Episode 872 - Darren Aronofsky
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck, Nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Today on the show, I speak to director Darren Aronofsky.
Marc:He directed recently Mother, but also Requiem for a Dream, the Noah movie, The Wrestler, Pi, some other movies.
Marc:I'm a fan of his work.
Marc:I enjoyed most of Mother.
Marc:He's going to kill me.
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:Well, Judge Roy Moore was defeated and that was a relief.
Marc:I don't even know if you're a Republican and you're hearing me say that and it aggravates you.
Marc:My response to that is really, really, come on.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:I mean, you know, you can be tribal if you want to, but let's not fill the house with complete fucking dangerous lunatics.
Marc:It was just a relief.
Marc:You know, things don't things are not great.
Marc:And there's very little good news.
Marc:And that was a big few.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:As close.
Marc:That was a good feeling.
Marc:And then this morning or would have been yesterday morning, I woke up to the news that I was nominated for a SAG Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Male Actor in a Comedy.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you, folks.
Marc:I didn't anticipate or expect any of this, man.
Marc:And I'm very excited.
Marc:I'm flattered.
Marc:I'm honored.
Marc:I'm humbled by the recognition by my fellow actors.
Marc:And as you know, I have trouble calling myself an actor.
Marc:I have trouble calling myself an artist.
Marc:I don't seem to have any trouble calling myself a standup comic.
Marc:That seems to be, you know, it's sort of like, what do you do?
Marc:I'm a plumber.
Marc:I know what I do.
Marc:I'm a plumber.
Marc:But don't you also sing at a nightclub?
Marc:Yeah, but I'm not a singer.
Marc:I'm a plumber.
Marc:So I'm a stand-up comic.
Marc:I'm a plumber.
Marc:I'm a plumber of wit.
Marc:But I have been acting, obviously, and I have put a lot of work into it, and I'm thrilled for the recognition.
Marc:It's all gravy to me, folks.
Marc:I didn't expect any of this.
Marc:I didn't expect...
Marc:You know, I was looking down the barrel of no expectation whatsoever and just hoping to continue to earn a fucking living somehow without compromising myself too much to survive.
Marc:Either that or suicide.
Marc:Those were my options.
Marc:A decade ago.
Marc:And this is where we're at now.
Marc:And I'm excited.
Marc:You know, I'm just and I seriously am just excited to be nominated.
Marc:And there are some, you know, now I have to buy things.
Marc:Now I have to I have to get a tuxedo or some sort of formal attire, a black suit.
Marc:I have to I have to go to these shows and behave properly.
Marc:and not be resentful or just be grateful that I'm part of such an amazing show and there's such an amazing cast.
Marc:The Ensemble was nominated for the SAG Awards as well.
Marc:Alison Brie nominated as well.
Marc:This is a great show, great writing, great cast.
Marc:The stunt people, they were nominated.
Marc:They do amazing work.
Marc:It's just a thrill to be part of something so well received.
Marc:And I couldn't have anticipated that.
Marc:I really didn't anticipate anything.
Marc:I'm not living the life I thought I would live.
Marc:The life I thought I would live was fairly diminishing.
Marc:And there is still part of me, not that deep inside me.
Marc:Actually, it's very close to the surface that when something good happens, I take it in.
Marc:I'm like, wow, that's great.
Marc:I didn't think this would happen.
Marc:And then it goes right to something bad's going to happen.
Marc:Something's coming down the pike.
Marc:Well, you know what?
Marc:It's coming down the pike for everyone.
Marc:Either slowly or quickly, but you don't really know.
Marc:You don't know what it is or if it's an event, but it's coming down the pike for all of us.
Marc:So that is in the big picture.
Marc:There is an end to this.
Marc:But in the micro, whatever.
Marc:I'm not going to read so much into it.
Marc:I'm thrilled.
Marc:Thank you, Screen Actors Guild.
Marc:Thank you, Jenji Cohen, Liz Flayhive, and Carly Mench.
Marc:And thank you to all the amazing actresses that I'm surrounded with.
Marc:Chris Lowell, actor.
Marc:The whole thing.
Marc:The writers.
Marc:Yeah, you know, it's all them.
Marc:You know, it doesn't happen without them.
Marc:None of it happens without them.
Marc:I just show up and put on my funny glasses and my Sam pants.
Marc:Put on your Sam pants, Marin.
Marc:And that's what happens.
Marc:I put on the Sam pants and the glasses, get the hair blown out.
Marc:I'm in.
Marc:What else is happening?
Marc:What else is happening is that my cats, Monkey La Fonda and Buster, are taking to the new house pretty well.
Marc:It seems to be more than they anticipated.
Marc:That's something we share.
Marc:I don't think me or my old cats really assumed that we would ever get out of this house, the cat ranch, which is where I'm broadcasting from now in the hills of Highland Park.
Marc:I think that we all assume that this was it for all of us.
Marc:And I think we're having the same reaction to the new house is that they were freaked out for a few days, but now they seem more relaxed.
Marc:They seem like they're all hanging out together.
Marc:Buster's hanging out with the other two.
Marc:But the other two seem like, all right, this is it.
Marc:We did it.
Marc:This is real retirement.
Marc:I feel like that my cats, after being rescued from a dumpster or from an alley, from a garbage-y alley in Astoria, Queens, saved from the cold back in 2004, trapped and brought into a house, my apartment, not a house, with several other of their sisters and brothers, just in a fucking clusterfuck shit show of feral cats in a two-bedroom apartment in Astoria, they managed to stay with me.
Marc:Stay with me through thick and thin, through many relationships, through a lot of yelling, through a lot of sadness, through a lot of things.
Marc:Monkey even went back to New York with me for a little while.
Marc:He's made the trip twice.
Marc:These old cats are somewhere around 13, 14 years old, and they have succeeded.
Marc:No matter what happens to me, my cats, Monkey and La Fonda, have made it.
Marc:They are successful cats, and they are acting like it.
Marc:They are sort of like, we're good.
Marc:Everything's fine.
Marc:We're not freaking out about nothing right now.
Marc:You do what you got to do, Mark.
Marc:Fix the house up, whatever.
Marc:We're good.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:We appreciate you facilitating this, but you're no longer necessary to us.
Marc:So do what you got to do.
Marc:Buster, on the other hand, it's all new to him, and he's still out of his mind.
Marc:But he started fetching again yesterday, and he seems to be a little more adventurous than the other two.
Marc:So, my lips are chapped.
Marc:My skin is dry from makeup.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So, I need to, before I bring Darren on, I want to say that this was the day that Buster came back.
Marc:You hear live, not live, but you will hear live on tape, the return of Buster.
Marc:As some of you who listen to this show regularly know he disappeared for a few days, and he came back during this interview.
Marc:Mother,
Marc:Aronofsky's new movie is now available on digital HD and comes out on Blu-ray and DVD on December 19th.
Marc:This is me and Darren Aronofsky.
Marc:So now that I see you, I know we did meet a million years ago.
Marc:I was always sort of not mad, but like I knew you liked comics.
Marc:I knew you used Todd a couple of times.
Marc:So there was an element of, you know, I don't understand.
Marc:What do I got to do to get Darren Aronofsky to give me like two lines in a weirdo movie?
Guest:I used to go see you down on Lower East Side.
Guest:Right.
Guest:On Ludlow Street.
Guest:Because your friends were Amy.
Guest:Amy, yeah, old friend, and she used to... What was the name of that night?
Guest:It was like a Tuesday night.
Guest:Eating it.
Guest:Monday night.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It wasn't eating it.
Guest:I thought it was Tuesday.
Guest:Michael Portnoy was always there.
Guest:You remember that guy?
Marc:Yeah, sure, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the guy who... Soy bomb.
Marc:The guy who emptied his Prozac pill container and stuck his dick in it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Remember...
Guest:Him taking all this out onto Houston one night and just streaking across Houston as a performance.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's pretty impressive.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I guess, you know, that type of performance, I think, you know, has its moment and it's necessary someone be out there on the wire doing that.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:I don't know if there's a future in it.
Guest:Well, I actually almost gave him a part.
Guest:Great.
Marc:You're trying to make me feel better?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In what?
Guest:In Mother, actually.
Guest:He was putting on a little show with his girlfriend.
Guest:He's like a dancer and he's- Oh, so Portnoy's still at it?
Guest:He does some weird stuff.
Guest:He did a weird game show.
Guest:It was an installation in a space and you walked in and it was very intense.
Marc:I always liked the guy.
Marc:He was always odd.
Marc:And like I said, there is that element that is necessary theatrically.
