in his quote is that the Holocaust was life without light, and he wanted to reflect that in the shooting without color, which he saw as sort of symbolic of light. But like the movie almost didn't go because Universal was so stubborn about the idea that black and white movies don't make money.

There's also a thing, and this is an axiom that is, like, still held to this day, that black and white films do even worse overseas, even worse on, like, home video and television. And so almost all cases where a Hollywood studio has made a black and white film in the last 35, 40 years, they insist that they shoot it in color and convert it later so that there is a color version of the film that they can at least, like, play on foreign television.

Where, like, I know Nebraska did that. Where they were, like, on the Epics channel playing the color version of Nebraska. And every American was glued to their television for the premiere of the color version on Epics. I remember that well. Nebraska. And every American was glued to their television for the premiere of the color version on Epics. I remember that well. Right, there's like shit like that. And Spielberg was just like, I refuse.

I'm shooting this in black and white. But it's also a case of perpetuating the cinematic memory of an event, because another one of the reasons why he wanted to shoot in black and white is because every Holocaust film he had seen was shot in black and white. And the footage from the Holocaust, the arch he wanted to shoot in black and white is because every Holocaust film he had seen was shot in black and white. And the footage from the Holocaust archival footage was shot in black and white.

And he was, you know, continuing that idea, which is a fraught concept in and of itself. But he was trying to make sort of the ultimate version of the Holocaust films that he had seen. Interesting. Schindler's List, what do we want to say about it? It's funny. It's funny. It's funny.

I was just looking at my little notes on my phone and I was just, the thing I see is it's funny. It's like, again, we talk so much about him trying to find the right tone, negotiating these different energies, and you see that come to a head with the same with our hiring secretaries, which is a great comic little sequence. It's like a classic like Steve, you can't make this not fun. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He has to do it.

And it's an inherently funny idea that Schindler was only interested in having a hot secretary. And then this woman comes in who is not a young hottie and she can type three times as fast as anyone. He's like, motherfucker, like, I'm gonna have to hire her. Well, like what is one of the moments that changes Schindler the most as a character?

It is the reaction he gets to kissing the Jewish woman delivering the cake with the daughter, right? Which is to Schindler just like, what? I'm a horny devil who kisses everything he sees. Right. It almost is the thing that makes him understand the severity of the situation in a personal way for the first time is, I love kissing women. You're telling me that some women are unkissable? By law. Well, yeah. But it also shows that he fundamentally doesn't think of them with the same level of disdain

that like the pure Nazis do, right? No, not at all. As much as he's like, I refuse to care. He doesn't think about them at all. I'm a businessman. Exactly. You know, more of a Don Draper thing. But, and like Don Draper thing. And like Don Draper, I guess, was also, I guess, admitting in that statement that he's

obsessed with them. By the way, another Spielberg comedy edit moment is, if I'm going to stay here, you have to promise me that no one will ever mistake me for anyone but Mrs. Schindler, and then hard cut to her waving goodbye on the plane. It's a really funny cut. But I'd say the other moment that is a real awakening for him, you know, additional when we talk to you, is when somebody calls him a good man.

I really feel like nobody, you know, you have the one-armed worker come in, you have, you know, much later in the film, you have the daughter of the married couple who he reluctantly pulls out of the camp. But you get the sense that nobody has ever called him a good man before, and that was something he wasn't necessarily looking for.

And he tries it out, like he, it's a weird fit for him. But it's, he's projecting the idea. It almost feels like he's rejecting the responsibility, where it's like, if I crack the door open to people thinking I can help them or save them, then suddenly the obligation is gonna become so great on me. A thing I cannot handle, which is what makes the end sort of like implosion so emotionally

devastating of him doing the math of like, I didn't save enough. And here's a guy who spent the entire movie being like, don't make me do anything. Yeah, because he talks so often about how the Holocaust and World War Two and the whole is just bigger than he is. He just like, okay, so they're gonna kill everyone. They're gonna kill everyone. Like, what does that have to do with me? What can I do about that? It completely abstains from any sort of moral obligation.

It becomes so extreme that it is abstract. It is hard for people to get their heads around, regardless of what side they're on. Isn't it also self-preservation? Because he doesn't really know exactly the terms or the rules of how this is all working. Like, he doesn't want to be perceived by the Nazis to be supportive. To be clear, he is a Nazi. Oskar Schindler was a Nazi party member, and he is very much in like the German, you know,

whatever high class, you know, the head years prior, been like, we're signing up. Like, even if I'm not a true believer or whatever, like, I will happily join the party now that they run the country, right? Like, there are some people who didn't join the party, right? And like, there you go. Like, and like, you know, still existed in Japan, like where I'm not joining, he joined the party.

Like, he was a, probably not a, you know, deeply idealistic person, clearly, but he was a Nazi. Yeah, I mean, I think he joined the party out of convenience because you couldn't do business if you weren't a member of the Nazi party. Which is what all these fucking Germans did. Yeah, I mean, and I don't like them. And you know, it's too bad there's no historical parallel

for that or else we might have something on our hands here. But that's the thing that keeps happening in the movie is I feel like, Ray Fiennes has the line later where he's like, we're gonna be making so much money we won't care right that like much like certain present-day Situations there are people who are just like if you're saying it's gonna help the economy this much that I will personally benefit this much Then maybe I like sort of blindly sign off on whatever this other stuff you're doing on the side is whereas other people were signing up explicitly in support of that stuff on the side.

But I think to Ben's point, it's true that he did not, and so many people would, you know, claim not to, to know where this was going. I mean, I think that was the Nazi greatest abandonment. Of course, and we're turning a such a blind eye to like, what's happening over there. Part of what's going on with Schindler is he's actually in Poland. He's German, but because of his industry and all that, he's coming to Krakow, he's seeing what's going on, where it's like a little harder to ignore. Whereas in Germany, a lot of Jews had already left.

All the Jews had already left. And there was also, you know, he's like Hamilton, talking about how he's been waiting for a war his whole life to rise up. I mean, like, uh, I know you guys, there was a play called Hamilton, um, you may... Scratching my chin at this one. Uh, no, because, I mean, there's literally a line in the movie where he talks about how the one thing that he's always been missing, you may scratch my chin at this one. No, because I mean, there's literally a line in the movie where he talks about

how the one thing that he's always been missing, in addition to realizing that he's hot as hell and needs to work that angle is a war to create economic to cause economic instability that he can use disadvantage. Oh, he wants to. And, you know, I'm not likening Oscar Shiller to Hamilton in any other respect, but there is that that idea of these circumstances being uniquely profitable for him and taking advantage of that. And I think the speed at which Poland falls to the Germans, it happens in a span of two weeks, is hugely to Schindler's advantage because everything is so up in the

air, he can capitalize. This is a guy who loves to find an angle he can work. The scene where he meets Kingsley and is, Kingsley's like, so wait, what do you do? And he's like, I'm not good at working. I'm not good at running things. I'm good at just being like, all of you should do this and then give me all the money, right? And it's, he, right. That's capitalism.

It's part of what he's voted for. Again, really funny that Spielberg was like, my idol, the guy who runs Time Warner, really, you're right. It is very funny because like the moral arc of this movie is completely contrary to capitalism. It's all about reform capitalism. Of course, what he did that was so good is gave up on capitalism and was like,

I will just spend two zero. Yeah. That's the thing. It's like, it's not like he's the world's smartest businessman. It's just that he recognizes, oh, there is a uniquely bad set of circumstances here that I could maybe benefit from. And part of it is that he's like The other people don't want to touch the Jews. I view them as a cheap labor force. I can take advantage of that

Yes, it's it's right there. They're products to him and they're a balance book, you know equation to him And as you said, he's annoyed by any reminder of their humanity Because it's morally inconvenient to me. I kind of want to think about this. Also not obviously viewing them as vermin. Right. In the same way that many Nazis are. And like then when Eamonn arrives, you're like, right, this is a psychopath

who's been enabled by this. But don't you think, of course, like there are other Nazis, you know, high, high ranking Nazis who after the war were put on trial and they were like, I don't know, I did what I was told. I'm the millionth person to point this out. Don't you think it's part of it? In how Schindler is characterized in the movie is that he's just the kind of like, look, I don't let any attachment or relationship get in the way of smart business decisions, right? Like him not viewing the Jewish people with disdain.

I don't invest in any enamel factory that I can't drop in 30 seconds or less. He keeps his hot ass wife at arm's length. Like he keeps everyone at arm's length. He's just like, these are just numbers. Should we shout out Caroline Goodall, fourth build in this movie, and obviously she's in Hook. I will say. She's an English Rose. Very beautiful. I think it is the best thing about Hook as a movie is that it at least led to her getting cast in this film.

Sure. Okay. I mean, she's good. I mean, I would say. It's a point about how little I like about Hook. Right. I was right. I was going to say. That's what I was getting. But she's, she's good in this, but it's not a huge role. Just interesting that the way that works, right? Where it's like, what's that actress famous for? Well, Spielberg really liked her for a minute there. But what's amazing about this movie is that, it is one of the great ensembles, truly, like one of the true ensembles ever put together

in that there are so many fucking faces in this movie. And every one of those faces has its own story to tell that becomes absolutely critical to the mega narrative that's happening around them. And you track these characters without even knowing it the first or second time you watch the movie. And the movie, I think, does such an incredible job not making it, like not holding your hand about that.

Like maybe you don't clock like, oh, this is the person I saw 15 minutes, you know, like maybe it doesn't matter. You're always involved. And then as you rewatch the movie, you realize like, oh, I see, you know. You like very ambiently recognize that, oh, okay, this guy is here.

And now I see him in this one shot walking out of the ghetto. And then it turns out to be the guy who, you know, Gerta's gun misfires on when he shoots him outside of the Hinge Factory. She's the biggest example of it, but it is so skillful the way he uses the M.Beth DeVitt's character, where, especially in the latter half where she's on the train, you know, the wrong train or the train going the wrong way and whatever. And now, like, you could see most filmmakers saying to themselves,

the reason I've set up this character is now I have a POV character who the audience is invested in, who we can show these terrors through. And she remains in the frame for most of those 15 minutes or so, and yet she is not the focus. Where she is constantly sort of around,

sometimes she's going out of focus, sometimes she's moving out of the frame in moments like the fear of the shower and things like that, where what he's trying to do is remind you, like, yes, this is a character you have pinned in your mind who of course you're gonna keep track of, but also she's not more important than any of them. Part of the mass, like, sort of terror

of what's going on here is that everyone in this space is her. The characters that shoulder the greatest burden in that sense are the children. It's the two kids, the boy and the girl with the glasses, who we see in so many different stages in so many different places. And, you know, have such, I mean,

the moment where the little kid is blowing his whistle to alert the Nazis during the liquidation of the ghetto to her mother and then he stops himself when he recognizes, you know, he recognizes her and she him and he hides her and you can't tell if he's like being extra sinister in that moment or good and then we see him. I mean, like these things all track so viscerally because they're children and because they're so instantly recognizable. And also a factoid that I only learned yesterday that will be mind blowing for exactly three people out there

is that one of the most memorable scenes in this movie for me is the one where Eamon kills the Jewish engineer when after she's building his house, we can't be arguing with these people. She is like her performance 15 seconds of this movie. His accent is so specific. It's amazing. She is played by Elina Loewenschon,

who plays the clairvoyant in The Beast. That came out of our first year of filming this film. Yeah, that. An actress with a bajillion credits. These people are so tied to this movie in my mind that the idea that they exist in other realities is very... A little bit. To paraphrase an erlic tweet... Again, Ray Fiennes, I think, is realities is very... A little bit. To paraphrase an Ehrlich tweet...

Again, Ray Fines, I think, is undone by that a little bit. To paraphrase an Ehrlich tweet that I think about a lot. In the year of Spotlight, you had a tweet to the effect of, there are like ten actors with five minutes of screen time in Spotlight who give the best supporting performance I've ever seen in a movie. You were sort of like, you could, like, beyond the argument of like,

oh, who do you put in supporting actor of the Spotlight cast? You were like, basically every, like, survivor they interviewed for five minutes... Right, all of the victims. ...is giving the most indelible, where the fuck did they find this guy's performance? And some of them are actors who were just unknown

and then have gotten bigger, like Michael Cyril Crichton. Some of them are like, kind of like the guy who's like the former boxer, you know? Like some of them are like non-professional actors. And this is another movie like that where anyone who shows up for like 15 seconds is really impactful and searing. I've remembered these people my entire adult life. Because they were on screen for 45 seconds in this movie. What is the energy being captured here? It's a remarkable testament to casting directors and also just like, uh...

