Episode 388 - Noah Baumbach
Guest:are we doing this really wait for it are we doing this wait for it pow what the fuck and it's also what the fuck what's wrong with me it's time for wtf what the fuck with mark maron
Guest:All right, let's do this.
Guest:How are you, what the fuckers?
Guest:What the fuck buddies?
Guest:What the fuckineers?
Guest:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:Yes, this is Mark Maron, the guy who's on the IFC show.
Marc:Maron on Friday nights, 10 p.m.
Marc:Eastern and Western.
Marc:They seem to be airing it a lot.
Marc:I'm very happy with the feedback, but...
Marc:Let's not talk about that.
Marc:Let's talk about other things.
Marc:Today on the show, Noah Baumbach, I hope I'm saying that right.
Marc:He'll correct me if I'm not.
Marc:The director whose films I like a lot.
Marc:I got an opportunity to interview this guy and I respect his work a lot.
Marc:I mean, he's a real director.
Marc:He's a real auteur.
Marc:He does films that he wants to do.
Marc:I mean, he did The Squid and the Whale, which is one of the most touching, powerful films I've ever seen.
Marc:I told him this that I was trying to go back over his stuff because I'd seen I've seen the squid and the whale.
Marc:I've seen Margot at the wedding.
Marc:I've seen Greenberg.
Marc:I watched his new movie, which is going to be released, I think, shortly, maybe this week called Francis Ha.
Marc:And when I was just reading the synopsis of squid and the whale on Wikipedia, I choked up.
Marc:I choked up at the end.
Marc:When he goes back and he looks at the squid and the whale at the Museum of Natural History, having had experience with that particular exhibit.
Marc:I don't know if you've been to the Museum of Natural History in New York, but as a kid, as amazing as it is, it is one of the most terrifying experiences you can have as a child.
Marc:Wandering through those dioramas with stuffed animals and stuffed people who aren't obviously stuffed people.
Marc:giant blue whale all the little you know the weird bugs and things in these dioramas i mean and the place is is from the 18 or 1700s i don't know when it is horrifying but to use that particular exhibit as a backdrop for some emotional catharsis in that movie to me was fucking genius and margo at the wedding with jack black and uh you know i i i and nicole kidman
Marc:And Jennifer Jason Leigh, I mean, that movie to me was so raw and so, you know, great.
Marc:And Greenberg, holy shit, Greenberg with Ben Stiller.
Marc:I mean, that fucking film, I actually identified with it more than I was comfortable with.
Marc:Not only did I know guys like that guy, but I was that guy.
Marc:In some way.
Marc:So in my when I got the opportunity to talk to Noah, I was like, you know, this is this is a kindred spirit here.
Marc:But also he's a director with a vision and film directors have a special place in my heart just in that I don't get to talk to them that often.
Marc:And it's a it's an it's a hell of a job, that job to sort of manage a set, manage a vision, get what you want, you know, execute your your creativity in that way.
Marc:Takes huge fucking balls.
Marc:You know, even if even if you're a woman, it takes amazingly large balls to direct a film, especially a film that you you dictate and to do it well to me is an amazing skill.
Marc:And this new film of his Francis Ha.
Marc:which stars Greta Gerwig, who is also in Greenberg, who is also, I think, dating... No, I know that Noah is with her, is amazing, and we'll talk about that.
Marc:He chose Black and White.
Marc:It's a very lyrical film.
Marc:It kind of moved through...
Marc:The sort of struggle of of adulthood in a way of what what defines an adult, what defines passion, what defines, you know, what your life is going to be.
Marc:And, you know, what are your your sort of your ideals versus practicality?
Marc:I mean, it's just stuff that that really hits me.
Marc:And I watched it, and I watched it in a way that I don't always watch movies.
Marc:You know, I get kind of heady.
Marc:I'm a little, I wouldn't say I'm a pseudo-intellectual, but, you know, I took some film classes, you know, and I studied film.
Marc:And, you know, you sort of go back over these things.
Marc:When somebody shoots in black and white and when somebody makes these choices, you got to go back to Truffaut, to Lubitsch.
Marc:You got to go back to all those great directors who make that choice.
Marc:And, you know, I want to talk to him about that.
Marc:I was just flattered that he came.
Marc:And he's also done some work with Wes Anderson, which is a world that I think, you know, in my mind, I would have liked to have been part of in a way.
Marc:You know, I never had the focus or the or the or the follow through or the confidence to try directing a film.
Marc:I always pictured myself that.
Marc:I think a lot of people do that.
Marc:I'm going to direct a movie.
Marc:It's an amazing job.
Marc:We'll talk to Noah in a second.
Marc:I would like to share with you my experience of The Tonight Show because I know some of you are wondering, why the fuck?
Marc:Why'd you do The Tonight Show?
Marc:You said you didn't like The Tonight Show.
Marc:Look.
Marc:The Tonight Show is The Tonight Show.
Marc:Jay Leno is Jay Leno.
Marc:A lot of shit went down in the media and in the culture around Jay Leno and the struggle for The Tonight Show.
Marc:And I, quite frankly, I don't watch The Tonight Show and I never pursued The Tonight Show.
Marc:But also, you know, conflicting that memory is that I remember seeing Jay Leno as a junior high school guy.
Marc:I was probably in junior high watching him.
Marc:And thinking he was one of the funniest fucking guys in the world.
Marc:And then I remember seeing him when I was in college.
Marc:I went to the improv.
Marc:I was probably a sophomore in college.
Marc:I was visiting my friend out here in L.A.
Marc:and I went to the improv.
Marc:I still remember the jokes he did.
Marc:So that was, you know, I have that Jay Leno in my mind.
Marc:And I guess I've sort of detached from the Jay Leno that exists now and detached from his show.
Marc:And when I thought I should do the show, I wanted to do the Tonight Show.
Marc:I wanted to do it when Conan hosted, frankly.
Marc:But I wanted to do the Tonight Show.
Marc:I got a book.
Marc:I got a show.
Marc:And it's the Tonight Show.
Marc:And I know a lot of you don't watch it.
Marc:And I know I've spoken about it.
Marc:And I knew that was there.
Marc:But when it came right down to it, when I got the opportunity to do The Tonight Show, there was some part of me that's like, I'm doing The Tonight Show.
Marc:And I've never met Jay Leno.
Marc:Ever.
Marc:I've never met him.
Marc:I've met a lot of people.
Marc:As you know, I moved through this world.
Marc:I moved through this business.
Marc:And I've met a lot of people, but I've never met that guy.
Marc:So in my mind, I'm like, all right, I'm going to meet Jay Leno.
Marc:I'm going to talk to him.
Marc:I'm going to look at him right in the face.
Marc:And I'm going to do a show to promote my thing.
Marc:That's what's going to happen.
Marc:And I want to be funny because I'm a comedian.
Marc:So I go over there and I'm in the dressing room.
Marc:I got Jessica with me.
Marc:There's a publicist there.
Marc:The segment producer comes in to go over some of the stuff that I'm going to talk about.
Marc:And then Jay comes in wearing his Canadian tuxedo in his denim, much shorter than I thought he was.
Marc:It's very odd when you see somebody from television that you've seen on television or in media your whole life, right in person.
Marc:And you've never seen him before.
Marc:They're always different.
Marc:He's definitely a shorter guy, a little stouter.
Marc:And he sat, he came into the room, into the dressing room, and we talked for like a, you know, he was talking for like half an hour.
Marc:We had a conversation about comedy.
Marc:And he just, you know, out and out said to me, you know, look, I didn't think you wanted to do the show.
Guest:I didn't think you liked me.
Guest:You know, a lot of people, they, you know, they got a bad opinion of me.
Guest:And yeah, I'm just a comedian.
Guest:And, you know, I didn't know you wanted to do the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I didn't know what to say because right there in that moment, I was standing with another comedian and not only another comedian, but a guy who is a great comedian.
Marc:Certainly when he was just a comedian, he got more respect than just about anybody.
Marc:And in his mind and in his heart, he's out there.
Marc:He's just a comedian.
Marc:A lot of shit went down.
Marc:But the truth of the matter is I was about to go on The Tonight Show and I got the feeling that he was feeling me out and wanted to connect.