Marc:Someone's got to hold that space, I think.
Guest:I like performance art.
Guest:I think it's interesting.
Marc:Definitely.
Marc:It's provocative.
Marc:So what part was you going to give him a mother?
Guest:Oh, I don't know.
Guest:I would have stuck them in some freaky doing something crazy.
Marc:Oh, like in the corner?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:It would have been a shout out to you and all my comedian friends.
Marc:Oh, that would have been great.
Marc:And what happened?
Marc:Why didn't you?
Guest:I think we were shooting Montreal and we couldn't get them to work these days.
Marc:So tell me about it because they sent me a screener yesterday.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Did you watch it?
Marc:No, I got through most of it.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But I'm still waiting the end.
Marc:Oh, the end's the whole thing.
Marc:Well, fuck, Darren.
Marc:I'm just trying to be honest with you.
Marc:Feel free.
Marc:I'm in, but I didn't finish it.
Marc:That's all.
Marc:That's fine.
Guest:We can't really talk about it.
Guest:The end is the best part.
Marc:Well, it's probably better for a lot of people that we don't talk about the end.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Right?
Marc:The spoiler thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm in it.
Marc:Michelle Pfeiffer's great.
Marc:Fantastic.
Marc:Great.
Marc:It's so crisp.
Marc:What are you doing with the color?
Marc:What's going on there?
Marc:How'd you jack that up like that?
Guest:Oh, it's shot on film.
Guest:So maybe that's why it looks a little different.
Guest:Maybe that's what you're responding to.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:We shot on 16 millimeter, old school.
Marc:16?
Guest:Yeah, like the size of a postage stand.
Marc:So that's how you got all the... So you didn't have a guy in a steadicam.
Marc:You could hold it.
Guest:He was holding the camera the whole time, yes.
Marc:Like old school holding it.
Guest:Old original, yeah.
Guest:We reduced everything.
Marc:All right, so now it obviously means something that I'm not fully informed of yet.
Guest:Yes, you'll get it when you get to the end.
Guest:God damn it, I'm sorry.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:If you're mad at me, you can say it.
Marc:No.
Marc:If you're disappointed, you say it.
Marc:I'm watching it.
Guest:I'm happy to be here.
Guest:I've been a fan since, what is it, the 90s, which is freaky.
Marc:Well, I appreciate that, but just tell me a couple things about what compels.
Marc:You're using a form, because you've done it before, fantasy and horror, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A couple of times in your career.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, there's an intention to that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What does that afford you?
Guest:Well, I think it lets you start in reality and then leave it.
Guest:One of the great things that I like about film is when it exits reality and it takes the audience with them.
Marc:Because you do that in sections in your other movies.
Marc:You maintain the reality.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And, you know, Wrestler was very, very real.
Marc:That was straight up.
Marc:Very naturalistic.
Guest:Straight up.
Guest:But Requiem for a Dream, of course, is many parts that sort of drift off into this feverish place.
Marc:There is like one scene in that that I can never get out of my head.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:It's okay, but it's probably not the one you think.
Marc:It's really just of Jennifer Connelly dancing.
Marc:you know in that scene you know where or i don't remember she's dancing but like she was high and she had to yeah where she was being paid basically a prostitution yes yeah yeah yeah well it's hardcore because i i you know i need her to to be in a different space jennifer
Marc:In my heart and my mind, I need Jennifer.
Marc:You soiled her.
Marc:You made a mess out of Jennifer.
Guest:Yikes.
Guest:Sorry.
Marc:It's okay.
Guest:I make a mess out of all my actors.
Marc:Yeah, she's a great actress, and it was a great movie.
Marc:And I think you really did an honor to Hubert's business there.
Guest:Have you met him?
Marc:No, I missed him.
Marc:I have friends who met him.
Marc:He's sort of an oracle in the recovery racket.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And there are a lot of cats who I've dealt with the second generation of the people that he was guiding through.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he was.
Guest:He was very much a Bodhi Vita.
Guest:He led people to the light.
Guest:That's what Ellen Burstyn called him.
Guest:Not the Buddha, but the person that leads you to the Buddha.
Marc:Yeah, man, he was like... Really helped a lot of people.
Marc:Sort of old school kind of post-beatnik New York drug shit.
Marc:Yeah, and just a beautiful guy.
Marc:So getting back to fantasy and getting back to horror and getting back to leaving the reality frame, we'll get back to Hubert, but like, so that allows you to start in reality and leave reality, but it seems like with...
Marc:And with the new movie, with Mother, there was a very well-articulated intention.
Marc:You had something set up.
Marc:It wasn't like Black Swan where shit gets weird, but she's very hard on herself and it's disastrous.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I guess my question to you is, as a director and as somebody who's been at the mast of small films and huge films, and this is something that came out of your mind and your heart.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Did you have the metaphor?
Marc:Did you know what you were trying to represent and what it meant?
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:So you do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're not one of these directors who's sort of like, hey, make of it what you will.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Well, I've talked a bit about it on the record, what we were going for, but it's a lot of things.
Guest:And what's been the most interesting about this film and this trip is all the different interpretations.
Guest:And there's actually a line that comes up that the poet says that...
Guest:Javier Bardem says where he says everyone understands it in a different way and he's talking about his poem but it's actually very similar to the film so that was your intention well my intention was for people to get like one of three ideas out of it and all three have come out well tell me what they are well some people see an environmental metaphor where the home kind of represents our home here
Marc:And that's something you're aligned with, right?
Marc:Did you put a little of that in there?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:That was a big part of it.
Guest:There's also a marriage gone wrong, falling apart.
Marc:Well, that's right.
Marc:There's the menace.
Marc:They had the menace of Virginia Woolf.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:For like an hour, it's just sort of like, oh my God.
Marc:I'd almost like to see that cast do Virginia Woolf.
Guest:It would be great.
Guest:It would be great.
Marc:It would be great, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So marriage.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then there's sort of this biblical thing going through, which you might've started to sense.
Guest:I don't know if you did.
Marc:Which biblical thing?
Marc:You know more about the Bible than me.
Guest:Well, Adam and Eve and you just met Cain and you just met Abel.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Cain showing up.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Those great old stories.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The great old stories.
Marc:So it's all happening in front of this woman and the crystal breaks and that's a big problem.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a big mystical problem.
Marc:It's a spiritual problem.
Marc:It's a creativity problem.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Hanging your hopes on some sort of a pennant, not always a great idea.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not always a great idea.
Marc:But so all those things, those layers were intended, but yet you knew that it would confound and confuse and aggravate and enliven audiences.
Marc:You knew that that...
Guest:Yeah, we knew we weren't making a crowd pleaser.
Guest:We always were like, this is punk.
Guest:This is in your face.
Guest:But I think it came out of a place of rage that I was having.
Marc:On all those levels?
Marc:Relationship, biblical and environmental?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In opposite direction.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, actually, environmental, personal and biblical.
Marc:Uh huh.
Marc:But it takes a tremendous amount of courage to to occupy that space for that long and bring people with you that they got to trust this vision.
Marc:So how do you, you know, because I imagine that the actors read the script and none of them are like, this makes perfect sense to me.
Guest:I think there was a lot of passion from the beginning from all the actors.
Guest:They were like, this is great.
Guest:This is exciting.
Guest:Let's explore.
Guest:Jennifer got it right away.
Guest:Javier, you know, had to figure out how to play that character.
Guest:And as you see, it's a very complicated character.
Guest:It was a tight, tight rope to play this place between love and arrogance and forgetting things.
Guest:being kind of thoughtless at times.
Marc:It's a hard thing to play.
Marc:So he actually is a representative of... Because I notice a lot on the relationship level and also on this deference to the genius and creativity, the volatility of creativity, the fraud, the vanity, the sort of facade of it too.
Guest:Yeah, but I think that's a little bit of...
Guest:that's a little bit to the side.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's something, he's really representing something bigger.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't want to give it away to you or to the audience.
Marc:Okay, good.
Guest:It's all there.
Guest:And you put it together, but it's something much, much bigger.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And how did you direct?
Marc:Because Jennifer was pretty astounding.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Really.
Marc:I mean, like, you're right out of the gate because, you know, she doesn't know what the fuck's going on.
Marc:We don't know what the fuck is going on.
Marc:But she's so visceral and so, like, you know, her emotions and her reactions are, you know, they come right through the screen.
Marc:They're tangible
Marc:human and she knew exactly what she was going to do to play that.
Guest:Well, I think we discovered it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And she actually, you know, we spent three months of rehearsal on it and went through the whole thing many, many times.
