← Pablo Torre Finds Out
Pablo Torre Finds Out
When Docs Cry: Inside the Secret Netflix Masterpiece You're Not Allowed To See
00:50:15
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.
- [00:06]
B
This is the first document we've ever been given about the experience of being a pop star.
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A
Right after this ad, you're listening to Giraffe Kings. Wesley. I am. I. We're doing it. We're doing this. Oh, you have your notebook. I have my laptop.
- [00:46]
B
Got lots of notes.
- [00:47]
A
The fluttering of, of, of scribbling from two time Pulitzer Prize winning, critically large for the New York Times, Wesley Morris. Hello.
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B
Hi.
- [00:56]
A
I want to bring people into the world that we have inhabited for more than a year now. And I want to test the lead out on you.
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B
Okay.
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A
I cannot escape the following thought, which is that Ezra Edelman, the Oscar winning director of OJ Made in America, arguably the most skilled and editorially uncompromising documentarian of our time, spent almost five years, five years of his life making the definitive movie about arguably the most skilled and artistically uncompromising artist of our time.
- [01:27]
B
I mean, comprehensively uncompromising, I would say.
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A
And that person would be who?
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B
One Prince Rogers Nelson.
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A
And the kicker here is that nobody listening to this is ever going to see it.
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B
Okay?
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A
So this is gonna be an episode about what I believe to be one of the greatest movies ever made, and I believe that to be true. Whether you already knew that Prince was this cultural iconic who was after world domination amid the MTV era, or if you were more like me at the outset of this and knew scarcely little, it turns out, about the man in question. Because the Book of Prince by Ezra Edelman is a nine hour Netflix documentary that dares to be both a work of art and also a work of journalism, a kind of sports journalism, even, as you'll see in a bit here, which is why if the status quo persists, this documentary will never be released. A few weeks ago, the New York Times Magazine reported that after Netflix screened the film for the lawyer in charge of Prince's estate, this guy named Landell McMillan, for factual accuracy, which was the estate's contractual right. McMillan's big concern wasn't necessarily factual. It was simply that the documentary will get Prince canceled and devalue the estate's bottom line as a result. Now, Netflix reportedly had paid tens of millions of dollars for exclusive access to Prince's personal archive, his long rumored vault inside his 65,000 foot home in Minnesota, Paisley Park. And while the estate did not receive final cut on the film, again, a nine hour treatment that took four and a half years to make, Netflix told the Times that, quote There are still meaningful contractual issues with the estate that are holding up a documentary release. The principal issue is now, according to Puck, being the film's length, which the contract stipulated could be no longer than six hours. You should know that Ezra is declining comment to me and everyone else at this point on those issues. His film, meanwhile, remains locked inside a vault of its own, as Prince's estate prefers. The film is finished, but there are no plans for the public to ever see it. But the reason I'm here talking to Wesley Morris is because the two of us, more than a year ago now, already did.
- [04:50]
B
And while we're doing disclaimers, we should also say, please, we are friends with Ezra Edelman.
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A
Which means that we, the two of us, yes. Have seen the thing.
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B
Yes.
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A
That has now been one of these legends, like an actual legend in Hollywood.
- [05:06]
B
It is a masterpiece. It is also, you know, generically, I think the term epic applies. But the thing that you will experience while watching this, if you ever get to see it, America and the World. I've never had an artist who I felt I knew, like, intimately, as, you know, creatively, artistically, like, in and out, like, every lyric, every ad lib, every, you know, hi hat, bass slap, guitar solo. And I'll just say real quick, like, the achievement of this film is that I thought I knew all that. Right? I thought I understood the person who made it. Or really, maybe you never even thought about deeply who the man who made the music was. Right. There's something about becoming extremely famous and also becoming extremely famous because you're a master at something that is for the collective good, that is positive.
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A
An artistic genius, Right.
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B
That obscures. Just like the person who wipes his ass and goes to get a drink of water and, you know, has bad dreams. Sometimes that person is in 4D after not being.
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A
After not being presented by design.
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B
Yes, yes.
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A
By Prince Rogers Nelson, who was. And this is what I bring to this, is that I was not a super fan or even a fan. I'm one of those people that I think is, like, the median voter.
- [06:41]
B
Oh, this is good. I want to hear from you.
- [06:43]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, the juxtaposition between the two of us is that I received Prince through osmosis. This is that guy who was known for liberation, for artistic expression, who was the embodiment of sex, who had pheromones everywhere.
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B
This is all true.
- [07:11]
A
I think Ezra's challenge was, how do I tell the truth about somebody who always controlled his version of reality, who never really told the truth about himself?
