An Alternative Oscars Ceremony, and Ezra Klein on Why We’re Polarized

Summary

The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: An Alternative Oscars Ceremony, and Ezra Klein on Why We’re Polarized

Date: January 24, 2020
Host: David Remnick
Produced by: WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

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Episode Overview

This episode is divided into two main segments:

1. Politics & Polarization: Isaac Chotiner interviews political commentator Ezra Klein about his book, Why We’re Polarized. They delve into the forces fracturing American politics, the role of identity over policy, and the institutional challenges facing democracy.
2. The Brody Awards—An Alternative Oscars: David Remnick, Alexandra Schwartz, and film critic Richard Brody present their own alternatives to the Academy Awards, debating their picks for best performances and films of 2019, and critiquing the Oscars’ cultural blind spots.

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Segment 1: Ezra Klein on Why We’re Polarized (00:10–10:25)

Main Themes

• The shift from policy-based political identity to partisanship rooted in social identity.
• The illusion that policy details drive political debate, when, in fact, policy often operates as a symbol of deeper values or identities.
• Systemic causes of political dysfunction and how both parties have reacted differently to increased polarization.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Identity Over Policy

• Ezra Klein: "[...] it’s a mistake to think that policy is not a way people express identity. [...] When Bernie Sanders talks about Medicare for All [...] it’s not just a policy argument. He’s making an argument about values and who he is." (02:04)
• Policy debates among Democrats aren’t just about policy efficacy, but about who is truly committed to certain core values and visions for America. (02:00-03:52)

Setting Up for Disappointment

• Klein: "We did not invent campaign over-promising in the year 2020. There’s not a campaign where presidential candidates do not promise more than they are likely to be able to pass." (04:22)
• The cycle of grand promises and inevitable disappointment is exacerbated by systemic challenges Congress presents, creating despair and cynicism among voters. (03:51-05:29)

Polarization: Who’s to Blame?

• Klein: "The Republican Party has responded to polarization in a different way than the Democratic Party. It has moved further right than the Democratic Party has moved left." (05:57)
• Democrats, due to their coalition of diverse groups, tend to pick candidates with broad appeal, while the Republican base allows for more extreme candidates representing a narrower identity. (05:29-07:04)

Polarization as Systemic Reality

• Klein: "Within our discourse about polarization, the way people think about it is polarization is breaking the American political system. [...] I would actually argue [...] we’re not going to become depolarized, but [...] change the way American politics works so that it can function amidst conditions of polarization." (07:21-08:33)

Potential Fixes

• Abolishing the filibuster, eliminating the Electoral College, granting statehood to Puerto Rico and D.C., and considering court reforms, are discussed as ways to make the system more majoritarian and accountable to voters. (08:38-10:25)
• Klein: "I think the way political systems work best is that people can vote in a party, that party can do the things it said it was going to do, and people can decide if they like the outcome of that." (09:50)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Identity in Policy:
  "Bernie Sanders has made Medicare for All a kind of litmus test. [...] what you’re seeing is policy operating at a symbolic level." — Ezra Klein (02:32)
• Cycle of Disappointment:
  "We’re much too focused on big promises presidential candidates make and much too light on their plans for institutional reform." — Ezra Klein (04:43)
• Systemic vs. Individual Accountability:
  "We imbue too much explanatory power in stories and actions of individuals. For the most part, individuals carry out the biddings of the political system around them." — Ezra Klein (04:32)
• Voter Accountability:
  "It’s a little bit crazy that we’ve gotten so attuned to a system that is about making sure people can’t get the thing they voted for because we fear that [...] voters are too stupid to decide if they liked it or not." — Ezra Klein (10:14)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:10 — David Remnick introduces the segment on polarization and Ezra Klein.
• 00:56 — Isaac Chotiner’s first question about policy debate as identity politics.
• 01:56 — Klein explains how policy is part of identity.
• 03:51 — Discussion of campaign promises and setting up voter disappointment.
• 05:29 — The “both sides” critique and asymmetric polarization.
• 07:04 — Chotiner on how polarization affects the two-party system’s outcomes.
• 08:38 — Klein outlines potential reforms for a more majoritarian system.
• 10:25 — Segment transition to the Brody Awards.