Guest:And she talks about how she didn't actually find the character till the first day, which is true.
Guest:I saw it happen.
Guest:And it was because when we got to set, we were still struggling with what was going to be on her feet.
Guest:And then we decided for her to go barefoot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The second she walked through the set barefoot, it kind of connected and clicked for her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This character came out.
Guest:But I don't know if I've ever seen such a raw talent.
Guest:First of all, she's autodidact.
Guest:She's taught herself how to act.
Marc:I remember seeing her in that hillbilly movie.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Winter's Bomb.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Guest:And just whatever she was then, 17, just incredible natural talent.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It was like, what the fuck is this?
Guest:An incredible technical actor too.
Guest:So I would give her five, six notes.
Guest:And usually with most actors, you give them two, three notes, they maybe handle it.
Guest:She'd be able to do five, six, seven notes and she hit them all.
Guest:Just bang them out.
Guest:Boom, boom, boom.
Guest:And technical, not just emotional changes, but like, oh, can you be another inch this way or that way?
Guest:And-
Guest:It was a pretty, it was like kind of, you know, seeing Michael Jordan in high school type of thing.
Marc:Well, you know, I see how like, you know, David O. Russell uses her too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, I don't know what he's like, but he obviously has a similar appreciation for using whatever that energy is.
Guest:Well, I think he just took her and let her shine.
Guest:Like if you look at her in Silver Linings, that's very much Jen.
Marc:I watch that like every time it's on.
Guest:Oh, do you?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I think also Elements of Joy.
Marc:I like that movie.
Guest:What I'm proud of in this movie is that it's not Jen.
Guest:And that was the first thing.
Guest:She's really not herself.
Guest:It's not this boisterous, strong female presence.
Guest:She's on the back foot.
Guest:She's very quiet.
Guest:She has a different voice.
Guest:And I think she's still compelling.
Guest:Oh, no doubt.
Guest:Which to me is like what you look for in actors, like a Meryl Streep that can disappear into all these different roles.
Guest:And I think Jen has just started that journey.
Guest:You think so?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:absolutely i think she can do anything i mean this was the opposite of anything she's done before this performance and she i think she's convincing through the whole film yeah i think you're right it's been the first time where you where she's not really in charge yeah right which is uh hard for her yeah i bet you know i and like i've seen her with accents and stuff but you know still it's like there's a there's a you know there's a brassiness to it and you know swagger
Guest:And also this kind of goofy charm that she has, kind of like Lucille Ball.
Marc:Yeah, she could do that, right?
Guest:Which I just started re-watching with my son, and he loves it.
Guest:It's also incredibly sexist.
Marc:It's incredibly Mrs. Ricky Ricardo.
Guest:You forget these things that you grew up with.
Marc:I'd like to remember her as usually, but she is usually, he's the straight one.
Guest:Oh, she's absolutely the lead, yeah.
Marc:Right, but she's always screwing things up.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Oh, Ricky.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's just great stuff, though.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe you should do a Lucille Ball movie.
Marc:Good idea.
Marc:All right, so it's very exciting.
Marc:I'm very impressed with your capacity to...
Marc:to manage these things.
Marc:You seem like a grounded sort of nice guy.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:But it seems like quite an ordeal to make the type of movies you make, specifically this new one and fucking Noah.
Marc:That was a big one.
Marc:What possessed you?
Marc:It made a lot of money in the world.
Marc:It made a lot of money.
Marc:It did well.
Guest:uh because that was that came from you right yeah that was my idea wasn't i think a lot of like my fans didn't see it because they thought i was like selling out and it was completely my movie it was my passion i've been wanting to make it for about 20 years your fans from the wrestler requiem for a dream pie black swan yeah and the other fountain the fountain the fountain right i saw that one right i didn't see that one that's a good one
Marc:I'm going to watch it.
Marc:But I mean, I saw enough to be able to have a conversation with you.
Guest:You're doing good.
Marc:But now, because like Pi had, you know, Kabbalistic, you know, numerology, mathematics.
Marc:Sacred geometry.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The answer.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:The answer.
Marc:It's there.
Marc:It's right there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So that's biblical.
Marc:It's Jewish.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:So Noah, one of the great Jews.
Marc:Pre-Jew.
Guest:Pre-Jew.
Guest:He's pre-Abraham.
Guest:So the Jews didn't exist yet.
Marc:He's in the Jewish book though.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Old Testament.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So pre-Abraham.
Guest:Pre-Abraham.
Guest:So yeah.
Marc:Just a guy with a boat who talked to God, the God of the Jews, Yahweh, but also significant other- Before he was the God of the Jews.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He was just a God.
Marc:He was just a God at that point.
Marc:Just the God.
Guest:He hadn't chosen.
Guest:He hadn't made the choice yet.
Marc:But he's also in other mythologies, right?
Marc:Noah, he's not only in the Old Testament.
Guest:No, he's just in the Old Testament, but there are other flood stories.
Guest:There's tons of flood stories.
Guest:There's the Gilgamesh, which is the oldest mythology out there, has a flood story.
Guest:So there's a lot of different sources.
Marc:But are you fascinated with that, with mythology?
Marc:I'm a storyteller.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:That's my religion is stories.
Guest:For me, there's some reason why these stories keep getting told.
Guest:Because there's a lot of power to them.
Guest:There's a lot of interesting elements to them.
Guest:There's a lot of mystical, cool ideas that can reflect back.
Guest:And I'm all about thinking about those stories and what they mean for us today.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So you wanted to tell the story of Noah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Well, he's the first environmentalist.
Guest:He was there.
Guest:Ooh, you're a cat.
Guest:Did you hear something?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I heard a cat.
Guest:Mark's going to the door to check for the cat.
Guest:He's searching for the cat outside.
Guest:No luck.
Marc:He's been gone for two days.
Marc:It's driving me nuts.
Marc:I hope he comes back.
Marc:You never know out here.
Marc:So the first environmentalist.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We'll keep an ear out.
Marc:He's usually like, eh, it's high.
Guest:I heard it, I think.
Marc:Something.
Marc:I heard something.
Marc:I definitely heard what you heard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He saved the animals two by two.
Guest:And I just thought the idea of this impending doom, this apocalypse, that the world was filled with man's evil and God decided to restart it again.
Guest:It's actually very timely.
Marc:That's for sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you thought it would be- It's a commentary.
Guest:It's about faith in humanity.
Marc:A clarion call.
Marc:Is that the word that I want?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What does clarion call mean?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Can we look it up?
Marc:I feel like I used it right, but this is ruining it.
Marc:So you told it for the reasons that it was written.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah well i don't know you told the story again different people would say it has a strongly expressed demand or request for action clarion call as in two words yes okay well there you go it was that i guess so yeah yeah and the last film yeah i think it's like about i don't know the last couple have been about screaming about what's going on it's a very frustrating that's pre-trump
Guest:Both times.
Guest:Well, this one, Mother was written the eighth year of Obama and comes out the first year of Trump.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's interesting how things change.
Guest:But I think actually it's just interesting how interpretations have changed.
Marc:So you see on some level that in your mind, those both operate as environmental warnings.
Guest:I think there's elements of that in both films.
Marc:Buster?
Buster?
Guest:Buster!
Guest:Sorry, it's very exciting.
Guest:It would be great if he comes back.
Guest:Mars going to the door again.
Buster!
Guest:Oh, you fucking raccoon.
Guest:It's a raccoon.
Two of them.
Guest:Do they endanger cats?
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay, good.
Guest:Oh, there's a dog.
Marc:They're so big raccoons.
Marc:They're surprisingly big.
Marc:Have you seen them?
Marc:You've seen them.
Marc:Not in LA.
Marc:Oh, they're here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, you know, when you do see them, you know, they're just sort of like, where are they during the day?
Marc:Some of them are fucking huge.
Guest:Amazing.
Marc:And they have hands.
Marc:Have you ever seen a possum?
Marc:Yeah, they got them too.
Marc:There's one of those around.
Guest:I never saw one until I got into college and I woke up, I saw it outside the store 24 and I called all my friends.
Guest:Store 24.
Guest:Yeah, called them all out of bed, made them come see this.
Guest:And they're like, I thought it was the king of rats.
Guest:I was like, the king of rats is outside store 24.
Guest:I made everyone go and they just made fun of me for a long time.
Marc:There's one hanging out now.
Marc:Usually I get possums, raccoons, skunks.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Light on skunks lately.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Marc:There's a couple of raccoons around.
Marc:They hang out, but possums come and go.
Marc:But there's a large possum around right now.
Marc:Coyotes.