- [07:23]
B
Yeah. I was gonna say that's. That's the fundamental thing. Well, let me just say this, that you know, my obliqueness, so to say, when asked questions about that particular situation, you know, we both believe that thoughts.
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A
And words.
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B
Can breed reality. And how we look at the situation is very important. How do you tell the truth about a person who was lying to himself? You do it this way. You do it just like Ezra did it.
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A
I just want to read a headline, by the way, in terms of the seal breaking to give people the sense of like a couple weeks ago article in the Minnesota Star Tribune, one of the roughly 70 interviews that Ezra did for this film. The headline was I was grilled for six hours by the director of the controversial Prince documentary. And the subhead is Director Ezra Edelman's nine hour authorized series may never come out because Prince's estate objects to its content. Period. By John Bream. When you get to that underground river of more than 70 people or whatever it is, who finally talked to Ezra about this, and I just want to do the due diligence of mentioning these are bandmates, sound engineers, multiple bodyguards, multiple assistants, multiple managers, family members, his sister, friends he made in adulthood, childhood, a youth counselor, Warner Brothers record executives, a personal chef, his ex wife, women in his life, his muses, the author of his would be memoir that ever came out, attempted documentarians. Two previous examples of this.
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B
Kevin Smith.
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A
Kevin Smith shows up, which we'll get to later. I hope journalists who covered him at the time, like the aforementioned John Bream.
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B
70 people participated wanted to get some off their chests.
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A
Also, given all of that prelude, it does not feel like a hit piece.
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B
No, no.
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A
Like there are. So we will again get to the.
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B
I guess you have to say this. You have to say just because I.
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A
Want to talk about the stuff that they. An estate right. Would understandably be worried about while also contextualizing that in nine hours. What we're about to tell you that we learn is not the thing that you're like, it's. There's a reason we have not even mentioned it yet because there's so much other that explains this man's relationship to the biggest ideas in the human condition. Race, gender identity, expression, adoration. What is our relationship to art. But also it's the fact that, yeah, he punched his ex girlfriend Jill Jones in the face repeatedly after she slapped him. And Jill Jones, for the record here, was not only dating Prince when this happened at a Hotel in 1984. According to the documentary, Jill Jones, a singer, was also a part of Prince's band, like many of his romantic partners were. In fact, his future ex wife, a dancer named Maite Garcia, was also the woman sitting right next to Prince while he talked about obliqueness and reality in that clip that we played for you just a couple minutes ago. And to be clear, nobody in this documentary accuses Prince of having sex with them before they were of legal age. But what you do learn is that Maite Garcia first met Prince at the urging of her own parents when she was 16 years old, just a teenager. And we learned that that dynamic wasn't terribly uncommon either.
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B
It's interesting to use the term grooming, right, because it has a very specific meaning in terms of, you know, finding someone underage, essentially bringing them under your wing, into your fold, seducing them, essentially, so that when. God. I mean, I don't want to use any botanical analogies here, but essentially, like when they've reach peak rapeness, they're ready to peel and eat, right? But Prince has been grooming people. He's been grooming everybody, everybody. Prince grooms, yes, grooms everybody. It's just some of those people are being groomed for sex. Some of them are being groomed to just look like what he thinks people should look like.
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A
Baby dolls. Yes, the term that comes up in the film. He is dressing, applying makeup, doing their.
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B
Hair, casting people for this fantasy that he has about the way life should be. That is one of the many difficulties the movie presents to us about this man. His behavior, his personality, his insecurities, but also his need, like determination to present in a particular way, which, you know, those. The presentational priorities change over time. But the fact of the matter is he's got a really bad relationship with women and it never seems to end. The types of abuse change. It varies from strange to actually, you know, pathological, if not psychopathic sometimes. And every time you hear one of these stories, you're just like. I mean, at least for me, I'm like, oh, there's also a song for that.
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A
There's a song to your point, about him singing about having sex with his sister.
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B
Oh, sister, yeah.
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A
Called sister. And we learn in this film that in fact, according to the people around Prince who knew him at the time, that actually happened, Right?
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
Like an extraordinarily up, incestual young, young, young abuse.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
That helps shape his conception of what it means to be a sexual being.
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B
I think it's also important to say that he was abused in so many. Abused and abandoned, neglected and abandoned, abused and abandoned. Neglected and abused so many different ways over so many different people in his family, Right. The people who were supposed to be taking care of him did the opposite. Evicted and abused.
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A
Yes.
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B
You know, put down. I mean, to listen to the. To the people who suffered through him and because of him, talk about how complicated their feelings even now are, are the most painful human parts of this film too, right?