Marc:He read some of my book.
Marc:He says, it's a great book.
Marc:It's a comedian's book and you're a comedian.
Marc:I respect that.
Marc:We're the same.
Marc:We're comedians.
Marc:And I felt it.
Marc:You know, I felt it in that moment.
Marc:And, you know, I think he was also trying to feel out whether or not I was going to get out there and say, you know, what the fuck happened with the Conan thing?
Marc:You know, what was that bullshit?
Marc:I think that there was part of him that was sort of feeling that out.
Marc:But there was also part of him that wanted to explain himself to me and that we, you know, we're comedians and that's what we do.
Marc:It was a very interesting, you know, half hour.
Marc:And I asked him if he wanted to be on this show.
Marc:He said he would like to be on this show.
Marc:He doesn't really want to talk about the situation.
Marc:But I think that I should have him on the show, and I want to have him on the show because he's been doing comedy.
Marc:I mean, he called me.
Marc:This was the interesting thing, too, is that I'm doing the show.
Marc:I talked to the segment producer.
Marc:This is the day before the show.
Marc:And he said, Jay's probably going to call you.
Marc:And I'm like, all right.
Marc:And I'm over at Cafe de Leche.
Marc:And the phone rings.
Marc:He's like, hey, Jay Leno.
Marc:I'm like, what's going on, man?
Marc:And he talked to me on the phone.
Marc:And within five minutes, I found out that he had done his first set in the late 60s.
Marc:In the late 60s.
Marc:And that before there were comedy clubs, he used to open for jazz acts like Miles Davis.
Marc:I mean, there's a whole world of history that comes with Jay Leno.
Marc:And Jay Leno was one of the biggest comics in the world.
Marc:So, you know, I hope we can make it happen.
Marc:You know, I was on his show.
Marc:I'd like him to be on my show to see where that goes.
Marc:And then, quite frankly, doing The Tonight Show is quite an experience.
Marc:I never thought in my life that I would sit next to Shakira ever.
Marc:Never thought in my life that I'd be, you know, 10 feet away from Tom Jones singing.
Marc:But this is just happens to me when I do shows, you know, like I'm like, I'm in show business.
Marc:I never thought that I'd be looking right at Jay Leno's face.
Marc:And I'd tell him, I'm looking right at your face.
Marc:And I'd say that, you know, I saw pictures of you in comedy clubs and your head seems to have gotten larger.
Marc:I didn't phrase it like that.
Marc:I thought it was funny.
Marc:And he let me talk.
Marc:And, you know, he's a very gracious host.
Marc:And it was a fine experience.
Marc:And I was I was happy to do it.
Marc:And it was good to meet Jay Leno.
Marc:And that's that was my experience.
Marc:And I you know, there's no loyalty issues.
Marc:I mean, there's a lot of people that get hung up on this.
Marc:People who are out there in the world who say things like, you know, like, well, Conan's your guy.
Marc:Yeah, Conan is my guy.
Marc:And I've been doing Conan for my entire life.
Marc:I've never done Jay Leno.
Marc:And, yeah, it's an experience, you know, that I have now.
Marc:I've done The Tonight Show.
Marc:Carson was already gone by the time I was capable of doing it, of doing stand-up.
Marc:You know, I thought you were a Letterman guy.
Marc:I've done Letterman four times in my life, in my life.
Marc:And I used to be so like that.
Marc:I mean, I wouldn't do anything but Conan and Letterman back before any of this shit went down.
Marc:Didn't want to do Leno, didn't want to do Ferguson because Conan and Letterman were my guys.
Marc:And I just had this moment where I'm like, I do Conan a few times a year and I love him.
Marc:He does, we have a great relationship, but it's like, I should be out there doing whatever I can.
Marc:I want to go out and represent me and do what I do and get some laughs and share my point of view.
Marc:We're all just trying to do what we do.
Marc:And I just want to get out there to more people.
Marc:And I hope people are digging it.
Marc:So that was my experience.
Marc:Maybe I'm just getting old.
Marc:Maybe I'm just trying to take advantage of the situation I'm in right now that might not happen again.
Marc:I would like to get into a Noah Baumbach movie.
Marc:Baumbach movie.
Marc:I'll pronounce it both ways.
Marc:I'd like to do some acting.
Marc:Maybe I should take some acting classes.
Marc:Maybe I should get good at it, get better at it.
Marc:So let's talk to Noah Baumbach.
Marc:God, I hope I pronounce it right once.
Marc:Once.
Marc:You know, about his new movie, Francis Ha, which I believe opens this week, and about other things.
Marc:Like I said, it's rare that I get directors in here, and I'm in awe of what they do.
Guest:So, Baumbach.
Guest:Baumbach.
Guest:Baumbach.
Guest:Or Baumbach.
Guest:People say Baumbach.
Guest:I say Baumbach, but I always like when people say Baumbach.
Guest:It sounds kind of better.
Marc:I love when people, they're sort of like, you know, you can do with my name what you want.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Make it your own.
Marc:Yeah, I feel that way a little bit.
Marc:I recognize it.
Marc:You know, I'll respond to that.
Guest:Well, I'm not even sure I'm doing it right, so.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, with those kind of Jewish names, you're always going to find somebody that's going to be like, no, the way it was pronounced in the village, where our family comes from.
Marc:Did you grow up with much of that?
Marc:Grandparents that were?
Guest:I had, well, my grandfather actually changed it, I think, claiming that it was the original spelling.
Yeah.
Marc:Oh, so she went back?
Guest:He was, I think it was a CK.
Guest:It was like B-O-M-B-A-C-K.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then he changed it to B-A-U-M-B-A-C-H, claiming it was the original.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:But I'm not even sure.
Guest:He was kind of crazy, so I don't know if that's... He's a crazy grandfather?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I'm kind of, I watch a movie.
Marc:I watched the newest movie last night.
Marc:Francis High watched it.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:No, I liked it.
Marc:When I watch your movies, there's always this period of time where I'm watching it where everything seems so fucking familiar to me and it starts to get heartbreaking and I don't know where it's going to go because with Greenberg, that was too close and disturbing.
Marc:I mean, it's a great experience.
Marc:I love the movies, but this one, the ending was really sweet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I let you off the hook on this one.
Guest:You were aware of that, though?
Guest:Well, I was aware of it retrospectively.
Guest:When I was making it, it was more the character.
Guest:There's a difference between a 27-year-old girl who's joyful and beautiful, trying to figure it out, and a 40-something-year-old guy who can't swim or drive.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, there's that area between somebody kind of pursuing their dream to the point where it becomes delusional and they no longer know that they've lost it because their narcissism sort of insulates them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, and I know a lot of guys like that.
Marc:I think I might have been that guy a few years ago.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So that changed for me so I can get a little distance from Greenberg.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But when watching this movie, you start to realize, well, she's at that first turn, you know, that it doesn't have to go bad for this person.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I thought in some ways.
Guest:So she she was kind of able to do the heroic thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the heroic thing, of course, in this movie is take a desk job.
Guest:right and then you know kind of put things into perspective exactly and pursue the other thing and the dancing dancing always makes me cry i don't know why i know you too yeah it's i see i never see enough dance and every time i go to dance i always have that feeling i love dance yeah yeah right it's moving it's so moving and it's and i and then i leave always with like i'm gonna subscribe i'm gonna you know and
Guest:I'm going to be here every week.
Marc:Yeah, and it's now been probably five years since I was... But it's always like even that... How did you... Well, I mean, let's go back and get up to speed because I'm sort of fascinated with people that grow up in New York.
Marc:Like you're a real New York kid and your parents were part of that sort of what is, I would say, the mid-70s intelligentsia.
Marc:I mean, you grew up in the thick of it when Brooklyn was still just for those kind of writers and not for punks and kids.
Marc:Right.
Marc:When you were just, how old are you now?
Marc:43.
Marc:So your mother was a village voice writer who I remember reading.
Guest:She was a voice, but she started writing for The Voice when I was more...
Guest:late high school college so i didn't grow up sometimes people say oh you grew up with a critic but i didn't really feel like she kind of started doing it a little later so it was more like oh cool we get to see movies for free right what was she doing before that she was a teacher she had written some short stories she was figuring it out uh-huh a mom
Marc:Yeah, figuring it out.
