Decoder Ring | The Boston Cinematic Universe

Summary

Decoder Ring | The Boston Cinematic Universe – Detailed Summary

Introduction: Exploring the Boston Movie Phenomenon

In this groundbreaking live episode of Decoder Ring, hosted by Willa Paskin at the WBUR Festival in Boston, the panel delves deep into the unique subgenre of Boston-centric films. The discussion aims to unravel what distinctly characterizes a "Boston movie" and why this regional cinematic style has gained prominence over the years.

“We were invited to be part of the WBUR festival in Boston. We thought it’d be fun to take the opportunity to explore a Boston specific mystery,” — Willa Paskin [00:54]

Early Era of Boston Movies: Indistinct Beginnings

The panel begins by examining the initial wave of movies set in Boston during the 1970s and 1980s. Films like The Verdict, The Thomas Crown Affair, and Love Story were set in Boston but lacked the distinctive cultural and social elements that would later define the genre.

“These movies aren’t dripping in misdeeds, the working class, or even accents,” — Willa Paskin [06:05]

Good Will Hunting: The Catalyst for Change

The release of Good Will Hunting in 1997 marked a significant pivot point, showcasing a charismatic working-class protagonist from South Boston. This film not only catapulted Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to stardom but also spotlighted Boston as a fertile ground for gritty, character-driven narratives.

“Good Will Hunting is not a crime movie, but a charismatic working class guy from South Boston was its title character, its hero.” — Willa Paskin [04:45]

The Dennis Lehane Influence: Shaping the Genre

Ty Burr emphasizes the pivotal role Dennis Lehane’s novels played in cementing the Boston movie subgenre. Lehane’s works, such as Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, provided authentic, neighborhood-specific stories that Hollywood eagerly adapted, further fueling the surge of Boston-set films.

“Without Dennis Lehane, you wouldn't have Mystic River, you wouldn’t have The Departed... You would not have any of those movies.” — Ty Burr [14:36]

Race and Representation: An Underexplored Dimension

The panel critically addresses the often-overlooked aspect of race in Boston movies. Despite Boston’s diverse population, mainstream films predominantly feature white characters, marginalizing the experiences and stories of communities of color. Lisa Simmons points out the absence of significant narratives surrounding Boston’s Black population, reflecting broader societal exclusions.

“Boston’s black population is invisible in mainstream Boston movies.” — Ty Burr [24:21]

Cinematic Features: The Boston Accent and Beyond

A detailed segment with sociolinguist Dr. Danny Urker and Lisa Simmons breaks down the distinctive features of the Boston accent, debunking stereotypes and highlighting its linguistic intricacies. They explain phenomena like R-deletion, R-linking, and intrusive R, which contribute to the accent's unique flavor in films.

“Words like wicked and rhoticity are at the top of the mountain. But then there are some more modest features that are just as important to the overall sauce.” — Lisa Simmons [36:37]

Current Trends and Future Outlook

The discussion transitions to the evolution of the Boston accent and its declining prevalence among younger generations. Ty Burr notes that as the accent becomes less common, it paradoxically becomes a cinematic stereotype, often portrayed inaccurately in films to signify an "exotic enclave."

“As the Boston accent is getting diluted and phased out, it’s getting enshrined in movies.” — Ty Burr [40:32]

Favorite Boston Movies: Personal Reflections

In a light-hearted finale, the panelists share their favorite Boston movies, highlighting personal connections and the enduring impact of films like Friends of Eddie Coyle and The Verdict. These selections underscore the rich tapestry of stories that have emerged from Boston’s cinematic landscape.

“Friends of Eddie Coyle, I think is sort of the Rosetta Stone of Boston movies. It’s where it starts.” — Ty Burr [41:36]

Conclusion: The Complexity of Boston’s Cinematic Identity

The episode wraps up with reflections on the multifaceted nature of Boston movies, acknowledging both their strengths and shortcomings in representing the city’s diverse realities. The panel underscores the importance of authentic storytelling that encompasses all facets of Boston’s identity, including its racial and socioeconomic dynamics.

“If you could look past the accents, you’d see the genuine narratives that reflect Boston’s true character.” — Willa Paskin [44:12]

Key Takeaways:

• Evolution of Boston Movies: Transition from indistinct 70s-80s films to the gritty, authentic portrayals post-Good Will Hunting.
• Influence of Literature: Dennis Lehane’s novels as foundational texts shaping the cinematic depiction of Boston.
• Race and Representation: Critical gap in mainstream films regarding Boston’s diverse communities.
• Linguistic Features: Detailed exploration of the Boston accent’s role in defining the subgenre.
• Cultural Reflection: Films serve as both mirrors and shapers of Boston’s evolving cultural landscape.

This episode of Decoder Ring provides an insightful exploration into how Boston has carved out its unique place in American cinema, highlighting the interplay of culture, language, and societal issues that continue to shape its cinematic narrative.

Transcript

[Willa Paskin]

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[Ty Burr]

5:00Am I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius live fit. Go grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate [e-mail].

[Willa Paskin]

Hi, it's Willa and this episode is a first for Decoder Ring. It's a live show at the end of May. We were invited to be part of the WBUR festival in Boston. WBUR is one of Boston's public radio stations and it's celebrating its 75th anniversary. We thought it'd be fun to take the opportunity to explore a Boston specific mystery, the result of which is this episode about Boston movies, warning that many of these movies contain a ton of cursing, some of which you will be hearing very shortly. In other words, this episode contains explicit language, so please enjoy. Here's Decoder Ring live from the WBUR festival in beautiful Boston, Massachusetts. Hi, thank you so much for being here on this sunny rainy day. So Decordering's whole thing is that we crack cultural mysteries. We take a cultural question, habit or idea, try to figure out what it means and why it matters. And given that we are here in Boston, we would thought we would take on a specifically Boston based mystery. Which is we thought we would take on the mystery of the Boston movie. So when I say a Boston movie, I don't mean a movie that just happens to be set in Boston. A movie that could just as easily be set in New York or Chicago or Toronto. I'm talking about a movie drenched in Boston's particularities, its crimes, its cops, its class conflicts, its accents.