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A
It's not people who have sworn him off and see this with. With a desire to exact revenge on.
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B
Him because they got multiple versions of him, Right.
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A
I mean, they fell in love with the version that was kind and funny and generous while also being abused by the person who was trying to control and groom them.
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B
There's also something about trying to understand a paradox.
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A
Right. The price of genius, Right, Right. To indulge it, to enjoy it, to listen to it, has these associated. Undisclosed until now, but totally in a way, again, cliched dynamics of, like, this is classic and also idiosyncratic.
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B
Well, when the classic meets the idiosyncratic is really where this movie. Where the movie sweet spot is, right? I mean, these sort of elemental dysfunctions meet this, you know, completely unique vessel for them, and this is what happens, right? The movie is capturing what. What happens when. When these forces come into contact with each other.
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A
There are stories in this, in this thing, by the way, that were shocking because it's just not what you would presume based on the description we just laid out, right. Which is that Prince in the bedroom, like, talk about, like, what I didn't expect to learn, right? We learn, for instance, from Ariana Richmond, who he met at a club, was working there, had a romantic relationship, but they did not have sex.
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B
I was going to say there's a lot of cuddling, a lot of, like.
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A
A lot of arrested development, like, exterior, from the outside. This is the embodiment of sex behind closed doors. He's not having it.
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B
Right, right, right.
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A
It's just like he liked to watch. He liked to. Exactly. Cuddle. He was shy.
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B
Yes.
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A
And all of this gets to. I think this larger theme of just the man projected a confidence that hid the fragility of everything he was trying to be.
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B
This is the key to artists, period. I think if you look at. At every great. And this is probably. I mean, this is a human thing, but it's especially complicated with ingeniousness, Right. There's some relationship between creativity and power and what power looks like has changed from the beginning of the 20th century to the early parts of the 21st century, right. So the things that made Pablo Picasso. Terrible. You know, a hundred years ago. It's amplified because there's. There are all of these external forces compounding that treatment. But the thing I love about this movie is that what I just said is. Because what Ezra reveals is that you can never really blame mtv. You can blame mtx. MTV is an. Is a. Is a. Is a vessel for the amplification of the things that exist already inside this person that got up a long time ago. So whatever Picasso was on, whatever messed him up, is the same thing that messed Prince up. Well, and, and didn't need an amplification mechanism.
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A
He's tiny, Wesley. We see photos of him. I mean, videos of him actually hopping up and down trying to get into the frame. Right?
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B
Yeah, we see, we heard.
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A
Oh my God. We get the sense through basketball. This is a sports movie too, right? And what else did I know about Prince? I knew he was the character in the Chappelle show sketch.
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B
Right?
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A
And here is Ezra unpacking why Basketball is also a key to understanding the way that he became who he is, which is he was too small after being the starting point guard on a junior high team. Good ball handler. High school counselor says good attitude. Ninth grade, too short. And a teammate says he just sort of stayed stuck. And there is your insecurity. There is the first, most obvious manifestation of that insecurity. And, man, that's. We know that story. We all know that story.
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B
Learn to dance in those heels.
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A
Okay, so this is where I just gotta jump in with one more basketball detail that I'm guessing Prince is estate might not love, which is that as much as he was actually good at basketball, regularly bullying his 6 foot 5 keyboard player, for instance, Morris Hayes, on the court. Hayes also tells Ezra about the time he got a lead in a game, only for Prince to trip him on purpose. And this is what Morris Hayes says, quote, more than anything, I think in life, he hated to lose. He hated to lose to the point that he would cheat. End quote. Which is, in the grand scheme of things, a fairly small detail, obviously, but it's also deeply revealing. And there are just about a zillion of these over the course of this nine hour film, to the point where watching it with Wesley at that screening got to be almost overwhelming.
- [19:40]
B
Ezra gave us a. A halftime break when we saw this. I don't remember when the break came, but there was a moment where like, we were all. You're all encouraged to go out into the lobby, have a refreshment.
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A
You are free to move about the.
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B
Cabin by the Time the intermission came, I think we might have been at Graffiti Bridge or possibly the Love Symbol album. And I mean, if you know the discography, you get about 14 good to great to masterpiece to still got it albums. Anyway, my point is just that the point at that, which. That intermission came, I knew that we had gotten through most of the. Of the great to pretty good albums. Right.
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A
And by the way, just as a quick side note, as somebody who didn't. Who never really sat with those albums, I was like, oh, I get it. Oh, I get it now. You get this was not a concert film. But getting to watch and listen and.
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B
Feel goosebumps, a lot of goosebumps.
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A
It's just like, oh, this guy is, in fact, Mozart.