Marc:Yeah, that's what the problem with the cats is.
Marc:Oh, I'm sorry.
Marc:All right, so environmental clarion calls.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So where did you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in South Brooklyn.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Near Coney Island, Manhattan Beach.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Were your parents Russian?
Guest:No, I was there before the Russian.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah, the Russians came in in the 80s.
Guest:My grandparents came to America.
Marc:So you were in the same place your grandparents lived at?
Marc:Basically, yeah.
Marc:So you grew up with them in your life?
Guest:Definitely, yeah.
Guest:All three out of four.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's good, right?
Marc:For how long were they around?
Guest:Grandma Betty made it all the way through Requiem for a Dream.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Did you take her to the premiere?
Guest:I don't know if she made it that far.
Guest:The film's dedicated to her, so she passed.
Guest:But I remember her being on set the night that Marlon gets shot at in the back of the limo and goes running down the street with the blood guts, and she was just looking at me, shaking her head.
Guest:Like, what are you doing?
Guest:This is not a career.
Guest:You should be a doctor.
Marc:Where'd they come from?
Marc:Where'd she come from?
Guest:She's from Lithuania.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's sweet that they were all there.
Marc:How many siblings do you have?
Guest:I've got an older sister, Patty.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Is she in the arts?
Guest:She's a producer for CBS News.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And your folks did what?
Guest:Both public school teachers.
Marc:I don't know why I'm talking Jew now.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:I'm decided.
Guest:I've shifted.
Guest:My dad was a teacher at Bushwick High when Bushwick was rough.
Guest:Educators.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And my mom taught fourth grade in-
Marc:And so were they, you know, did they encourage you to what?
Marc:To read?
Marc:Was it an intellectual household?
Marc:Was it a progressive household?
Marc:Was it a communist household?
Marc:Was it a democratic household?
Guest:Democratic, I'd say.
Guest:You know, and definitely like you had to do your homework.
Marc:They were teachers.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That was helpful because it made sure there was a seriousness about your homework.
Guest:If you did your homework, you were fine.
Marc:But you were a good student.
Guest:I was a fine student.
Marc:But what were your interests at the time?
Marc:I mean, how do you end up?
Guest:I mean, you're talking about elementary school.
Marc:When you got old enough to have interests, what was driving you?
Guest:I was pretty well-rounded.
Guest:I definitely was good at math and science and I was leaning that way until I got to college and my roommate in college freshman year was a math major and his math book had no numbers in it.
Guest:It was all like Greek symbols.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, okay, that's not for me.
Guest:And so I leaned into the- What was that?
Guest:What was it?
Guest:It was like Sigmas and Pies and all that stuff.
Guest:High level shit?
Guest:It was high level shit.
Marc:What college was that?
Guest:At Harvard.
Marc:So you got into Harvard.
Guest:I did.
Marc:What do you got to know when you get in there?
Marc:Do you have to enter with some interest?
Marc:I mean, what were you like- I had no idea.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:Public school education, which is like, I barely knew how to write.
Guest:The Mac-
Guest:Came out with the Mac book.
Marc:The first Mac, whatever they called it.
Marc:It wasn't the book.
Marc:It was the 127.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The one, the box.
Marc:And the spell check.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Saved my, I didn't know how to spell there and there.
Marc:Just got into Harvard.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't really know how to do that.
Marc:So you're there on the quad.
Marc:You're there at Harvard.
Marc:You're eating burgers at the Tasty.
Marc:Did you eat there?
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:Hey, you're from Boston.
Marc:I lived in Somerville.
Marc:oh very nice i mean i went to you know after i went to college at boston university and then i came out here for a year and then i went back and i started my comedy career in 88 so i was there on and off for from 81 to 89 then i was going up there to work so that's great and i used to work at the coffee connection in the garage very nice sure before star brooks middle east middle east rat skeller rat skeller in kenmore that was great that's all gone middle east is still there the channel
Marc:remember the channel channel down in the reggae place well yeah they had a lot of different bands there the channel down on the wharf yeah exactly sure i saw james brown which is all developed now with like condos right or something i don't know yeah i don't know i rarely go back but so you're there you're that that's a that's pretty rare air for a kid from brooklyn absolutely that was weird it was weird i was uh i was a long coats
Guest:I didn't quite understand what was going on for a while.
Guest:It's just definitely like a deer in headlights.
Guest:I just never had an experience like that up to that point.
Guest:With the aristocracy?
Guest:I mean, there's all types of kids, to be fair.
Guest:And look, a lot of the people I still work with were college roommates.
Guest:My writing and producing partner, Ari, was a roommate.
Guest:The guy who does my VFX was a roommate.
Guest:So, you know, Sean Gallette, who starred in Pi, was a good friend.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was at Harvard?
Guest:Yeah, but that was what was great.
Guest:You met a lot of people that- But they didn't have a film program, did they?
Guest:Not barely.
Guest:They had like 20 film students back then.
Marc:So did you graduate from Harvard?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what'd you end up studying?
Guest:I graduated not, I basically became a film major, but I didn't graduate with a film degree because I was a little embarrassed to go back to the parents in Brooklyn and say, I want an arts and crafts degree.
Guest:Yeah, at Harvard.
Guest:And you're paying this amount of money for me to go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, I just was too embarrassed.
Guest:So I took all art class.
Guest:Like, I took drawing, but I didn't really tell them.
Guest:And it was the only place where I got good grades.
Guest:I was a B-mind student.
Guest:The only A I ever got was in film.
Marc:So what did you tell them you did?
Marc:I mean, didn't they see the paperwork?
Marc:Oh, no.
Guest:They paid them.
Guest:They were just glad I was getting through it.
Guest:You know, I...
Marc:You didn't placate them with science or anything?
Guest:I didn't do much science, no.
Guest:I don't think I did one science class that you had to take.
Guest:But even though I had a lot of science background.
Marc:So what do you think ultimately?
Marc:Because the Harvard education, there's a core curriculum, right?
Marc:That goes throughout the four years that you take to get the decent, well-rounded liberal arts education.
Marc:This is before they sold it out.
Guest:But I'll tell you that- You hear the cat?
Guest:Hello?
Guest:Buster?
Guest:Buster!
Guest:Buster?
Guest:Buster!
Guest:Fuck him.
Guest:Yeah, go ahead.
Guest:The core was great.
Guest:I actually, many of the things I learned in the core are things that have influenced me in my work now.
Guest:For instance?
Guest:Well, there was a class on, they called it Heroes for Zeros, which was like basically Joseph Campbell's like- Sure, the mythology of Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Guest:Which I took for an easy class and I actually learned that structure.
Guest:That makes sense.
Guest:uh i took bible first time which was like you just read the bible the hermeneutic code yeah yeah so so like just different things have shown up in the work so i think i actually at the time it was a pain in the ass but i actually think it it did what it did it actually well-rounded gave me a lot those are the ones right those are the ones that are going to inform more than anything else things that you're not the story you're interested in
Marc:Yeah, the sort of never-ending story, the eternal narratives that are told again and again and again.
Marc:So did Obama sit in that chair?
Marc:He sat right in that chair.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You like it?
Marc:Love it.
Marc:It's very comfy.
Marc:Good.
Marc:So that's what did it, huh?
Marc:But the film class is available, so you're going to the Brattle Theater, you're seeing that shit, right?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:It was basically a documentary film department, and we did a lot of docs, but they gave you the cameras.
Guest:You loaded the cameras.
Guest:You cut the film on steam bags.
Marc:It was old school.
Guest:Practical stuff, right.
Marc:Yeah, it was old school.
Guest:I still have scars from cutting with the razor blades.
Marc:Well, that's interesting.
Marc:So they kept it- They didn't keep it.
Guest:It was pre-digital.
Marc:Right, but I mean, it was probably in the journalism department.
Guest:No, no, it was in the arts department.
Guest:They had a nice arts department.
Marc:Why'd they decide on documentary if that's what they offered film-wise?
Guest:No, one of the big professors is a famous person in that world.
Guest:Who?
Guest:Ross McElvey.
Marc:He did Sherman's March.
Marc:Sure, I remember Sherman's March.
Guest:So he's kind of the godfather of the department, and then these two guys, him at the time, Alfred Gazzetti and Rob Moss, kind of continued.
Guest:So Doc is art.
Guest:Doc is... Doc.
Guest:Yeah, it wasn't as journalism.
Guest:It was more as... They were very much into the personal doc.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The doc where you're aware of the filmmaker, just like Michael Moore does now, and it's become very popular.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:The guy who ate hamburgers all the time.
