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- [00:00]
Matt Bellamy
If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, the Town on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Matt Bellamy. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the what I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show the Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who'll never e lunch in this town again. Follow the Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:41]
Sean Fennessy
This episode is brought to you by the Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card. This is an ad for the Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game with your mom or grabbing a coffee with your dog, earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases made with it. Say it with me. The Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Learn more@wells Fargo.com ActiveCash terms apply. This episode is brought to you by the Dark Ages ID Software presents the Dark Ages, a dark fantasy sci fi shooter that delivers searing combat and over the top visuals in an epic cinematic story worthy of the Doom Slayer's legend. Dominate demon infested battlefields with bone crunching tools of mayhem. Take flight atop the fierce Mecha dragon or pummel enemies in a 30 story Atlan mech. Stand and fight. Starting May 15th on Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5 and PC. Pre order now. Rated M for mature. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins and this is 25 for 25, a big pict special conversation show about melancholia. The earth is evil. We don't need to grieve it and nobody will miss it. Is that how you feel right now, Amanda?
- [02:16]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. Yeah. No. But yes. I'm so excited that we're doing this. I was like. And so this is. I mean this is. You agree with me. We agreed on all of these, but this was just like an elated Amanda pick and I'm like almost giddy. And I've been telling people in our life, we were even talking with Jack before we started and everyone's like, wow, what a depressing movie. Oof. You've got to watch that right now. And I have to be honest, it's obviously incredibly dark, but I find it exhilarating.
- [02:42]
Sean Fennessy
Let's talk right away about why that is. So the film is directed by Lars Von Trier. Yeah, it's a, you know, full 25, 30 years into his career, the famed Danish filmmaker. It's a critical movie in a lot of ways. It's a movie that sort of signals his arrival to. Even though this film was not made in Hollywood and in fact he's never been to America. A kind of American and English movie movie. He had previously worked with Nicole Kidman and Bjork and Emily Watson. But this is an American movie star in Kirsten Dunst and a largely English speaking cast. Stellan Skarsgrd, Alexander Skarsgrd, Charlotte Gainsbourg, of course, French stars as her sister, your boy Brady Courbet, a number of other actors, the Udo Kier, Charlotte Rambling, Kiefer Sutherland in American. And it feels like a classic Lars movie and yet a totally different kind of Lars movie. So contextualize it for yourself, for us. When did you see it? How did it impact you at the time?
- [03:46]
Amanda Dobbins
I do think I saw it the first, around the time that it came out. Cause I would have been in New York and I was in my art house era. But honestly, I think I really came to this movie because my dad loved it so much. Which is also just an incredible.
- [04:05]
Sean Fennessy
We'll come back to him.
- [04:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, yeah. And. And the Kirsten Dunst of it all. And I think what you said about it being both a quintessentially Lars von Trier movie and also a departure. The departure is what brings me into it. Everything from the, you know, the staging, the, the like, the sumptuous, lush, like it's, you know, the first half of the movie is at a wedding at some like, ridiculous estate and everything is beautifully designed. Well, the whole movie is. The first half is the wedding. The second half is just like, you know, people dealing with, you know, space and the Internet and doom. It uses Wagner's Tristan and Isolde in this memorable and really operatic pun intended, like over the top way. But there is just. There is something big and lavish and like, and showy about what it's doing and not like grimy and perverted in the way that many other Von Trier movies can be. And so the openness or the difference is kind of what brings you in to then what is an incredible movie about his signature subject, which is depression and the world being awful.
- [05:33]
Sean Fennessy
Yes. A place of Pitiless despair. So this movie, which I assume many listeners of the show have heard, but many have also not seen, is now streaming on Netflix and Tubi. So if you'd like to watch this movie, we highly recommend it. We're gonna talk about some of the details of the story. It is what it says on the label. It is a story about deep, deep, deep sadness and pain, and also a kind of metaphorical pain that comes in the form of a planet that is hurtling towards Earth. It's on a collision course. And two sisters.
- [06:04]
Amanda Dobbins
Or is it?
- [06:05]
Sean Fennessy
Well, we can talk about that. We can talk about the literalism or lack thereof in the movie. But the two sisters, Dunst and Gainsbourg, one of them is trying to cope with her depression or is engaging with her depression, depending on how you read the movie. And the other is kind of having a hard time accepting the destiny of these two characters. And it's kind of a bifurcated movie that, you know, says it is about these two women, but I find that it is ultimately very much about the Kirsten Dunst character and her pain and also her sense of wisdom.