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B
But look at how hard Ezra had to dig to get there. Right? I mean, it's not enough to just say he was short and had a Napoleon complex. You have to find the journalism to dramatize how the complex might function.
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A
I love the idea of this just as a sports movie, actually, because you get Prince spinning a basketball on his finger. He gets Prince hopping up and down. You get footage of him playing basketball.
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B
I mean, can you expand the sports outward? Right. Like Kobe versus LeBron, you know, with. With MJ. Right.
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A
The other MJ.
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B
Right. We have the. The only other MJ, Wesley.
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A
I felt so stupid not knowing that Prince versus Michael Jackson was a thing.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Can we talk about this? The James Brown.
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B
Yeah, that is. I mean, that is something. I don't know if anybody's had ever seen that before. Like, that was new to me. I mean, that was.
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A
Explain what happens in terms of Michael Jackson being called to the stage and then. And then what?
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B
James Brown is playing a show. For some reason, both Prince and Michael Jackson are in the audience.
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A
1983. They're watching James Brown perform.
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B
Because it's James Brown. I mean, of course these two are there. James Brown calls it Michael Jackson. The use of this footage is to illustrate Prince insecurity. When he feels cornered, trapped, outdone. He goes for too much. It's too much. He goes too far.
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A
It's an athletic sensibility.
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B
Yes. I'll give you a second while I'm explaining this, to think of, like, a great moment in sports where something like this has happened. So James Brown calls Michael Jackson up. Michael Jackson, height of thriller. It's 83 thrillers out. He is. I think this might be. We might be in Billie Jean territory, which I think is the third single on the album or fourth single off the album comes up. It's a great outfit. I will be wearing it tomorrow. Jeans, a tie, and one of those marching band jackets.
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A
Yeah, yeah, Sergeant Pepper. Yes.
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B
And the aviator sunglasses. I don't remember what the song is, but Michael sings it. You always think that Michael is doing a James Brown impersonation, because he is. But then Michael Michaels, I love you, James Brown, is in the background. I will never forget the sight of James Brown in the background being like, holy this.
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A
I can't even believe it.
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B
Michael just. Michaels for like, two bars. Two bars. I'm gonna give you a little taste. I'm a James Brown a little bit.
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A
Exactly.
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B
Let him out. And he goes and whispers something to James Brown. Now, what we are led to believe he whispers is, yo, guess who else is in the house? That little dude, Prince. You should call him up here, see what he can do. I just went.
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A
It's just.
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B
Let's see what he's got.
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A
Yeah. Have him try to follow what I just did.
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B
And James Brown goes up to the microphone and is like, we got another young brother in the house. Give him a big round of applause because he just insisted that I introduce him. If you're in the house, you might be like, oh, my God, I only paid $20 for this ticket, but I'm getting $70 worth of entertainment. And Prince comes up.
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A
He's riding on the back of someone else of his.
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B
One of the bodyguards.
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A
One of his.
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B
I mean, he looks like Big John Cena stud. Yeah, doesn't he?
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A
There is this. It's just very on the nose. It's like, of course, Prince comes up riding the back of somebody else.
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B
He takes James Brown's guitarist guitar and starts to play it and realizes, oh, man, this isn't. I. This is not in my key. I got to have this thing tuned for me. So he's trying to, like, do his little Chuck Berry isms on this guitar. You can see other people. Like, the response is, oh, Lord, what is oh, no. Even if it sounds okay, it does not sound at all like what Prince needs it to sound like. To, like, do a. Do a Prince guitar solo, let alone.
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A
One up Michael Jackson.
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B
Right. It just sounds like he's kind of doing some bad Chuck Berry. Yes, is what I would say. So he takes the guitar off and he just starts to take his clothes off. I mean, James Brown can get funky, nasty, dirty. But James Brown is also, at the end of the day, as full of contradictions as Prince, but in a different way, you know? Like, this is. This is a church, man. At the end of the day. What is this? He goes up to the microphone and just starts having an orgasm.
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A
Correct.
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B
Like having a. Having a woman's orgasm on this microphone.
- [26:04]
A
He begins to gyrate, he tries to direct the band, and then he tries to grab this fake lamp post.
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B
Oh, I'm cringing.
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A
That tips over and he falls off the stage. The quote that I will never forget.
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B
It was basically in front of Michael Jackson and James Brown, having just watched.
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A
This transcendent performance by his arch rival, and he chokes. He totally choked. And it was really bad is, I believe, the quote that we hear from, from whoever was there. And it's just like, oh, Michael, A, set him up and B, just put all of this coal into the furnace of this man's entire self conception.
- [26:53]
B
Yep.