[Ty Burr]

When are the cops gonna learn, huh?

[Lisa Simmons]

This town don't talk fucking families dugging.

[Ty Burr]

Into salty projects like ticks.

[Lisa Simmons]

You however, grew up on the north shore, huh? Mr. Fucking clean and Mr. Fucking goddamn hide and mighty, right?

[Willa Paskin]

Yep, I'm better than anybody in this.

[Ty Burr]

Fucking boss you garage right here. I grew up with in Southeast and that is a bond that doesn't get broken.

[Willa Paskin]

So there are a lot of Boston movies. Mystic river, the Departed, Gone Baby, Gone, the Town, the Fighter, Black Mass and more besides. They often feature an actor with the surname Damon Affleck or Wahlberg. There are two Afflecks, there are more Wahlbergs and they have become such a staple that they may not seem strange to you, but I want you to give me a minute to rewild this kind of movie and to point out that it is in fact kind of weird that Boston has a cinematic subgenre all its own. And I want to start to make it weird by looking at the whole latter half of the 20th century, during which period Boston appeared in a totally unremarkable number of films. Don't get me wrong, there were movies set in Boston in the 70s and 80s. You had, among others, the Caper, the Brinks Job, the Paul Newman courtroom drama, the Verdict, the sexy art heist film the Thomas Crown Affair, and the Love story. Love story.

[Ty Burr]

Jenny, I'm sorry. Love means never having to say you're sorry.

[Willa Paskin]

What a weird movie. Anyway, okay, so this was a respectable number of films, but it was not a notably robust one. And with the possible exception of the crime drama the Friends of Eddie Coyle, a movie that film critics in particular love to mention, they're all pretty far from the Boston movie tropes of today. These movies aren't dripping in misdeeds, the working class, or even accents. When Paul Newman played a Boston lawyer in the Verdict, he did not drop a single R. When they remade the Thomas Crown Affair, Boston was so incidental, they just changed the set, heading to New York. So this was the first era of Boston movies. It was pretty indistinct. But then, just before the end of the new millennium, a new era arrived.

[Ty Burr]

I want a way out of here for. I mean, I'm gonna fucking live here the rest of my life. Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way. In 20 years, if you're still living here, coming over my house, watching the Patriots game, still working construction, I'll fucking kill you.

[Willa Paskin]

So when Good Will Hunting was released in 1997, it not only turned Matt Damon and Ben Affleck into cinematic stars, it turned Boston into one too. Now, Good Will Hunting is not a crime movie, but a charismatic working class guy from South Boston was its title character, its hero. And in the wake of its success came a spate of smaller movies that also highlighted the city's untapped potential for grit. Monument Avenue, Southie Boondock, Saints. And if you'll permit me now to take a glance over at tv, this is when the producer, David E. Kelly, the creator of the Boston based series Ally McBeal and the Practice, started putting the word Boston into the titles of his TV shows. This is when you get Boston Legal and Boston Public. Boston had cachet. Soon Clint Eastwood was optioning Boston crime novelists. Martin Scorsese was setting his remake of a Hong Kong thriller in Boston. And the city's native movie star son seemed singularly focused on making as many films as they could here. Films that were, as I suggested previously, disproportionately now about crimes.

[Ty Burr]

370 bank robberies in Boston last year.

[Lisa Simmons]

It's more per capita than anywhere else in the world.

[Ty Burr]

I just mule occasionally not making a habit out of here. Lionel, what does that mean? It means she's a drug runner. B means she carries drugs. Isn't that right, Helene?

[Willa Paskin]

Oh, my God.

[Ty Burr]

A few times.

[Willa Paskin]

I don't want to overstate things. There absolutely have been very Boston movies in this era that are not crime movies. Romantic comedies about the Red Sox, less romantic comedies about a giant foul mouthed teddy bear, an Oscar winning drama about investigative reporting into the Catholic church. But these films goose and boost the overall effect. Boston is all over the movies. And respectfully, as I stand here in your fair city, Boston is not that big population wise. El Paso is bigger. So so are Jacksonville, San Jose and San Antonio. Even when you're taking into account the larger metropolitan area of Boston, Phoenix and Houston are much larger still. And these cities aren't the setting of many particularly memorable films. So how did Boston come to be home to a subgenre all its own? So this is Decoder ing live from WBR city space in Boston, I'm Willa Paskin. In this episode, with the help of three guests, we're gonna look closely at the history, heyday and present of the Boston movie. We're gonna talk about how race, ethnicity and class have enabled its persistence just as much as Baffleck and Bulger and all those accents. So today on Decoder Ring, what makes a Boston movie a Boston movie?

[Danny Urker]

After Zoomies at the dog park, it's time for Drive up at Target. In goes a big bag of kibble and one squeaky chicken toy for the good boy.

[Ty Burr]

Drive up.

[Danny Urker]

That's ready when you are. Only in the Target app, just tap Target.

[Willa Paskin]

The first guest we invited onto the stage at the WBR festival to help us make sense of the Boston movie was Ty Burr. Ty is a movie critic who's been writing and thinking about films for over 40 years. He currently writes and thinks about movies at Ty Burr's Watch List and for the Washington Post. And he worked for decades at the Boston Globe. He is also a lifelong Bostonian by way of Brookline. Thank you so much for being here.

[Ty Burr]

Thank you for having me.