- [06:39]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [06:39]
Sean Fennessy
And whether or not depression is actually the act of the wise is an interesting question of the movie. Dunn's character shares her name with the title figure in Marquis de Sade's 1787 novel Justine, about a virtuous woman who endures a crucible of suffering and after being reunited with her sister, is fatally.
- [06:57]
Amanda Dobbins
Struck by lightning, off to an auspicious start.
- [06:59]
Sean Fennessy
That's not a coincidence. There are many, many literary and artistic homages and illusions throughout this movie. It opens with this, as you use the word sumptuous. I couldn't agree more. This kind of gorgeous fantasia of pain at the very beginning.
- [07:15]
Amanda Dobbins
It is like an overture, and it's set to the prelude from Tristan. And he's old, and it's like living paintings. Is like the best way that you can describe it. And it features the actors in the film and scenes and really does set out for you what is going to happen in this film, including the ending, which von Trier has talked about. And his reasoning for that is that it's important for you, the viewer, to not be wondering, like, is it gonna collide or is it not gonna collide? Like, you actually need to know the ending in order to understand what he wants you to understand about these characters and the way they're seeing the world and the choices that they make, which is sort of his way of saying that he wants you to understand that the depressed person is right which is, like, amazing. And this. So this movie is very. Is funny on its face. Like, there are actually comedic moments, but to me, there is. I guess it's the way I respond to, like, nihilism and this, like, deep depression. I'm just like. It is actually hilarious to me that he just makes this, like, entire, like, opera about how the depressed person is the only person sing clearly or who.
- [08:40]
Sean Fennessy
Should at least be listened to or whose journey towards acceptance is rational in some ways, because the feeling of depression is so irrational. And that those who are not kind of in sync with someone who is feeling depressed are often approaching them like, what is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? So this idea of orienting the truth inside of the person who is illogical is such a smart concept and the.
- [09:03]
Amanda Dobbins
Only way to actually to find peace and to make it through whatever is left of the world.
- [09:09]
Sean Fennessy
Right.
- [09:10]
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, it's audacious and funny to.
- [09:13]
Sean Fennessy
Me, I think it is because it's.
- [09:16]
Amanda Dobbins
So depressing that I don't know how else to respond to it.
- [09:19]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I think all of Von Scheer's movies have a sense of humor about them because he takes bleakness to their absolute furthest extent. I think one thing, that one reason that this movie, I feel, is differentiated and is ultimately my favorite of all of his films is he makes a choice to not make the lead female character like a humiliated victim. She is a person in pain, but I think there is an incredible sensitivity to her pain. And that idea of, like, her being right is something that you don't necessarily feel in Breaking the Waves or in Dancer in the Dark. There's, like, a punishing quality to those movies. In Dogville, Manderley, like, all of these movies that he's made, especially those sort of. More. The English ones are really hard to sit through and accept. And when you arrive at the end of them, you say the same thing that you say at the end of this movie. But when you say it at the end of this movie, you can say, like, well, I guess we're fucked. Instead of like, we are fucked.
- [10:14]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [10:15]
Sean Fennessy
And even though he doesn't necessarily shift his totalizing view of the world, the energy that he brings to it and the. I think the sort of, like, sensitivity that he has to these characters is a little bit different, which I find really interesting. Like, I'm not even sure what brought him to this stage in his career. He's such a controversial filmmaker. And there's a lot of controversy embedded in the release of this movie.
- [10:36]
Amanda Dobbins
Really some self sabotage for sure, we.
- [10:38]
Sean Fennessy
Can talk about that in a little while, but I just find it to be a bit different from any other Von Trier movie.
- [10:46]
Amanda Dobbins
We'll mostly talk about Kirsten Dunst, I think, with reason. And this is Kirsten Dunst movie and she is, I think the Von Trier stand in, for lack of a better word. But the Charlotte Gainsbourg character is. Is like. Is really important. Both in. When I watched it again for this podcast, I was like, oh, so one's depression and one's anxiety, which is a really, like, fascinating, you know, and I struggle with both. So they are two prongs of the same experience.
- [11:16]
Sean Fennessy
He might. There must be some of him in her. In Gainsburg's character as well.