Marc:Right.
Marc:She had two kids and she's like, where's my life?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And your old man was a writer.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Did you get along with him?
Guest:I do get along with him very well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, he was a novelist and teacher.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Also big film.
Guest:He wrote sometimes about film.
Guest:But in the 70s, there was that thing where there was almost no delineation between critic and writer.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You were kind of doing it all.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:It's personality driven in a way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You want to be known for that.
Marc:You're that guy that can write on everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A general critic of sorts.
Guest:But yeah, because I made this movie, The Squid and the Whale, which was kind of had some connection to my childhood, at least in the very straightforward way.
Guest:So people sometimes assume I don't get along with my parents, but I am close to my parents.
Marc:Was there a reaction to The Squid and the Whale?
Marc:I mean, I had to refresh myself because I'd seen it probably twice when it came out, and I went to the Wikipedia page of The Squid and the Whale, and just reading the plot line, I kind of choked up at the end.
Marc:I don't know what the fuck's wrong with me this morning.
Marc:I don't do interviews this early sometimes.
Marc:I think I'm still a little raw.
Marc:That'd be...
Guest:I love the idea of like the Wikipedia page will make you cry.
Marc:It did.
Marc:Because at the end, because I'd forgotten how the actual that exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, how it was contextualized in the movie.
Marc:So being reminded by it and the way they sort of framed it, you know, that this was this moment that your mother comforted you in front of this horrible thing, which I remember seeing as a kid.
Marc:And it is horrible because it's kind of dark and you can always see the...
Marc:And then you go back to it in the... I choked up, that's all.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:I'm thrilled to... We don't even need the DVD anymore.
Guest:You can just read the page.
Marc:Just read the plot line.
Marc:If you're a sensitive person, you're going to cry.
Marc:So when you did that, though, was there a discussion in the family?
Marc:I mean, your parents were obviously divorced, but was there any sort of... Were they flattered or were they like, it didn't go that way?
Marc:I mean, was there... Both.
Guest:Everyone was very cool about it, and I'm kind of...
Guest:In some ways it was no win for them because I feel like, and I have a brother too.
Guest:Younger brother?
Guest:Yeah, because they had to kind of present themselves as cool with it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or else I would have been like, come on, mom.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Or worse yet, well, fuck you.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Or it would have been like we would have been having some fight in the- Forever.
Guest:Yeah, in the-
Guest:you know, free press media.
Guest:The free press in New York is covering the... The Baumbach feud.
Guest:The Baumbach feud.
Guest:It's like a triangle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But so I am aware that there had to be good sports about it because... But at the same time, it must be difficult to feel like, well, why do you get to present
Guest:The way you're presenting now, the way it was, whether it was fiction or not, you get to have the word on it and we don't.
Guest:And I understand that's a tricky place to be.
Marc:But you're at least in the position to go, you guys are writers, knock yourself out.
Guest:Yeah, and my dad had actually even written a book about...
Guest:Not about the divorce, but sort of about a divorce somewhat.
Guest:But yes, that's true.
Guest:My father, I just wrote a book and he's lost in just anger and hostility.
Guest:He's got no way to express himself.
Guest:Well, in some ways, it's probably more cathartic for him than...
Guest:Certainly cathartic for me.
Guest:I think I won this round.
Guest:Well, yeah, exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's clear.
Guest:It's clear.
Guest:I'm still caught in this sort of morass of like, have I surpassed them?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:You know, you must feel that you have on some level, right?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's an empty victory.
Guest:Well, it's, yeah, it's, I, I, I, um, I mean, even when I was writing that movie, I was sort of thinking about, well, what are other movies about father, son?
Guest:And I was like, and it's like the gray Santini.
Guest:And you're like, well, that's clear.
Marc:What was that one with Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was pretty sad.
Marc:Yeah, that one.
Marc:Yeah, that was also clear.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:He was an asshole.
Marc:Then he got cancer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then the kid had to like him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They had to bring it together at the end.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, do you feel that... Nothing in common?
Marc:Something like that.
Marc:Something like that.
Marc:But do you feel like in working through that stuff, the emotions of that movie, we won't hang in that movie too much, but we might as well.
Marc:The emotions in that movie were genuine.
Marc:I mean, that sort of becomes what it is.
Marc:You can fictionalize only so much, but the emotions of divorce and how it affected you were genuine, right?
Guest:Yeah, and that was a huge thing for me at that time because I...
Guest:I was potentially in my way to becoming a Greenberg, because I'd made two movies in my 20s, but I wasn't kind of where I wanted to be in terms of... How did you come into making movies?
Guest:Where did you start?
Guest:Well, I started awfully young.
Guest:I made a movie called Kicking and Screaming when I was 24.
Guest:And were you in film school or out of film school?
Guest:No, I went to Vassar, and then I didn't get into film school, and then I...
Guest:wrote that but i'd wanted to make movies i'd grown up with movies watching movies you know back to those same parents and did they have friends who were in movies did you like because they were in that new york intelligentsia scene did you were you privy to conversations with movie makers no i mean we the the i mean now we can say they were part of that scene we were living in brooklyn and felt they felt totally outside that scene so they were actually living there
Guest:because they couldn't afford to live in the city.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:I find I have more in common with people who've moved to Manhattan from Texas than I do people who grew up in Manhattan.
Guest:Because even being in Brooklyn, it felt like if I could go there one day... I can see it.
Guest:Yeah, it was worse in a way.
Guest:Texas, at least, you see pictures.
Marc:So Brooklyn was just a practical solution for people who wanted as close proximity as possible.
Guest:Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't like a choice.
Guest:Yeah, we weren't, you know, now I can look at it and think like, I say it with pride, oh, I grew up in Brooklyn.
Guest:And people are like, in a brown zone?
Guest:Did you grow it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Park Slope was a whole different place back then.
Yeah.
Marc:But so, OK, so they felt a little on the outside of it.
Marc:But so there wasn't a constant dialogue.
Marc:I mean, I don't know what it's like to grow up with intellectuals.
Marc:I mean, and they must have been that or at least saw themselves as they were.
Guest:But it's still there was that.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There was a feeling.
Guest:I mean, and they had lots of I love being around them and their friends.
Guest:They had lots of writer friends.
Guest:But it wasn't like there was still like this idea of like that there were people like Norman Mailer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Philip Roth who were like really living.
Marc:So they felt like they were second tier intellectuals.
Marc:It's like there were the stars, the brain stars, and then there were the other ones that were aspiring or almost.
Guest:And for intellectuals who feel like they're second tier, what you do is you create this idea that second tier is actually the first tier.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:And that success is the sellout.
Guest:And those are the less intellectual intellectuals and the real ones.
Guest:don't actually get the success.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:The ones that have integrity.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:They're not going to whore themselves out on the Dick Cavett show with George Plimpton and Norman Mailer.
Marc:No.
Guest:Sellouts.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We're doing the big brain work here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So those lightweights were...
Guest:Hanging out at Elaine's and we were waiting for the egg cream truck to come around.
Marc:They had an egg cream truck.
Marc:They did.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So, okay, but how did that influence a young you?
Marc:Because it's a gift to be able to even have that proximity to the city, especially if you're a creative kid.
Marc:But it's also a gift to have parents that have a dialogue around that stuff and must be somewhat supportive of it.
Marc:What were their expectations?
Guest:It was...
Guest:I mean, it was ultimately great, but it was it was difficult because I think I had I had those conflicting ideas going on at all times, which was I was encouraged to be and, you know, to go into the arts in some way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was around all that stuff and they would take me to movies.
Guest:I mean, I was taken to movies like.
Guest:really cool movies when i was really young in the city which was yes sometimes in the city well we because we had no theater the local theater um in park slope like it had been a porn theater and then it was defunct and then it came back yeah and i wasn't allowed to see our movies um at that age but because they became local suddenly i was like i could see whatever my father would just take me to you know
Guest:You didn't have to get on a train.
Guest:Yeah, I was like, no, it's fine.
Guest:He can see the jerk.
Guest:And I could see the jerk.
Guest:But then it was like, I remember I saw the jerk one week, Animal House the next week, and then Apocalypse Now.