Marc:Yes, Morgan Sproul.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But Sherman's March was one of the first that did that.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:I remember that movie.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And he did another one.
Guest:He's done a few.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's very talented, but he's very referential to himself.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, that makes it charming and funny.
Guest:Yeah, I guess so.
Marc:I mean, some docs don't.
Marc:You shouldn't do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like the guy who made the one about Durst, the killer?
Marc:Oh, that was great.
Marc:It was great, but I didn't need him in it.
Guest:He's a friend.
Guest:Yeah, it's true, but it was great.
Marc:No, he did a good job, but every time he was in, it's sort of like, I don't know.
Guest:Great end, though.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:No, no, it was great.
Marc:You had a great piece.
Marc:I like good docs.
Marc:I think he's good.
Marc:I'm not sure.
Guest:But he also did Capturing the Freedmen's.
Marc:Which I liked a lot.
Marc:No, and I like that better because that guy, the clown, the clown Freedmen, he was around comedy a little bit.
Marc:Was he?
Guest:Yeah, he was around a little bit.
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:I didn't know he was part of the posse.
Marc:He wasn't part of the posse.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:But he was on the periphery at- It wasn't called- What did you call it?
Guest:On Monday nights?
Yeah.
Marc:eating it i don't remember that i thought it was like uh well no but there there was a there was maybe there was another show at surf reality there was another show at the at the collective unconscious i mean a lot of people didn't know that it was called eating it okay maybe that's why you know it was just monday night at luna's luna lounge i still i have such an image of you there on the mic complaining
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:See, now we get, that's why you didn't use me in the movies.
Marc:This guy just complains.
Marc:I don't know if, I don't think he can act.
Marc:This guy's a complainer.
Guest:I just, I got to know Todd, so that's why.
Marc:I love Todd.
Marc:I do not begrudge Todd anything.
Guest:You know, I tried to put a tell in a movie too, who I love.
Marc:I love a tell.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But it just didn't work at the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think that's interesting to me that you learned the basics of film editing in this documentary class just because the equipment was there.
Marc:But it also, you're not polluting your head with lofty visions of creative filmmakers.
Marc:You're sort of on your own.
Guest:Yeah, and at that time, there was no path from an independent filmmaker to Spielberg or anything.
Guest:It didn't exist.
Marc:But what are you seeing that's making you compelled to do film?
Marc:I mean, what turned you?
Guest:It was before Slacker, which I think was a big influence on me when that came out.
Marc:That that could be done or that you liked the movie?
Guest:I liked the movie and also that it felt you could feel the hand that you could see how it was made sort of because what, and it, and it worked and it connected to a lot of people.
Guest:Um, but you know, I, by the time I got to film school, like Il Mariachi was just getting made and that was also another breakthrough, you know,
Marc:So Rodriguez and Linklater.
Guest:I think before that, though, it was in high school.
Guest:I went to the movie theater in Brooklyn at King's Plaza.
Guest:I don't know if you know King's Plaza in Canarsie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the movie I wanted to see was sold out, and there was a poster with a goofy-looking guy with a Brooklyn hat on it.
Guest:I said, let's go see that.
Guest:And it turns out it was She's Gotta Have It.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I had never seen anything like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was just like, what the hell?
Guest:I didn't know that something like that could exist.
Marc:Right, because you were used to mainstream movies.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that's all I grew up with.
Guest:We're of the late 70s and 80s, and everything was those big early blockbusters.
Guest:And so I saw that, and that sort of sent me, I discovered Jarmusch after that, and the kind of New York independent scene was really exciting.
Marc:So that was when you were in high school?
Guest:I think, yeah, probably like end of high school, early college.
Guest:That's a good time for it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I always had a taste for that.
Guest:My taste was always slightly off.
Marc:But now when you, but like when you got into making film or when you were hanging around in Boston, did you pursue, you know, because like there's some elements of mother that are specifically not American movies.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, I definitely probably was influenced a lot by European and Asian masters.
Marc:Yeah, because the narrative is broken up, and a lot of it is insanely visual, but not visual in a way to distract or avoid.
Guest:Right, well, I guess that's a compliment.
Marc:No, it is a compliment.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Marc:No, I mean, you're utilizing film metaphor very intentionally, which it's not spectacle in a way.
Guest:Well, I like one of the great things of film is that it could become a dream.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't have to be in a world of superheroes.
Guest:You don't have to be in a real world.
Guest:You can sort of follow characters through subjective thought.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're making some eye contact, but you're looking over there.
Guest:You're thinking about Buster.
Guest:There's lots of other things happening in our reality.
Marc:I'm pretty focused.
Marc:I'm listening.
Guest:You are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's interesting that you can show how people's attention drift.
Guest:And cinema is the only kind of art form that can let you sort of follow a character through their kind of personal experience.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when you made Pi, what was your student film, though?
Marc:Did you have to do a student film?
Guest:I did do a student film.
Guest:It was called Supermarket Sweep.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Inspired by the TV show.
Guest:Remember Supermarket Sweep?
Guest:The game show?
Marc:Where you had to run in and buy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You had a certain amount of time?
Guest:Which they bring him back.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:And you want to be my partner on the show?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I don't remember how the partnership works.
Marc:How does it work?
Marc:One guy runs, the other guy- Grabs the turkeys or something.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's what you're offering me?
Marc:Yeah, after all these years- Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I'm going to go on Supermarket Sweep with Darren Aronofsky as his partner.
Marc:Great team.
Marc:Agreed.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'm up for it.
Marc:So you made that film.
Guest:It was kind of like a weird, it was with Sean, the guy who starred in Pi, and he sort of just goes on.
Marc:What's he up to?
Marc:He did a few other movies here and there.
Guest:Yeah, and then he directed a movie.
Guest:He fell in love and married a girl from Morocco, lived in Tangier.
Marc:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:And actually directed a film in Tangier and now is trying to do his second film.
Marc:He's doing well.
Marc:That's exotic and exciting.
Marc:Very exciting.
Guest:It was nice to go visit a good old friend living on the Mediterranean in Morocco.
Marc:It's like bowls and burrows.
Marc:Very burrows.
Guest:Very burrows.
Guest:In fact, the first time I met Sean, he handed me a copy of Cities of the Red Knight.
Marc:That's a great one.
Marc:It's the pirate one.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And I started reading.
Guest:I was like, what?
Marc:what the hell is going on still I'm perplexed by it that's pretty perplexing but that trilogy I like a lot that was the western lands place of dead roads and city of the red night and the place of dead roads is a western and that one's pretty good it's easy to follow it's a western it's kind of a homoerotic western with occasional aliens and space action and
Marc:And a lot of talk of poisonous insects.
Guest:It was a detective?
Marc:No, it was Pirates, wasn't it?
Marc:It was Pirates.
Marc:Yeah, and then Western Lands was the Book of the Dead.
Marc:That was the Egyptian one.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's been a long time.
Marc:But they were fun.
Marc:I mean, Naked Lunch is clear.
Marc:He's funny.
Marc:Hilarious.
Marc:He had bits.
Guest:He had bits.
Guest:It was sad to lose him.
Marc:Sure, but he lived a long time.
Marc:He did live a long time.
Marc:He did all right, Bill.
Marc:He did all right.
Marc:And he had a nice comeback.
Marc:Sure he did.
Marc:I just picked up, I tracked down that documentary.
Marc:Buster.
Guest:Hey, Buster.
Marc:It is Buster.
Guest:It is Buster.
Guest:Wow, we found him.
Guest:Hey, buddy.
Guest:Come here.
Guest:Come here, buddy.
Guest:Buster, come here.
Guest:Buster, come here.
Guest:Buster, come here.
Guest:Busty.
Guest:Cats.
Guest:Come here, buddy.
Guest:You got him?
Guest:That's good.
Guest:I spotted him.
Marc:I'm about to cry.
Marc:What a fucking asshole.
Marc:That cat's an asshole.
Marc:I'm about to cry.
Marc:I tell you.
Guest:Beautiful cat.
Guest:Small, though.
Marc:He's a very smart cat.
Marc:And the thing is, is like...
Marc:When they run off like that, there's nothing you can fucking do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he doesn't, he's probably hiding for two days.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Okay, anyway, so where were we?
Marc:Oh, Burroughs, and then we went to, oh, I tracked down that documentary.
Marc:There's a documentary called Burroughs.
Marc:Oh, I haven't seen it.
Marc:It's sort of hard to find.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And it's pretty great.
Marc:I think I got it on the Criterion Collection.
Marc:I remember seeing it as screening in Boston, actually, in like the Copley, at the Copley Theater.