- [11:19]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. But the Gainsbourg character is there showing both a lot of empathy for the Dunce character and is kind of the vehicle for everything you're saying about, if not punishing the person, at least trying to accommodate, you know. And she gets frustrated with the Dunce character as well. But it's someone else who like, understands that this is an illness. That's one thing that she says to Kiefer Sutherland's character, like, she's ill, but then the other thing that the Charlotte Gainsbourg character is doing is she is providing. She is a hopeful person, or she's not hopeful, but she wants it to work out. She is there in opposition to Kirsten Dunn, whose character who's literally just like, the world is evil and it's good that it's gonna die. And she is. So she provides that sort of like human connection of, wait, no, actually we don't. Like, not every, not all of us wants. Not all of our human person wants this, wants this to turn out this way, even if it's going to. And I think that makes it like a little. A little less. Not like closed off, I guess.
- [12:35]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. I think it also just makes it feel to me a little bit less like an experiment. A lot of his movies often feel like exercises and endurance. And I feel like this movie is just much more sort of gorgeous. And even when things are turning really bad in the third act of the movie and, you know, the hailstorm begins, it's just a beautiful image. And he, he's always been a filmmaker with a strong eye, but he usually shoots, you know, in the dog me 60 dog me 95 style, which is this like really kind of grainy, intense digital format. And it's very. A lot of close ups. It's a lot of handheld. It's like a very unforgiving style of filmmaking. And this is a style of filmmaking that is using all the same tools but is trying to paint with them. And it just makes for a different kind of movie. And if you look at the later Venture movies, you can see that this movie is kind of a turning point for him. Like Nymphomaniac, another insane movie that is, like, very unpleasant through much of it, but is a bit more gorgeous to look at, even though it is lots of depraved sex acts for three and a half hours. So it's a critical movie for him. I thought it was a critical movie for Kirsten Dunst. And I'm not sure if that's actually true because it's a big breakthrough for her. It gets her out of Mary Jane and being typecast as the cute, bubbly blonde, you know, post Bring it on and.
- [14:01]
Amanda Dobbins
Or even as a teen, because with Sofia Coppola, she's working, you know, in the. And she's amazing in it. But Marie Antoinette, which is still just like, you know, what if a significant historical figure were just a teenager?
- [14:15]
Sean Fennessy
Right. And so it is, I guess it's her first true adult role, but it does not trigger. The after effects of this movie are fascinating to me and, like, what part she took and what movies she made and how, certainly how you view her. I mean, I think it's fair to say she's your favorite actress, probably.
- [14:34]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [14:35]
Sean Fennessy
And she's, I think, pretty widely beloved and respected, has had really good taste for the last 20 years, but doesn't have, like seven melancholias on her resume. You know what I mean? Do you know what I'm saying? I think I was a little surprised reading so much about her at this time. There's a big feature about her in the New York Times in the aftermath of the release of this movie, in part because of the Cannes press conference when the film premiered. And they're writing about her as though she is about to be Cate Blanchett, I would say, you know, like, this is a young actress who's emerged from the chrysalis and is about to take over the arthouse forevermore. Does it took a while. It took a while for her to get into Power of the Dog and Civil War. And now she's gonna be. What is her next? Oh, she's gonna be in the entertainment system is down. The New Austland movie.
- [15:21]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [15:21]
Sean Fennessy
She's in Roofman and Roofman. So those four movies, to me, feel like the four movies that would come in the immediate aftermath of Melancholia. But it doesn't quite happen. And I wonder if maybe people either didn't see this movie or didn't quite, like, weren't ready to accept her as this kind of a performer quite yet. I don't know. What do you. What do you think?
- [15:36]
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, she wins Best Actress at Cannes, which is not always a predictor of mainstream American success. In fact, like, it rarely is, but it does at least usually give you some attention. I do think the Lars von Trier of it all around this movie just really limited. It's. It's reception and certainly it's American, you know, crossover. I mean, this is like a deeply dark, like, weird European film, you know, that. That I. We both love, but it's not like, you know, go see the star, bring it on in, like, you know, doing her best. Opelia, like, what. It's. It's. It's not commercial to begin with. And then I think it was so easy after the dumb press conference to kind of write it off for a bit, you know, I don't know why more directors aren't working with her in those few years afterwards. I mean, you're right. It's like almost 10 years. I know she has kids during this time as well, and she's doing tv. She was on Fargo. That's where she met Jesse Plemons. But it's pretty confusing how the next five years don't have anything really of note.
- [16:48]
Sean Fennessy
It's not that the work is bad. It's just, you know, she took Bachelorette, which is a great movie, right after this. Such a fun comedy. But then it's like the Two Faces of January. She's got a modest part in Midnight Special, a modest part in Hidden Figure. She makes the Beguiled with Sophia, which is a good movie, but, like, I cast her in, like, you're 35 now. These are the kind of parts you have to play.