Marc:You were what, 14 or 13 or younger?
Guest:I was 10 or something.
Guest:The horror.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Shocking.
Marc:So he would walk you to the movies.
Marc:Do you remember the first movie that might have had an effect?
Marc:Because you have a very specific world that you seem to shoot in.
Marc:And it's not, you know, I know that Greta came out of the, is identified with Mumblecore, but it doesn't seem like that's really where you're coming from.
Marc:It just, there's something organic about the way that you shoot and the way the dialogue works.
Marc:It's almost, it's...
Marc:I mean, it's sort of, to me, because I'm an old guy now, it's sort of Altman-y in the way that you just kind of let people talk and the drive of the film is not necessarily plot points as much as it is emotional and conversational.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, yeah, and how the story comes from character more often than I have a story and then I'm trying to get a character from A to B. Right.
Guest:Yeah, well, I mean, those, you know, that 70s group, I...
Guest:You know, I grew up, well, I actually grew up because of my parents.
Guest:I actually grew up thinking the 70s American filmmakers were all kind of pale imitations of the European 60s filmmakers.
Guest:At 11, you thought that.
Guest:Yeah, I was just like, yeah.
Guest:But I actually came around to thinking they're pretty great.
Guest:But that was the kind of career I wanted.
Guest:I set out to have and wanted to have.
Guest:An auteur.
Guest:Yeah, to do the stuff that was interesting to me.
Marc:Do you remember when something like that resonated with you?
Marc:Because I know that in the 70s, because we were kids, that I was not going to be able to appreciate McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
Marc:No.
Marc:I couldn't even wrap my brain around it.
Marc:It's like, how is this a good movie?
Guest:It happens later, right?
Guest:Yeah, it's a terrible movie when you're young.
Guest:Yeah, it happened later.
Guest:I mean, I had a, you know, I was sort of really into my, like, when I was sort of, I guess, getting to be, you know, preteen, I was really into Saturday Night Live and really into those guys who went on to make movies.
Guest:So I was, I was the jerk and stripes.
Guest:Those were all, but because I grew up the way I did, I tried to figure out an auteur,
Guest:idea behind those movies.
Guest:So I got then, it was like, well, who directed?
Guest:And then I was really, so Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis.
Guest:These must be the guys.
Guest:These are the guys and I would follow them and, and in addition to the actors.
Guest:And then it was probably late high school college when I started to like really go back and,
Guest:and realize McCabe and Mrs. Miller's great.
Marc:Fill your head up.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, and figure out why it's great.
Marc:And to have the... Well, it's interesting, because there's a courage to that in the sense that if you were kind of gravitating towards pretty mainstream, large comedies, did you ever write comedies like that?
Marc:Did you ever try to sort of do joke movies?
Marc:No, but I see the influence in my movies.
Marc:I don't know if anybody else does.
Marc:Like, what's a good example?
Marc:There's something about this new film that...
Marc:Like, because there are moments where there is a tome.
Marc:It's also reminiscent of Manhattan and oddly Raging Bull and the way you use those, what do you call them?
Marc:The place where you, what do you call those?
Marc:Those title cards?
Guest:The title cards.
Marc:They're like right out of, I thought they were Woody Allen, but then I'm like, no, this is Raging Bull.
Guest:Are we aware of that?
Guest:Well, I was sort of aware of like every black and white movie I loved because I was like, I'm making a black and white movie, so I'm going to kind of...
Guest:i'm thinking of all of them i mean ultimately we kind of had to like i had to focus on what this one is but i i was i definitely looked at raging bull again and and did you and manhattan and yeah um and that's it are there any other modern black and white movies yeah yeah well contemporary movies in black and white that is a very that's like a specific black and white genre
Marc:Right, but there was also, but the Truffaut stuff, too.
Guest:Definitely, yeah.
Guest:And I used the music from a lot of those movies.
Marc:Yeah, I felt that.
Marc:But there was also that feeling in terms of talking about comedy that, you know, at the beginning, you're like, in the way they're engaging, you know, you were like, is this going to be some sort of, you know, lighthearted, almost cute romp through what might be a real relationship?
Marc:Like, I wasn't sure.
Marc:And it seemed like I was sort of like, at the beginning, I was like, oh, this is cute.
Marc:What are these girls going to do?
Marc:Where is this going to go?
Marc:And then once the emotion, you know, kind of locked in, it became a little like,
Marc:oh my god you know you didn't know like she's an amazing actress and it's a character that I think when you're our age or around here that you know that girl and they're always sort of fascinating and you always wonder what happens to that girl everyone knows one of them
Marc:And the relationship also of the two women, one deciding to just maybe go against her heart for security or for a life.
Marc:That tension is something we've all seen too.
Marc:So it's kind of modern in that way.
Marc:But I don't think it's timeless.
Marc:I don't know that this movie could have happened at any time.
Marc:Because there wasn't a freedom to be that Greta character at another point in time, really.
Guest:That's probably true.
Guest:Yeah, and I think...
Guest:The black and white kind of makes it nostalgic, even though it's very contemporary.
Guest:The subject matter is very contemporary.
Marc:But it's definitely modern black and white.
Marc:So getting back to the comedy question, what do you see as the sort of shout-outs to Stripes?
Guest:When she has to join the army for...
Guest:preposterous reasons.
Guest:The rally speech she gives you.
Guest:Or just that type of comedy.
Guest:And the presence of Warnoat.
Guest:Sure, Warnoat.
Guest:And a picture, yeah.
Guest:He was great, don't you wish he could have worked with Warnoat?
Marc:He was so good, yeah.
Marc:It's too bad, like you watch those second fall movies, you're like, oh my God.
Marc:Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia.
Guest:That is crazy.
Guest:He's just talking to a head.
Marc:For like half the movie, he's having this weird, bitter conversation with a wrapped-up head that's got flies on it.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:I love him in Tulane Blacktop.
Marc:Great.
Guest:He keeps showing up.
Guest:He's hilarious.
Guest:Well, I don't know specifically, but I think... I mean, I set out with all these movies thinking they're comedies, and sometimes... But I kind of, I guess, leave myself open to the movie being what the movie's going to be.
Guest:I mean, even...
Guest:Thinking of Ben and Greenberg, I wanted somebody funny at the heart of it because I felt like even though obviously the movie is kind of both and Ben can do both brilliantly, I felt like whoever – it had to have a kind of comic drive in a way sort of underneath it all.
Marc:Right, because that, well, I think that's an interesting question about our generation is that, you know, narcissism in and of itself, your entitlement can get very taxing very quickly.
Marc:And, you know, I think the world we live in, there's a certain comfort level with, you know, being able to pursue your dream that I think a lot of people are like, you know, those fucking people don't know how to work.
Marc:So the sort of brokenheartedness of something falling apart, like in Greenberg and having it not being realized by that character, that's a comedic character if it's handled right.
Marc:So you had to deal with somebody who could do that neurotic thing as well as he did.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:And it was true of Jeff Daniels in Squid and the Whale as the dad.
Guest:I mean, I...
Guest:And even Nicole in the movie I made, Margot at the Wedding.
Marc:That's a great movie too.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, which is maybe, at least people seem to find it tougher than the others.
Guest:But I was not even that aware that it was until it was over.
Marc:Margot at the Wedding?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What were their feelings about it?
Guest:Well, I think people were, I guess of my movies, it's seen, if I try to claim that one's a comedy, I somehow can't get away with it.
Guest:Even with Jack Black?
Marc:We got Jack Black.
Marc:He's right there.
Guest:And Jack's hilarious.
Guest:But yeah, I mean, even Nicole has a comic drive and she knew it was funny too.
Guest:And I feel like, I remember when I worked with Jeff Daniels, we'd sort of after a take or something, I'd say, how'd you feel about that?
Guest:And he'd say, it felt funny, even though he wasn't playing it funny at all.
Guest:And I've always thought that in a lot of these movies.
Guest:that there's something that feels funny to me anyway, even if it's a dramatic scene.
Marc:Well, I think that comedy can come, and I'm just finding this in my own work, is that I think comedy can come from just that moment of release of emotional tension.
Marc:It doesn't need to be sort of phrased as a turn of phrase or a joke necessarily, but if you create enough...