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A
You asked for a sports metaphor. And I'm like, yeah, well, you know, Iverson crossed over Jordan that one time, and that was like a moment, you know? Yes. Michael would talk on Kobe at All Star Games in the locker room. You've seen tape of that. But in terms of the triangle, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Prince. This is the analogy we should be comparing other things to.
- [27:13]
B
Oh, yeah.
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A
I don't know if you could script something that makes it so clear that Prince's takeaway message is, this will never happen to me again. We get all of these instances of Prince feeling secretly and publicly both insecure, humiliated, less than, smaller than, and the payoff as a sports movie. And this is the part that actually felt the most like, oh, this is sports. Is the Rock and Roll hall of Fame.
- [27:54]
B
Oh, well, we're skipping ahead a lot, but.
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A
Yes, I know, but just on theme here.
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B
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
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A
It's my favorite part of the film.
- [28:03]
B
For the reasons I said, Pablo, I think, you know, it's funny, I'm going to tear up, but by the time Ezra gets to this in the film, you have come to understand this person so deeply and thoroughly. You know, what his issues are. You know, his torments. You know how he's tormented so many other people. You understand, like, all the racial dimensions to his sense of disrespect.
- [28:40]
A
Yes. Him being very aware of the marketplace and the ways in which he needed plastic again.
- [28:44]
B
We.
- [28:44]
A
We learned he has plastic surgery. We. We see.
- [28:47]
B
Again, it's important to say that. I mean, it's important for me to say that as a black person looking, who spent many hours, many hours looking at that face, being like, well, he probably had a white parent, because I saw Purple Rain and clearly his white mom is responsible for this hair and his nose that's also.
- [29:08]
A
Also in the film is Prince. We learned that Prince had claimed his mom was Italian.
- [29:13]
B
Right.
- [29:13]
A
It's like Mike Tirico for those who get the reference. But the point being here.
- [29:18]
B
Wait, I'm sorry. Parenthetically, Mike Tirico claimed or Mike Tirico.
- [29:22]
A
Has claims is question mark.
- [29:27]
B
Oh, really?
- [29:28]
A
That Southern Italian? This is. I didn't expect to talk about Mike Tirico in this episode, but Mike Tirico fascinates me. Same.
- [29:34]
B
I'm obsessed with Mike T. We're gonna.
- [29:36]
A
Follow up on this.
- [29:37]
B
Okay.
- [29:39]
A
It's. It's. Yes, but the point being, in so many Mike Tico questions, many also unanswered for me. But the question that Ezra is, is answering here is what brought him to this moment at the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. And we see a lifelong trajectory that brings us there. We learn. I didn't know this. The Rock and Roll hall of Fame is basically Rolling Stone magazine's party.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so as it reports. Oh, okay. They had this 100 greatest guitarists list.
- [30:09]
B
Oh.
- [30:10]
A
Of the rock and roll era. And where was Prince on that list?
- [30:13]
B
Wesley Prince. Who, who is Prince?
- [30:17]
A
Exactly.
- [30:18]
B
Did Prince play guitar? He played a guitar as. Is that. Is that right?
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A
As Questlove says. Oh, white people don't know that Prince is actually the greatest guitar player ever. He's left off the list. And so again, this slide, this accumulation of this mountain of what is to him an intolerable disrespect.
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B
But all the disrespects, right?
- [30:41]
A
All of.
- [30:42]
B
All the disrespects, like his father's disrespect. He's abandoned as a child, his stepfather's abusive disrespect.
- [30:49]
A
He's locked in a room for months.
- [30:51]
B
I mean, all the playground taunts, the put downs, the self consciousness about all the things he's self conscious about, all of the insecurity, self doubt, but self belief, right. It is just such a powerful, powerfully.
- [31:08]
A
Deployed moment depicted because Ezra cuts into this montage, the scenes that we've seen of all the things you just listed. So we're reliving.
- [31:19]
B
God, I forgot about the actual montage.
- [31:21]
A
It's so good. And we get. We get to the rehearsal before the show and this guy Mark, the guitarist for Jeff Lynn, apparently was boxing Prince out. Yeah, he wanted the guitar solo.
- [31:35]
B
All people. I mean, we should, we should. Who is on stage at this thing? Oh, Tom Petty, Steve Wynwood. Steve W. Well, I mean, yeah, Steve, but Steven Wood is on the organ, I believe, or on the piano. He's on, I think he's playing a keyboard.
- [31:49]
A
It's the George Harrison tribute.
- [31:50]
B
Yes, yes, George is, George is no longer with us at this point, so. And I think it's my guitar. Gently weeps.
- [31:56]
A
Yes.