- [17:08]
Amanda Dobbins
It's my least favorite of the Sophia movies.
- [17:10]
Sean Fennessy
And then wood shock she makes with her friends. The. Is it the Mali Sisters?
- [17:16]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes. And.
- [17:18]
Sean Fennessy
And then. And then now I felt like Power of the Duck kind of reset her trajectory as like, this is one of our great American actors and deserves these parts. You're right that Fargo is pretty significant in that respect, too. But I think this is up there with her best work. I mean, this is like, you could say Marie Antoinette and the Virgin Suicides are obviously hugely critical. This movie does something very similar to those two films, which is that it doesn't have her speak much. And particularly in the first half of this movie, her character does not have a lot of dialogue. So she has to convey all of this pain while also performing at her own wedding. And I think we all know that feeling when you're at a big event and the attention is focused on you and you are not happy, but you need to pretend to be happy.
- [18:12]
Amanda Dobbins
And just the way like that her smile fluctuates and there are like, you know, 4,000 different versions of it as she is reacting to really all of the different absurd things. I mean, this is an amazing wedding and the wedding from hell. And I had forgotten the opening with that lovely scene in the stretch limo between her and Alexander Skarsgrd, you know, and there are. One of the most painful parts about this movie is all the moments of, like, beauty and love and like, nice things that are there for a fleeting moment before she, like. But she can't hold on to them. Whether it's her, her nephew Leo. Poor. I mean, tough for Leo.
- [18:53]
Sean Fennessy
It's, it's, it's not, not an ideal life.
- [18:57]
Amanda Dobbins
I don't, I don't think that I had seen this movie since I had kids. And once again, I was just like.
- [19:01]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, I did like how the movie is kind of constantly circling back to what about Leo? What about Leo? Which is what it's like when you're a parent. You know, you're kind of like always circling back to what's going on with your kid.
- [19:09]
Amanda Dobbins
And also the adjustine is locked in on that too. But then, you know, the wedding is just a nightmare in all of the ways. There are stupid wedding, you know, games like the beans. The parents are not behaving, there's a schedule and a mean wedding planner.
- [19:30]
Sean Fennessy
Yes. Udo Kir is hilarious.
- [19:31]
Amanda Dobbins
Udo Kir. And at some point he gets mad because Justine can't handle it, has to take a break. And he just walks around the rest of the movie like this with one hand up. He's like, I can't stand it. Look at her. She ruined my wedding. And commits to the bit through half of this movie. That is hilarious. Stellan Skarsgard gets mad and just starts smashing a plate at the catering.
- [19:51]
Sean Fennessy
Well, before that, he gives her work at her wedding. He asks her to write.
- [19:55]
Amanda Dobbins
Excuse me.
- [19:56]
Sean Fennessy
Well, he gives her the promotion. Then it's like attached to this promotion is, you will give me a tag for this ad campaign during the wedding.
- [20:02]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure.
- [20:03]
Sean Fennessy
Which is, you know, there are a series of perversities that's a very Von Trier esque addition.
- [20:07]
Amanda Dobbins
And also like, whatever tagline, like, you know, there's just some, like, very Perverse sexual BDSM image that needs the tagline. So, you know, Von Trier is still doing his thing.
- [20:19]
Sean Fennessy
Very much so. But yeah, everyone, I would say, with the exception of Alexander Skarsgrd, who I think is portrayed, who portrays a very kind of sensitive, thoughtful, like, they're in love, they care about each other, but the magnitude of her depression is so profound that there's something shielding her from him and he can't quite get to where she is feeling and how she is feeling, as hard as he tries. I think that the movie, managing to balance something like that, that sensitive, impossible to illuminate distance between two people who are so close, while also showing you all of the outlandish, ridiculous, silly, punishing foolishness of daily life is part of the genius of the movie. But then it's compounded significantly by this interstellar ecological disaster, which is that this planet Melancholia is, we think, racing towards Earth, but might miss Earth.
- [21:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, that's what certain characters are saying, but we know that's the thing because we've watched the overture and it collides, like, beautifully, by the way. Like, it's just, again, it's really, really.
- [21:29]
Sean Fennessy
For a low budget European art house.
- [21:31]
Amanda Dobbins
Sci fi, make it look.
- [21:32]
Sean Fennessy
I know, I know. There's something to that for sure. Using the Kiefer Sutherland character, John Gainsburg's character's husband, as the know it all rich guy dickhead who's like, don't worry, everything's going to be fine. I know what I'm talking about. You have to read the news. You don't know what you're talking about. Is also just like such a precise trope. Like, he has identified a guy in the world. Maybe I am that guy sometimes.