[Willa Paskin]

So I wanted to start by looking a little more closely at the earlier era of movies I was speaking of, because I think it will help highlight what's changed. And one of the reasons that there were not more Boston movies before Good Will Hunting is because Boston was sort of a notoriously difficult place to shoot. And I was hoping you could tell me why.

[Ty Burr]

Yeah, it was a terrible place to come and make films for a variety of reasons. The weather, I mean, Hollywood is invented because people wanted to get away from east coast weather. But it's not just that the unions were particularly notably bad in this town. And I'm talking about specifically the Teamsters would shake down any film crew that would come to town. And there's a story that I told you earlier about the Brinks to God stories, One of my favorite stories of Boston filmmaking. And it really sums up the attitude of the Boston public toward movie makers. So when William Friedkin was shooting the Brinks job here in the early seventies in the North End, which is about the Brinks robbery in the 1940s, he was shooting a scene on a North End street and he noticed there was an air conditioner in one of the windows. And the film's set in the 40s and can't have an air conditioner. So he sends a production assistant, says, here, here's. Here's $200. Go give those people, you know, some money and tell them to take the AC out of their window. And they did. And the next day, the crew comes back to shoot some more. And every window has an air conditioner in it. And that is Boston. That is absolutely Boston's attitude toward, yeah, okay, fine, give us the money. We'll. We'll take out our air conditioners. But there. There really wasn't a reason to film in Boston until Good Will Hunting came along. And there was a lot of reasons not to film in Boston.

[Willa Paskin]

And those movies, this sort of earlier period of the Boston movie, like, insofar as they are quintessentially Boston in any way, like, my sense is it's sort of about blue bloodedness.

[Ty Burr]

Yes, yes. I mean, you mentioned all those other cities that are bigger than us. They don't have the history and the place in the history Books and the institutionalism that Boston has and the roots that go back to the Mayflower, et cetera. And that has a purchase in the American imagination. And that sort of dominated the popular idea of Boston really, up until recent decades. Boston was certainly not about its working class, wasn't about its Irish population. It wasn't about South Boston. It was about Beacon Hill. It was about Harvard. You know, that's why you have. Even though Love Story was not filmed in Harvard, it's set at Harvard. In fact, Harvard never allows any filming. So all those movies that are set at Harvard are all shot at, like, UCLA with a couple of Cambridge exteriors.

[Danny Urker]

Hey, I'm having coffee with a real Harvard building.

[Ty Burr]

You're Barrett Hall.

[Danny Urker]

No, I'm not Barrett Hall.

[Ty Burr]

My great grandfather just happened to give.

[Willa Paskin]

The thing to Harvard so his not.

[Danny Urker]

So great grandson would be able to get in.

[Willa Paskin]

There was this One movie from 1973 called the Friends of Eddie Coyle that, honestly, Robert Mitchum stars in it. It's not like a nothing movie, but you really only encounter when you're talking to people about, like, where do these Boston movies come from? Everyone's like, have you seen. Have you ever heard about the Friends? Petty grail.

[Ty Burr]

That ain't right, Dave. That ain't right. You set me up. Fuck Eddie. The only one fucking Eddie Coyle is Eddie Coyle.

[Willa Paskin]

The Rise of Eddie Coyle is based on a novel by George V. Higgin. Like a crime novel. But can you just tell me about that film? Because it's sort of like the ancestor of movies.

[Ty Burr]

Yes. Yes, it is. And it would not exist without George V. Higgins, who was the antecedent to Dennis Lehane, and who Dennis Lehane goes out of his way to name check as much as possible. George V. Higgins was a Boston lawyer who turned to novel writing. Friends of Eddie Coyle was his first novel, but he was very prolific until his early death. You should read his stuff. But Friends of Eddie Coyle was the only one that was turned into a movie while he was alive. And it's an antecedent to the Boston wave of movies that we got after Good Will Hunting, in that it's the first one to really address not just Beacon Hill, but every place else in Boston. And in fact, if you read any of Higgins novels, they travel all over Boston and are very geographically neighborhood specific. So he really knew the city deep, deep, deep in its bones. And that comes across in its books, but also in the Friends of Eddie Coyle in the screenplay and the film itself.

[Willa Paskin]

So when Good Will Hunting arrives. It's like this pivot point.

[Lisa Simmons]

Do you like apples?

[Ty Burr]

Yeah. Well, I got a number. How do you like them apples?

[Willa Paskin]

What is the thing that it is doing? Like, how. How does it inaugurate this new era? What is it introducing to the movies?

[Ty Burr]

They didn't have dramatic class conflict that's there in this fundamental idea of a kid from, you know, the wrong side of the tracks, from South Boston, who is a, you know, prodigy and comes to Harvard, comes to the city's institutions, a kid from outside the institution coming to deal with the city's institutions. And it's right there in that scene that you showed how you like them apples because he's showing to some snobby guy that he got the girl. And that attitude is very much boiled into, I would say, the popular personality and certainly the public perception of working class Boston, working class Irish Boston, those neighborhoods that it's very much up yours. We're gonna show you Richies what it's all about. And then there's just inherent dramatic conflict there.

[Willa Paskin]

And also, just like, because Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were so young and handsome and won the Oscar so charmingly for the screenplay, I think it just sort of seems like it was like, oh, there's this whole world that it's untapped. And then you start to see people sort of tapping it. And then it kind of reaches this imperial phase. Like a couple years later when Clint Eastwood makes Mystic River.

[Ty Burr]

Shooting this show. We don't know. All we're doing right now is looking. Why don't you keep pulling Sunshine up his ass and let's take a look. My daughter's car.

[Lisa Simmons]

I understand it's my daughter's car. It's got blood in it.

[Ty Burr]

You got fucking dogs all over here.

[Lisa Simmons]

Why you got dogs looking for my daughter? Sure.