- [31:57]
B
And, you know, a great guitar opportunity here. And I don't remember exactly like if they were supposed to take turns doing it or whatever, but Prince just is like, this can't I. I need you to understand something. I need you to all understand something. I don't want you to leave what I'm about to do and talk about me. The only thing I want you to do when I'm done is worship my feet.
- [32:41]
A
This is Prince going Jordan. This is him dropping 45 tongue one wagging, taking it all seriously. And you see the game film, like just the interpolation of archival original research interviews into this public act. And again, that's really well put. You get it. Like, I, I, I get why this guy is, is worth nine hours. This is the most relatable part of the film to me as, as me media gas bag person is what Crystal, his, his chef, then business affairs person reveals, which is that by the end, near the end, Prince was obsessively reading prince.org the, the, the, the message board, effectively the Prince subreddit for the super fans. And he was doing it every day and every night and he was obsessing over the criticisms, he was obsessing over the people who were saying, does he still have it now that he's older? Can he do the thing that it's these like, it's like the Royal Watchers. He's getting high off of the fumes, the exhaust pipes of his fandom. And I'm like, that is for anyone who's ever Googled their own name, which.
- [34:00]
B
I strongly recommend not doing ever.
- [34:04]
A
Same Prince at his most regal remove was in the mud doing the same. And that part of like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that is just sad.
- [34:17]
B
Yeah, yeah. I don't know what the research is on what the psychological research is on fame, but I mean, I've said it many, many times, many, many times. I'll never stop saying it. It's a disease. Yes, it's a disease. And it just does things to the personality you already have. But toxic, right? It like it toxifies who you are or it has the power to toxify who you are, especially if you want it, right. It's not, it's one thing to find yours. Like, look at Chapel Roan, right? Poor Chapel Roan is experiencing you. This is how you know a person is healthy. Right.
- [35:02]
A
The antibodies.
- [35:03]
B
This is how you know a person has been vaxxed against the toxicity of fame. She's like, you guys, I'm gonna take a second. This feels weird. You know why, Chap? Because it is. And I think for Prince, he wanted it.
- [35:22]
A
He wanted the disease that felt to him like the cure.
- [35:26]
B
Right? Yeah.
- [35:27]
A
I want to talk about how Prince was as much as he was this just absurd character. This. I didn't know either. Prince went years without talking to the press. Years. You know, and of course, we. As a child, I, of course, was like, oh, the guy with the symbol. The artist formerly known as.
- [35:46]
B
That's the Prince you got.
- [35:47]
A
Yes.
- [35:48]
B
Yeah.
- [35:48]
A
You know, I was born 85. That's the prince that I. My consciousness still recalls. What you learn in this documentary, too, is that Prince had tried, as I said before, tried to make documentaries about himself.
- [36:01]
B
Oh, God.
- [36:02]
A
Remember, there's the first one I forgot about. This first one in the vault. The Miles Davis interview. He interviews. I mean, not he, but he gets someone to interview Miles Davis, a journalist. Nelson George would interview Quincy Jones. Oh, my God. Quincy Jones is asked what bothers you about him? And Quincy Jones says, self indulgence and control.
- [36:26]
B
Yeah.
- [36:27]
A
Just like, bluntly, not doing the thing that you hope when you make a documentary about yourself.
- [36:32]
B
Well, what's crazy to me is he didn't ask people on the street. He asked other geniuses to comment. Eric Clapton, Randy Newman, Quincy Jones, Miles Davis. I'm sorry, what do you think? I mean. And you. I mean, what's funny to me is they agreed to do it. Right. Like, Prince wants you to sit down and, like, talk about, like, what your feelings are about your Prince experiences. And they're all every. I mean, at least what Ezra shows us. Like, they're all like, he needs some. He needs to get it together. It's too much. He needs to pull himself together. He's indulge. You know, it's all. They're all reviewing him. Correct. He is. They're practicing criticism.
- [37:13]
A
He wanted approval and he got criticism.
- [37:16]
B
But that's how it works when you're talking about your. Your elites.
- [37:19]
A
Yes.
- [37:20]
B
Peers.
- [37:20]
A
The question of, like, why does Prince deserve treatment? Ezra's treatment, in part, is answered by the fact that Prince was aware that he was worthy of it.
- [37:31]
B
Yes, I. I hear that.
- [37:33]
A
But. But even more than that. Right. Is the fact that when you are such a public, important figure, what does it mean to be a public figure? It means that you are going to be criticized and inspected as Part of the terms of celebrity, that's. This is part of the disease.
- [37:52]
B
Right, Right.