Like six credited cast directors at the end. The Polish casting as well, right? And all that. Um, I want to shout out the blood. Um, because I feel like Spielberg had done lots of violence in movies before, but it's always more cartoonish or in like the case of the color purple or whatever, it's, I mean, it's realistic-ish, but you know... But also a little bit avoided.

Yes, exactly. I feel like he does such a good job to make like, when people get shot, blood spurts out of their head and it's gross and it's disturbing. But also is now this jet black goo. It looks very visceral and real in a way that like kind of gets me every time there's something kind of You're not dealing with Rambo squibs you know, there's something about watching in the deep background of a shot a person just get like Gunned in the head and then you see the splurt and they fall to ground the blood continues to trickle and it's like oh

the the commonality of this violence. There's a, I mean, the banality of people. Banality is the word I would throw at you, but it is, yes. There is a banality to just the executions. There's just like, and the movie is always, it always has less executions and murders than I remember. I think often I conflated with- But all of those scenes are so- Yeah. But I think like the pianist with... But all of those scenes are so... But I think like the pianist, I feel like in my mind,

in the first hour, it's like every time you turn the camera, you're seeing someone... The pianist is the same if you rewatch it. Where, right, you're like, no, I've actually just kind of been thinking of like three or four moments that are so shocking and, you know, distressing. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it does, you know, obviously the horror is meant to be sort of muffled and muted in the background and sort of interpolated into daily life, but they do a good job of

not, I don't know, not making it, you numb to it. The Pianist, which I think is a very good film, is also about, from the perspective of someone who this is happening to. Which a lot of the Holocaust movies are. You're watching the Warsaw ghetto shrink around him and then he gets shipped to Treblinka and all that. Especially the post-Trenler movies are primarily these stories of the people trying to survive. What are you thinking?

Of course, Life is Beautiful. Life is Beautiful. Of course, Jacob the Liar. I was going to say bullshit like Jacob the Liar. But wait, what are other, I'm trying to think of like other canonical sort of Holocaust films. Like concentration camp movies. Did they, I mean, maybe you guys weren't old enough, but they took me at school.

They like got us all on buses and took us to see Life is Beautiful when it opened in theaters. It makes sense to me that like, it became a sort of like, is this important? Yeah, they weirdly didn't do that, but did take us to Shakespeare in love, I want to say. Well, hey man, they wanted you to have a great time. I just remember being like, I can't believe I'm getting to see boobs during a school day.

Hell, yeah. Well, that's Saint Anne's for you. Well, hey, I was not there yet. OK, fair enough. That's wherever you were for you. This is Joseph Fiennes. He will be our nation's most important actor. It's interesting.

15 years ago. In the 2000s, yes, there are plenty of films that, you know, involve either directly or glancingly the Holocaust. There's movies like the gray zone, Timberlake Nelson's movie, which never went anywhere, which is pretty disturbing. Yes. Other films like, you know, Costa Gavras's Amen. But like none of these movies really hit. And was there sort of a feeling like-

There's not a lot of money in the Holocaust, despite what Schindler's List may have convinced people. Like the closest you have is The Read, The Pianist, which is, you know, a genuinely big movie, but it was made European and all that. And The Reader, which, you know, nobody actually, like, I guess it made like a hundred million worldwide, which is insane to consider.

But there was a wild proliferation of Holocaust movies. There's a lot of Holocaust movies, but they're not... Whatever, resonating in the culture in the same way. It kind of becomes like, oh, it's just homework. And also kind of like failed Oscar bait. Like movies... Yeah, and right, is it some easy path to an Oscar? It becomes cynical in a way Defiance

Right, which I know is not quite the same thing But you where you just be like, oh, here's a serious director announces a movie with three serious actors That's about the Holocaust in some way defines is kind of a movie people were asking for would like well show me a movie I want to choose Directed by Edwards away Nazis and it's like well, that's a story of that. And everyone was like, well, it's okay. There was a lot of concern at the time of Schindler's List's release that because of the shadow that Spielberg cast, it would be treated as the last word on the Holocaust. And I think you see that in a lot of the hesitation around academics around the time it came out.

And I think the opposite, well, maybe not the opposite. Again, it's complicated because the movie is so seared into our visual memory, but it opened the floodgates. In a way. You had to get to the zookeeper's wife where suddenly like, okay, but tell me about the zoos at the time. Boy, the Stripe for Drama,

or like it's already referenced as a movie I find basically abhorrent. It's quite abhorrent. I mean, I would say the sort of major Holocaust films, post Schindler's List, that had a big impact on the culture are Life is Beautiful, to some extent. Although somewhat of a forgotten movie now. But at the time was humongous. At the time, very big. The Pianist, for sure.

The reader, sort of. Son of Saul, for sure. And obviously Son of Saul is trying to take a different approach in telling that story. And it was very polarizing movie, I feel like some people were so moved by it. Others were right. We're kind of not into it at all. Uh, zookeeper's wife. Absolutely. Uh, Jojo Rabbit.

That doesn't count. Uh, it's not even really a hard body. Chris whites who made Operation finale and a zone of interest operation. Finally, I think it's a really good movie. That's not really a directly a Holocaust. What I'm saying when we had him on the podcast, talking about Allied, yes, Zemeckis' The Secret, my house is a prince.

Zemeckis' The Secret, pretty good. This is Secret 3 out of 5, yeah. But he was saying, like, I feel like I didn't get the memo that no one liked World War II movies anymore. That he felt like, this is one of those sturdy Hollywood genres from the 90s on where this is like a proven area where you can make a serious grown-up movie with movie stars and legitimate production values. And then the movie kind

of got like... Monuments then. Right. What happened to those monuments? I would put forward, does something kind of shift in Inglourious Basterds? A little bit, but... With like the, having such a wildly different genre-based tone

and the revisionist history and everything, where from that moment on, people don't want to watch Hollywood make a serious version of this. But then they did, the zone of interest did break through. I feel like it's like, son of Saul's zone of interest. If you are going to mess with the form- I'm saying Hollywood.

Yeah, I know. This is my point. Both of those movies are doing unconventional things with the form. They're happening in foreign countries with, like, smaller budgets. I think you can't do the big, shiny studio version of it anymore. No, but you also can't get to the zone of interest without Schindler's List. I think, you know, Schindler's List is a film that, you know, its detractors may disagree, but it's...

Can we please put this stuff all down? It's crazy to look at you making these points while you have it. No, it's fine. I've been clutching it to my chest. It's been totally connected. I would put a hidden life in a similar vein to... Yeah, but I think that, like, you know, obviously, this is the ultimate question at the root of any conversation about Holocaust cinema is how to depict an atrocity, to what extent you are minimizing it by, through recreation, by visualizing it. Schindler's List takes it to one sort of maximalist extreme, but it's in very,

into my mind, one of the reasons I have such reverence for this movie is that it's in a very real and nuanced conversation with the right to do that. And the Zone of Interest is, I think, similarly nuanced, but obviously on the opposite end of the spectrum, where it is, you know, taking away any sort of visual evidence and operating solely through absence. And I think similarly nuanced, but obviously on the opposite end of the spectrum where it is you know taking away any sort of visual evidence and operating solely through absence and I think it's not one or the other. I mean these things have to be in conversation with each other And I think they're both valuable in their own terms but I also think you know for me one of the reasons why Schindler's List is bigger than you know it the sum of its parts or its role as a movie is because

You know there is a danger as've said, about one thing becoming the focal point for our memory of the Holocaust. But I think the work that it did to enshrine the memory of the Holocaust in the abstract, even only one version of it, one telling of it, in the collective unconscious is inestimably important. And it's seeded the path for all these other conversations. And you see now how, even now, you know, the Holocaust is in jeopardy of being, it's questioned all the time. We see Nazism on the rise and whatnot.

I think it's my mind's eye, all the stories my grandfather would tell did not coalesce into something I could picture until I saw this movie I had seen other call Holocaust movies and I do think night and fog which you mentioned before that's something where it's like watch that You'll see right, you know Absence, I mean you're seeing just the hair piles and the shoes and that is more in conversation with the zone of interest But I think that like I needed like a and I think a lot of people who were thinking about the Holocaust less than the descendants of survivors needed a

baseline understanding of what this is. They need to see it through the lens of Hollywood spectacle in order to wrap their minds around it to let their imagination sort of touch the horror that was sort of always a little bit beyond the pale. As you're saying, the undeniable effect of the conversation that Schindler's List was able to force, like everyone to have, being such a culturally important movie and a movie that even like, you know,

when they aired on broadcast television for the first time four or five years after, they're like, it will air in its entirety without commercial breaks and no edits. And the ratings are even higher than the color premiere of Nebraska. It was at the time, like I think 20 million people watched Schindler's List play as a Sunday night network TV movie. It was the highest ratings any TV broadcast of a theatrical film had gotten since Jurassic

Park and they played it without cuts, without commercial interruption, with nudity, with no censoring. And there was the sense of just like, this is so important. Tom Coburn, who was a senator, I think he was a congressman at the time, who back then was one of the most psychotic Republicans around, now would probably be a pillar of decency in that party. But was like, what if a child changes the channel and sees a nipple? No, it was beyond that. He was like, this is an all-time all-time low like nudity violence profanity. I do love the idea

He's like this Schindler's got a body For it that he had to like publicly apologize, of course now you would become Secretary of Commerce for right having that way But like that speaks to how active the conversation was around this movie for years. Beyond it just being a film that basically immediately went into like school rotation, a thing that is shown, a thing that does start to transform it into homework. Then you have all these shitty prestige, you know, World War II movies. And then you have the good films that come out of it are like art house intellectual exercises that are critically very respected, but are not engaging in a mainstream conversation. As a teenager though, this movie, look,

Saving Private Ryan was the serious Spielberg movie that all teen boys were like, oh shit, like, have you seen that? Like, you know, uh, pepper shot that guy through the, like talking about it like they watched a fucking awesome action movie, which it is, but it's also very serious. Um, but. But people would talk about the most visceral scenes in this movie, kind of like you had seen a horror movie. Like, I remember that kind of like, you know, teen boy discussion. That's the impact of having Spielberg.

And like the scene of finds trying to shoot the guy and the gun won't work. You know, these scenes that are like drawn out torture. Right. I mean, there is a lot of consternation about the suspense of, you know, showing the Jewish women going into the showers and having them... That's the scene that Hanukkah always focuses on. Right. And, uh, and, you know, one, that actually happened.

Uh, and two, I mean, I think that suspense is one of the film's tools to engaging viewers in participating and acknowledging history. You know, I think, again, this Village Voice symposium that came out, you have someone like Art Spiegelman engaging viewers in participating and acknowledging history. I think, again, this Village Voice Symposium that came out, you have someone like Art Spiegelman, who, other than Brian Michael Bendis, who, by the way, sounds fucking exactly like Paul Sheen.

He's the only other graphic novelist whose name I recognize. So you guys gotta get Spiegelman on the show. Mouse, a classic. But Spiegelman hated this movie. Yeah. And I think... A lot of people who are very involved in telling stories about the Holocaust hated this movie.

Claude Lansman didn't like this movie. I'm aware. And he thought that it was too... Claude Lansman, bit of a grump, I will say. Sure, but I think, look, this is such a sensitive, complicated subject matter that I think anyone who has spent so much time digging in and trying to figure out the responsible way to depict it is going to then butt against what other people landed on.

Yes. But I also think that what, and this isn't to take anything away from Archbiegelman who again, Maus, is a formative text for me and he was the son directly of a Holocaust survivor. Yes, the crazy garbage pail kids. He, I didn't know that. And also, but he did have a huge beef with Spielberg going into this movie because of American Tail, which he thought was a ripoff. But he just felt like it was...

I mean, points were made. I mean... He's not... Listen, but we all also, in this house, respect final muskwits. There's room in my heart for both. But yeah, he was just like, it's just too... I just think that they were...