[Willa Paskin]

That feels like it's when the genre sort of like steps into the big time. Correct.

[Ty Burr]

And none of which would have happened without Dennis Lehane. I would say Lehane's novels are imbued in Southie and Dorchester, and Mr. Carver takes place in a fictional neighborhood called the Flats. That's basically every working class neighborhood in Boston sort of boiled into one. But without those novels, you would not have Mystic River. You would not have the Departed, which is not based on Lahain, but feeds off of that same. You wouldn't have Gone, Baby Gone. You wouldn't have the Town. You wouldn't have any of those movies. To my mind, he, standing on the shoulders of Higgins, created this genre that then Hollywood immediately Jumped on for obvious reasons.

[Willa Paskin]

If you had to define what makes a Boston movie a Boston movie, what is the animating thing for you?

[Ty Burr]

I have a certain frustration in that I think there are many Boston movies and people have been fixated mostly on one. Sorry, which is the Boston. No, but, but it's. It's hard not to be that way when for one thing, we had one of the most charismatic gangsters on the planet running around, you know, running the city pretty much. Few mobsters have ever been as infamous in a city as Whitey Bulger was in Boston. Besides extortion and flooding the city with cocaine, Bulger routinely performed or ordered executions. Not only was he a charismatic gangster, he had a charismatic brother who was in the state government. I mean, you can't come up with a, you know, a screenplay or a story that's more outrageous than that. That's one of the things I think Black Mass got right. I don't think that's a great movie, but it does get that weird Bulger brother duality. Right?

[Lisa Simmons]

Southie kids.

[Ty Burr]

We went straight from playing cops and robbers on the playground to doing it for real in the streets.

[Lisa Simmons]

Just like on the playground.

[Ty Burr]

It wasn't always easy to tell who's who. And that speaks to this sort of bifurcated nature of Boston as well behaved and not well behaved at all, as murderous and very respectable.

[Willa Paskin]

We are just getting started. After the break, another guest comes onto the stage and we get into the city of Boston and Boston movies. Thorny relationship with race. As the temperatures start to rise, do you get the urge to refresh your closet but not the urge to waste money on pieces you'll only wear for one season? Well, check out Quint's because their clothes are timeless. I've got a great sleeveless dress from them that dresses up and down and has material that feels substantial and yet decidedly not sticky. Ditto some nice looking but extremely weather ready tank tops. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quints gives you luxury without the markup. Like 100% European linen shorts and dresses from $30 Luxe Swimwear, Italian leather platform sandals and so much more. Give your summer closet an upgrade with quince. Go to quince.com decoder for free shipping on your order and and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C E.com decoder to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com decoder it's smart to always have a few financial goals. What's a really smart one. You can set earning cash back on what you buy every day. With Discover, you can get this Discover automatically matches matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. Discover trust you make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See [e-mail] credit card. So Lisa Simmons is the artistic and executive director of the Roxbury International Film Festival, which has been running for 25 years and is the largest festival in New England celebrating the filmmaking of people of color. She is also a fourth generation Bostonian, but does not have a Boston accent, as she just told me many times. Thank you so much for being here.

[Danny Urker]

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

[Willa Paskin]

Hi. And Lisa also seem to know each other.

[Danny Urker]

We have known each other for a very long time.

[Willa Paskin]

I want to now turn to sort of thinking about why Boston. We were starting to get there with whitey and the history. But I mean, what do you think is. It's a big question, but like, if you have to think about why Boston, what do you think?

[Danny Urker]

I mean, I think Boston has this, as Ty was saying, it's this history. It's this gritty history. It's perfect for screenwriting. You have the bad, like Ty said, against the good. You know, you have the gritty neighborhoods, you have the accent that gives it character, you have the architecture that gives it character. So I think that when you have someone like a Dennis Lehane, you know, who's writing about what he knows also, you know, from here, from Bostonian, that you're getting sort of an authenticity and there are sort of like real people that you can connect to that. And everybody knew Whitey Bulger. And if you're from Boston and if you knew Boston back in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, it was a very gritty city all over the city, whether you were in Charlestown, whether you were in Southview, whether you were in Dorchester, whether you were in Roxbury. I mean, it was a city that was trying to find itself and it had these different neighborhoods that all of these things were happening and all of them had their own characters that you're like, wow, that is like you want to know more about because we're fascinated with crime and these things.

[Ty Burr]

And if I can speak to one thing, I think because the Boston blue blood aspect is so repressive, emotionally repressive, and that's rooted in Puritanism and all of that history, that it causes a heightened reaction among the people who came here later. And I think in that there's inherent dramatic conflict as well.

[Willa Paskin]

So you run the Roxbury Film Festival?

[Danny Urker]

I do.

[Willa Paskin]

Which highlights not just crime Boston movies, but the work of filmmakers of color. And one of the things that has been observed about Boston movies is how white they can be. But particularly sort of in the moment right after Good Will Hunting, so sort of before the Imperial phase, there actually are a number of movies by and about people of color. And I was hoping you could tell me about them.

[Danny Urker]

Absolutely. So it's really funny because when Good Will Hunting came out in 1997, I believe it was, it was the same time that Squeeze came out, which was written and directed by Robert Patton Sproul, who is a Roxbury native who basically wrote a film about his life being a young thug in Roxbury and really wanted to talk about, you know, sort of his life and how he turned his life around. And what's interesting is, is the film is really about how a mentor turned his life around. Hang on the street and you bring.

[Ty Burr]

That madness back up here and you can get us all killed.

[Danny Urker]

Life isn't a music video, so don't.

[Willa Paskin]

Be fronting around here.

[Ty Burr]

We see you buckwilding on the corner.

[Lisa Simmons]

And you and me gotta talk.