- [37:52]
A
Part of the disease is, well, now people are going to start thinking rigorously about you. And if we agree that so much in our world is downstream of pop culture, of course this man is worthy of the interrogation and the inspection, the archeological dig that we would give to George Washington.
- [38:17]
B
Right.
- [38:17]
A
And he had a sense of that because he hires Kevin Smith.
- [38:21]
B
Kevin Smith, author of Clerks and Mall Rats.
- [38:24]
A
Dogma.
- [38:25]
B
I think he might be coming off Dogma at this point, which is 99. He wants Kevin Smith essentially to be his biographer, his film biographer.
- [38:36]
A
During Prince's pivot towards religiosity, all the.
- [38:40]
B
Numbers Prince could have dialed to say, hey, I have an idea. I would love it if you could work with me on this. And I know you're in the middle of production on something right now, Spike, but just. Just, you know, I mean, could you consider it? Hey, Marty. Hi, Marty. I know you. You shot Michael's thing. Steven Soderbergh. I just saw out of Sight. Fantastic movie. Can we. Can we talk? Like, he could have called anybody, but in not instead. But he calls the person whose sensibility, sense of rigor, like perfectionism. These are not things I know as a moviegoer to apply to Kevin Smith.
- [39:28]
A
He gets the guy who effectively lampooned religion.
- [39:34]
B
Yeah.
- [39:34]
A
In his previous movie, in the. Which Prince apparently says to him. He really enjoyed it. To then film this documentary about him at this stage in his life when he wants to preach. This is the Rainbow Children album. This is Prince showing up in the background of these focus groups. He's having Kevin Smith hold and just appearing and then preaching about God and salvation.
- [39:59]
B
I'm. I'm happy this is in here because there's a world in which you just don't include it. But it's such an insight into him. But also Kevin Smith, like, who is a super fan. Right. Right. It's just I. I have a lot of sympathy for this person. Right. Who really was honored to get the call and wanted to honor the request.
- [40:23]
A
Right. Seriously.
- [40:24]
B
Took it seriously. Yeah.
- [40:26]
A
Yeah. Got again the offer to enter the vault, only to realize that he, the thing he made, would never leave.
- [40:35]
B
Right.
- [40:49]
A
Now we're here at the elevator, at the vault. Prince, again, just jumping through time. Is an addict.
- [40:58]
B
Right? Right.
- [40:59]
A
This pain, this disease becomes obvious to everybody in his life that the man has an addiction to painkillers, to pills. What we get at the end of his life is just another, you know, on the nose, like, lyrically prophesied Seemingly right from let's go crazy. Tell me, are we gonna let the elevator bring us down? And he dies in an elevator. In his elevator in Paisley Park.
- [41:30]
B
Yep.
- [41:31]
A
And we are left wondering. Everyone in his life is left wondering, was this on purpose? Was it cancer? Was it aids? We get all of this range of theories. Gilbert is former bodyguard who becomes a head of his. Of Paisley Park. He says Prince killed Prince.
- [41:52]
B
Yeah.
- [41:53]
A
He could not control himself.
- [41:57]
B
No, this is what I'm saying. I mean, that's part of the duality.
- [42:00]
A
The room where he was.
- [42:01]
B
Oh, no, I don't want to talk about that. But it's just.
- [42:04]
A
It's rotted food, it's pill scattered. The opposite of control is what Prince was immersed in.
- [42:13]
B
It is so. It is just. Oh, my God.
- [42:16]
A
It's pathetic in a way that is, of course, poetic in all of these ways. But looks, it's.
- [42:24]
B
I just want to sort of like zoom way out, please, and talk about the real problem here, which is that nobody is ever going to see this movie.
- [42:33]
A
Yes.
- [42:34]
B
And not only is nobody ever going to see it, nobody. I think that in a weird way, I understand where the estate is coming from. I mean, I'm not. I'm not agreeing with the estate's position on this. But I want to say, when it comes to biography, right, when it comes to. Especially musicians, because, you know, that's where we are right now, there's a big interest in the lives of musicians as told by the musicians themselves.
- [43:03]
A
Correct.
- [43:04]
B
And I think if you're the estate, you are banking on people not being able to handle the full humanity of this. This. This. If you're the estate, this ATM machine.
- [43:22]
A
Whose secrets you had been protecting fastidiously.
- [43:25]
B
Oh, yes.
- [43:26]
A
The entire time.
- [43:27]
B
I mean, I don't even know if I would go that far. I wouldn't even go that far. They protect. No, they just don't want to lose any money.
- [43:35]
A
It is.
- [43:36]
B
And they. Yes, they don't. And better put, the other thing is they're fully experiencing the power of this movie, but they don't understand what the movie is doing. Right.