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Segment 2: The Brody Awards—An Alternative Oscars (10:25–26:55)

Main Themes

• Critique of the Academy Awards’ choices and biases.
• Celebration of overlooked films and performances from 2019.
• The underlying theme of “the underground” and societal doubles in cinema.

Award Categories & Winners

Best Actress

• Nominees: Cynthia Erivo (Harriet), Adèle Haenel (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), Lupita Nyong’o (Us), Elisabeth Moss (Her Smell), Melissa McCarthy (The Kitchen)
• Winner: Lupita Nyong’o (Us)
• Notable Discussion:
  • Brody: "Jordan Peele here made a film that is no less a political film than Get Out, but its politics are not centered on the politics of race. And I think, weirdly and unpleasantly, the Academy [...] expects something very particular from an African American filmmaker." (13:20)
  • On Nyong’o’s performance: "She creates characters who are entirely comprehensible, plausible and precise in their milieu. And on the other hand, she captures something exemplary of the [...] haunting experience that makes it one of the most powerful political metaphors of the time." (13:58)

Best Actor

• Nominees: Robert De Niro (The Irishman), Adam Driver (The Dead Don’t Die), Winston Duke (Us), Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems), Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell)
• Winner: Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems)
• Notable Discussion:
  • Brody: "He got screwed because he's in a movie that is a—makes you a nervous wreck from beginning to end. It's a frenzied, daring movie. It also features an actor whom the Academy doesn't take seriously." (15:59-16:08)
  • Alexandra Schwartz: "He got screwed because he's Adam Sandler, I think in part." (16:15)
  • Brody: "Uncut Gems is the story of a man who is digging his own grave. [...] He works in the diamond district. He has a shop where he provides bling for basketball players. Kevin Garnett plays himself in this movie." (16:31)

Best Director

• Nominees: Jordan Peele (Us), Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), Jim Jarmusch (The Dead Don’t Die), Josh and Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems), Martin Scorsese (The Irishman)
• Winner: Jordan Peele (Us)
• Discussion:
  • Brody: "What got me about Us is that it’s a colossal movie. It’s a movie that starts from a very particular experience and really takes on, like, the world." (19:24)
  • Criticism of the Academy’s “dinosauric” snubbing of women directors, with Greta Gerwig notably omitted. (20:01-20:13)
  • On Parasite’s exclusion: "Parasite is a classic case of a pretty good movie. It’s made by a director who has an authentic need to make this movie. [...] But I think fundamentally, he simply wanted to show spaces." (20:36-21:07)
  • Alexandra Schwartz argues that Parasite was “more inventive and working on a lot more levels” and praises the ensemble cast. (21:07-22:02)

Best Picture

• Nominees: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Atlantics, The Dead Don’t Die, The Irishman, An Elephant Sitting Still, Frankie, Her Smell, Little Women, Uncut Gems, Us
• Winner: The Irishman
• Discussion:
  • Brody: "The Irishman is not to be denied. It’s the kind of big historical movie that very few directors dare make and even fewer can make well. [...] The subject of which is organized crime has been rotting out American society for the last 70 years at least." (22:30-24:08)
  • Remnick: "Is there a little bit of having your cake and eating it too? On the one hand you were saying, well, you know the mob. In fact, this is an anti romantic film. It’s the opposite of The Godfather. On the other hand, it’s an incredibly romantic project." (24:08)
  • Brody: "This is in some weird way a deeply metaphysical film, the subject of which is the loss of a person’s soul. But it’s not just loss of a person’s soul, it’s the loss of collective soul." (24:29)