- [21:59]
Amanda Dobbins
Right. Unfortunately, he's also given the line, have you been going online again? Which is, listen, good point. You know, even the idiots speak truth sometimes.
- [22:07]
Sean Fennessy
It's true. He's. He's got a point there. I think that this movie is the Internet existed in 2011 and it was toxic at that time, but it really also presages where our negative energies go when something bad is happening and how we kind of like amplify those things back and forth to each other. That being said, in this case, you know, the planet really was gonna hit.
- [22:26]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [22:28]
Sean Fennessy
This is just an absolutely gorgeous movie. Do you think all life on Earth is evil?
- [22:36]
Amanda Dobbins
No.
- [22:38]
Sean Fennessy
Is it just a manifestation of the sadness, the way that she takes it to the extreme of thought?
- [22:44]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes, I think so. And it's like. And it's. She's Giving over to depression. You know, there's. There's an amazing scene where as melancholy is approaching, Justine goes out in night. And then I guess, like sunbathes, moon bays, planet bathes in, like the blue glow of melancholia. And, you know, and it looks like a Renaissance painting. And. But Justine is like, feeling some sort of, like, release or joy or it's. And to me, it's, you know, giving in to melancholia and what's gonna happen. But it's like this, this sadness, this. This illness that you can't keep at bay and that you've been fighting for so long, you just like, let it. Let it take over. And there is, like, release in that. Right. Because depression is something that you are, like, fighting against. I speak from experience. And so I think that. I don't even think the movie thinks the world is all bad because it has the Charlotte Gainsborough character. It has Leo, it has the moment between Alexander Skarsgrd and Kirsten Dunst and the apple trees before she just leaves the photograph.
- [24:02]
Sean Fennessy
Even, like, her idea of her father and her father kind of slipping through her fingers as John Hurt in the movie. There's real love and connection or lost connection that she feels is important to her. So it's not that. It's. This is not. It is not nihilism, I don't think. No, But I think you're right, though, that the moon bathing is the acceptance of the darkness that is like, this is happening and we cannot beat it. And so I have to embrace it, which is extreme. One of the darkest point of views you could ever have. It is truly the nature of suicidal tendency. Like, that is exactly what he is located. But he's doing it with. Contrasting it with like, literally one of the most beautiful women on the planet, completely nude, painted on screen in like, in a sci fi glow. It's just an amazing image making. Amazing.
- [24:52]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. But then he also. The end of the movie, once Justine has that acceptance and then she, you know, gives. There's the speech that she gives to Claire, Charlotte Gainsborough character, which is, you know, all life on earth is evil. I don't want to go, like, have a glass of wine with you on the terrace while the, like. While the planet hits and the world ends. But he still gives you Leo and the. And the child character. And there is that moment even as Kirsten Dunst has, like, accepted. Has like, given in to the. To the. The dark side of the force. I guess I was just listening to your Star wars rewatchables. She's, she's made to confront Leo and so they, they embrace and she like does try to reassure him and she tries to make the end of the world okay for him. But that last shot, it's Claire who's freaking out and it's Justine, but also Leo who are like very calm in the, in the, in the magic cave, as they, as they call it. And there is something, to me, the darkest thing is Leo's like, calmness in that moment. You know, he. It's. The world is ending. And also his parents are pretty absent, so, you know, I get it. An under discussed theme of this movie is your parents can really, really fuck you up. Yeah, yeah. Charlotte rambling all time. 15 minute, three days on set performance.
- [26:28]
Sean Fennessy
Yes. She plays a mother who. A classic narcissistic personality disorder person who has made the event of the marriage all about her and her discontent with the idea of marriage and rejecting it in part because her marriage dissolved to John Hurt, who is this kind of like, you know, carousing party man who's kissing various Bettys and embarrassing himself and embarrassing his family.
- [26:54]
Amanda Dobbins
And she stands up at the wedding and is like, I didn't go to the church because I hate weddings and I hate everyone here.
- [27:02]
Sean Fennessy
She's incredibly well cast. Charlotte Rampling is truly the dark side of the force.
- [27:06]
Amanda Dobbins
And then Kiefer Sutherland. I also, I've got some notes for him. For John. Well, as a dad, you know, yeah, sure, total denial. And then finds. Takes all of Claire's like special pills and.