Marc:kind of like emotional, like not dangerous tension, but just sort of discomfort.
Marc:And you have a moment where it's released.
Marc:I mean, that's sort of a joyful feeling.
Marc:That's comedic in a way, right?
Guest:It's true.
Guest:And it's like why people laugh in horror movies sometimes when something horrible happens.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because they're like so relieved it's over, you know, even though it's terrible.
Marc:I think that's a lot of what life is.
Marc:It's just sort of going, oh, fuck.
Marc:I'm glad that's done.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:So when you made the first movies, I mean, how, how, cause I have a lot of people who listen, who I think aspire to having the freedom that you've created for yourself.
Marc:Um, what was the, how, how did you build that up?
Marc:You know, was it, it's, you know, you made your first movies and then people responded to it and all of a sudden you had a new set of friends who could like, well, I, I, I sort of have had, in some ways I have, I had two careers because I, um,
Guest:I made this movie Kicking and Screaming, which was well-received.
Guest:I remember that, but I didn't see it, and I apologize.
Guest:Well, Reality Bites stole it.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:No, I'm joking.
Guest:So Greenberg was a payback.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:I'm going to make you do this, Ben.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I'm going to make you have to do more Night at the Museums to get your fan base back.
Guest:No, I mean, it was well received.
Guest:It was a good experience.
Guest:And then I made another movie after it called Mr. Jealousy.
Guest:And after that, I was having... I think I kind of had a...
Guest:And subsequently, and now I can look at it a little clearer, I wasn't then able to make a movie right away.
Guest:I was having trouble getting stuff made.
Guest:And the second movie didn't do as well.
Guest:And what was that film about?
Guest:It was about, it kind of had a good, almost like...
Guest:like a screwball comedy plot.
Guest:It was like a guy who gets sort of obsessively jealous about his girlfriend's ex-boyfriends joins, and one of her ex-boyfriends is very successful.
Guest:He ends up joining the group therapy of the ex-boyfriend so he can hear him talk about her, but then the guy doesn't talk about her, so then he, of course, tries to get...
Guest:her... It's the kind of thing I was only... I would never make that movie now, but it was a fun idea.
Guest:What drove you to that, though?
Marc:Because this is another sort of struggle of the creative person who is fundamentally insecure and competing against... And this sort of narcissistic idea that everyone else's success is directly done at me.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Does that happen in your heart?
Guest:Or did it?
Guest:I think it did, or I definitely...
Guest:it's probably how I was feeling at that time, but I just in some way.
Guest:But I also, I think I grew up around a lot of it.
Guest:So I was, it was a kind of, it was also something I saw modeled for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I, and in their friends, that whole, I think what was interesting about that whole kind of group milieu, those was that because they couldn't just say, well,
Guest:I wish I had that success.
Guest:It was there was so much rationalization around it that I was I was a confusing.
Guest:I had to kind of figure that out that that was the same thing as saying I'm jealous of it.
Marc:Their intellectual rationalization that enabled them to sort of persist or insist that they were doing something relevant was at its heart's bitterness.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:And that every artist, that it couldn't be that every less successful artist was actually better than the successful artist.
Guest:That some of the successful artists actually had to be better than the... I somehow realized that later, too.
Marc:But it's like... And also that time where we start to realize, I imagine, growing up with it and now being your own guy, is that that world of intellectual activity and certainly that New York world that kind of...
Marc:arced out in the 70s and then and as he entered the 80s it lost its definition that because the whole relevance of that world is is it's it's it's almost gone yeah and and i don't know if they would have felt that then or that you know the idea that you're gonna you know write a book uh about you know jackson pollock's early paintings
Marc:I mean, it's still important to some people, but there was a time in the 70s where they were rock stars.
Marc:I mean, there was that New York intellectual thing that was actually on television and meant something.
Marc:And it all just went away for those folks.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Did you feel that happen to them?
Guest:That's interesting because I think part of me probably even still thinks, as you're saying this, I'm even thinking like, I guess you're right.
Guest:I'm still fighting it.
Guest:That's still the anxiety of influence for me.
Guest:Even that reference went away.
Marc:I mean, I'm the same way, though.
Marc:You romanticize it.
Marc:I mean, because the media landscape and even the landscape of films and anything of writing is it's all very it's hard to fight the disposability of almost anything because there's a hunger for content that completely obscures any intellectual context.
Marc:So the best you're hoping for is you can find those people that still romanticize or believe what you believe and see relevance in it.
Marc:But it's not across the board, and I guess it never was, but I don't even know how sexy it is necessarily anymore.
Marc:No.
Guest:No, that's very true.
Guest:I don't think I...
Guest:had any sense of it in any kind of bigger way that it was coming apart.
Guest:But I definitely felt it on a kind of emotional level just in my house and around me that somehow this couldn't
Guest:This kind of way couldn't be so superior to every other way.
Guest:It makes it hard to go out in the world and if you think everything is better at home.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, yeah, it's like as if the world were just a kind of high-end college where these discussions happened in real life and everybody understood them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you were brought up like, I'm sure you were kind of schlepped to the museums and you had to go see the thing, the Cezanne exhibit, the Whitney and whatever.
Marc:You were taken to that stuff, right?
Guest:I was taken to that stuff, but I had a fairly healthy resistance to Cezanne growing up.
Guest:The fruit, you know?
Guest:Enough fruit.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:But I...
Guest:they sort of let me rebel even in that even that phrasing right isn't problem they let me rebel we understand you're gonna have to try drugs yeah yeah yeah and you know you don't like the museum now you will like it later you know what was your rebellion how did that play out i took till i was 35 and i made the squid and the whale that was my rebellion
Marc:That was your closure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, I'm coming out big now.
Guest:You should have let me do this when I was 17 because now you're really getting it.
Guest:So you held it in all that time?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I did it, you know, Steve Martin was my rebellion.
Guest:But then my father even went along with that.
Guest:He was like, he's a wonderful comic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:oh god what do i gotta do yeah you gotta be you just maybe you should just acted stupid yeah yeah but i yeah but you didn't do punk rock no drugs no you know i'm out of here i mean i didn't do i'm out of here but i did i mean i listened to yeah to uh you know the appropriate music for that age right right you know i wasn't like some you know my room with you know classical or you know smoking a pipe or anything like that
Guest:It could have happened.
Marc:It could have happened.
Marc:If you would have liked your dad more growing up, that might have been it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, all right, so this idea, so you make Mr. Jealousy and you made the first two films.
Guest:So, yeah, so then I had this sort of time where I wasn't getting anything made, and I also had a kind of, I think, kind of just a crisis myself in terms of I'd made two movies, but I kind of realized I'd made them so quickly, I wasn't even...
Guest:you know i i wasn't even sure who i was as a filmmaker i kind of was almost like the fact that it it had happened and it was sort of what i wanted to happen and it did happen and but i wasn't i don't know i didn't really feel like i knew who i was yet i think and and that's normal as a as a creative person i mean in in that moment i'm you must have thought like i'm a fraud what the fuck what am i gonna
Guest:Well, yeah, I felt I'm a fraud, but I also felt like I hope I get another chance.
Marc:And who were you competing against at that time?
Marc:I mean, I don't remember what year it was or what was happening.
Guest:I mean, in the 90s, there was... Who was it?
Guest:I mean, it's when Kevin Smith and Ed Burns and those movies were coming out.
Guest:There was a kind of 90s indie movement.
Guest:There was sort of generation... I don't know if it was a full generation, but people before me, at least movies who...
Guest:who had movies when I was in college that I was aware of, like Whit Stillman and Hal Hartley.
Guest:Well, those guys were, yeah.
Guest:Those were thinky movies.
Guest:Yeah, and there was interesting stuff being done.
Marc:Barcelona and Trust and those movies, the Adrian Shelley movies.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:and the the wood stillman movies he had that one guy that who was that weird edgy dude that he had chris eigeman actually who's in my first movie too uh kicking and screaming he's a very funny guy yeah yeah yeah he was great i remember that i remember being in new york for that and then something else happened with those other guys like burns did the brothers mcmullin yeah you know and then you know just seemed like wow anyone can do this yeah well
Guest:There was, yeah, there was sort of this, sort of, I guess also was that like... My Life's in Turnaround?