Marc:Remember when they opened that complex down there?
Marc:I do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:so like and i was like hung up on it i think i can't who directed was it kit carson i don't remember who who but anyway was footage of him later it was all throughout like it was a pretty thorough documentary great but i remember seeing him on snl my freshman year of college and not knowing who the fuck he was and i kept thinking like this is the guy that wrote tarzan like i like oh that borrows right so i was
Marc:I was just a dummy, and I had this little set, and he was reading from Naked Lunch, you know, Dr. Benway, ship's doctor.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck?
Marc:And it blew my mind, and that started a lot of everything.
Marc:But, oh, so anyway, so the first film, Pie, I remember that was an exciting time.
Marc:You were the new genius.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're the genius of the Lower East Side, this guy who made this movie for a little bit of money in black and white, and it's fucking trippy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Do you remember the tags, the graffiti we stuck up?
Marc:Yeah, I do remember.
Marc:Of course, I was there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I was like, what the fuck is this pie business?
Guest:It was very cool.
Guest:I hired a bunch of friends from Brooklyn.
Guest:The street team?
Guest:I told them, 25 bucks a can, just take the stencils and put it up everywhere.
Guest:I had five guys one night, and we just bombed the city.
Marc:Well, why were you possessed with that story?
Guest:pie yeah i don't know it was a lot of things i was thinking about um at the time um you weren't you didn't we're not brought up with a lot of religion no okay but uh i just uh there was just a i don't know i think i had a i actually had a math teacher in high school who taught all the sacred geometry it was like an elective somehow i ended up in his class and he he told all these mystical things about pie and
Guest:how the Egyptians had the ratio in their buildings, but then used a different one, a different... And so alongside of the Joseph Campbell stuff and the Bible stuff, you're like, this is the missing piece.
Guest:The mysticism.
Guest:Yeah, it's all... The mysticism.
Guest:I like that stuff because I think people get lost in it.
Marc:Yeah, you can lose your mind in it.
Marc:Yeah, it summons magic.
Marc:And that happened in the movie.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It's like, how far out can you drive your brain?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, which is fun.
Marc:But then like Requiem for a Dream was like, boom, we're in color.
Marc:We're moving the camera around.
Marc:I'm a pro.
Guest:Look at this.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:Look what I can do.
Marc:And I got movie stars.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was nice.
Marc:You got movie stars.
Marc:And Marlon was good.
Marc:That was the first time it was sort of like, this guy can act.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:He was surprised.
Guest:I made him read like three, four times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think before he came in to see me, he like stayed up for two days and, you know, didn't shower or something.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:He came in, just wiped out.
Guest:And I thought he was great.
Marc:And was that Jared's first movie?
Marc:Jared Leto?
Guest:No, he was already.
Guest:Don't you remember?
Guest:He was a TV guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He was on that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Probably.
Marc:It was a kid thing, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The girls liked him.
Guest:And but I liked him.
Guest:I thought he was great.
Guest:And he's great.
Marc:And Burstyn was great.
Marc:And Jennifer, like, was that she's always good.
Marc:And was that black dude's name?
Guest:Oh, Keith David.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's heavy shit, man.
Marc:He was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Ellen Burstyn, fucking amazing.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:Kicked it.
Marc:Just like jacked.
Marc:Jacked.
Guest:Jacked.
Guest:And just went for it.
Guest:And it was an amazing thing to see her do.
Guest:It's like every take she was just ripped.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was great.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:And Cubby, Hubert Selby Jr.
Guest:was there while we were shooting it.
Guest:And he's actually in the film.
Guest:He's the prison guard.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I can't remember that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So like, and to have Cubby on set.
Marc:Amazing.
Guest:Well, I'd have him read a section of the book before, like when it was- To the actors?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like before an actor would go, I have him do his like reading of the section and then we'd be like, roll cameras.
Guest:Okay, let's action.
Guest:And it was just an intense moment.
Guest:I remember doing that when Ellen was being electrocuted during that scene.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was a really intense moment.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:What did he think?
Marc:How was the experience for him?
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:When he saw it the first time, he didn't really say much.
Guest:But then at Cannes, when we premiered at the film festival, it was a reaction.
Guest:I don't actually talk about it, but it was one of the great moments of my life.
Guest:Well, let's talk about it.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:I don't talk.
Guest:Too special?
Guest:Keep it personal?
Guest:You know what?
Guest:When Cubby died, there was a memorial for him at the Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard.
Guest:And it's funny, because everyone who spoke were people he helped with addiction.
Guest:Jerry Stahl.
Guest:A lot of guys were up there, and they all talked about it.
Guest:And I remember my DP was there, Matty, and I was like, I whispered to him, I'm like, I'm not in recovery.
Guest:What am I going to do?
Guest:Talk to him?
Guest:It's like a giant meeting.
Guest:He's like, that's a good reason that you should talk because he made your life in a different way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went up there and I told that story and I said, this is the last time I'm going to tell this story.
Guest:So I'm honoring that.
Guest:But it was an amazing moment.
Guest:I think it's also out of... No, I don't think it's that, although I have tremendous respect for him.
Guest:It's because I think... Well, keep it private.
Marc:Keep it personal.
Guest:I think if you tell stories too much, they don't become yours anymore, and you forget the truth of them.
Guest:You start... Well, that's interesting.
Marc:Every time you tell a story, you construct it.
Marc:As a public personality.
Guest:And you know that as a comedian...
Marc:But I know that from talking to celebrities.
Marc:That's what I know it from.
Marc:Because they hone their material.
Marc:Of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They hone their public narrative.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:And I do it on a press tour when I'm talking about the film.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I know you said everything we've said tonight.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:You've actually gone a lot because you're just very loose.
Guest:But-
Guest:But actually, I haven't actually had a chance to say anything.
Guest:I haven't promoted mother at all, but that's great.
Guest:But, you know, so certain stories, I feel like you keep private because otherwise, even though they're amazing, they just lose their energy and they become something different.
Marc:They get further from the truth.
Marc:Well, that's interesting as a guy that, you know, that, you know, barters in stories.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, here's a good one.
Guest:Every time you tell a story, it becomes less true.
Guest:How's that?
Guest:Is that yours?
Guest:I don't know, but I'll take it.
Guest:It sounds familiar, but that's what I'm thinking right now.
Guest:It becomes less true because of what you're saying because you become more removed from the experience.
Guest:It's actually not mine.
Guest:It's Laurie Anderson's from her film.
Guest:Did you see this film about her dog dying?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I haven't seen her in years.
Guest:She did a beautiful movie that's on HBO called...
Guest:Something of a dog.
Guest:Can you look it up?
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:Just so we could give it a plug.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was really nice and beautiful and very poetic, but I think that was a lot.
Guest:Part of a dog?
Guest:Part of a dog, thank you.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Yeah, well worth seeing.
Marc:Oh, it's new, huh?
Guest:Yeah, she did it maybe a year.
Marc:98% Rotten Tomatoes.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, it's very beautiful.
Guest:It's kind of about- I always liked her.
Guest:It's her dog passing, but I think she's really talking about- Lou.
Guest:Yeah, I imagine.
Marc:I think he'd be honored.
Guest:He'd be honored.
Guest:He talks about being a dog several times in the songs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, but I like the idea that it becomes less true only because you become less connected to it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And also it abstracts because you start to- Embellish.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Bend it.
Guest:Hit the punchline.
Marc:But what do you think about memory in general?
Marc:Is that something you fuck with?
Guest:You mean actively?
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Marc:No, I mean just that why we remember, how we remember.
Marc:Is that something that interests you in the same way that math does?
Guest:I've got this memory I have that I remember I was very young and I was like, I know exactly where I was in the car.
Guest:I know exactly what I was looking at.
Guest:It was a traffic light blinking.
Guest:And I said to myself, I'm going to remember this for the rest of my life.
Guest:And it's funny, whenever I think about memory or someone starts talking about, that triggers.
Guest:So it's weird what memory is and what you decide to, you know, what falls into the memory.
Marc:Yeah, and why you keep them.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, I could remember you performing at the Lower East Side.
Guest:And to be honest, besides Portnoy, you might be the only one I remember.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:That stuck, you know?
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, I guess there's an intensity.
Marc:There are frequencies.
Marc:Because my girlfriend asked me the other night, what's your earliest memory?
Marc:And I kind of remember going to my grandparents' house when they lived in Jersey City where my father grew up.
Marc:I remember driving into the city from Bayonne with my grandfather to get tongue at Katz's.