- [43:49]
A
This is.
- [43:50]
B
They don't understand. Frustrating that we are watching for the first time in the history, I would say, truly, honestly, in the history of American popular music, this is the first document we've ever been given about the experience of being a pop star. Right. There's so many things that claim to be about this. This is the only one that actually tells you what that's like. And to stand in the way of other people experiencing it is to it is. It is malpractice. It is. It is criminal. It is unjust, especially. And. And to not stand up to this estate if you're a company like Netflix, while you were also releasing all of these, like, hagiographical, self promotional, masturbatory, self congratulatory, predictable documentaries, quote, unquote, documentaries about. About these people that require that, you know, use very little journalism, would not be released were it not for the approval and participation of the artist. I just. I feel like we're dumb about who we are because movies like Ezra's aren't. They're not made. Well, nobody. Very few people are capable of making something like this, but everybody who makes a thing now is seeing that what's happening in Ezra and being like, I'm not even gonna try the estate.
- [45:30]
A
I want to say I understand on the level of risk aversion, as you alluded to, on the level of even conceptually, is Ezra doing what Prince never wanted, somebody else telling the story.
- [45:42]
B
Burn it, Prince. Burn it. Burn it. If. I mean, I can't believe. Don't really burn it, Prince, but, like, if. If that's what you wanted, like, Ezra's taking everything you made and left and telling a story about your life.
- [45:58]
A
Correct. And the thing.
- [46:00]
B
I mean, he, like, again, the duality. Wanted it, didn't want it. Like I.
- [46:04]
A
The thing that the estate is missing, though, as now, let's just presume a monetarily incentivized instrument, is that if this were to come out, the result would not be the cancellation of Prince.
- [46:19]
B
Oh, stop.
- [46:20]
A
The result would be what I have.
- [46:22]
B
Been experiencing, which is.
- [46:29]
A
Music. I mean, it's just so myopic because it's just so obvious that people like me who didn't fully appreciate the music will become obsessed with the music. And also, the thing that is so missed in documentary filmmaking now is that the key to a fuller appreciation, a fuller worship even. Right.
- [46:54]
B
Musical, musical, biographical, nonfiction, and in sports. Okay. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
- [47:00]
A
Is.
- [47:00]
B
Is celebrity. Celebrity.
- [47:02]
A
Celebrity stardom.
- [47:04]
B
Right.
- [47:05]
A
It's. It's to show that if you are up here, if you are a celestial being, you need to illustrate how you did not start there.
- [47:14]
B
Right? Yes. That's a great way to put it. Yeah. Yeah.
- [47:17]
A
And if you do show the trajectory from the center of the earth to the sky, where you are left is higher than you were before. And so to go back to just the. The meta text of all of this. Right. My think piece on this is, in brief, that of course, Ezra becomes yet another character in the story of Prince is locked in this eternal battle with Prince from beyond the grave in which they are both reckoning with. With what it means to make a masterpiece that cannot be seen from the outside. This is perfect. And it's the worst.
- [48:02]
B
Oh, my God.
- [48:03]
A
And I hope one day other people besides us and a couple of others get to see it.
- [48:08]
B
Can I just say in closing one other thing, please. You. I mean, you kind of just ended our conversation. That was very eloquent. But I just want to add an addendum for anybody reaching out to you or me.
- [48:21]
A
Thank you.
- [48:21]
B
The people who made this movie asking, not, how can we be of service? How can we help? How can I use all the clout that I have to get this movie released? What are these people asking? These. I'm not going to call them any more names. I'm not going to say it. But, like, these people are asking if they can just see the movie. Yeah, you want to see the movie? Call Netflix. Call Netflix. You want to watch this movie? Don't ask for a private screening, because I don't even think you're legally allowed.
- [48:52]
A
To do it, though.
- [48:53]
B
Don't use your clout to get a private screening of this movie. Don't ask for a. For a. For a key card or a hard drive with the movie on it. No, call Netflix. You want to watch this movie? Watch it like everybody else or get a legal screening when Netflix says, you know what? We're going to talk to the estate. We're going to work this out. Yes, call Netflix. Don't call the people who made the movie.
- [49:20]
A
What is needed here is for there to be a countervailing capitalist force that says this is worth everyone's time. Demand.
- [49:30]
B
It's called demand. The supply is locked up.
- [49:34]
A
Oh, my God.
- [49:34]
B
You know what will get the lock opened? Demand.
- [49:39]
A
Wesley Morris. I look forward to you being in that chair again sometime soon.
- [49:45]
B
Yeah. All right. Call me.
- [49:55]
A
This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.
- [50:07]
B
Sam.