Marc:What was that guy's name?
Guest:Yes, yeah.
Guest:He was a big New York guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can't remember, but there was that crew too.
Guest:Yeah, and there were like personal movies that were, you know, I guess not necessarily, you know, in the... They would sort of like be called in the Woody Allen mold, but they were more personal to those filmmakers.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And so I kind of...
Guest:tapped out then.
Guest:And then it took me a bunch of years.
Guest:It was like seven years or something till Squid and the Whale got made.
Guest:But during that period, I had to like kind of come apart.
Guest:And then that's sort of what drove me to write it.
Guest:And I kind of
Guest:that is sort of my second career, even though, I mean.
Marc:That movie.
Marc:So you did these first two movies and you got some momentum, but, you know, so when you say, how many years were you, what was that struggle like?
Marc:I mean, I may be hard to characterize it, but were you sort of like, you know, coming unhinged and sort of like, what the fuck can I do?
Marc:Like, you know, what, and just like, you know, making girlfriends unhappy?
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes, you've got it.
Guest:Lots of unhappy.
Guest:They're crying.
Guest:A wake of unhappy girlfriends.
Marc:You're a genius.
Marc:Don't say that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, it was a combination of I had overachieved and I felt like I'd overachieved and underachieved at the same time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was I had made two movies, but I wasn't.
Guest:Woody Allen and I so I was and I was having trouble not only getting another movie made but I was having trouble really figuring out what that was right and and so ultimately it was great it happened because it it helped me it helped me sort of
Marc:figure, figure it out.
Marc:So the squid and the whale, you had to go right into your heart to get that shit.
Marc:So like you kind of mind and you, you, you, you, you sat there and you toiled with this story that was incredibly personal, heartbreaking, life defining.
Marc:Um, did you find that, uh, when you were writing it was, uh, it was a difficult to sort of, you know, balance the, were you able to tap into that sort of divorce kids anger in a way that did you find yourself at moments like, you know, fuck my parents,
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I remember writing, at least in my memory of it, writing that script was like showing writing in movies, like in a Nancy Meyers movie.
Guest:Writing never looks interesting, but they'll figure out ways to have them thrust their arms in the air, like, yes, while they're writing, like, I've got it.
Guest:And I actually think writing that was like that for me.
Guest:If you watched me, it would have been kind of interesting.
Marc:Yeah, were you just like in it?
Guest:Yeah, in it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, like writing angry, hitting the keys hard.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Yeah, it felt that way.
Guest:And then it took like six years to make after that.
Marc:That is the amazing thing about filmmaking.
Marc:I don't know how you guys do it.
Marc:Like, I don't know how you commit to something for that long and persevere it.
Marc:It took six years to make that from writing?
Marc:Well, maybe not quite that much, like four.
Marc:And what was that?
Marc:You had to attach actors?
Marc:What is the process of getting your own movie made in that way?
Guest:i think because i was sort of it had been a while since i had a movie that and and i it's like some people had seen them some hadn't i was almost starting from scratch and it was almost a little worse than starting from scratch because i wasn't like a totally fresh voice i was i had had some movies that hadn't done great so you didn't make anybody money yet so it's not like you were you know a made guy you were still sort of like nah you know you did these other things yeah yeah
Guest:And, you know, and also it's a genre, I think, you know, of course, I didn't think of it as a genre, but there was that family drama comedies don't really nobody really cares.
Guest:And but I felt like with that.
Guest:I mean, I really felt with that when I had written it that it was a little bit all or nothing.
Guest:And even when I made it, I ended up getting very little money.
Guest:I had like a million dollars to make it and we had 23 days.
Guest:And I put everything I had into it.
Guest:I was very conscious in a way of that.
Guest:This is like a kamikaze mission.
Guest:I'm going to do everything...
Guest:You know, as a filmmaker, I was just... I mean, it's sort of hard to... Well, it was like life or death.
Guest:Yes, it was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And your brain was completely consumed with it.
Guest:And it felt that way.
Guest:And...
Guest:And I cast it well.
Guest:I mean, it took a long time to get it cast because apparently nobody over 45 wanted to play a narcissistic intellectual.
Guest:It's a great casting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Jeff, I wouldn't have thought Jeff was the right person for it.
Guest:And he pushed for it.
Guest:And he was brilliant.
Marc:Yeah, it's a little masterpiece, that movie.
Marc:And you were able to, I mean, not only were you writing and directing it, but the idea, it was a period piece.
Marc:And it's a tricky period.
Marc:I mean, to really capture that weird kind of, you know, with the clothing and with the feeling of Brooklyn and then having those things being important to those people.
Marc:It was incredibly personal, but it had such a, the emotional drive of it was so relatable.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And and after that, it was great.
Guest:Right.
Guest:After that, it's just been cotton candy.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:I mean, after that, I've been lucky that for the most part, I've been able to write things and make them.
Marc:Yeah, and do you feel like in that movie, because it seems like the directing style of this film, and I keep forgetting her name, Frances.
Marc:Greta.
Marc:Oh, Frances, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, Frances Ha.
Marc:The style, it's different.
Marc:You're taking different chances now, it seemed, because with Margot and also with Greenberg, it was meticulously directed, but there seemed to be...
Marc:You were kind of finding or have found your own way of shooting, and this you kind of went somewhere else completely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you chose to do that to challenge yourself?
Guest:Well, it felt right for the material, I think.
Guest:I mean, Greenberg was already kind of going in this direction, I think.
Guest:Really?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:I mean, Squid and Margot were handheld, and sort of there's a...
Guest:I think there's a kind of edginess to the filmmaking that I think goes with the material.
Guest:You're kind of in the rooms.
Guest:If we wanted to get closer to someone, we'd just sort of walk over to them.
Guest:I mean, I tried to do a very specific handheld, like where you held the camera steadily.
Guest:That was my idea.
Guest:But Greenberg was more composed and...
Guest:It was widescreen because it felt right for L.A.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So these are choices you make.
Marc:With the hand-holding, it wasn't a budgetary thing.
Marc:It's like, we can't afford a dolly.
Marc:We're not going to get something that rolls.
Marc:You said, like, for the emotions of this movie, we need it to be this intimate.
Guest:Yeah, and there's even to the cutting style of those movies, like, I would...
Guest:cut people off mid-sentence sometimes i was sort of really pushing the there's almost i feel like scenes kind of crash into one another in those movies and greenberg was a little more laid back we were kind of watching greenberg sort of it was important to see him sort of small in this right long environment that's around him and and my feelings about los angeles but that was like silver lake wasn't it or someplace where'd you where was that house the house
Guest:was actually in West Hollywood, but it was an old sort of style playhouse.
Marc:And you have this neurotic ball of delusion in the middle of... It's a very true feeling, I think, about Hollywood, is that you have these people that are fighting their own war against a business that is somehow...
Marc:done an injustice to them but you know the landscape and the business just you know they they they don't even indulge it no no it's like you just watch those people spin out and either they're gonna like you know shut up and you know march or go just go away yeah and
Guest:Do you have friends like that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I have friends who have elements of that.
Guest:I mean, I don't know that I have... Including yourself.
Guest:Including myself, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I...
Guest:I mean, it's funny, because I made the movie before I had a kid, and the movie has a scene where he goes to an old friend's house, and it's a kid's birthday party.
Guest:And being at a kid's birthday party when you don't have a kid and don't care, I was much more connected to that idea then.
Guest:And now I...
Guest:You know, I totally understand being the one having the party, but I also still feel like Greenberg at the party.
Guest:That's also my kids party.
Guest:I mean, it's now I feel like I'm on both sides of it.
Marc:But that's an interesting thing about your about the characters.
Marc:And also, I think in Margot at the wedding that, you know, the thing that really defines our generation emotionally.
Marc:is this weird sort of entitlement, especially when you've been indulged by parents who believe in creativity, believe in expressing yourself, is that if you're not sort of instilled with some idea that making money is important, you're just going to wander the world looking for parents.
Marc:Who gives me money now?
Marc:So the sort of conflict between a character like Greenberg and a child is genuine.
Marc:It's like, this is about me.
Marc:I don't know why you need this attention.