- [27:23]
Sean Fennessy
But for a movie with like such big gestures and such kind of like purposefully overstated imagery, I just find his ability to locate the truth in people's real actions. Like the archetypes are so real. You know, the mom making it all about her at a wedding, the overconfident husband who will not accept that anyone could be feeling anything other than his truth. You know, the kid who like retreats in moments of fear. Like they're very, very nuanced portraits of very specific kinds of people operating inside of a genre movie that is also, you know, has homage to like last year, Marion Bad and this broad tradition of existentialist European cinema.
- [28:10]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [28:10]
Sean Fennessy
And it's just a masterful synchronization of all of his interests and also bringing something new to the table that it's really, really exciting. I read a lot about this movie in the run up to this, and A.O. scott, in his review of it, which is an excellent review of this film, notes that Robert Altman, Noah Baumbach and Jonathan Demme had previously used, quote, the angst and pomp of a wedding to zero in on the fragility of the human condition. And there is something to that. You know my theory about weddings.
- [28:38]
Amanda Dobbins
I thought of you as I rewatched.
- [28:40]
Sean Fennessy
Any movie that opens with a wedding is probably a masterpiece. And any movie that closes with a wedd. Probably tripe.
- [28:47]
Amanda Dobbins
Does this count as opening?
- [28:49]
Sean Fennessy
I think so.
- [28:50]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [28:50]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. I mean, she's in a wedding dress on the way to the wedding at the start, after the over.
- [28:53]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, yeah. And she's in a wedding dress for some of the overture as well. So I just didn't know whether the overture disqualifies it. I do think the overture is one of the great openings in cinema.
- [29:02]
Sean Fennessy
It's like I had totally forgotten about it before I sat down to watch this again.
- [29:05]
Amanda Dobbins
It's like it's, it is the, like, total opposite, but it's up there with the first 10 minutes of up, you know, one is just like, here is the possibility of life and one is. Here is the impossibility.
- [29:16]
Sean Fennessy
That's a fabulous comparison. And no, 2009 is up. I was gonna say, did they come out in the same year? But both are about the acceptance of death.
- [29:24]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [29:24]
Sean Fennessy
In so many ways. What is this movie's legacy?
- [29:30]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, I guess we'll talk about the press conference, though. So at, at this movie premiered a can, and there was a press conference, and they gave Lars von Trier a microphone. And he, he made some comments with, that he now says were a joke. And maybe they were at the time saying that he was a Nazi. Some other, you know, some, some stuff.
- [29:54]
Sean Fennessy
That he was kind to Hitler in some of his comments. Not ideal, not what you want.
- [29:58]
Amanda Dobbins
It's really not good. And it was, it was not received well. You know, people were appropriately outraged. And he was banned from Cannes for a while.
- [30:07]
Sean Fennessy
Seven years he was banned.
- [30:09]
Amanda Dobbins
And, but there, there was a real stink before anyone could ever see this movie. And whatever mitigation they tried to do of being like, well, it's Lars von Trier. He can't get, you know, he gets in his own way. It didn't, didn't work out. So I do feel like it took a while for the majesty of this movie to be separated from the rollout.
- [30:33]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I, I, it's hard to know how much this specifically impacted his career because Nymphomaniac came out two years later. That was a very big movie, drew a lot of stars to it. And then he made the House that Jack built in 2018 with Matt Dillon, the Serial killer movie, and he hasn't made any films since then. I guess Etudes is another movie that he's gonna have coming at some point. But he's been very sick, I believe. Is it. Was it Parkinson's that he was diagnosed with? I can't recall what the malady was that he's currently battling, but it has made it extremely difficult for him. Yes, yes, it is Parkinson's. So, I mean, he's historically been a very. A struggling person. He has a fear of flying. He has anxiety.
- [31:21]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. He obviously, obviously struggles with depression.
- [31:23]
Sean Fennessy
He's deeply depressed. And in 2022, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. And so this movie is kind of the culmination of his career in a lot of ways, too. And the fact that it is marred by that press conference that you're talking about, which was happening, and Kirsten Dunst was sitting directly to his left, and there's this famous post on 4 4, Rich Jozuiak's blog that I remember vividly at the time of Cannes 2011, that is a series of GIFs, like a wall of GIFs of her reaction to everything that Bontrar was saying at this press conference, which is really just, like, heinous and not funny.
- [31:57]
Amanda Dobbins
No.