[Danny Urker]

So they sort of have the same storyline, Right, but go in two different directions. Although Rob did get a three picture deal, Miramax, after he did Squeeze, but he did not get an Academy Award. It's actually a really great film if you can catch it somewhere. And then after that you have another film that comes out in 2001 called Lift, which was done by Demaine Davis and Carrie Streeter, also from Boston, about a young girl who works at the Prudential center and starts boosting stuff.

[Willa Paskin]

Played by Kerry Washington.

[Danny Urker]

Yeah, played by Kerry Washington, like her second film that she did. How'd you swing that?

[Ty Burr]

I was wearing Christina Perrin yesterday.

[Danny Urker]

They rarely suspect you when you're wearing their shit.

[Ty Burr]

I had everybody on the floor talking and laughing.

[Willa Paskin]

Girl, I could have written that check in crayon.

[Danny Urker]

And at the same time that movie was made, Blue Hell Ave. Was being made.

[Ty Burr]

We set up crack houses all over the South End.

[Willa Paskin]

Blue Hill and Interval was where we.

[Ty Burr]

Made the bulk of our money.

[Danny Urker]

If you wanted cocaine, you didn't come.

[Willa Paskin]

You just phoned it in and we came to you.

[Danny Urker]

So, yeah, I mean, I think that we can't sleep on that. That there were also these movies that were being made in different neighborhoods of Boston that were telling sort of these same sort of crime stories and these coming of age stories. A Lot of them were young kids who were trying to figure out how to deal with gangs and get out of the gang culture that was actually happening and rampant in Roxbury at that time. Just like the same thing with Good Will Hunting and the Departed. Like all of these other things where you had. In another section of town, this.

[Ty Burr]

This.

[Danny Urker]

This violence in a different way.

[Willa Paskin]

You know, when you. If you were to Google or to look into research into this, like, why the Boston movie yourselves, you would find actually a number of pieces that are sort of like, flipply, like, duh, it's about race because you get to have white criminals in Boston. Like, A.O. scott actually gave a quote about it then. The fact is Hollywood always prefers to make movies about white people, and it is more comfortable making films about white criminals than black criminals. If you wanted to find a white underclass, you can find it in Boston, Southeast Charleston. So I'm curious, like, how much do you guys think race or its absence is, like, one of the big whys of the Boston movies popularity?

[Danny Urker]

I think that's interesting, what you just said about how people are like, what white crime I'm gonna like. You know, it's. I don't know. It's like, has this difference to it. It's almost like people are like, well, of course we know black people do crime, but white people do crime. It's like, you know, yeah, let's watch that. That's like, these criminals, they're getting away with everything. And so, I mean, I don. Is it a race thing? Is it a tie?

[Ty Burr]

Yes, it is. And I think that it is a race thing by the fact that Boston's black population is invisible in mainstream Boston movies. The ones you talk about are wonderful movies, but they are little known really, outside of even the black filmmaking community or Boston filmmaking community, even in Boston and virtually unknown around the rest of the country. Why is this? Well, I think, you know, as in many American cities, but especially in Boston, the black population has been redlined and just absolutely marginalized. And it's not part of the story in the public imagination of what Boston is, the wider American public imagination. And that, I think, absolutely, is due to their exclusion from Boston's history and Boston's government. Until recent years, I've always felt that the ultimate Boston movie, the one that really would be truly and totally about Boston, would be about the busing crisis. And nobody here would want to see.

[Danny Urker]

It because we've certainly seen a number of those films in the documentary version, but not necessarily in the narrative version at least twice.

[Ty Burr]

Stones and bottles began to fly. And police charge led by policemen on horseback. The police charges cleared the way for the buses to pick up the black students. At the end of the day, I.

[Willa Paskin]

Think it is a little bit part of Boston's reputation nationally that, like, Boston is infamously very racist.

[Danny Urker]

I do think it's an elephant in the room. But I think that, as Ty's saying, it's sort of, like, been erased. It's like, doesn't want to be part of Boston's history. Boston's an immigrant city of Irish and Italians and.

[Lisa Simmons]

And.

[Danny Urker]

Are black people part of that immigration story? Oh, no, no. I don't know. You know what I mean? So it's sort of like, let's tell this story because it's an easier story to tell. The story of Boston's black history isn't as easy to tell. Right. You know, I've been running the film festival for 27 years, and I still have filmmakers that come to Boston and say, there are black people in Boston. And I'm like, yeah, like a lot of black people in Boston. And because the history doesn't tell it, the history on television doesn't tell it, the history in movies doesn't tell it, the history in books doesn't tell it.

[Ty Burr]

Whereas in New York, it does. In other cities, it does.

[Danny Urker]

Well, because I think it's a much more. They're more transient cities, maybe. I'm thinking, you know, Boston has that deep history of being like, this is who we are. You know, the Mayflower, Paul Revere, you know, the Native American community is completely washed away, too, is also erased. And maybe it's because it's a history where people have been stayed here, so you can stick to one group of people and keep telling that story.

[Willa Paskin]

So we've talked about what have you. We talked about the history. We've talked about class conflict a little bit. We've talked about crime, Whitey Bulger. We've talked about race. Are there any other whys of Boston you think that we haven't hit on?

[Danny Urker]

You know, you do have the Ben Affleck, and you do have the Mark Wegelberg. You know, we're telling their stories, right? So they're the ones that are making things happen here. I think that that's why a lot of those movies get made here. And then you have the Boston accent.

[Ty Burr]

And nobody gets it right. Nobody gets it right. But it also marks us as exotic. It's unusual. I mean, everybody knows a New York accent. It's Bugs Bunny, you know, it's Bugs.

[Willa Paskin]

Bunny, what do you mean?

[Ty Burr]

It's Brooklyn. Okay, okay, it's Brooklyn.