Marc:Right, exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:exactly exactly yeah yeah this this should be about me showing up here after you haven't seen me for a while and you know and and how is this about the fact that your kids turning seven right yeah it's a it's a disturbing reality that like you know i'm when i watched that movie i was sort of like well thank god someone was honest about this like i don't know it's like people are even afraid to admit that like that's the big secret of our of our cool like you're a little younger than me but there's
Marc:There's such a premium put on just, you know, acting like you have your shit together.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Without showing that horrible entitled drive shaft of who you are publicly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That when it's finally out there publicly, and you literally get that feeling that you know that guy Greenberg is the guy that, you know, when he leaves, people are going to be like, oh my God, what are we going to do about that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So...
Marc:Well, I'm certainly glad you put that out there.
Marc:So now you say that that was part of the, when you directed that, we were very conscious of this guy at odds with show business, with Hollywood, with the feeling of LA.
Marc:Do you have that feeling about here?
Guest:Do you like it out here?
Guest:I like it in doses.
Guest:I mean, at the time, I was spending too much time out here, and I think I kind of had to make the movie to get it out.
Marc:Did you feel lost?
Marc:It's easy to feel a little lost and insulated with certain people here, and there's a disposition that's completely unnerving.
Guest:Yeah, and I would not... I wouldn't engage.
Guest:I would sort of disappear into my office and write, and I wasn't... I mean, for me, the thing in New York is even if you...
Guest:just walk out to get a cup of coffee and come back, and that's the only thing you did all day.
Guest:You still feel like you were in the world a little bit.
Marc:Definitely.
Marc:A lot of the world.
Marc:Even just the exchange with the guy who gives you your paper.
Marc:You're like, oh, there's real people out here.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Out here, this is a real world.
Marc:I realized that when I was just in New York now that the number of people
Marc:that service the city thank god they're still there they don't live there anymore which is sad but there's just a lot of people who you know are fixing things we're driving things who are you know you know charging you a dollar for something yeah and they all have a very new york tone you know i don't know where they live now but you know there's that sort of like hey what's up that kind of thing yeah and it's organic and it's great you don't get that out here no and i see it with my son who's who's out here and and also then comes to new york and um
Guest:he, when we'd walk down the street, everything is interesting to him.
Guest:I mean, every person, every, and I realize he doesn't have that here.
Guest:He doesn't have, you know, from walking from one, you know, every little like nozzle on a building.
Guest:I mean, it's all like, you know, like he's like blowing his mind.
Guest:And of course, when you're that age, you're,
Guest:You're into like anyone who works in an obvious way.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But now, okay, so you got divorced.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And it was ugly?
Marc:No, it's all right.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's ugly because divorce is ugly, but it's okay.
Marc:I've been through two of them.
Marc:I don't even have a kid and it was horrible.
Marc:i uh but he yeah so he splits time between new york and los angeles yeah although he's here more yeah and now how is that you know well i'm not gonna pry too much but um but you are in a relationship with the woman you wrote this movie with yeah and you were able to do that you you're you're you're in a relationship with greta yeah and you wrote a movie together and you're still together yes
Guest:Well, if the movie wasn't so good, I think it would have, you know.
Guest:But I think the movie does represent something.
Guest:I mean, we were kind of, you know, falling in love during the movie, the making of the movie, and it has the energy of that, I think, in a way.
Guest:I mean, there's something you can't quantify.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, she was trying to quantify it in the film a bit.
Marc:And I, you know, like her performance and the other actress, Mickey Sumner, how did you find her?
Guest:Auditions.
Guest:I mean, I auditioned pretty much everybody except Greta was, I just went into like the New York talent pool of young people and they're so good.
Guest:I mean, there's so many good people.
Guest:And so...
Guest:And I did it in a totally controlling way.
Guest:I only showed them what they were in.
Guest:So they only had the scenes they were in.
Guest:They didn't know what the movie at large was.
Guest:Only Greta knew it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which I think worked well.
Guest:But I sort of had a lot of ideas for this movie of how I wanted to do it and how I wanted to...
Marc:you know not only artistically but even in the production process and Britta and Dean I hadn't seen since I was performing down the Lower East Side in the mid 90s Britta they used to hang out I mean Luna was part of the alternative comedy scene and Britta was always there and I had a crush on her and it was crazy and then she's in the movie like brought back this I'm like
Guest:I know her.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're friends of yours.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're friends of mine.
Guest:And they, they actually just moved out here for a little while.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause his son's out here now.
Guest:Um, so they're here, uh, more of the time.
Guest:And they, they made a lot of music for you over the years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They did, uh, score for squid and, and, uh, I used a galaxy 500 song in Greenberg and, um, yeah, they've, they're, they're good friends.
Marc:So you write it with the, the woman you were, you're falling in love with.
Marc:And how much of it, is it all pretty scripted?
Marc:It's totally scripted, yeah.
Marc:Totally scripted.
Marc:I mean, because she sort of has a way about her that you're not... You think she's making it up.
Marc:Right.
Marc:How close to the character is she?
Guest:I mean, not... I think it's like...
Guest:It's almost like Zoolander is to Ben or something, you know, Francis is to Greta.
Guest:It's like, it's she, you know, maybe not, maybe not quite, but it's like, it's, it's something she's totally connected to, but it's not her.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I, I, I have a problem with that in the sense that I can't always, even as a grown person, separate people from their roles.
Marc:Like I expect them when I meet them to be that person I've had, you know, Brian Cranston in here and I really wanted to interview Mr. White.
Marc:I just couldn't,
Marc:and I really couldn't reconcile that.
Guest:No, sometimes it's hard.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:I sometimes will air the other way and assume they're just gonna be mean and unhappy because they're so funny.
Marc:Right, that's the expectation.
Marc:So why, you know,
Marc:knowing now how calculating you are about your vision, I mean, why black and white?
Marc:And especially at a time where you know you're gonna be dealing with digital.
Marc:I mean, what made you do that?
Marc:Because it does look a little different than I'm sure that the movies that you were modeling after.
Guest:Well, I did a lot of tests because I wanted to shoot in black and white, and it was also the first time I had shot digitally.
Guest:So we did a number of tests to kind of find what it was going to look like.
Guest:Because I wanted it to feel...
Guest:whatever the digital version of what film has, which is film has emotion in it.
Guest:It's got... It breathes.
Guest:It's got... And so I feel like what we created, which I'm proud of, is something that evokes film but looks like something else.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I...
Guest:I kind of felt like the movie should be shot classically in a way.
Guest:I mean, you know, it's a little bit in the direction of what Woody Allen did in Manhattan.
Guest:But even thinking about like, you know, older like Ernst Lubitsch movies.
Guest:Things that to let Greta kind of occupy the space, you know, was the kind of she's so physical.
Guest:And so you could really see her.
Guest:And black and white also kind of focuses your attention because you're not.
Guest:You're not distracted by associations that color bring to you.
Guest:It wasn't that intellectual choice in the beginning.
Guest:It was just like black and white looks beautiful.
Guest:I'd like to do it.
Guest:But now I see it that way.
Guest:I think it was also a way to see New York again because I had done LA and I was coming back and I missed the city and I wanted to...
Marc:kind of find a way for it to be fresh right and it's in in that particular world she was living in i mean i like that you deal with these that there there's some sort of a strange unspoken class issue you know when you deal with uh you know the guy she was living with and then josie says you know they obviously have but there's this idea this idea of what poor really is right that you know kids who come from
Marc:money or any sort of background that it's not it's not it's not poor it's right but there is this but in new york you get these there are definitely entitled rich kids that act like it's no big deal and then there are people struggling you know to do what they want to do and are are not poverty stricken but they're certainly at a disadvantage yeah the the we really wanted the sort of economic
Guest:her economic reality to be story in a way i mean right that uh and and since the movie is her moving locations it's it's almost always for an economic reason and you know and and it you know to create a movie where the fact that she has to pay a surcharge at an atm would be like a major right decision for her yeah yeah i was just at my bank yeah yeah yeah do i go the extra few blocks but i'm late and uh
Guest:uh yeah and i think i mean the sophie character says in the movie um you know to to be an artist in new york you have to be rich i'm paraphrasing but it and and i think it's true it's like there is no bohemian life in manhattan anymore there hasn't been for 50 years no we've all romanticized it a lot you know you know but but i think that's true i think that art in general requires you know not only patronage but you know people to give a shit about it who have money yeah period that's true um
Marc:Well, I thought that was pretty brilliant that you did that because it really plays into Sophie's decision that, you know, when you realize as you get to a certain age and you see people make decisions that are not based in desire or love, you know, specifically for security.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's a heartbreaking reality of grown up life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it doesn't have to be terrible either.