This isn't any point against them. Like too close to it. Fievel Moskowitz is a turf. I just looked it up. Sorry. He's gonna be cast in the new Harry Potter though. That's good to know. He went on Bill Maher and he said some shit I don't like.

He's selling weird brain pills. Is he still out West? Did he ever come East? Yeah, Fievel, he went West and never came back. He bought a compound in Austin, Texas. And he's yok out West. Did he ever come East? Yeah, he finally went West and never came back. He bought a compound in Austin, Texas. And he's yoked now. Well, there turned out to be more cats in America, you know? Streets of Rastav, which is...

But I think that they didn't recognize the extent to which our conception, our generation's conception of history would be formed by popular culture, by movies, the role... Like, they looked as a negative in Spielberg's and his power over the public consciousness and could have been a negative. I think they underestimated, one, the conversation this movie would create, and two, just the good that it would do to have it on those terms. I agree. Now, this is what I think I'm trying to get at here, which is like the weird, I don't want to say double-edged sword, but like that this film inspires a bunch of movies

that are not as good, that do not hold up as well. Ones that were dead on arrival and ones that were lauded at the time and now feel kind of embarrassing, right? And then the conversation, how we talk about the Holocaust in art becomes a much headier, more intellectual thing rather than like a mainstream conversation.

We're getting far enough away from it. The survivors are dying. It is becoming abstracted. As you said, a lot of the like collective memory or notion of this is kind of in a language, a tone, a look that this film kind of codifies, for better or worse. Obviously, you make a film about any large historical event.

It should exist in a dialectic with all other works in that space, right? Like I always find it frustrating when people will critique a movie for being like, but it didn't touch on this. If it is not the first movie to ever cover that area, because the responsibility isn't to do all of it in one film.

But this film has lasted in a way that others haven't, while also sort of getting flattened a little bit into like a notion of it being a homework movie, which I don't think it is in practice if you're watching it, which then allows for in like decades since there has been any work that has touched on this in a way that actually reached this widely, we start to now be far enough away

that we're losing sight of what is going on, which leads to a present moment where you have like three or four different terrifying misinterpretations of what should we take away from the Holocaust that are happening on a colossal scale on our planet. But I do think that plays into the entertainment value of it, which I think the movie needs to be as compelling as it is for new generations to be able to see it and come in and recognize the urgency of what the movie's saying. Whereas if it were totally, you know, in this rarefied space where we can't really talk about it, you know, we have to talk in hushed tones about the Holocaust, it becomes that

much easier to allow something that is, you know, perpetuating the same crimes, but in a different guise to happen again. And, you know, I have to say, you know, we can get to the, I don't know if we were jumping out to the end of the movie, but it is now, the end of this movie crushes me. It always has. You know, we can talk, well, we will talk, I'm sure.

The epilogue? Yeah, I'm talking about the epilogue. You know, I was emotionally overcome the other night, as I always am, by all of these people, by the collapse of history of the actors and the people that are playing. That is such an incredible touch. You know, putting the rose on Schindler's grave and whatnot on the stones. But I think it has an extra dimension, a regrettably extra dimension of tragedy to me now in that

Israel, you know, representing what Israel has become, which is like, you know, it's this point you see in the movie, we can't go east, they hate you there, you can't go west, you have to find a homeland of your own. And, you know, I think it's a dark irony in much the same way as like Jonathan Glazer's Academy Awards speech called Attention Too about, you know, the subject matter of the Zona Victaress, which people are very normal about.

Which does kind of prove the point, I feel like we're dancing around here, where it's like for that movie to be so lauded by the Academy, while being a very small movie in the grand scheme of things, and yet have that percentage of the people in the audience who had voted for the film get angry at the speech where he is just stating what the movie is about. Yeah, but the never again of it all just doesn't hold water. When you see the end of Schindler's List and they're now in a country

that is perpetuating similar crimes on another. And it's just, it's the unbearable, it's the idea that this is going to happen and happen and happen throughout history and why I think in this moment in particular, I find it more resonant rather than less that we're focusing on someone who is in power in the movie. You know, a character with agency who found some sort of moral center

and awakening, who used his capital for good, because these are the people that we are most reliant upon right now. And these situations feel powerless. We're like reliant on or like being crushed by. Like, you know know sort of... I mean the never again of it all is the thing I have been stewing on so much for the last whatever 18 months of our hellscape right in a larger 10-year hellscape in a larger centuries long hellscape but there is this sense of

muddling of what this movie is not not just this movie is about, but the sentiment that this movie is born out of that I feel like is very similar not to take too big of a swing here, but the kind of like perversion of the abstract idea of the teachings of Christ to then like alienate persecuted groups, right? You're saying that Christianity has participated in the oppression of the oppressed? This is the first time hearing about this, but I'm going to hear them out. I'm saying that like all of this shit keeps happening where we're like, great, I got it. You're giving me the one sentence.

That's the thing I never forget. Right. Never again. And then people lose sight of when they're like doing the thing again, when they're actually acting the exact opposite of the mantra that they have now abstracted into a way where it can be twisted to their own means or just fucking lose sight of it. And while the ending of Schindler's List

is obviously laudatory towards the existence of Israel in that sense, it is that threading the needle, collapsing the space, whatever you want to call it, between the past and the present is something that's so instrumental to what this movie is doing. I think you need, that's why those bookends work so well, why we start in sort of this like, you know, liminal present state and then fade into the past, right? You know, I think it's saying

like this is a part of our world, this cannot be separated or compartmentalized. And when we do that, we invite it to happen again. And I, you know, I... And the perversion of the never again doesn't mean we can't let this happen to the Jews ever again. And I, you know, I... And the perversion of the never again doesn't mean we can't let this happen to the Jews ever again. Of course not, of course not. There is a larger responsibility to make sure this doesn't happen in our world again. And that twisting has led to like such horrors.

And I was afraid that I hadn't really dug too much into it because I'm very clear on where I stand and I don't know, I don't need to parse what certain celebrities have to say. But with Spielberg, it's different because in my mind, and maybe you can understand this, Spielberg is sort of like the great Jew of my lifetime. He has become like a weird kind of cultural ambassador for Judaism. And I don't mean that morally. I just sort of mean that in his stature.

Like a very famous Jewish person who like, right, just speaks on and, you know, deals with Jewish identity. And I think already was, but then this movie makes it like, okay, great. So he's like the prominent Jew in American pop culture. Right. And the pop culture was sort of my lingua franca, you know, my whole life. This is how I, this is where I wanted to interact with Jewishness.

You know, it was always more interesting to me that Superman was Jewish than reading the fucking tall, you know, you don't read the tall, you know what I mean? But the, and so his comments in the wake of October 7th, I was always very afraid of what they might say, and I was reading them over last night, and I just couldn't imagine that someone who made Schindler's List would look at this and be like, would see it, you know,

in the worst possible light, it's like totally disconnected from what had happened. And I, you know, maybe he said some things that I didn't see when searching the internet, but at best I could tell... He really only made public comments about what's going on. Yeah, he was saying, you know, as someone who then founded the Shoah Institute and is going to be asked to for comment

on something like this, he made mention of the Palestinian people and was talking about, you know, their suffering in the same breath as lamenting the deaths of the... I would say......Israelis on October 7th. And it seemed like, you know, he's not going to be the guy in the same breath as lamenting the deaths of the Israelis on October 7th. And it seemed like, you know, he's not gonna be the guy who is coming out with free Palestine, you know, hashtag. But he-

Maybe he could though. I would love that for him. That would really surpass my expectations. So incredibly impactful. I don't know. I mean, he's obviously, you know, he's a fairly, I think long been like a fairly sort of straightforwardly supportive of the state of Israel person. Yeah. Yes. I he was not he's not

I'm just saying, you know, like there's a certain sort of streak of celebrity who became In you know, very very polemical in a way that was kind of disturbing. He's certainly sure Yeah, he's not he's not Release kind of measured statements on the facts of like, you know He's not a... He's not a... He's not a... He's not a... He's not a... He's not a... He's not a...

He's not a... He's not a... He's not a... He's not a... He's not a... He's not a...eld's like a really normal dude with normal behavior. I mean, this is part of you...

Great director, though. Unfrosted. Yeah. I laughed for days. I laughed a couple times. That movie is well shot. It's Lens, baby. It's a couple of pulls. I know, I know.

I didn't mind Unfrosted. I didn't hate it. I mean, one of the great trials of my life was watching and reading about that movie, but teach their own. What I would like to do... Top us 93 minutes, yeah, okay. Garth, go ahead. No, I think watching this movie in like 2003, right, when there were not as clear, like,

sort of, screamed, underlined parallels in the current situation of the world. You're thinking about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' recent triumph at the Super Bowl. That was top of my mind. 24-7 in 2003. You're excited for the release of the return of the... I'm trying to think of 2003 stuff. Yep. Radiohead's on tour. You gotta catch them at MSG. I saw Radiohead. That's the hail of the people.

It sure was. It was great. It radicalized me that summer. They opened with the Fever. It sure was. It was great. It radicalized me that summer. They opened with the gloaming. Gloaming live, fucking rocks, anyway. Real loud. I'm trying to remember what my point was. 2003, you're watching Schindler's List.

Right. You know, this feeling that I think it sounds like all three of us had watching the film as young men being like, how the fuck does this happen? Like, looking to this movie for answers of how the fuck does this happen? Like looking to this movie for answers of how could such a thing happen? Because I feel like if you are a Jewish child, a certain, a couple generations away like we were, you learn about this in a very large sort of like

it's not like I was like, wait, what's this now? I certainly, right, had been educated. And you start pulling at strings and going like, wait, what do you mean? How is that possible? Like, how much of the terror am I allowed to dig into at this point, right? How do I understand the steps of something escalating to this kind of point? And you watch a movie like this and you're just like, how were there not, like, thousands of Oscar Shindlers?

How were there not more people standing up and, like, objecting and all this sort of shit? Sure, right. I mean, I think an amazing and sort of forgotten scene in the movies where he's talking to the other businessman, trying to get him on board and the guy's like, I already did a lot. And you're kind of like, you haven't fucking done anything,

but to him even the slightest, anyway. If we're like policing, like why hasn't Spielberg like taken more of a stance, right? Why hasn't he used his power more, like delivering all this't Spielberg, like, taken more of a stance, right? Why hasn't he used his power more? Like, deliberating all this stuff. This is my point. A lot of what I've struggled to deal with in the last year is, like, I don't know if any of this fucking works anymore. Like, I don't know if any of this has any fucking impact anymore. It is, like, really kind of overwhelming to be, like, there has been such a loud conversation

going on for so long in what feels like kind of an to be like there has been such a loud conversation going on for so long in what feels like kind of an immovable issue. As I do unfortunately think that it does, well maybe not unfortunately, I don't know. I mean, the fallout of Jonathan Glazer's speech was really blew my mind. So sobering. In a horrible way. I felt for Glazer because I feel like he was incredibly nervous. Yeah. But it's also like, this is what the movie...

Griffin said, this is what the movie's about. I know! You don't have to fucking tell me! Sorry. He threw his wallet at me and I'm keeping it. Yeah, you're taking anything you want from that. No, I threw my wallet at Erlich because I already threw something else at him. Um, I know. But like, I felt like he...

It's not like he bobbled the speech at all. But like, you could feel he was he bobbled the speech at all, but you could felt he was so nervous and the speech has kind of a rhetorical in my memory kind of like device to it, right? Where he's like, and people misinterpreted the language right away in bad faith. Willfully, yeah.

Exactly. But I felt so frustrated because I was like, I know what he was trying to say and I think you do too. And you're like, you know, putting a comma somewhere essentially to kind of make it work for you. And it was really infuriating. It was really infuriating. Let me throw this out.

Unlike like Michael Moore getting up there and yelling where I'm like, well, some people are just not going to enjoy Michael Moore yelling at them. And then Billy Crystal makes a joke about him being shoved in a trunk and people applaud. The cognitive dissonance to do this. It was a pretty good joke. The cognitive dissonance to do this... That was a pretty good joke. The cognitive dissonance to do this, like, blows my mind.

Oh, you're right. But some people did watch Zone of Interest and did not pick up on any of that. They were just like, oh wow, this is really about the Holocaust and they should have known. Right, this is why we have to make sure that Jewish people are never persecuted against again. That was their entire reading of the film. I mean, maybe we should cut all this out that keeps happening. We have to go into the... Or triple it. Because, I mean, we spent the last...