Guest:Are you from Bayonne?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, I, my, my family's from Jersey, but like they, my, my father's parents lived in Jersey city when he was younger.
Marc:Then they moved to Bayonne and they eventually moved to Asbury park.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But like, but, but I was very young.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I remember being living in Wayne, New Jersey and getting hit in the eye with a can.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I, you know, it's, we, I don't know.
Marc:Like there are bits and pieces of memory.
Guest:Do you still have friends from back then?
Marc:From when I was that young?
Marc:From New Mexico, from third grade, from Hebrew school.
Marc:I got a couple cats I know from Hebrew school.
Marc:There's one guy that I keep in touch with that I've known since third grade.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, it's odd.
Marc:yeah yeah i have a whole posse of guys from uh from manhattan beach that there's like six of us we get together all the time yeah and we met on tricycles it's nice it's nice they keep you grounded yeah they do and i don't have enough of them yeah you know i've lived a lot of different places yeah yeah that's the weird thing i'm kind of old school with you yeah definitely you are
Marc:Yeah, but, like, New York was just a period.
Marc:There was a Boston period.
Marc:You had a Boston period, but I was up there older, you know, when I was older.
Marc:There was a San Francisco period.
Marc:There was two L.A.
Marc:periods.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:A lot of different places.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But, all right, so I'm going to skip the two movies I didn't see, and let's just talk about the, again, with The Wrestler.
Marc:You saw The Wrestler.
Marc:I did, of course, many times, many times.
Marc:And I watch it again and again, and I go, like, really?
Marc:Like, Todd and Judah?
Marc:But...
Marc:But they were both great.
Marc:They were both great.
Marc:Mickey was great.
Guest:I don't have Jude in mind.
Guest:I cut off his head in the first scene.
Guest:But it was on purpose.
Guest:It was about making it about the Ram.
Guest:So I purposely did that, which is rude.
Marc:Well, I'm on a wrestling show now.
Marc:Are you?
Marc:On Netflix.
Marc:I'm on Glow, the gorgeous ladies of wrestling.
Guest:Which I've seen the whole season.
Guest:It's a great show.
Marc:I really enjoyed it.
Marc:It's fun, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And deep in its own way.
Guest:very meaningful, very sad, very, your character is very, it's great.
Guest:Your character is hilarious.
Guest:And you're great.
Guest:Because a lot of comedians can't make that step, I find.
Guest:Because I think certain comedy is just, you're delivering, you're a speech maker, you're an orator.
Guest:Orator, or what?
Guest:Orator, orator.
Guest:But acting has twists and turns, and you have to find quiet, you have to find loud, different voices, I think.
Marc:No, I think you're right, and you've got to be open.
Guest:Yes.
Yes.
Marc:Well, I appreciate that.
Marc:But so to do the actor.
Guest:You were saying the wrestler.
Marc:But I've talked to a lot of wrestlers over time on this show.
Marc:And I've grown to appreciate wrestlers as an entertainment and as a physically draining and insane skill.
Marc:But I watched The Wrestler again recently.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:And I love it.
Marc:And I just like, why that movie, though?
Marc:What was it that compelled you towards that?
Guest:When I was 13, I got into... You were a wrestling kid?
Guest:For a year.
Marc:It was like... A year.
Marc:A year.
Guest:It was like... Hulk Hogan was a bad guy.
Guest:Balaban... What was it?
Guest:Not Balaban.
Guest:That's not Bob... Bob... Bob Backlund?
Marc:I'd love to see Bob Balaban wrestling.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That would be amazing.
Guest:It would be great.
Guest:Anyway, I can't remember the names of all the wrestlers back then, but the Samoans, all that shit.
Guest:So I loved it.
Guest:And for a year...
Guest:And I always thought there's gotta be a world there.
Guest:There's been a million boxing movies, and there hasn't been a serious wrestling movie ever.
Guest:And there has to be a world there because there's so many people that give their lives to it.
Guest:So for a long time I had this project in my notes about doing something on a wrestler.
Guest:And then eventually I started to meet some of the old guys that I grew up, uh, you know, idolizing, you know, Lou Albano I met and, uh, um, uh, I can't remember their names.
Guest:I'm spacing right now, but Mick Foley, I know I did talk to Mick, but Jake the snake.
Guest:He was, I never met Jake, but Mick Foley was later, you know, but he was interesting cause he's all about the pain and doing crazy shit to his body.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:And then he can barely walk now.
Guest:Barely.
Guest:I lived one flight up and getting him up that flight of steps to my house.
Marc:Sweet guy.
Guest:Very nice guy.
Guest:Very nice guy.
Guest:But messed up and brilliant.
Marc:Really smart guy.
Marc:Well, it seems like there was a little bit of that spirit in that guy that Mickey O'Rourke fights at the end.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, definitely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:You're talking about halfway through the guy with the staple gun?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that was a real wrestling promotion.
Guest:I mean, the idea was always to stick Mickey Rourke into real wrestling situations with real wrestlers and let the fun begin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so there was this super hardcore wrestling that was all about blood and bleeding and, you know, kind of torture.
Guest:It's real.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:totally like a i mean its own circuit the audience knows it's fake yeah but they know the pain is real right so they are you know when the guy jumps off a super high ladder they start chanting you're so dead you're so dead yeah and that just i saw this event so yeah the blood and guts stuff the blood and guts and i was just this is this is a world this is a world
Marc:Oh, so that drew you in.
Marc:Because I remember those wrestling magazines when I was a kid.
Marc:I didn't go in for wrestling, but they were always just guys in unitards with blood all over.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And we used to love it when they would bleed.
Guest:That was the thing for some reason.
Guest:But it was real blood, no?
Guest:Yeah, they basically take a little piece of razor blade.
Guest:We show the whole thing.
Marc:Oh, yeah, that's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:They take an aspirin beforehand so that they're... Thin the blood out.
Guest:Thin the blood out.
Guest:And then they...
Guest:All they do is a little slice, a little tiny razor slice, and they get it in the sweat and the blood, and after a few seconds of it, it's just pouring out of them.
Marc:Yeah, and that's the entertainment.
Guest:I guess it's somehow like people sort of in the back of their heads knew it was violent, but then when you see blood, how could that be fake?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think it's just part of the magic trick of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:The spectacle of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the awareness of that.
Marc:Now, did you, was that before Beyond the Mat?
Marc:Did you see Beyond the Mat about Jake the Snake?
Marc:I think it came out later.
Marc:Barry, what's his name?
Marc:Documentary?
Guest:I think it was simultaneous while we were doing it.
Guest:And I think elements of Jake's, you know, in that documentary came through a little bit.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:But it's brutal, man, the drugs, what they put them through.
Marc:And the fact that there are these circuits, not unlike comedy, where you're playing B rooms.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're literally trying to make a little bit of the door, a little bit of cut.
Guest:A lot of these guys do it just like comedians do.
Guest:Stay alive.
Guest:Not just that, but they'll go and do an empty room just to get up and do it.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:But these guys are not just hurting their vocal cords.
Guest:They're actually doing physical shit that hurts.
Marc:No, and he was genius.
Guest:He did a great job.
Guest:Well, Mickey's always been genius.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was just about capturing him in the right role.
Marc:At that time, what was he like about it?
Marc:What was your relationship with him?
Guest:I think he looked at me like medicine.
Guest:He knew I tasted bad, but he knew it was good for him.
Guest:It was that type of thing.
Guest:Like every time he'd be like, all right, what do you want now?
Guest:But he knew we were doing something special.
Guest:And he was very much like an old biplane.
Guest:To get the propeller going, you had to keep going.
Guest:Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Guest:And then as soon as it started purring, it was just beautiful.
Guest:It's just like, you know, like a Rolls Royce engine.
Guest:It just took a while to get going.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Mickey or the old biplane.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you go from that to Black Swan, which is about another physically taxing kind of brutally harsh and sad on different levels.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so meticulous.
Marc:You're very meticulous.
Marc:Everything was very refined.
Marc:The comparison of the two, which are somewhat similar in the intensity of how hard they are on themselves.
Guest:Yeah, the body as art.
Marc:Right, but just the mess of wrestling compared to the anal control freakishness of ballet.
Marc:High art and low art, but I guess that's been said before.
Marc:So that's a good double feature.
Guest:Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Marc:But in Black Swan, what drew you into that world?
Marc:I mean, you knew that was a world.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:How you handled it.
Guest:My sister was a dancer when I was a kid, but I was into Little League.
Guest:But she had the posters, and she was a serious ballerina all the way through high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I thought that there was a world there.
Guest:And once again, I was very similar to wrestling.