Guest:No, of course.
Guest:It can be that it's understandable.
Guest:And Frances goes the other direction as kind of stamping her foot and saying, why can't it be what it's been?
Marc:Well, the way you play that, and honestly, my experience of watching the film, which I did last night, was that I didn't know, like there was a point there with Greta where you're like, maybe she's autistic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But then you realize she's just romantic and she's idealistic and she's pure in her desires and her need for expression and wanting to do what she wants to do.
Marc:And then that moment when Greta describes what she thinks love should feel like and then you capture that movie, that feeling at the end, you did it really well because it's not easy to directly reference love.
Marc:You know, something like that.
Marc:And then just play it out quietly.
Marc:But you realize that's it and that's okay.
Marc:And there was no longing there necessarily.
Marc:There was actually a point where, well, okay, they've grown up and there's acceptance here.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Guest:Well, you did it.
Guest:You pulled that off.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:That's well said.
Guest:No, I was getting a little emotional hearing you talk about it.
Guest:It's nice.
Guest:It's like my Wikipedia page for Squid and the Whale.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, before I lose you, because I want to keep you... I love the movie.
Marc:I think you do great work.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Now, I want to talk about your relationship with Wes Anderson and how that came about, because you wrote one of his films with him.
Marc:Two of them, actually, yeah.
Marc:Life Aquatic and Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:But now I've seen both of those movies, and how did you meet him?
Guest:I met him, I think, around...
Guest:Sort of, I guess around 97, we had had Bottle Rocket and Kicking and Screaming had come out the same year.
Guest:And I was sort of aware of him and knew people who knew him.
Guest:And then he moved to New York and then we started hanging out.
Marc:And he's like, he's an interesting guy.
Marc:I mean, in the sense that, you know, I have no real sense of him other than like how he presents himself walking through the world in his suits and things.
Marc:But what I realized, you know, before you came over was that, you know, you're sort of, I don't want to use the word oeuvre because I'm not even sure what it means, but...
Marc:You deal with these grownups who deal with this sort of chaotic infantile emotional structure that they're constantly up against or whether they recognize or not.
Marc:And he actually embraces like an almost childlike point of view intellectually.
Marc:And that's how he constructs his movies.
Marc:So, I mean, I don't I have to assume that there's some sort of I'm trying to figure out how the connection between you two works, because he almost elevates an almost meticulous childlike vision of what film is.
Marc:And your characters are always fighting with the childlike behaviors that are destroying their lives.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:Oh, that's very interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I think we both like Truffaut's movies a lot because I think in some ways they're both there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like he kind of covered both of those and we probably meet somewhere in the middle of one of those movies.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, yeah, because he's like the, I guess you would say the...
Marc:I can't imagine what it takes to construct a frame for a shot for Wes Anderson.
Marc:I mean, I can't imagine the time necessary.
Marc:It seems like you have a little more breathing room in terms of that box doesn't have to be on the shelf right there.
Guest:Well, I'm more that way than you might think.
Guest:But he's doing something even different there.
Marc:And I'm not saying it's bad or good.
Marc:It's just sort of really different styles.
Marc:What's the writing process with him like?
Guest:Well, for those movies, I was very, it was very much like I was just trying to give him good ideas.
Guest:Because, I mean, I knew he was going to, I mean, I was writing, but I was, you know, he was going to make these movies.
Guest:So I was more like just trying to be added value, you know, and help him kind of figure out what he wanted.
Guest:yeah what he what what was going to help him make the movie that he wanted to make um so it's more like sort of he's like what i'm trying to do and you're like what if you that kind of yeah right yeah and yeah maybe he says this and and if he liked that idea and wanted to use it great if he didn't i'd just come up with another one right right that uh and we'd been friends i mean it came at a great time for me too because i had i had nothing but time to right to to help him work on life aquatic and
Guest:He was really supportive in helping me get Squid Made.
Guest:And being with him at that time and watching him, I really kind of... I mean, going back to... We were talking about that sort of period between where I kind of... Between... Long period between movies.
Guest:I really saw how he...
Guest:you know, controlled everything to the point because he knew if he didn't, it was, you know, then it wasn't going to be good.
Guest:I mean, it was that, I mean, I, I think I had more of this idea that sort of, you know, when my early twenties of like, Oh, I'll, you know, I'll fix that later or, you know, and, and I, I really realized like, you know, I've got to write these things great and I have to just keep working on it.
Guest:And, and he, you know, he, he,
Guest:He's a good example for you.
Guest:He was a really good example.
Guest:And also seeing that he had done with Rushmore, he had just done something interesting to him that was personal to him.
Guest:And it was interesting to other people and personal to other people.
Guest:And I felt like I had kind of gotten off track with that sort of notion of movie making.
Marc:so he can't you came together during that part of your life where you were trying to figure out who you were as a as an artist yeah and his he sort of the example of the way he worked you know kind of got you in line with what filmmaking could be and should be for you definitely and he's you know we're great friends and he's you know um you know you know we just get along really well that's great and did you get to meet bill murray
Marc:i did get to meet bill murray i tried to get bill murray to do squid actually at an early period and i still think he's yet to pass but um but as a kid who like you know he has stripes in his memory yeah i uh was it exciting oh yeah it was super exciting um good yeah that's a good it's good when you meet these guys that have a place in your heart from a movie as a kid and they're not assholes
Guest:I have a funny Bill Murray story from when I was a kid.
Guest:I was in school.
Guest:Some new kid came that year and it came out that his parents were friends with Bill Murray.
Guest:I could not believe it.
Guest:So I asked, could he get me an autograph at some point?
Guest:So after a while, he brought me this sort of torn out... It was sort of like a corner of graph paper that was ripped out and it said Bill Murray written on it.
Guest:And...
Guest:I was so excited and I showed it to my history teacher at the time.
Guest:I was like, check it out.
Guest:Bill Murray's autograph.
Guest:And he was like, why does Bill Murray look like he's five?
Guest:And sign his signature like he's five.
Guest:And I was like, I don't know.
Guest:But and I went home and I had a picture from stripes and I framed it sort of like jammed it into the frame.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then about six months later, this kid came back to me and handed me another piece of graph paper.
Guest:And this one said, to Noah, drive carefully, Bill Murray in an adult's handwriting.
Guest:And he's like, I'm sorry.
Guest:He didn't want to sign the last one.
Guest:And he said, why don't you just do it?
Guest:So I ultimately got it.
Guest:Did you tell Bill that story?
Guest:I did.
Guest:He said, what did I say?
Guest:I said, you wrote drive carefully.
Guest:He's like, yeah, that was me.
Guest:Yeah, great.
Guest:Thanks for talking, Noah.
Guest:Oh, thanks a lot.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:I want more film directors.
Marc:Can I get more film directors, please?
Marc:I find it very compelling.
Marc:That was Noah Baumbach.
Marc:Did I pronounce it wrong again?
Marc:And please go see his movie.
Marc:I thought it was charming.
Marc:You don't know where it's going at first, but you get engaged.
Marc:Especially if you're of a certain ilk.
Marc:The creative ilk.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Get all your WTFPod needs met.
Marc:Check the schedule, the calendar there.
Marc:I got book events coming up in San Francisco, Los Angeles with Judd Apatow.
Marc:Boston, New York, D.C.
Marc:Upcoming dates at all those places.
Marc:Go to JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Get some of that.
Marc:Go to the Oinkster.
Marc:Get my burger.
Marc:On Thursday, I'm going to talk to Sam Simon, one of the creators of The Simpsons, who has terminal cancer.
Marc:And I wanted to get out there.
Marc:Difficult situation.
Marc:But, you know, we had a long conversation about that, a little bit about The Simpsons, about money, about fame.
Marc:It's not a long ride, folks.
.
.