- [31:58]
Sean Fennessy
And it's a. It's a performance unto itself. I mean, what she is doing in that space where she is reviled, half laughing, trying to shrink away from his sentiments. There's a moment when she clearly turns to him and tries to tell him to stop. You know, she, like, pulls him aside, and I think she's quoted in the Times as saying that she said, lars, this is terrible and not funny. Please stop. And then he continued on for another 20 minutes. But it's relevant because it's almost like the urges of the movie coming to life at the press conference. It feels so intertwined with all of the darkness that is inside of this movie that I can't help but see the meta text and the real text colliding at the same time. The same way that the planets collide in this movie.
- [32:42]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes. I mean, he is a provocateur. Like, you know, which is a overused and kind of annoying word, but it is true in that sense that there is something that he is not just, like, poking at, but he is very, like, bluntly and aggressively putting, like, the ugliness of that is inside him in his art. But, you know, I guess also in his daily. You know, in his daily life. And just, I think in the confines of a movie, you know, it. It works very well, it works very well, but, you know, it comes from a place of, of struggle and, and, you know, ugliness. And the two. They like. Sometimes artists do this. You know, we talk about it all the time, right? Like separating the art and the artist. And can you. And what fuels art you love can also be really, really unseemly in real life.
- [33:46]
Sean Fennessy
I mean, Bjork made some very strong accusations of misconduct on the set of Dancer in the Dark that didn't seem to meaningfully affect his career. He was still casting world famous actors and actresses in his movies. It's unclear, like, what actually happened in that circumstance. Von Trier also, I think, at least in the context of this list, represents a strain of European cinema that is this blend of like the anguished artist, the cynicism of the world and the provocateur troll. And there are a lot of other filmmakers who could have made this list.
- [34:20]
Amanda Dobbins
Exactly why Brady Courbet is in this movie in a cameo role, which we didn't talk about. But it's like, it's not, you know, he learned at the feet of the masters.
- [34:28]
Sean Fennessy
He did. I mean, when he was on the show, I asked him, did you like, go seeking out these filmmakers specifically to like, learn how they made this confrontational cinema? Because, you know, the other artists I'm thinking of are like, Gaspar Noye is one of them. But, you know, he worked with Michael Haneke on the English remake of Funny Games. Noye and Hanukkah and Von Trier and maybe Brady Courbet. Not from.
- [34:52]
Amanda Dobbins
He's aspiring Denmark, but he's clearly. He has been schooled and responds to the filmmaking.
- [34:59]
Sean Fennessy
It's funny to see him in this film. I mean, he seems like such a small young boy in this movie. He does have a very funny part where he's basically like assigned to Kirsten Dunst after her promotion and she's the new art director and she uses him.
- [35:13]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [35:13]
Sean Fennessy
There's a hilarious sex scene in a sandtrack.
- [35:16]
Amanda Dobbins
Really, really funny.
- [35:16]
Sean Fennessy
On a golf course.
- [35:17]
Amanda Dobbins
I have to say, all of the golf course scenes are used for great visual comedy. Like her just like driving off alone in the golf cart in her wedding dress in the middle of the night. Like, out and out guffaw for me. And really just like how I feel a lot. I was like, oh, I feel seen. And like, this is. This is the meme of me which is just like, goodbye.
- [35:38]
Sean Fennessy
Do you think. Do you think I'll cherish that? Do you think Von Trier golfs?
- [35:46]
Amanda Dobbins
I don't.
- [35:46]
Sean Fennessy
I don't Think so either. I think he probably has contempt for golf, and that's why he's setting so much of this pain and anxiety.
- [35:52]
Amanda Dobbins
I know when John, the Kiefer Sutherland character, keeps saying, how many golf holds do we have? 18. Nobody else asked that. Okay, cool.
- [36:03]
Sean Fennessy
I think that this is a very special movie. And it's not quite that they don't make them like they used to anymore because they never really made anything like this. But it is, to me, a perfect reason to do this list and a perfect convergence of our tastes. That I am art house genre guy, and you are Kirsten Dunst, depression Girl. And we now have I can be.
- [36:25]
Amanda Dobbins
Arthouse Kirsten Dunst, Depression Girl, and I.
- [36:27]
Sean Fennessy
Can be depression girl too. We share some of these traits, but it is. It is fun to find something. You know, I felt very similarly to you when I saw this movie. I was like, this is a masterpiece. This is like exactly where I would hope that's if I'm sure made another movie that was just handheld close ups on a sad actress's face, but like in the real world, while a man abused her, I'd be like, come on, man. Like, we've seen this. We've seen this so many times. This is an escalation, an elevation of those ideas and very beautiful. Recommend it if you like. This is where we recommend movies that you may want to watch if you enjoyed this film. You know, I haven't said Tarkovsky yet.