I really don't think we should triple it, because that would really take a long time. Just put a deep reverb on it that makes it sound like everything we said is heard three times. But I think that what we went through for the past... And I say this as someone who's writing about movies, writing about Zone of Interest, writing about other Holocaust and Israel adjacent movies...

And you have not avoided talking about these things. I have. I have been very clear-throated. writing about Zone of Interest, writing about other, you know, Holocaust and Israel-adjacent movies on the internet. And you have not avoided talking about these things. I have been very clear-throated. I mean, I feel like I have mortally fortified as I've been on any subject that I've ever spoken about, about the enormity of the wrong that Israel has perpetrated. And people said I was wrong. People over here said I was wrong to book David Earl.

I said you were wrong. I said that you were framing it as he's desperate to come home. And he was framing it as I'm being hounded by Sims to come on. Well, he's always framing it that way. Continue your point, Mr. Ehrlich. No, it's just that there was a time and it feels only slightly diminished recently where to even name the crime that Israel has been perpetuating was verboten.

To really mix my German and Modern politics but like it you know I would have to go through rounds of legal ease to use the word genocide and make sure that I you know There were governing bodies in the world that I could link to to back up my decision to use such a word And I would be accused. I'm not gonna name names or go into specifics, but like, there were heated incidents, some of which I definitely went out of my way to invite upon myself that, you know, whatever. You invite? Yeah, I know.

But and some of which took me by surprise, where the language I was using was policed and seen as being aggressive. And it did not feel safe for a person employed by anyone other than themselves or by a large company to even a Jew, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, to say that what was going on. And I was like, I can speak to this issue in a more full-throated way than I can to almost any other of the world's great atrocities of my lifetime. And even so was still getting blowback for it and mostly from other members ostensibly of my community. And that, you know, it really has, it's really soured me on a lot of different things

over the last 18 months or so. It's been really painful. Look, I think it is an incredible microcosm through which to underline all of the kind of social evils of social media, of the actual damage it is wrecking upon our brains and our society and all of that sort of shit. When I say I don't know if any of this matters anymore, I'm working hard to not fall into a level of despondency that is, so why even bother doing any of it?

But I think what I spin on is like, let's say Glazer had somehow done the impossible and like perfectly worded the speech in a way that no one could object. Sure, given some speech that everyone was like, wow, he's really throwing things into context for me. Within 30 seconds, people are doing jerk off motions going, oh, liberal Hollywood elites in their bubble. Because even the idea of that happening at the Oscars doesn't mean the same thing it used to mean anymore.

You know, like, everything is so blown up and so, like, endlessly expansive in a way, and is so loud and just this constant pit of screaming. And of course, I think to someone like Glazer, and I sympathize with this greatly, it shouldn't be that controversial to say, hey, remember that, you know, people defining thing that they did to us less than 100 years ago? Maybe we shouldn't do something similar to that

to someone else. Maybe we should actually learn from that and behave differently. I mean, it would seem to be a benign statement, but whatever. In certain ways, it is a danger of the death of the monoculture, right? Of just people being like, well, I'm going to my own sources.

I'm existing in my own bubble. I'm looking at what my social media feed is and what I watch, which outlets I pay attention to and whatever. And in other ways, the scary part is like the control of those outlets in certain ways, you know? And the bends that things are taking. It's a fucking nightmare situation.

At the Oscars where Stephen, you know, it's Steven Steven. He and I are very close he Stevie he says that you know, he wants to accept this on behalf of the 1 billion people Watching on behalf of the 6 million who perished is really Jews in Poland But like a billion be I mean it really you have the feeling watching that ceremony that really this was the center of the universe The Oscars always used to say that really this was the center of the universe. And an anointment. I will say that though, the Oscars always used to say that. They were like, a billion people watch the Oscars,

and you're like, no, they don't. What are you talking about? But the Jonathan Glazer speech was one of the few moments where it did suddenly feel like the Oscars were back at the center of the universe to some limited extent for a half second. Well, it was also just one of those things where it was like, I wonder if he'll, like, you know, make a speech versus like going up there and being like, well, thank you, this film was hard to make

and I'm glad for the rich. It's gonna be very interesting in like four days from when we're recording this to see if, and hopefully when, No Other Land wins best documentary. That will be interesting. I imagine it's going to win. It seems like it is. Which is so, I mean, it's so wild that Glaser speech

would trigger that reaction a year ago among so many people in Hollywood, obviously, maybe not a majority, but enough. And then you would have that same body award such an outspoken film. But that movie has the narrative of like, who made it? And look, we're getting very deep in the weeds. Have you guys, I've shouted this movie out before. I'm moving us to a slightly different tack here. By the way, you're never getting your wallet back.

No, it's fine now. It's fine. He threw a wallet at a Jewish, it felt like an anti-Semitic attack. It's because I don't know. It's because I don't know you so much. Have you ever seen, I've shouted out before, the HBO TV movie directed by Frank Pearson, Conspiracy?

No. It was acclaimed at the time. One Emmy's like, you know, it was not like a forgotten movie or a TV movie. I've seen it kind of a disturbing amount of times considering it's a movie about Nazis planning the final solution. It is incredible. And I feel like it gets no recognition. 2001.

It's called conspiracy. It stars Kenneth Branagh Remember Colin first in K Street where somebody goes to see Schindler's List. I don't know I feel like I saw this poster poster Is that conspiracy K Street is an HBO show? Okay. Yes. Okay. It's the Soderbergh. Yeah, it's about lobbyists. Weirdly, people were not that interested. I don't know why. Even though it's the start of America's favorite TV star, James Carville.

The whole thing, it was a classic Soderbergh where he's like, well, what if I just like point cameras at lobbyists? HBO will be interested right now. Like, nobody fucking... Anyway, I highly recommend it as a sort of flip side because it's an incredibly simple film. It's basically set at a big table. There's basically nothing to it.

It's about the real Vanassi, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong, conference in 1942, where Heydrich, who was a high ranking Nazi at the time, basically gathered a bunch of people and was like... I'm thinking of The Corner, not K Street, The Corner. What was The Corner? The Corner is David Simon's mini-series that basically was like... As soon as he did James Carville, I was like, there's no fucking way he was in the show. I wish so badly that I had the wallet back.

Well, you don't. Because now you deserve it to the dome. You only get one wallet, that's the problem. You know, he gathers the high ranking Nazis and is like, Hitler has ordered us to exterminate the Jews and like an, you know, beyond what we've been doing in a, in a uniform way and we're going to, and we're here to figure out exactly how to do it.

And it's amazingly acted because it's so procedural and like, there's nothing more chilling than watching people discuss this stuff as sort of a matter of fact. Like, you know, just, and there are moments, obviously, where like things get more, you know, bigoted and intense or whatever. And there's also moments where it's just like fucking German army, you know, big shots arguing like having little turf wars with each other. It fucking rocks. I have a question about it.

I'm interested. Does America get a shout out? In conspiracy? Wait. Because, of course, it's been found that... Oh, that America kind of knew what was going on. Okay, what are you talking about? No, it was found, and I'm pretty sure it was during the specific meetings that you're shouting

out, that they were looking to America in the way that we suppressed African Americans. Yes. I do think some of that- As a system that they could then incorporate into what they were doing to the Jews. I think they do briefly mention something like that. I can't remember, but I know what you're talking about. What a lovely species we have here. Yeah. A lovely series of governments. Just a nice reminder. Yeah. Sorry to pile on bummer. No, but that's what's so interesting,

is that you watch an interesting, whatever, fascinating, disturbing, distressing, like you watch Schindler's List and you're 15 years old, you're David, me or Ehrlich, and you're like, I have so many questions. Or Ben. I would choose Sims. Oh, get out of here. Come on.

You must have been cool. No. Your entire audience, you gave them the biggest laugh this whole episode. You were a cutie pie. Ah. Elisa recently sent me a picture of you in college and we were both like, what a cutie pie he was.

You're watching and you're like, but how could this not just like happen? It's just like, you're telling me there was like sort of, you know, what I'm talking about, like, people writing things down and making plans and being like, yeah, yeah, use that railroad. That one's good. Like, yeah, yeah, use Auschwitz. Auschwitz is really good because it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, so no one will see what's going on. So they know they don't want anyone to see what's going on. You know what I mean? Like, all of those thoughts, it's just like, every time you think about like the thought process

or the conversations people had, you're like, how did this continue? Like how did it not stop there or there? Something that I'll think allows Schindler's List to not spin into the model and really get overly or any sentimental toward until the very end is it's focused on bureaucracy from the start. I mean, this is a story about people.

Yes, it is. It's the first line in the movie, other than the prayer and the prologue, is someone being like, name, and then you see them just taking down names. Throughout the movie, it's all just a drama of, you know, trying not to create more paperwork or less paperwork, and everyone just, you know,

and then of course the miracle of it all is solved by paperwork effectively at the end. It is interesting that... Like the most thrilling thing they do is Kingsley fucking burning up that typewriter like the end It is interesting that Amistad is so transparently him trying to make his Schindler's list for slavery and the actual successful Version is Lincoln which once again takes the approach of bureaucracy where it's like the way this gets settled is through like an

Absolute like king shit working of our fuck system But like I think Amistad he thought he had it too, where it's like, well, oh, what's interesting is they put on trial the notion of, like, you know, were they allowed to do this? Like, were they allowed to overthrow their masters on this boat? I think this speaks to like... Oh, sorry, go on. Like, he just thought, like, that's another way to get at that question, right? In, like, a non... And, like, it's not like Amistad's a bad movie.

I mean, we put out like 53 great minutes on it. You can go listen to any time. And then a four hour episode. Maybe we should re-Amistad. Our ad reads are 53 minutes long. I will say this, I mean, working on my like ultimate Spielberg ranking that we'll do at the end of this episode, I was just like, man, like, 10 of these I need to rewatch. But I do think that...

And Amistad is one of them where I'm like, I would like to watch it again. But I think Amistad does then rely on, like, magic movie stars giving the great monologues to sell it, versus, like, the biggest Lincoln monologues in Lincoln happen behind closed doors for two people. And then the real action is him sending out like fucking, you know... Mator and Hawks or whoever.

Right. To like work it and massage it and all this sort of stuff. In the same way as Schindler where it's like, you have to kind of just like wheel and deal to trick people into doing the right thing. He speaks to another one of the prevailing interests of Spoke's career, which is his fascination with how history is told. How it's written. And you see it even in a film like The Post, which I think is underrated from the one time that I saw it.

Which he also knows that he is one of the people who now is writing history. That anything he depicts is part of... Yes, there is that double, that twin awareness, which I think, you know, he was aware to, to some degree, in Schindler's List, and then his fame grew, I think became even more pronounced, but like, you know, he is aware that he is Hollywoodizing

everything he touches and perverting the historical record to some degree. He's trying to do it responsibly rather than denying it. And I think, yeah, his films have a very sort of textual emphasis on what the different, what it means to create history, to write these stories, what the decisions are that go into that. And really the documents and the paperwork that form the lives of the people that they touch. You see it across history. In Lincoln, what we're watching is the Civil War's about to end. You know, they've essentially, quote-unquote, won. And Lincoln is like, well, we still need to put...

We need to write this shit down. Like, we need to put it in the Constitution before the Southern states rejoin, before, like, you know, there's no chance of it ever happening. And everyone around him is like, do we have to put it in the Constitution before the Southern states rejoin before like, you know, there's any, you know, no chance of it ever happening. And everyone around him is like, do we have to, you know, like, we won, like, it's fun. Take the W. Right. Walk away.

You know, like, that's a lot of work. It's hard. You have to use all your political capital on this. Like, yada, yada, yada. Right. And he's like, no, no, no, I understand that this is going to be pivotal. And the movie has hindsight, so it knows it's pivotal, but nonetheless, like, he also is like, I have theater tickets, like six months for now, so we could get it done within that window. I want to be able to see a play and not have this on my mind. You got six months. A little bit more paperwork would have saved him.