[Willa Paskin]

We have a variety of accents as.

[Danny Urker]

Well as so do we.

[Ty Burr]

And I remember interviewing Laura Linney for the Boston Globe around the time of mystic river. And she says there are two accents that when an actor hears they have to do, it sends a chill down their spine. And one is South Africa, the other is Boston.

[Willa Paskin]

Ty and Lisa just gave me a wicked setup. When we come back, we're going to speak with a linguist all about the Boston accent. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want is a great feeling. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability, amount of discounts, and savings and eligibility vary by state.

[Ty Burr]

You know that feeling when someone shows.

[Danny Urker]

Up for you just when you need it most?

[Willa Paskin]

That's what Uber is all about.

[Lisa Simmons]

Not just a ride or dinner at your door. It's how Uber helps you show up.

[Willa Paskin]

For the moments that matter.

[Lisa Simmons]

Because showing up can turn a tough.

[Ty Burr]

Day around or make a good one even better.

[Willa Paskin]

Whatever it is, big or small, Uber.

[Ty Burr]

Is on the way.

[Willa Paskin]

So you can be on yours.

[Ty Burr]

Uber on our way.

[Willa Paskin]

Our final guest was the sociolinguist, Dr. Danny Urker. Danny is a professor at Boston University and his own research is largely about Spanish speaking Bostonians, but he also knows a lot of things about Boston accents. As you're gonna hear. Thank you. So just like to start with, what is a Boston accent?

[Lisa Simmons]

I guess I would say the phrase Boston accent is an informal way of referring to the ways of speaking English of people, certain people who were born and raised in New England. And it's a variety of American English. Linguists tend to refer to it as New England English. The reason why I say New England and not just Boston is that there are people who have the so called Boston accent throughout the greater New England area.

[Willa Paskin]

Okay, like, why is a Boston accent? So why does Laura Linney have blood? Like, her blood runs cold to hear she has to do it.

[Lisa Simmons]

Oh, the actors don't like it? Well, the actors don't like it because they haven't had it explained to them by a linguist.

[Willa Paskin]

All right, let's do it. Let's do it.

[Danny Urker]

Okay, sure.

[Lisa Simmons]

Well, when it comes to a regional variety of a language, what you have to identify are its key ingredients.

[Willa Paskin]

So what are the key ingredients? Of a Boston accent.

[Ty Burr]

Sure.

[Willa Paskin]

Well, you don't even like the word accent. What's the right word?

[Lisa Simmons]

I don't like the word accent because it's judgy. And linguists are not judgy. If you find a judgy linguist, they should have their license revoked. We don't actually have licenses, but as I have said to my family for years and years, linguists are not the grammar police. We are more like biologists who are interested in observing language in the wild. Right. So when it comes to the constituent features of New England English, there are words that people use, and there are structures that people put together and sounds that people produce. Now, both Ty and Lisa claimed that they don't have a Boston.

[Ty Burr]

Here he comes.

[Danny Urker]

Here it comes.

[Lisa Simmons]

So we're going to put them on the spot just a little bit. So Ty. And don't overthink this. On the count of three, what do you call the little rainbow candies that go on top of ice cream?

[Ty Burr]

Jimmy's.

[Lisa Simmons]

Good boy. All right. So most people who are not speakers of New England English call them sprinkles.

[Ty Burr]

Sprinkles.

[Lisa Simmons]

Okay. If you are a person who says jimmies, you probably are a speaker of New England English. If you are a person who uses the word wicked to mean very, you're probably a speaker of New England. Well, you are. But those types of features, these words, these vocabulary items, they are. They're interesting and easy to point out, but it's really the sounds that give Boston English, New England English its distinctive flavor. And there are several of them. If you ask folks to impersonate a Bostonian. Right. The stereotypical phrase that you'll hear from some people is, and I'm gonna say it like me, which I'm from St. Louis, Missouri originally. So I would say park the car in Harvard Yard.

[Ty Burr]

Right.

[Lisa Simmons]

But let's put Lisa on the spot again. Can you do it for me as a good old fashioned local?

[Danny Urker]

Park the car in Harvard Yard.

[Lisa Simmons]

Good work. So there's a couple things to point out here. Right. So when we were in the green room chatting before, Tyler mentioned this word that will be useful for us, and that is rhotic or rhoticity. It's a word that linguists use to describe R like sounds. Okay. So there's a whole lot going on with Rs in New England English. There's two main things to understand. It seems like sometimes speakers of New England English don't produce their Rs. And then it seems like they put them where they shouldn't. Be right. So it seems like they're deleting them and adding them. And this phrase park the car in Harvard Yard is a great example to zero in on this. There's also something else happening with that phrase. So the vowel in park, the ah, is actually of a different quality. So maybe. Can I get the audience to do something?

[Willa Paskin]

Yeah.

[Lisa Simmons]

Is this okay? All right, so everybody just say PA for me.

[Willa Paskin]

Pah.

[Lisa Simmons]

I heard some fronted ahs already. Keep them back like this.

[Ty Burr]

Pa.

[Lisa Simmons]

Now move your tongue forward so it becomes pa. Pa. Good. So instead of park, we have to move our vowel front, pa, and then don't produce the R. So say pack. You got it? Okay. And we can do that to the vowel in pack the car. Okay, but here's the tricky bit. The R at the end of car in this phrase is special because the sound that comes after it is a vowel. Car in. Okay, if you are someone who deletes their Rs and you have to bring it to the auto mechanic because you need a new carburetor, you will very likely delete the R at the end of car because the sound that comes after the R is a B. It's a consonant. So kabureta. Perfect. But if you have a vowel that comes after the R, you're not allowed to delete that R. You have to link the two vowels. So it's Pak, the Karin, Havad, Yad. So it's not deleting all of your Rs, right? It's deleting those Rs that are syllable final that have consonants after them. If you have two vowels, you're not allowed to delete that R. In fact.