Guest:I was like, there's something there.
Guest:People love it.
Guest:It's been going on for years.
Marc:Yeah, and all the little girls.
Marc:Isn't there like anorexia there?
Guest:There's so much stuff.
Guest:There's so much stuff to get.
Guest:That's really tough.
Marc:And you got a lot of it.
Guest:We tried to touch a bunch.
Marc:Yeah, and she won the Oscar, right?
Guest:She did.
Marc:That was exciting.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:Have you won the Oscar?
Guest:I've been nominated.
Guest:For which one?
Guest:Black Swan.
Marc:Oh, damn, man.
Marc:Is that something that's important to you?
Guest:I mean, it's funny.
Guest:I remember as it was happening, the whole thing, you realize it's a golden statue.
Guest:It's like a golden man.
Marc:You want the prize, though, you know?
Guest:Look, it helps the work.
Guest:Awards help the work.
Guest:And so it makes sense, especially when you do weird films, to get... It's amazing.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:I mean, look, I've won big awards, so, you know...
Guest:And the wrestler won the Venice Film Festival and it was an amazing thing for the film because it really got it going and people started to take, we were really nothing when we went to the Venice Film Festival.
Guest:We were the last film and we weren't even the closing night film.
Guest:Even though we were the last film, they didn't give us the slot of closing night.
Guest:We were just the last film.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then we got that big prize and that really helped us sell it.
Guest:And then it propelled it all the way to the Globes and to the Oscars and all that stuff.
Guest:So and that just raises the awareness because there's so many articles written about it for that reason.
Guest:So that's I mean, that's that's what's important.
Guest:I think I think, though, those prizes can screw you up.
Guest:And the important thing is to stay grounded and remember you got to work hard.
Marc:But you're one of those guys where you mix it up.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:You do a lot of different kinds of movies.
Marc:Do I?
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Some people say it's all the same movie.
Marc:What?
Marc:Really?
Marc:I've gotten that.
Marc:i don't know you can tell me noah and the wrestler are the same movie i agree you can tell me the black swan and mother are the same movie no you can tell me that you can tell me that darren you know look me in the eye you can say that to me no but like what's your relationship like because i i see that you do a lot of producing and that's a whole other world yeah how do you approach that how did you get involved with the fighter for instance i don't know why i want to talk about david o russell but you guys are friends are you not friends
Guest:Well, just recently, we've become much closer because he really supported Mother.
Guest:He really dug it and has been really kind about it.
Marc:He's another guy that does a lot of odd movies.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:And when he did Spanking the Monkey and I was a student, that was one of the films that I was like, oh, this is great.
Guest:And it was very inspiring.
Guest:And to see his career, how he did it was great.
Marc:I've never seen that.
Marc:Fuck that guy.
Marc:You know, how that unfolded.
Marc:was unbelievable which one spanking the monkey yeah that you know it was like oh that could happen yeah yeah yeah and then the other one with uh ben stiller and uh oh yeah disaster 40 yeah yeah that was great great ensemble comedy yeah and then huckabees it's like what yeah i like it yeah me too i love it wacky yeah it's like an ionesco play complete absurdity it was great and so i don't know but so how'd you get involved with the fighter
Guest:I actually was on it before him, and I brought on the writer, and I think I brought on Christian Bell, and I think Mark Wahlberg was ready to attach.
Guest:It was your idea?
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:It was an idea that wrote to me.
Guest:Yeah, and I was developing it.
Guest:Oh, I get it.
Guest:I had just finished The Wrestler and I was kind of sick of the smell of Bengay.
Guest:You know, I was like, I'm going to go to ballet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd rather, you know.
Guest:Smell powder?
Guest:Smell something different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because like.
Guest:Chalk.
Guest:It was a lot of sweaty, you know, sweaty locker rooms when I did The Wrestler.
Guest:How did you feel like he did with the movie?
Guest:i thought it was great it was great right i think he brought a humor to it that i never saw you know and and he had his wacky interesting you know thing that i i wasn't thinking about i think i was i was looking at a sports drama i mean breaking away is one of my favorite films you know the bike movie and uh oh yeah i love that genre i love you know oh and dennis quaid can't breathe anymore it's great yeah it's great great and the kid goes across the i just watched it uh
Guest:a couple of weeks ago.
Guest:Still cry when he crosses the finish line.
Marc:Rudy, another great one.
Marc:But as a producer, like Jackie too, that seems like a movie that you could have made as well.
Guest:I was going to do it for a while too, that's why I had it.
Marc:So that's how these producer things happened, that you
Guest:not all of them but uh some of them yeah but sometimes we develop a project and i kind of don't feel it enough and i and then i was lucky to find pablo lorraine who did jackie and did a beautiful job how'd you feel about it oh you liked it i thought it was great i did too it was great i just talked to greta gerwig today oh great she was she signed this yeah just a few hours ago oh very nice yeah it's been a it's been a big day so now is there anything i can do for you
Marc:Do you feel like this conversation went well?
Marc:Are you disappointed in any way?
Guest:Well, what you could do- I'm going to watch the rest of the movie.
Guest:You could pause it.
Guest:You could watch the movie.
Guest:And then you could add to the end of this, even though I'm not here, and then just say what you think about it.
Guest:And then I could hear it when I listened to it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:How's that?
Guest:Is that a deal?
Guest:That's a deal.
Guest:That means you actually have to watch the end of it.
Marc:No, I'm going to.
Marc:And here's the other- I promise you it's the best thing I've ever done.
Okay.
Marc:Well, see, now I just feel awful because I tried, man.
Marc:I tried to get it done.
Marc:I know.
Marc:No, you're a busy guy.
Marc:I tried to get it done.
Marc:I just got a link, and then the LinkedIn work, and then I had to get another link at 1230 this afternoon.
Marc:No worries.
Marc:And then Greta came over, and then I'm watching it in the house, and then I'm worried about other shit.
Guest:And the cat was mad.
Marc:missing the cat was missing okay but i'll do that for you that's good and uh and and i'll i'll i'll honor that i'll say goodbye to you okay and then in and in this place i'm telling my producer i will i will talk about the end okay good mother okay good and then i'll listen and uh and we'll see if uh if i get it like why you gave me insight and you didn't spoil anything for anybody exactly because there was always the outside chance that if i did watch it this is how i'm gonna get wheeze and worm out of this yeah if i had watched it it's not working
Marc:We might have ruined it.
Marc:Mark, pleasure.
Marc:Nice seeing you.
Marc:Nice talking to you.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That was me and Darren Aronofsky.
Marc:And I have to admit, in the name of transparency, I have to admit, I promised him I'd watch the end.
Marc:I did not watch it.
Marc:I don't know if it was subconsciously because I just didn't think I could handle it.
Marc:I didn't know whether or not in my mind that I'd seen enough.
Marc:Maybe I'm afraid of it.
Marc:Maybe I just forgot.
Marc:Maybe I just forgot to watch it.
Marc:Maybe the allegory was too much for me already.
Marc:Maybe reality in my life is intense enough to where the constant onslaught of what was happening in that film was too much for me.
Marc:But either way, I still like as much as I watched.
Marc:And I will watch the rest later.
Marc:I swear I will.
Marc:I've been busy.
Marc:And it's a lot.
Marc:It's a lot, right?
Marc:And I don't know what my life will be like if I watch the end of that movie.
Marc:It could change everything.
Marc:It could change everything.
Marc:Movies have that kind of power, you know.
Marc:Never look at anything the same way.
Marc:Maybe that's what I'm afraid of.
Marc:Maybe that's it.
Marc:Maybe it's so deep and so good and so confrontational that I'm afraid of changing my life forever.
Marc:And I will confront that fear.
Marc:I will, Darren, if you're listening still.
Marc:I will.
Marc:I will confront that fear.
Marc:But that's where I'm at with it.
Marc:It's like my Everest.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:Let's spin it like this.
Marc:in this is the best of all possible situations because there's no fucking spoilers because I didn't see the end of the movie.
Marc:Yeah, that's how I'm going to do it.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I didn't want you to end on purpose because I didn't want to even be tempted to spoil the movie for you.
Marc:Although it does seem like one of those kind of movies where there are no spoilers because it's hard to wrap your brain around to begin with.
Marc:But no spoilers.
Marc:That was my choice.
Marc:Gratitude, man.
Marc:Gratitude and fear.
Marc:Everything's mixed.
Marc:There's always a blend.
Marc:always a blend it's never it's never so clear it's never so it's never so one thing there's always a little bit of a mix going on i'm gonna play a little guitar and get out of here
Guest:Boomer Lives!