Um, in Schindler's list, what's so crazy is that there's an awful thing happens in front of Oscar Schindler every five minutes and he's laughing it off. Now he's trying to survive like Ben saying like and just sort of skate by or you know what right just like hey when like this is this is the way it is but like he's in the middle of insanity. Like where is he on Amistad and Lincoln it's kind of like well we know about the insanity but we're over here in Washington and we're kind of like, well, we know about the insanity, but we're over here in Washington

and we're kind of like trying to untangle it, like, legally. But this guy has been, right, unlike Lincoln, Schindler, let's also call out. Neeson could have, was supposed to be Lincoln. Neeson was supposed to be Lincoln. For like 10 years. I know, we talked about it on Lincoln.

I just want to say it in this episode. For like 10 years, Lincoln was Spielberg's Schindler part two, where he was like, I'm not yet ready, but I know I want to make it. That episode. For like 10 years, Lincoln was Spielberg's Schindler Part 2 where he was like, I'm not yet ready, but I know I want to make it. That man was a tall drink of water. That whole decade, it was Neeson supposed to do it. And then when he finally got the script

and was like, Liam, I'm ready to go, Liam's like, I'm not the right guy. And it was- I'm not the right guy. It was a correct decision. Like it would have- Is anyone going to take Lincoln's daughter? I have to shoot a whole movie in a parked car. I was so excited about the idea of Neeson playing Lincoln. There was some Photoshop that went around.

You probably remember it, like in those early days at the internet where someone had Photoshopped the beard on him. And it was like, this is gonna rock. It's gonna rock, right? But beyond the fact that it's just like, you're never gonna get a better performance than you got from Danny Day playing Lincoln. I also-

I gotta say. I think- Wait, your buddy Dan? Yeah. Big D? Yeah. Now, now, now. A Neeson-Lincoln coming out one year after Taken.

Would have been a swing. Would have been a real pivot. It's fun to imagine. I am- It would have flipped people's brains a bit. I am going all in on the hope that the naked gun remake this summer brings Neeson all the way around in New Jamaica.

We all have our eggs in that basket, I would say. If you looked at the eggs in that basket, they have the blank check logo on them all over. It's crazy. There's so many things at stake on that movie, which I'm just asking to be- The future of theatrical comedy. Silly and consistently funny.

Neeson not just making movies set in park cars. I'm like, this, it potentially opens up the final, last golden phase of Neeson's career. Because, like, the other movie he's making is called Cold Storage, and I don't know what it's about, but here's my guess. His fourth movie with cold in the title in the last four months. I do just want to, you know, talking about Neeson in like a funny vein. He's got cold pursuit and like cold trucks.

Yeah dude, he's in the ice road, but yeah. The ice road fucking blows. Cold Pursuit is a really solid movie that had the misfortune of being the movie that he was on the press door. Disaster press door. Yeah, but... And one more thing Robin,

and she's like, not one more thing, turn his mic off! Stop there. If I can add further context. But there is, I mean, Liam Neeson's not in this sequence, although he precipitates it, but like, I do, every time I watch this movie, I am blown away by what has to be the most darkly comic sequence in maybe all of the last 30-some-odd years

of American film. Until Make It Them 2025 comes out. Of course, which is the I Pardon You sequence in Schindler's List, where Schindler prevails on Goethe to show Mercy's power is not control, power is that we have the ability to kill these people and we don't. And then in what is uncomfortably a comic sequence,

you know, Amon pardons, it follows the rule of three, he's like an SNL skit. I mean, like he pardons one person and another, and he's like working against his demons and looking at himself in the window, in the mirror rather, and then it ultimately... Well, he does the thing where he like moves his hair

across his face, yeah. And he's sort of studying himself, and then in typically Spielbergian fashion, the way the information comes out, I mean, he cannot commit to having any sort of redeeming qualities and ends up murdering Lieschek. But it is a... I mean, again, when I think of the sequences that sort of define Schindler's List and are able to thread

the needle between these very contrasting energies, having that sort of like... Gallows' humor is an understatement. Like, the incredibly morbid humor here. And making it, like, you don't laugh when you're watching that, Gallows humor is an understatement. Like the incredibly morbid humor here. And making it, like, you don't laugh when you're watching that, but it is inherently comic. It's not the day the clown cried, but like it's funny in its way. Can we watch that again or do you have to go to West Virginia?

You have to go to Fort Knox? Here's like a thing in this movie that is so risky that I think pays off so beautifully, which is, uh, Schindler basically has no ideology, right? He is so defined. Not that we can tell. Apart from money talks. Right, but that's really-

It's sort of Chris Tucker's ideology. He is defined by this sort of sense of like, I haven't quite been able to make a business work, right? Right. I never will, really. I'm sort of a disappointment. My father thinks I'm kind of like a fuck up. He's sort of the ultimate large adult son.

Very large adult son. I mean, he's good at fucking. He's good at fucking. He's like good at charming people, but you're like, this guy is sort of like, kind of just a dilettante to a certain extent. 100%. He's like the kind of like grindset mindset,

quote unquote, entrepreneur, who you're like, who does this guy like... Pardon me. Okay, carry on. No, but I'm like, he is the... Schindler's tweets about this are fire. He is the version, he is like the LinkedIn lunatic of his time in a certain way. He is all in on crypto.

We're about to hit the three hour mark and I can tell. It's getting good. By the kind of actual... We haven't even talked about... It's fucking nonsense. You know and I can tell. It's getting good. By the kind of actual fucking nonsense. You know, you can tell because I'm getting warm. We haven't even talked about the liquidation of the ghetto sequence, really, which is like maybe the marquee sequence in Spielberg's career. It's really hard to talk about that sequence.

To me, the most important scene in this film, or the scene I'm kind of most impressed by the dramatic execution of, because it's not a complicated sequence in terms of the moving pieces as a filmmaker, is the negotiation for Hirsch, right, with the notion of the game of 21. And that you're kind of surprised that Schindler is willing to put his neck out to try to overplay his hand to get this, right? He's had this moment of relation to her in the basement. When he's talking to her, a move that astounds me is that you can see, and a lot of this

is Janusz and a lot of this is Devitt's, visible goosebumps on her skin as he's sort of circling her and trying to get his head around her and then has that moment of the like, can I kiss you but not in that way, where you're starting to see these gears turning in this dude. And it's also coming after like the negative response he got to the kiss upstairs and all that sort of shit. Then he goes to Kingsley. The kiss where he kisses later, he kisses the Jewish woman at the party, like a sustained kiss on the lips is such an interesting moment because there's no clear indication as to why he is doing it.

And you have to sort of... It speaks once again to his lack of ideology, which is just like, you know what I like doing? Kissing women. Why would I judge any set of lips as not worth kissing? My interpretation for that moment, where he's surrounded by Nazis who are looking at each other being like, what the fuck? Knowing that he's breaking the law is at that point, it is sort of a fuck you. I think he's saying like, like...

Interesting. I think it's a fuck you. He doesn't need to kiss that woman. I think he's doing it to... I think it's early in the film though. No, when he gets arrested, that's towards the end. My read on the movie is like, he's sort of taken aback by their response,

where he's sort of like, you actually are this disgusted by these people? Like he's sort of like, I thought this was sort of like, let's keep the trains running, let's all like prosper and wealth kind of thing. That's really what he shows his cards when he's pouring water on the train car. And he's like, it's completely like that point,

it's unambiguous that he is trying to respect their humanity and the Nazis are just laughing at him. You get there, right? Him saying to kinglessly like leave one extra slot blank. You don't quite understand why he's doing it. Then it gets to the negotiation where he knows Fiennes is gonna pick up on that and makes the play to try to win her. Get Hirsch on the list. And Fiennes starts short-circuiting, right?

Like, this guy is so unequivocally evil, but in a way where he hates himself for being attracted to her, and keeps kind of like tying himself into knots where he's just like, if I wanna fuck her, then I must be vermin too. And he's trying to square this circle, and Neeson knows that that's what he can do

to make him shut down, where it's like challenge him on all of this. He can't push the value that she has to him, because he will collapse. His overriding, biological drive towards this woman is being defeated by his notion of country and what he represents, which is the exact thing that Schindler lacks, that allows him to gradually go like,

wait, this is just a fucking person. Right, ideology would be... Any sort of ideology would be too confining for him to navigate the Holocaust the way that he does. And the more these people make money for him, the more he's like, well, I'm kind of endeared to these people. They've helped make me a millionaire. Why would I view them as less than?

That's so like small minded to just like categorically group a whole like section of people as less. And you just watch like, Fiennes is doing these insane quick turns as he's like pacing back and forth as Nyssen is putting him through the paces being like, yeah, but you're not gonna take her to Vienna. Let's be honest here.

That's not possible, you know? There's another moment in the movie, I'm trying to remember where it is, but it's earlier. Oh, it's in the conversation, the first conversation in the wine cellar with Helen, where Spielberg deliberately has a cut that fucks continuity, where he goes from one angle to a slightly different angle on a two shot of both of them. And in the first one finds his hands are on his hips and he cuts continuous dialogue and finds his arms are straight down by his side.

And it is such a perfect, like, for a movie that is so tight and is so controlled and so disciplined, most people would go like, fuck, you can't do that. That fucks with the austerity of the film. And Spielberg clearly was just like, this is the best combination of performances. I don't fucking care. If that throws people off of the movie, then we have bigger problems, you know? But it's a similar thing of like this scene where Fiennes is just like wanting to punch himself in the face for wanting to kiss her. That I think is such an interesting counterpoint to like, here's this guy who is so dogmatic and what he thinks he needs to do, and has certain psychological and biological drives that he cannot override that are tearing him up inside, versus Oscar Schindler being like...

Who fucking cares? Well, it's one character who is at war with his humanity, what little of it is left, and another who is coming to embrace his humanity as the film goes on. Because as he's starting out, he's just sort of like, I go wherever the money is. I don't care about anything. The advantage that Schindler has over Goethe is that... he knows who Amangurta is is and the reverse is not true.

And that creates a multipowder. Amand, Amand, sorry to pronounce it, is not very capable of judging other people's emotions because he has clearly like a mental disorder, which he was diagnosed with by the Nazi party when they finally kicked him out. He was so bad at his job, he was diagnosed with by the Nazi party when they finally kicked him out. He was so bad at his job, he was actually fired, which is so crazy to think about that they were like, you know, you're not producing enough work, I guess, you know,

like, or he was stealing, you know, quote unquote, stealing money or taking off the top. The reveal of the naked woman lying in bed alone. And then you're like, what's she doing? And then cut to him on the balcony with a sniper rifle. And you're like, this guy doesn't wanna fuck? Well, that scene is, yeah, obviously very chilling. And also it's right how she's like, come on, you know, while he's doing this like unbearable psychotic thing.

And he's like barely taking the time to put his suspenders back on. He's half naked. Right. Like the drive in this guy is so frightening. The kiss, just the one weird, the factoid about the kiss scene earlier was when he kisses the little girl before he kisses the older one on the lips, the woman who that character really is was on set that day.

And Neeson- Is it the end of the movie? Yeah. Yeah, and Neeson goes up to her and kisses her, dressed as Schindler, in the same way as the real Schindler kissed her on the cheeks at that party. And it's just like, that for me sort of epitomizes how the production of this movie was sort of as much of an art. There had been cell phone on set and people could be playing Angry Birds in between takes.

It's so crazy to imagine how many cell phones there could have been. I would have played so many games of Marvel's map, but you should know. What if it turns out that Spielberg had a big brick cell phone that he did play Snake on? He was Snakeing all the time. And he was actually completely zoning out the entire place. I just need this for my sanity, guys.

There's two ways I'm getting through this. Nighttime rifts from Robin and Snake during the day. But the ghetto sequence is, I think, problematic for some because it's so electrifying. And I think, you know, watching it in a vacuum, if I was an alien coming to Earth... Putting the fucking... Burying the jewelry in the bread. I mean, it's as electric as anything in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It also just starts happening. Yeah. Well, you get a speech about how today is history and how he's gonna make the history of Jews in Poland. But when that speech starts, you're like, holy shit, the movie's up to that point? That's the thing. And it's happening this abruptly? The time of this movie is kind of elastic.

You don't, again, have the political background. You know, the title, you know, you have some titles that come up occasionally to be like, okay, now this is what's going on. But you're not understanding the progression of the war. And you're not understanding later. I mean, like that much until you sort of realize like, oh, the war, and you're not understanding later, I mean, like that much until you sort of realize like, oh, the war's kind of over, like, or is whatever.