Hidden Gems

• Brody’s Pick: An Elephant Sitting Still — “A four hour long Chinese movie [...] a quiet, intimate spectacle of utter degradation in daily life. It is not a fun movie, but it’s a deeply moving film.” (25:14-25:50)
• Schwartz’s Pick: Atlantics by Mati Diop — “What it does with the idea of migration and these dangerous travels across the sea that many of us read about in the news is spectacular.” (25:50-26:23)

Thematic Summary

• Brody: “This is a year of unbelievably audacious filmmaking, and the one theme that brings the best films of the year together is the underground. Whether the criminal underworld in The Irishman, whether the zombies in The Dead Don’t Die, whether the doubles in Us or even Parasite, the main theme of the year is there’s a second world doubling this world and menacing it.” (26:25-26:55)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Oscars Representation:
  Richard Brody: “The results are dinosauric. [...] Even Quentin Tarantino, whose quality of direction has declined drastically over the years as he has become more attentive to his writing.” (20:03-20:15)
• On Sandler’s “Revenge” Movie:
  Alexandra Schwartz: “I did see an interview that he did where he said that if he did not get nominated, he was going to drop a stink bomb of a movie on all of us as revenge. And so I think we can look forward to that.” (16:15)
• On the Year in Film:
  Brody: “All in all, this was a fantastic year for movies. [...] The main theme of the year is there’s a second world doubling this world and menacing it.” (26:25-26:55)

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Key Film Segment Timestamps

• 10:25 — Transition to Brody Awards and intro
• 12:33 — Best Actress nominees and winner revealed
• 13:20 — Discussion of race and representation in Oscar snubs
• 15:33 — Best Actor nominees and Sandler’s win
• 16:59 — Uncut Gems discussion (“That’s the thing they say you can see the whole universe in opal.”)
• 19:00 — Best Director nominees
• 20:36 — Alexandra Schwartz’s and Brody’s debate on Parasite
• 22:08 — Best Picture nominees and winner
• 25:14 — Hidden gems and overlooked films
• 26:25 — Brody’s reflections: the year’s unifying cinematic theme

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Conclusion

This episode expertly juxtaposes a serious, systemic critique of American politics with a playful and insightful alternative Oscars. Ezra Klein and Isaac Chotiner dig deep into structural roots of polarization and the paradoxes of American democracy, while David Remnick, Alexandra Schwartz, and Richard Brody skewer the Academy’s conventions, honor overlooked achievements in cinema, and explore the most significant storytelling trends of 2019.

Whether you’re interested in the politics shaping America or the state of cinema, this episode delivers smart, dynamic, and enjoyable conversation true to the spirit of The New Yorker Radio Hour.

Transcript

[David Remnick]

From One World Trade center in Manhattan.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[David Remnick]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Ezra Klein is a political commentator and a self described policy wonk who's very much willing to get into the weeds of how government actually works. He hosts the political podcast, aptly called the Ezra Klein Show. Klein's first book is just out and it aims to tackle a huge question. The book is called simply why We're Polarized. And one of Klein's major themes here is that policies are now far less important to who we elect than who we identify with. In other words, that partisanship has become a kind of identity politics and it's very hard to change someone's mind about their identity. Ezra Klein talked about his book with Isaac Chotiner, who writes the Q and A column for the New Yorker.

[Isaac Chotiner]

Well, I want to ask you about the Democratic race in the context of this book a little bit because you've essentially written this book and you're saying that things like health care, that's not how our political system is where it is because of the debate over healthcare. They're much larger issues of identity. And if you want to understand American politics, you have to understand these much larger forces that are going on. And yet if you look at the Democratic debate, there is a lot of very intricate policy debate about bills or issues that are probably not going to pass the Senate no matter what happens. It's certainly a contrast to the Republican primary of four years ago, where there was racism on the stage and people were yelling at each other and it was crazy in many ways, but in some ways it feels like a more accurate reflection of where American politics is. And I'm wondering if you think the Democratic debate, as good as it is to talk about policy and as important as it is, is actually sort of different from the main conversation about what's really going on in politics now.