[Willa Paskin]

You even put one in sometimes.

[Lisa Simmons]

Good. Nice setup.

[Willa Paskin]

Thank you.

[Lisa Simmons]

So there is R deletion, there's R linking, and then this last one is what's sometimes called intrusive R. So if you have two vowels together. So in fact, Matt Damon was on the James Corden show, and James Corden said something like, do me a little Boston whatever. And Damon said, okay, here's the deal.

[Ty Burr]

You would say, like the word ma, right? For your mother. Yeah, yeah. You'd say, is ma downstairs? Is ma downstairs? But if that word was followed by a vowel, you'd have to add an R. So you'd say, is ma upstairs? Is ma upstairs? Yeah. Is that all right? Is Mara upstairs?

[Lisa Simmons]

So you have to put that R in there to resolve what linguists call hiatus. We love terminology. So you have to resolve the hiatus by putting an R in. So it seems like New England English speakers are chaotically deleting and inserting R's, but they're not. It's highly rule governed, highly systematic, and unless you have someone explain this to you, it's gonna be an absolute disaster to try to.

[Danny Urker]

And that's why we're wicked smart.

[Lisa Simmons]

There you go.

[Willa Paskin]

Wait there. There's. Honestly, there's many. You use the word salience.

[Danny Urker]

Yes.

[Willa Paskin]

My sense is that there's actually like a lot of ingredients, but there's certain ones that are more important. Yeah, the R is really important, but there's others.

[Lisa Simmons]

Absolutely. And words like wicked and rhoticity, they're at the top of the mountain. But then there are some more modest features that are just as important to the overall sauce if we want to beat this food metaphor to death. Right. There are, for a lot of folks in New England, three ways of saying Mary. You have the name Mary. I'm gonna say them all the same because that's natural to my phonology, my sound system. So the name Mary, then wishing someone a happy Christmas and then nuptials. Okay, so in New England, do you have this three way distinction? So ty. You do?

[Ty Burr]

Yes.

[Lisa Simmons]

Give it to me, man who doesn't have a Boston accent.

[Danny Urker]

I want to hear this.

[Ty Burr]

There's Mary, my friend. Yep, there's Mary. That's when you go out and you wed somebody.

[Lisa Simmons]

And the one in the middle.

[Ty Burr]

And there's Mary.

[Lisa Simmons]

Good job. You absolutely have New England phonology, my friend.

[Ty Burr]

I am never going to speak again in my entire life.

[Lisa Simmons]

No, it's just. So the three way Mary distinction. A phrase you probably didn't think you'd hear today. The three way Mary distinction is another feature.

[Willa Paskin]

There's two just like quick things I want to know about accent, the accent. One is that I think there's a stereotype that it only belongs to white working class Bostonians. But that's not the case at all. Right?

[Lisa Simmons]

It is not the case at all. So there's a very famous politician named Mel King. His folks were from Guyana and Barbados, so he's Caribbean in ancestry. But he, you know, in the. In the Boston milieu would certainly be recognized as a black Bostonian. And he has a number of these characteristic features.

[Ty Burr]

And they began to see that the young people who were white in other parts of the city were going to schools where there were 15 and 20 youngsters in a class, as opposed to their youngsters being 45 and sometimes 50 in a class. And they said, of course, we're as deserving. Our youngsters are as deserving of that good environment as the youngsters in other parts of the city and they began to move.

[Lisa Simmons]

So these features, characteristic of New England English speakers, are not restricted to white folks.

[Willa Paskin]

Okay, what is happening to the Boston accent? Do you think it's less prevalent now? Is the Boston accent going away?

[Lisa Simmons]

One of the major trends with respect to global languages is that their regional ness is starting to erode. We don't exactly know why this is the case. We have some ideas. But it is undoubtedly the case that regional vernaculars, as linguists like to describe them, are endangered species for sure. So Boston is actually becoming rful again. This happened in New York City starting in their 50s and 60s. What used to be an R less city is now an rful city. And that's happening in Boston such that people like our former mayor, Marty Walsh is a card carrying New England English speaker. But other famous Bostonians born later, like Chris Evans, sounds very much not like a Boston native.

[Ty Burr]

I will also point out, I think that that as the Boston accent is getting diluted and phased out, it's getting enshrined in movies. And I don't think there's a coincidence in that. I think we like to hold onto this idea of this exotic enclave. And I also just want to point out everybody in this room has their own idea of what the worst Boston accent in a movie they've ever heard. Yeah, because we're very. We know it when it's wrong. And for me, that's Rob Morrow and Quiz show, just unbelievably bad.

[Lisa Simmons]

You ever notice anything out of the ordinary about the quiz show you're on?

[Ty Burr]

You mean besides its popularity? What I'm hoping is you might be able to give me some kind of road map here. I feel like we speak the same language.

[Danny Urker]

The other worst one, Blake Lively in the Town.

[Lisa Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Danny Urker]

Oh, ouch. Yeah, that was right.

[Ty Burr]

Why isn't she here then? What, are you gonna have me retire? She's going away with you. Why isn't she here? Such a trashy little pad.

[Willa Paskin]

Take it easy. After a Tiffany necklace, I A room at the Ritz.

[Ty Burr]

And we're very impressed when somebody gets it right. Which for me, Jeremy Renner. Jeremy Renner, Amy Ryan and Gone Baby Gone. Who has the. I don't know if I could. She has one line of dialogue that to me is the best spoken bit of Boston dialogue from an outsider. I don't know if I can say it in your podcast.

[Willa Paskin]

We already cursed.