Germany is now on its back foot versus its front foot. Yes. It, it, it's a much later film, but I was reminded in rewatching this of Tar, which I think similarly you're watching, and you're like, I know where this movie is going, when's it gonna happen? And it does the trick of being like,

this has gotten further along in the background of the story that you're focused on than you realized. Tar is so good at that, where you're like, oh, are we about to methodically watch her get canceled, and then we've actually cut to like now it's actually. This has been like nine months of her trying to outrun it. She doesn't realize it, but it's over. Right.

But what do you guys think of the, like the way that it shot Tarvels. What an amazing movie. The lady, I over. Right. But what do you guys think of the way that it's shot? She's the lady. What an amazing movie. The lady. I'm saying Lydia. Yeah, of course. Her behavior.

Yeah, I don't know. The liquidation of the ghetto sequence, I think, is as, I think, sort of the fulcrum of where people think the movie's problematic meet where people think the movie is more successful. I don't know. It's just like, it's such an electrifyingly staged sequence, but it's also so horrifying in what it's depicting. And there's like the rush and suspense of people fleeing for their lives. At the same time, they're hurted.

Are they going to escape? Can they hide? Who is making the right choices here? I mean, I don't know, I don't really, I don't know, I'm throwing it open to the table. I don't really know how to... I don't have a problem with this. I understand the academic, you know,

I don't know, I mean, I don't have a problem with this you know, the standard pro-lansman objection of like, right, can you dramatize any of this? Can you put any mustard on it, as I would say? It's just such an incredible piece of filmmaking. The thinnest spread of mustard. Yes, you absolutely can. The scene where the women, this is the scene that upsets me the most, realize their kids are on the trucks and start running.

It's an incredibly devastating scene. It's also, once again, incredibly well-staged by Spielberg. Like the shot of them all suddenly moving. And like, you know, that means, it means you have an indelible memory of something that's like, you know, like you need to know and remember. For reminding me of a point I wanted to make. It's one of the most effective parts of this film to me.

There are no cell phones. There were no cell phones on set during the making of this film. Or at least, let me say smartphones. No, a thought I had while watching this is, as much as he is sort of like, I'm approaching this like a documentary, let the actors figure it out, I'll sort of like adjust around them, I'm not gonna like push them into place. There are obviously larger blocking maneuvers that need to be worked out. And this is such an-

Steven Spielberg? Yeah, he's not just like, hey, everyone run around, I'll figure it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is such an incredible like hundreds, thousands of extras movie in a way that is like textually important. And you'll have these Spielberg oners that like start with, you know,

two characters talking in a train in the background, and then it follows them off somewhere else. But you can tell that in the background, now out of frame, there are still those hundreds of extras who are existing just outside the perimeters because there wasn't a cut, the camera just moved, they're not just running back off to their trailers or whatever, you know, the crafty table. And it is like a constant reminder of the sheer numbers of people who

were involved in this on both sides. And when you see those masses of just like, right, as you're saying, the women running towards the train, and they don like, right, as you're saying, the women running towards the train and they don't stop coming, and you're like, there's more of them, there's more of them, he hasn't run out. The resources to be able to like put that many people on set and to let them exist is the kind of like, every one of these people is equally important. Even if the scene is now focused on Liam Neeson's face, you're never forgetting that those people are right there. Yeah, I mean, there's a feeling that every character you see,

both the Jews and the Nazis, are sort of in their own movie over the course of this, and you feel that in the liquidation sequence, where I think things that might feel glib, like the Nazi playing Bach on the piano after somebody steps on and alerts them to their presence, I think that symphonic feeling of it, the triumph sort of over being played over the sorrow and the horror of what's happening,

like people being executed summarily at point blank range, in front of people who are sort of like giddily doing their job. I mean, I think it speaks to how well the movie and the energy the movie gets from the confluence of all these different energies that are happening at once, where it's never just the unimaginable horror of what's happening. Or it is, but the horror is compounded by the fact that so many other human emotions and experiences are happening at the same time.

But this is like the shit that Spielberg has always been great at, is like having exposition that sets Brody into action in Jaws, happening in the background of a one-er, while in the foreground there's like a small, like, domestic comedy scene playing out with his wife and child, you know? This sort of like, his capturing of energy, of never letting a scene be only one thing, uh, it is just like, yeah, the amount of, um,

sort of like parallel action he is able to stage in a way that isn't canceling itself out is astonishing because it is part of what needs to be reckoned with, of just like how much was going on at every single moment. Which is also what pressurizes the ending so much, when all of this expansive, you know, far-reaching energy collapses on this one moment of, you know, moral recognition. And like, with this ring, I could have done more,

you know, I could have saved more lives. I think it's a real shift in the density of what we're seeing. There's the moment where they send the boy out and they're pointing the guns at him and you're like, fuck, I'm about to watch this kid get shot in the back of the head at point blank. And then it cuts to Kingsley walking, sort of just like trying not to rock the boat. And you're like, oh, I guess the kid survived. And then as the camera is following, you see the dead kid lying.

Right. And it's just this sort of like, oh, at the exact moment that someone's surviving, someone else has been executed in a meaningless way. And the scene with the rabbi, where they test him on the hinges, which, let's just say, another great thing about this movie, anytime they show you the way the operations work, the way the pot gets made that

shit is so good that them like stop watching the hinge he feels like he's passed the test and then finds us like well but if you can make them that fast then why are there only this many in the bucket he's taken out you're like i'm about to watch another fucking horrible scene for a guy i've now fallen in love with in 30 seconds and then the guns won't work they're jamming up they're going through multiple guns. It's sustained. In the background, people are escaping, people are getting shot,

you're focused in on this one thing. And then only after there have been like three false starts with the gun, does he say like, I hesitate to even bring this up, but the reason I didn't have the hinges, they had to reset the machinery or whatever, where you're understanding the psychology of this guy in this moment who's like processing I could die at any second. The way he flinches every time.

Totally. But also that he's thinking like, should I even say this? If I start to speak to explain myself, do they shoot me even faster? Like, what is the thing that helps me survive this when the chaos of what's going on is so extreme and so all over the place And feels kind of randomized. I mean the random is I mean we talked about it earlier They're like so many accounts of people who survived the Holocaust come down to weird flukes of luck or just literally I stepped out a line and was like if I step out of line Will anyone catch me and they don't amen would It's like I have been I see the women when they're pricking their fingers and trying to-

Rusing up their cheeks. To give themselves like- To look more- More alive. Good at working, essentially. Yeah, stronger, more healthy. That's one of those details. I mean, all of-

The kid jumping in the toilet, and you're like, I can't believe anyone had to do this. And then there are four other kids already in there. A lot of these details came from accounts that Spielberg only learned on set. I mean, like the idea of them eating the, putting the diamonds in bread and then swallowing them. That was something that someone mentioned to him on set.

And he was like, we have to work this into the movie. It's also so fascinating as Schindler starts to like buy off German officers, things like the lighter and the bag of diamonds later, you know, and him having the breakdown of not selling the car or the pen or whatever. It's like, he's selling them on the notion of like, we all know this is gonna crash and burn at some point,

which makes it all the more terrifying that people are just like, well, I'll just continue carrying out orders until the last possible moment. And then he knows the morality test of that final moment inviting them into the warehouse and being like, if you really care about this shit, fucking execute them right now. And everyone backs off. I mean, which is a big swing.

It's a huge swing. But part of it is that like... Really gambling with a lot of lives there, but... What is this guy's like superpower at the end of the day? He actually really knows how to read people. And he's brash. And so much of this, right, is like, put your money where your mouth is. And some people like Eamon Koth that are happy to be psychos all day and others

are just like, I'm just doing my job. You know, which their job is, you know, the world's most unimaginable evil. But right. I can understand why some people would be allergic to the end where he's saying, you know, he's breaking down and saying this ring, I could have done more. Because it's the most Hollywood moment. Right. But at the same time, I don't know what other catharsis you could have at the end of the film.

There's also withheld emotions all the entire film. But it's also the first question I would have of him where I'm like, yeah, why didn't, you know, like, why did it end up being this many? And why did it take you this long to figure it out? Good for you figuring it out. Weird that more didn't, but took you a while. And also just the enormity of what Ben Kingsley says to him, which is that like generations,

there'll be generations because of what you did. And you just think about my own life. But like, it feels like something a movie shouldn't do. Which is have a character kind of be like, what you did is a big deal and will be a big deal. And Neeson being like, are you sure? And he's like, yes. You know, like it's like movies shouldn't,

like historical movies about true stories shouldn't be that. Don't you think that is part of what helps that movie exist in a dialectic with other stories, is that he doesn't present it as like, and this is how the Holocaust was won. This is how we solve the problem. Sure. Like the movie then acknowledges like, this is kind of a drop in the bucket,

isn't it? A deeply impactful drop. Well, but it's like then, right. That's why Shoa exists. Right. I mean, the statistics are mind blowing. I mean, you see in the movie that there are more people alive because of Oscar Schindler than there are Jews in Poland. Yeah. It's right.

If you were Jewish, would you live in Poland? I've never done my real pain trip. I've been back and forth on the idea for so long, and that movie did not really move the needle for me one way or the other, but especially if Kieran Culkin is going to come with me. I liked that movie. But, you know, like...

Yeah, but I'm just saying, it didn't make me want to go buy my plane tickets to Poland and go on the history tour. I went once and did not do any of the historical things and felt a kind of profound connection to like this is where My people are from without needing to really dig into all of that Maybe I was also like the fucking 20 and afraid of like doing It's him sort of Narrativizing his own Conversation negotiation with with the pain that he's inherited with other people's pain to what degree is it's him sort of narrativizing his own conversation, negotiation

with the pain that he's inherited with other people's pain. To what degree is it healthy to take this on? To what degree do I need to create some space from it? And I know that if I were to go on that tour, maybe one day I will, I, like Jesse Eisenberg in real life and like his character in the movie, would be so in my own head about how I should be feeling in this moment and like the solemnity

I should be expressing and internalizing and how wrong am I to have my thoughts wander about whatever while I'm here, that it would be sort of self-defeating. And hopefully I can reach a point where I could go more pure, but anyway. Hey, congratulations guys. We just passed the runtime of Schindler's List.

And we didn't even talk about John Williams. What I think is the single most iconic film score ever written. I think we did. I think we did a lot. And especially because we need to do the ranking. Yeah, I think we should. Yeah, I'm going to challenge you on that. I know. I mean, just the theme. Just do the challenge. I meant to say theme.

It's a great theme. It is not. I mean, it's been stuck in my head for 30 years. Make the argument. There are other more iconic films. There are more iconic films. John Williams's Schindler for 30 years. There are other more iconic film scores. There are more iconic film scores. John Williams's, Ginler's score. John Williams wrote more iconic film scores. Exactly.

I have to say, most iconic film theme. Just that one piece of music that doesn't pop up in full until two hours, 51 minutes of the movie has literally been in my head on a loop for over 30 years. That's weird. You could go see a doctor. I know, it is weird. I've seen several. Not that I'm going to figure it out, but it is powerful. years. That's weird. Go see a doctor. I know. I've seen several.

Not that I'm going to figure it out, but it is powerful. It's a lovely thing. The part in the documentary, though, where they're all like the most beautiful thing he'd ever done and we all cried when we heard it and it's like, you know. Cosine. And you're just kind of like, it would be funnier if they were saying that about his terminal score. Well, it's not funny.

They were like, you know, the movie's silly, but like his terminal score, I just started hugging him and was moved to tears. All right. I got therapy in 25 minutes. Let's go. We've been talking for so long. Did this movie win in the Oscars? This film won seven Academy Awards. I'm shocked it didn't win more in a way. I could have won more. No, I, I like that. I'm going to be honest with you. That was good. Who wins best actor this year in Sing? Tom Hanks wins for Philadelphia, which is a performance I like,

but I would certainly give it to, of the five nominees, I would give it to Liam Neeson. And I think Neeson's just amazing. It's the second best performance. I personally, behind Ted too? Yeah. Nailed it. I am allowed to buy this cereal.