- [37:11]
Amanda Dobbins
Say it now.
- [37:12]
Sean Fennessy
Famous Russian filmmaker who is a lighthouse for Von Trier in many ways. Another person who constantly wrote about and made films about the desolation of existence. And he also is a filmmaker who routinely would take pieces of science fiction and pieces of that drama of despair and kind of smash them together without over explaining very much. Stalker and Solaris, these are two movies that feel very synchronized to this movie. So I would recommend those if you're a Von Trier fan, obviously Breaking the Waves, I think that was widely considered his masterpiece up until this point. I think the Idiots is another movie that you could think about when watching this, though. That movie is more fun, for lack of a better word. What else? What else would you recommend?
- [37:54]
Amanda Dobbins
So we each put down one of the wedding movies. You know, Rachel Getting Married, which is the Jonathan Demme I did Margot in the Wedding, the Bombach, which, you know, tough, tough. Sits at family, at beautiful family locations.
- [38:06]
Sean Fennessy
Both of them, two movies about women who are not getting married who are terribly depressed and difficult.
- [38:13]
Amanda Dobbins
And then I think the Virgin Suicides is a real. You know, it is obviously like Kirsten Dunst in a different life phase, but navigating similar themes. And it's. I. I would say it's a different take on depression, but. And something like unknowable and. And strange lurking and what she can communicate without saying very much.
- [38:35]
Sean Fennessy
I think it's a good shout. And then I think Birth, too, would be an interesting one. Jonathan Glaser's film and another Kidman movie where she's lost.
- [38:45]
Amanda Dobbins
Birth isn't on our list, but.
- [38:47]
Sean Fennessy
Spoiler.
- [38:48]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, we're allowed to do that, are we?
- [38:49]
Sean Fennessy
Sure. What if we slotted it in in place of something else?
- [38:52]
Amanda Dobbins
That's true. I guess there's. I mean, birth is absolutely amazing.
- [38:55]
Sean Fennessy
I love Birth. Any closing thoughts?
- [38:59]
Amanda Dobbins
This is my favorite movie. Can I tell my. Can I tell my Melancholia story now? You remember this?
- [39:04]
Sean Fennessy
Yes, I do. I was there.
- [39:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, you weren't actually there at this moment, but I. The. This movie holds a special place in my heart because I got married in 2016, and as my dad and I were standing, like, in. You know, waiting to walk down the aisle, like, Zach had left, and it was just me and my dad. And my dad turns to me with great wonder and love and, like, true joy in his eyes, and he says to me, this is just like the wedding in Melancholia. That is, like, a true thing, and it's the greatest my dad story of all time. And I want you to know I also. I received it with the love and the happiness. The wedding really did not look like the wedding in Melancholia. It was in a barn.
- [39:43]
Sean Fennessy
It was a wonderful wedding, and it was very beautiful.
- [39:45]
Amanda Dobbins
Zach planned it all and did a great job, and the world is still going. And I am also still married, which is, you know, some signature differences as well. But just, I think my dad, you know, really felt the love in the mo in that moment, and that's how he shared it, and that is why he's a legend.
- [40:04]
Sean Fennessy
He was trying to be connected to you even more, which is really nice. And we're gonna stay connected because the planet. This planet is not going anywhere. For now. For now, there is no incoming planetoid that will smash into us.
- [40:19]
Amanda Dobbins
The Melancholia curve is like a genius bit of writing that is also a genius bit of anxiety manifested that's gonna haunt me of just being like, well, you think you're safe, but there's the second loop. It's just. I mean, that is literally how anxiety works. But the diagram will stay with me.
- [40:42]
Sean Fennessy
Stay with us on 25 for 25. Oh, I know. What's next. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited about what's next. I missed the chance to see this movie on the big screen recently, and I feel sad about it.
- [40:52]
Amanda Dobbins
I did as well because I wanted to do right by it. But it's okay.
- [40:57]
Sean Fennessy
I'm excited for us to have that conversation. Thank you to Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Please stay tuned to the Big Picture because later this week, we will be conducting a very, very, very important draft. It's the Tom Cruise movie draft. Do you feel prepared for that?
- [41:14]
Amanda Dobbins
I thought I did. And then you introduced some new rules and characters, and I mean, I'm emotionally been waiting my whole life, but I got to do do some homework.
- [41:24]
Sean Fennessy
This will be a fascinating one. We'll see you then.