[Ty Burr]

Okay. She comes into a room, she says, it smells like cac in Here.

[Danny Urker]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ty Burr]

I love that we went back to Ray.

[Danny Urker]

They raised mothers. Whatever.

[Ty Burr]

I don't know where that mother went.

[Willa Paskin]

But she left all her fucking cats in there and it smells like cock. We have one more question, and I was curious. Do you guys have a favorite Boston movie?

[Ty Burr]

Friends of Eddie Coyle, I think is sort of the Rosetta Stone of Boston movies. It's where it starts. One movie I love is Manchester by the Sea. Howdy. I swear to God, I'm gonna knock your fucking block off. Great parenting.

[Lisa Simmons]

What?

[Ty Burr]

What'd you say? Set. Great parenting. Fuck you. Mind your phone. Fucking asshole. It's not set in Boston, but it is very much attuned to the differences between the North Shore and the South Shore. That was good. Thank you. I can put it on when I need to.

[Lisa Simmons]

You have a Boston accent.

[Danny Urker]

It does. You repress it.

[Ty Burr]

You know, it's about townies in Manchester. And you can argue that there are no townies in Manchester. But I still think that it gets something about the repression and the way people in these parts can beat up on themselves. I think it's a really good movie. And I also love the Verdict. I just think that's an almost perfect movie. You couldn't hack it as a lawyer. You were a bag man for the boys downtown, and you still are. I know about you. Are you done?

[Willa Paskin]

You're damn right I'm done.

[Ty Burr]

I'm gonna ask for a mistrial.

[Danny Urker]

That is probably. The Verdict is probably mine. But I am a huge rom com, so I'm gonna have to say Fever Pitch, as ridiculous as it was. Sorry.

[Ty Burr]

This is exactly what you liked about me. That I was capable of having a.

[Lisa Simmons]

Passionate commitment with something. A devotion.

[Ty Burr]

Yes.

[Danny Urker]

But you feel it for the Red Sox.

[Ty Burr]

And I was hoping that someday you might redirect that. All those things that you feel for.

[Lisa Simmons]

That team, I feel them, too for you.

[Danny Urker]

And who doesn't love a Drew Barrymore the movie. I don't know. Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon? Come on. Yeah. Not great Boston accents, but, you know, it is a rom com.

[Willa Paskin]

Danny, I know this is not your area.

[Lisa Simmons]

This is not my wheelhouse. This is probably a linguistically cliched. I'm off the clock for a minute. I guess linguistically. You know, I really do love Good Will Hunting. I think it's one of the most beautiful performances by Robin Williams in a movie ever.

[Ty Burr]

Although his accent is terrible.

[Lisa Simmons]

It's not great, but he's still Robin Williams.

[Ty Burr]

You're an orphan, right? Do you think I'd know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are. Because I read Oliver Twist. Does that encapsulate you?

[Willa Paskin]

When I spoke with Danny before this, he said that he does watch movies with his family and they have to be like, stop talking about the accents. It's an occupation. So that really speaks to Robin Lynn's performance. If you could, if you could look past.

[Lisa Simmons]

Indeed.

[Willa Paskin]

Thank you guys so, so, so much for chatting with us. Thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you.

[Danny Urker]

Thank you. That was fun. Thank you very much.

[Willa Paskin]

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin. Thanks again to Ty Burr, Lisa Simmons and Danny Urker for joining me on stage at the WBURG Festival. You can find Ty's thinking and writing about movies@ty burrswatchlist.com and if you want to hear even more about the Boston accent from Danny, this week we have a bonus episode of exactly that exclusively for Slate plus members.

[Lisa Simmons]

There was a change that occurred to R in the southeast of England, so some of the folks in around the area of London, they they contributed ourlessness to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

[Willa Paskin]

If you want to hear the rest and you aren't already a Slate plus member, you can subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking Try Free at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or you can visit slate.comdecoder+ to get access. Wherever you listen, Slate+ members get to listen to Decoder Ring and every other Slate podcast without any ads. That includes another show that recorded live at the WBUR Festival, the great Slate legal podcast. Amicus co host Mark Joseph Stern sat down with a law professor to discuss what exactly went into the Roberts Court's embrace of something called the Unitary Executive theory, which has become carte blanche for some of the Trump administration most outrageous actions. Check out that live episode of Amicus on all your podcast apps. This episode was produced by me and Max Friedman. We make Decoder Ring with Katie Shepard and Evan Chung. Our supervising producer, Merrick Jacob is senior Technical Director. Special thanks to Katie Rayford, Henry Grabar, Ian Koss, Sophie Summergrad, Sarah Vinson, Adrienne Walker and Stephen Davey, senior Producer and Director Director at WBUR City Space. You can find a list of every movie we talked about in this episode on our show [e-mail]. if you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email [e-mail] and you can also call us on our new Decoder Ring hotline. That number is 347-460-7281. We'd love to hear anything and all of your ideas for the show. We'll see you in two weeks. It's smart to always have a few financial goals. What's a really smart one? You can set earning cash back on what you buy every day. With Discover, you can get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. Discover trusts you make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See Terms at Discovery.

[Ty Burr]

Hi, I'm Josh Levine. My podcast the Queen tells the story of Linda Taylor. She was a con artist, a kidnapper.

[Willa Paskin]

And maybe even a murderer.

[Ty Burr]

She was also given the title the Welfare Queen, and her story was used by Ronald Reagan to justify slashing aid to the poor. Now it's time to hear her real story. Over the course of four episodes, you'll find out what was done to Linda Taylor, what she did to others, and what was done in her name.

[Willa Paskin]

The great lesson of this for me.

[Ty Burr]

Is that people will come to their.

[Willa Paskin]

Own conclusions based on what their prejudices are.

[Ty Burr]

Subscribe to the Queen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now.