Silly rabbit. I personally give it to David Thulis for Naked, which is kind of like one of the most insane performances ever put on screen. But you can give it to him. The Oscars used to have some real heavyweights. Well, Thulis was nominated. But also that year, Anthony Hopkins is nominated

for Remains of the Day, which is an amazing performance. Larry Fishburne for What's Love Got to Do With It. Like they're amazing nominations. Anyway, you know, the weirder thing is that, it loses supporting actor, sure, like we said, but like I'm kind of surprised that it lost, you know, like makeup or whatever. What one makeup?

Hello! Well, well. I guess you can't argue with mad hemmed out fire. I think that my assessment of the movie being quotable is right. Hello! Mr. Douthire Schindler's List. I think they're both quotable in their own ways. Both, yeah.

I think you have helped make hello a quote in a way that solidifies your argument. Um... So wait, it wins picture, director, score, screenplay, cinematography, editing? Yes. So that's six. What's the one I'm forgetting? Does it win production design?

Let's see. No, it lost costumes to I think Remains of the Day, which, you know, great costumes, beautiful costumes. No, sorry, it lost costumes to The Age of Innocence, but it did win indeed art direction production design. And of course, Jurassic Park did win, indeed, Art Direction. Okay. Yeah. And of course, Jurassic Park that year also wins three Oscars or whatever. It's a hot year for old Steve. Wins sound and visual effects and...

Yeah, it wins both sounds and visual effects. Uh, Jurassic Park, in my opinion, also a good movie. Uh, the film opens... Well, it's not an opening... It's opening number 14, because it opened in limited release, but it did make close to $100 million, as you said, Griff, 96. Yeah.

More importantly, 322 worldwide. It was kind of a global hit, I think, in a way that Spielberg might not have predicted. Even though it was banned in about 10 countries? It's in those titties. No, I don't know why it was banned. I assume for incredibly anti-Semitic reasons. Yeah, but they would, in some countries,

I believe it was the Philippines, they over... I think it's Indonesia. I mean, I assume for incredibly anti-Semitic reasons. Yeah, but they would in some countries, I believe it was the Philippines, they over- I think it's Indonesia. Indonesia, they overruled the ban. Oh, sure. And in some countries they didn't. Yeah. Oh, it's banned in Indonesia

because it's sympathetic to the Jewish cause. Hmm, doesn't seem like a great reason to me, I'll say. Look, we live in a very complicated world. So, it won Spielberg his Oscar, his long desired a very complicated world. Um, so, uh, it, uh, won Spielberg his Oscar. His long-desired Oscar, of course. Um, he looks great at the ceremony, hair's kind of long, gives lovely speeches. But speeches that are very much like,

I'm indebted to, you know, it's like, he can't just get up there and be like, take that, fuckers! No, no, no. Spielberg's on top, you know, which would be interesting if you'd done that. Which it's interesting to think that this is also the Philadelphia year where Hank Skipps,

the famous president of Hollywood speech. It's definitely a bit of a self- to think that it's like Spielberg wins all these Oscars, presumably like goes out, parties, wakes up the next morning and then has to review story reels for Freakazoid. It is funny. You think they made him do that at 8am Monday morning? I think he did it. I don't want to disrespect Freakazoid in his struggle. It opens at number 14.

It is funny what? Oh, just to imagine him just like watching. Just how many plates he had spinning at this time. Even if he doesn't make a move for four years. So it's the Warner Brothers, but the Warner sister Dot is there as well. Yes. Will there be a pigeon sort of Goodfellas thing

happening in this? Old lady squirrel. Yeah. God, everything I learned about the Godfather initially came through Goodfeathers. December 17th, 1993, Griffin. So it's opening and limited release. Number one at the box office.

It's a fun movie. It's based on a bestseller, a legal bestseller. Is it The Pelican Brief? It's Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief. The Pelican Brief. One of those movies that has sort of gotten reclaimed because I think it kind of slipped through the cracks. Yeah. If that makes sense. Well, it was a hit. It was a hit and then people

kind of forgot about it. Right. Who usually was a little more serious minded. It's him in his dotage a little bit. Famously, Robertson Denzel Don't Kiss. Sure. Right. Like there's a little bit of Hollywood cowardice there. Yes anyway Pelican brief opening to a solid 16 million dollars on its way to a very solid hundred. Mm-hmm. I don't know Long I like a lot. Yeah, it's fun. It's not that brief. Yeah Pelican kind of long Yeah, I just canceled my therapy session. Did you really not? Yeah, I mean this is more important You can get out of here. No, no, no The people the people need to know where on my Spielberg list a Kingdom of the Crystal Skull falls.

Three days ago, Ehrlich was like, no matter what you have to promise me, I make it out of here for the therapy session. But you know what? Griffin wasn't even that late. You were like five minutes late. Thank you. That's really not making or breaking this right now.

Let the record show. I was not. Mrs. Doubtfire's number two. I think I was 10. I was the exact midpoint between the two numbers you guys guessed. I just said what number two. I think I was 10. I was the exact midpoint between the two numbers you guys guessed. I just said what number two was.

Hello! Hello! Mrs. Doubtfire, crushing it. Number three, it's a comedy sequel. Mm-hmm, it's a comedy sequel. David's eating a fucking ring pod gummy worm. What the fuck? It's like licorice.

It's great for my home alone too. In my opinion, good guess but no. And not a good movie. In fact, here's what's crazy. The next three movies are all comedy sequels. Wow. Possibly a bad idea to have these all come out. Is it Wayne's World 2?

This one is Wayne's World 2. Yeah, they rushed it. Wow. A bad movie. I was gonna say that would have to be 1994, but I guess they... Yeah, but you know, they finally have explained what happened with that movie. That Mike Myers wrote an entire sequel,

he was like, I want to take inspiration from Passport to Plymco. Plymco. Yes. Yep. And was like... A very funny Ely Brothers movie. I want to I have one take inspiration from passport to Plimco Pimlico. Yes And was like funny brothers movie and some movie about Wayne starting his own country and Paramount was like great We love it and he wrote the script and they put it into like active pre-production and then like two weeks before filming They were like we fucked up. We didn't get the rights for that movie And I forgot about this I've read this article that you're like they made him rewrite the movie from scratch beyond that they had to like Dynamite the scrim the sets. Yes. No, what's weird about Wayne's world, too

Is that right? The rewrite is should we just kind of like parody the doors? That feels like a we have two weeks to go concept and the one thing they knew is that they had to build to the concert Because they had built the stage for the In theaters is a nine-year-old who had never even heard of The Doors was confusing. There's funny stuff in it. But one is a Stone Cold masterpiece. No, there's funny stuff in it, but one is so good. One is perfect.

Can we do it on this show? Can I make a pitch? Because I know we thought about Spherus, but she's got a really long, complicated... You know how we folded Love Guru into Austin Powers? Yeah. I think we fold Axe Murderer into Wayne's World, do those three. So do another Meyers trilogy.

Yeah, I'm not saying we do it immediately, but I'm saying I want to pin it on the board as an idea. Yeah. Because then we basically covered all the Meyers' auteur films. You guys have to do Axe Murderer one way or another. Yeah. It's too important. I think Cat in the Hat's its own fucking thing. Cat in the Bat in the Hat.

It shreks its own thing. The ones that he is the driving force is the Three Powers, the Two Wains, Worlds, and Axe Murderer. That's it. It's six. So I'm like, we could... We do important work here. We do important work here. It's three hours, three minutes.

Number two... I wonder if there actually is a clock above my head. I'm just noticing that. Yeah. It's just sort of like the... Anyway, number four, it's another sequel. It's new two. Well, there actually is a clock above my head. I'm just noticing that. Yeah, it's just sort of like the, anyway. Number four, it's another sequel. It's new this week. Family movie about a pet. Oh, it's Beethoven's second?

That's right. Is that the funniest title of all time? I mean, it's a good title. It's up there. In my memory, they left work for the day after coming up with the title. I mean, Sister Act Two, Back in the Habit is very good. up there as well.

Well, you've just guessed number five, my friend. I figured I was in the neighborhood. That and Wayne's World are both like, we got a sequel out in under a year. But it feels like a mistake. Don't rush it and then don't have them all up against each other. Sister Act Two is the one of those three movies

where I'm like, that movie's not bad. That movie has Jews. The Great Bill Duke. The Great Bill Duke, the Great Lauren Hill. Like, you know, there's stuff going on in Sister Act 2. Beethoven's second, I'm pretty sure they were just like, I don't know, there'll be a girl Beethoven too. Great, can we go?

Can I make the case for Beethoven's second as a perfect title? No, we already agreed with you. This isn't something you need to argue about. I don't think they greenlit Beethoven one being like, and obviously it's a franchise and then later we can play on the great works of Beethoven. I remember my dad trying to explain it to me. I have the same memory. I remember your dad trying to explain it to me.

Seriously. Where I was like, why isn't it called Beethoven 2? And he's like, well, so symphony writing, you know, it was a pain in the ass for him to explain it to a seven-year-old. Can you just imagine the moment where they were like, wow, I'm checking the books here. Pretty good return on investment in Beethoven. Should we maybe do a Beethoven sequel? And then some guy stands up from behind his desk at Universal.

I was like, sorry, I know it's only my second day at the job. This is the role that you would have played. Or I would have missed if I didn't point out. There's an incredible opportunity here. People in Hollywood do not understand or care about how much of a pain in the ass it is for parents to explain things to their kids. Like when fucking six minutes into The Incredibles,

you have to explain to your kid how insurance companies work, Brad Bird is not spending a thought about this. This is my whole problem with cars. Mr. Sansweet didn't ask to be saved, Mr. Sansweet didn't wanna be saved. I mean, I put cars, I finally gave into cars in the mistaken thinking that this one would at least explain itself. No cars You have to explain endorsement or like you thought horse is the one that would explain

Minds like fucking Shizak is like still like watching cosmic. I don't know Brain I didn't think that Wait, so they fly on other vehicles who are also sentient. Yeah, they go inside Sidley the Spidget's butt and they have a conversation with him inside of him. Oh, so in the top 10, you've got- He has a vehicle location and a character. You've got Toronto Moan, American Legend, Walter Hill film.

You've got A Perfect World, great film. You've got The Three Musketeers, lots of fun, saw it in theaters. You have Adam's Family Values, ditto. And you've got a all-well masterpiece called The Piano, The Pianer. Now, Steven Spielberg Griffin has made, by my count, 34 films.

If you include June. Yep. So yeah, give me your top 34 for Steven Spielberg. I'm just gonna- We're doing it all the- Yes, that's what we talked about! Here he goes! I prepared and I have a list.

Yep. Okay, I'm just going to try to do this fast. And some of it, I bump on when I say it, but I'm just locking in the order I have right here, okay? And I'm shooting from the hip. 34, hook. Pfft. 33, 1941. 32, terminal.

31, the BFG. 30, Ready Player One Terminal, 31 the BFG, 30 Ready Player One, 29 War Horse, 28 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 27, I don't like that movie, 27 Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Come at me, bro. 26, The Lost World Jurassic Park, 25 always that high basically on the strength of Holly Hunter alone 24 the color purple 23 the post 22 Amistad we're now in a territory where every movie is

basically incredibly good at best at worst right 21 more of the world's 20 Munich 19 West Side Story 18 Minority Report 17 17 Sugarland Express, 16 Duel, 15 Tintin, 14 Lincoln, 13 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 12 Jurassic Park, 11 Jaws, 10 Fablemans, 9 Raiders of the Lost Ark, 8 Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 7 Saving Private Ryan, 6 Bridge of Spies Face the Bridge, 5 the biggest jump up for me in doing this series, Empire of the Sun, number four, Catch Me If You Can, number three, Schindler's List, number two, AI, Artificial Intelligence, number one, ET, The Extra-Tri-Restriol. I'm surprised you have Ryan so high.

I wouldn't have thought that. Look, it's a film I find very difficult to watch. I think it is just kind of undeniable in terms of craft. I mean, that's one where maybe I'm like, do I flip close encounters? You do what you want. You did what you did. That's what I listed. Gryff, Erlich, you did this? I did this on the fly.

Okay. I already have great issue with my picks, but I did 34 BFG, 33 always, 32 Warhorse, 31 Ready Player One, should have been lawyer, 30 1941, 29 movie I skipped school to go see at 11 in the morning. The day came out as not age well or was good at the time. The Lost World, number 28, the Terminal, number 27, Amistad, number 26, Sugarland Express, 25, Duel, 24, Hook, 23, Lincoln, 22, The Color Purple, 21. 23, Lincoln? I said what I said.

Where's my wallet? I can't have it back. 24, Hook! 21, I need to see Lincoln again, but it is not, I don't know, never really did much for me. 21, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 20, West Side Story, 19, The Post, 18, but it is not, I don't know. Never really did much for me. 21, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 20, West Side Story. 19, The Post.

18, Empire of the Sun. 17, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I mean, the most erlic move of all time. Number 16, Minority Report. Number 15, Tom Hanks has a cold in the Bridge of Spies. Number 14, Ace's next favorite movie, The Adventures of Tintin. Should still be a sequel holding at hope.

Number 13, Indiana Jones. I, I think just Indiana Jones. The Raiders, call it the Raiders of the Lost Ark. No, we don't. We call this, you call it Raiders of the Lost Ark. No, we don't. We call this The Last Crusade. Number 12, War of the Worlds. Number 11, Sammy Fabelman and the Fabelmans. Number 10, Saving Private Ryan. Number 9, E.T. Number 8, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Number 7, another movie that would have complicated my relationship. Steel Burger is Munich. You know what I'm talking about that in context too.

Number six, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Number five, Jaws. Number four, a masterpiece called Catch Me If You Can. Number three, Jurassic Park. Number two, Schindler's List. And number one, AI Artificial Intelligence. Okay, you guys ready for a third one of those? Number 34.

I'm now like, do I put Sch I put shit do I put same private Ryan? Do I flip the same per an address? I don't know go on number 34 1941 number 33 the terminal number 32 always number 31 hook number 30 the BFG were exiting bad movies to you. Okay movies Yeah, that's like his only bad tier to me, right number 29 lost world number 28 war horse number 27 crystal skull No bad adjacent. Yeah Right, number 29, Lost World. Number 28, War Horse. Number 27, Crystal Skull. Number- He's a bad adjacent. Right, number 26, Amistad. Number 25, Temple of Doom.

Number 24, Color Purple. Okay, now we're getting into good movies. Number 23, Juggland Express. Number 22, Duel. Number 21, Empire of the Sun. I might put that up higher on rewatch, but whatever. Number 20, not that high. Number 20, The Post. Number 19, Tintin.

Number 18, Last Crusade. Number 17, Ready Player One. Number 16, Munich. Number 15, War of the Worlds. Now we're in I fucking love this movie territory. Number 14, Catch Me If You Can. Number 13, Bridge of Spies. Number 12, West Side Stories. Number 11, Cuck Brigade.

Number 10... You're calling it... Rogan's Cuck Brigade, number 10. You're calling it! Rogan's Cuck Brigade, number 10, Lincoln, number nine, Close Encounters, number eight, Save and Prevent Ryan, number six, Seven Jurassic Park, number six, Raiders, number five, Jaws, four, Schindler's, three, Colin Farrell Kiss Me, number two, ET,

number one, AI Artificial Intelligence. Colin Farrell Kiss You is number three? Yeah, minority part. That's one of the best movies ever made. I'm officially flipping Saveer and Prey, and Rhyna, Jaws, and The Order. Take note, people who listen to that drivel. Otherwise staying the same.

But yes, I think it's interesting that we all have AI right near the top. Uh-huh. I think it's interesting that you fools don't understand Ready Player One is good. I don't think it's that interesting. Look, I bought the 3D Blu-ray, and someday I will fire it up and give it another shot. I have a Steel. Well, they didn't put the 3D out on Steel, so I bought the 3D Blu-ray and someday I will fire it up and give it another shot. I have a steel. Well, they didn't put the 3D out on steel, so I bought the 4K steel, and then I bought the 3D Blu-ray, and I put that in my case.

And people who do that are on a government watch list. I've created my own combo pack. Is Catch Me If You Can generally accepted as being one of the top two films now? I think it has of late become generally accepted. But I think all three of us put it a touch higher than most would. Well, I have it lower than you guys, but I also... Like, once we're in that top 15, we're in five-star territory. I mean, everything I feel like in my top 20 is four stars and above.

Oh, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. If not even more than that. Stevie, you've made me some nice movies over the years. This is the thing. And for that, I say, thank you. Any of our rankings that seem rude, it's like, the guy made too many fucking great movies, and even the ones I don't like all have some of the best things I've ever seen in a movie. Erlich, is the last episode you were on Eyes Wide Shut?

No, you did Vengeance after that. Because Eyes Wide Shut went this long. Not quite this long. Should have gone longer. Sure. This one went really long. I have to pee very badly, Erlich. Thank you so much for being here.

Oh, my pleasure. LAUGHS You know, I... May your memory be a blessing. I... I feel safe in saying that I have now done the single least funny episode of Blank Check, a badge that I wear with honor.

That's not true. We had a lot of fun. Yeah, we had a good time. I think they're less funny episodes, too. We had plenty of fun. Once again, Amistad, 53 minutes soaking wet. I was just being like, "'Oh, what do we say?' We could do a good time. I think there are less funny episodes. Once again, Amasad, 53 minutes soaking wet. I was just being like, what do we say? We could do a better job.

Yeah, let's go back and do the second half of Spielberg again. Let's run it back. You could do like a How to Train Your Dragon where just like one element remains CG. It's fucking psychotic that they are just at this point now, just keeping the same CGI elements of the original movie and are just putting human beings around them. It's... And the other dragons at least are a little more redesigned,

but Toothless looks fucking 98% exactly the same. With the same director, Andrew R. Butler, I saw an interview with Dean Dubois yesterday, got fed to me on YouTube of him in 2020 saying how morally bankrupt he thinks it is that the animation studios are remaking their own movies in live action. Well, you know what helps you be less physically bankrupt

is making movies like that. And like pigs to the slop, I will be taking my kid opening weekend, I'm sure. Of course. Anything you wanna plug? Great. Fighting in the War Room, your podcast. Terrible podcast.

Don't listen to it. A good podcast for smart people. Uh, it's even more of me, if you can stand it, and you probably can't. Um, I don't know, I write on IndieWire, I write about movies. I think a lot of the people listening to the show are aware of that and wish they weren't.

No one has ever had a weird opinion about your movie writing ever. And they never will. Uh, what do I want to plug? My deck on Marvel Snap is fucking crushing it right now. You just inherited a new wallet full of different payment credit cards What can I spend before some skin look if the first name's the same?

It's all about the battle who's gonna check I have two kids Can follow their progress Yeah, I don't know you should should shout out that best of the year. It's ancient news by now. It'll have been a while. I mean, I did have a fundraiser that is related to this episode in support of for the second year in a row

with people of Gaza. This year is for the Palestine Request in Society. The amount of shit that GoFundMe has given every step of the way in vetting this account to make sure that I'm not abetting their definition of terrorism, whatever has been insane. They I've been able to get all the money out and to Palestine, but they have currently shut down the page for it anyway.

Internet is bad. Nightmare, but I've been very proud and happy to have been able to raise money for people of Palestine. And that is Rami Joy related to it is the video I put together And that is, brought me joy, related to it, is the video I put together, but is seemingly inconsequential in comparison. But yes, I do that, and this episode is not well timed for me to promote that,

but maybe I can come on in the fall. Or like, do you know which filmmaker we're doing next? Somewhere in my brain, I know, but I think- How do you announce it? What am I looking at? Oh, sure. Yeah. Great. How about this? How about a killer 3 DVD box set? That's a good one.

Well, we're announcing right now, of course, that next we are doing Amy Heckerling. Nobody has guessed this or seen it coming as usual. The films of Amy Heckerling, guys! Next week, we're straight into Fast Times of Richmond High. I believe so. With returning guest Lola Kirk. That's right. Yes.

Now some of these movies are they going to be kind of hard for people to get access to or is it all more or less streamable? A couple. Johnny Dangerously I think is the only one where it's like quite a pickle, right? Yes. Some of them are maybe not as like rentable on iTunes. I don't know. Look I'll say this is a great time to fire up a VPN if you have one and start scanning

the internet. Right. Giant Dangerously is the one that's like pretty out of circulation, but maybe that magically changes soon. Like, I'm like, you know, like loser, that's rentable. I could never be your woman. Either way, I just wanted to give a heads up

to the audience. Rentable as hell. Oh my God, you guys are gonna finally canonically disrupt. Vamps, rentable. Had the fact that Josh, that she's butt crazy in love with Josh. Oh. That's a movie where we're gonna need to go four hours. It seems it's gonna go hog-wild. For the clueless episode, could we have multiple changes?

Looks, looks, yeah. I think we have to. I don't know that we have to because... I think we have to. ...you don't, maybe, you're only the producer of the show, so you might have forgotten that this is an audio show. It's important to the authenticity of Ben's agree.

The sound of Polaroid snapping between every point. I agree. You'll feel that we're wearing a sportier look. I'm so tired that I just said, Ben's agree. Can you stop brain is like buttering? Radio heads just in the background, or is it fake? No, it's not just, that's way too hard. Fake plastic trees, right?

Just over and over again of the background of that episode. Yeah What are they? No, it's not just. That's way too hard. They'd be fake plastic trees. Right. Just over and over again over the background of that episode. Yeah, no, we'll license that. No problem. Anyway, normal swing from Schindler's List to Fast Times at Ridgeman High. Check back in for that next week. And on our Patreon, we're doing the Superman films.

No, we haven't actually kicked that off yet. Really? No. Spoilers. My timing is weird. This episode, of course, is dropping April 20th. Okay. Ooh, 420. So, it looks like it's also Hitler's birthday. Good job, guys.

But we are about to drop a Galaxy Quest episode. Okay, well, we'll tell you what's happening next after Galaxy Quest. Superman. Superman is following that, beginning with the Richard Donner film. I'm seeing here that its title is Superman. That's not what it's called. It's called Superman colon the motion picture. That is the official title. That is why the James Gunn movie is called simply Superman

because no film has ever had that title before. Well, you're, I think, wrong. I think I'm right. It was marketed as Superman colon the movie. Do you have any strong thoughts about the aesthetic of the trailer for Superman? I'm not sure why he's chosen that particular color correction, and I hope he, like, you know, tweaks it a little bit.

Otherwise, I'm looking excited for it. Wait, I want to push the stop button. Why is that? I don't know, because this has been going on for so long. Ben, are you excited for me to talk so much about Superman, though? A guy I really like, and a guy you probably think is a bit of a square. Yeah. I think that movie is called Superman the Most From Picture.

Are we going off of what it says in the opening of the film? No, the film is called Superman. Oh, right. Well, first of all, it's Superman the Movie. As I told you two minutes ago, you weren't listening. But it was only- This is gonna be thrilling conversation for the next couple of months.

It was only marketed that way. Leading up to the release of the new James Gunn. Ben, when we're done here, I'm gonna make you be my therapist for the afternoon. That the new James Gunn film is not called we're done here, I'm gonna make you be my therapist for the afternoon. The new James Gunn film is not called like Superman. It's gonna lie this chair back. Legacy, that's what it almost was called.

I know, but like, I was trying to think of a funnier version. Like Superman checks things out. You know, just this whole thing where they're like, Superman totals forward. Superman begins something. Well, First Steps is one of the worst subtitles. I think that trailer rules not very cautious or optimistic for that movie. But here's my pitch, no subtitle necessary.

Fantastic Four's First Steps, what happens in the movie? Galactus tries to eat Earth. Oh, is that what happens when you take your first step? What are you talking about? What are you fucking talking about? MC's bulletproof right now, can't go wrong. Yeah. Let's all just quickly take our Rolke pills.

We've gotten tense. Let no- AHHHH! AHHHH! I must negotiate a treaty! Do the pills stop him from being Rolke or they make him Rolke? They stop him from being Rolke. Yeah. And keep him as the great politician he is. FREEDOM!

You've elected an 80 billion year old man! The episode's over! Basta! Basta. Basta. Thank y' all for listening. And as always, the podcast is live. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer

is Marie Bardy Salinas. And our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, BlankCheck Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus

episodes. Follow us on social at blankcheckpot. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by BlankCheck Productions.