[Ezra Klein]

I don't think so. I don't think that Democrats debating policy, that actually goes very deep, in part because it's a party of very different groups. You have to sort of win people over through transactional policy. But the bigger point I would make here, and I say this as somebody whose whole career is covering policy, it's a mistake to think that policy is not a way people express identity. And in particular, Bernie Sanders is genius at this point. When Bernie Sanders talks about Medicare for All and the way he talks about Medicare for All, he's not just Making a policy argument. He's making an argument about values and who he is. And I think you see this in the way the Democratic policy debates play out. They're not really having like a clear debate over who has the idea that is most likely, given the composition of the U.S. senate and the House to pass right, thus, that you will get the most people health care. I mean, you will hear that from Amy Klobuchar, but that's not the way this thing has played out in its macro form. Bernie Sanders has made Medicare for all a kind of litmus test. It's about, are you a certain kind of person who believes a certain set of things about the world and is built on a certain set of value foundations? And so then when Elizabeth Warren, who I think is a good counterexample here, she as far as I can tell, believes in Medicare for All. She came out with a very detailed financing plan for Medicare for all, which he hasn't. But then she also came out with this transitionary bill which, which she felt would help solve some of these political problems. And the reaction to that among the Bernie Sanders wing of the party was not, oh, that's interesting, let's kind of go back and forth. The reaction was, oh, you're not a true, pure, die hard Medicare for all supporter. You will compromise. And when you see something like that, what you're seeing is policy operating at a symbolic level. It's not just operating as who has the best theory for how to get to Medicare for all. You are seeing a sort of identity argument play out about who is truly connected to this, who is truly, in this case, a Democratic socialist.

[Isaac Chotiner]

Is there a way in which this might set people up, Democratic voters up or voters for whoever the Democratic nominee is, for disappointment? And the same sort of. Okay, well, let me finish. For the same sort of cynicism that we see in the system now and which I think benefits outsiders to the system because of that cynicism about how Washington works, that Democratic politicians now are promising a whole range of things that even if they are elected and even if they somehow get 50, 51 sen. Are very, very unlikely to pass Congress.

[Ezra Klein]

I cannot stress, yes enough. We did not invent campaign over promising in the year 2020. There's not a campaign where presidential candidates do not promise more than they are likely to be able to pass. My biggest critique of the rising left, which I have a lot of sympathy with and in many cases agree with in goals, is that it has substituted an ideological critique for an institutional plan. In particular, the critique that has emerged of Barack Obama is that he didn't get all these great things because he was just a neoliberal. And if only he had had a purer and more aggressive form of politics in the way Bernie Sanders does, then he would have gotten it. An argument I'm making in my book is that we imbue too much explanatory power in stories and actions of individuals. For the most part, individuals carry out the biddings of the political system around them. We are much too focused on big promises presidential candidates make and much too light on their plans for institutional reform or their plans for getting around institutional roadblocks in a way that sets up continuous cycles of disappointment and depression.

[Isaac Chotiner]

A lot of writers on the left, a lot of people on the left feel that generally arguments about polarization or partisanship or what's gone wrong in American politics focus too much on both sides being to blame, and that essentially Democrats have moved to the left in the last several decades and have gotten more polarized and partisan, but that essentially Republicans are to blame for where we are. How do you feel about that critique? And how do you feel like your book does or doesn't fit into it?

[Ezra Klein]

So I agree with that critique, number one. So polarization is a system that is affecting and afflicting all of us, and that's not just political parties, but us in the media. It has changed how we do our work, how elections are run, how governance functions. It affects culture, what ends up on tv. The Republican Party has responded to polarization in a different way than the Democratic Party. It has moved further right than the Democratic Party has moved left. And the Democratic Party operates under conditions of diversity and democracy that the Republican Party does not operate under. And I mean this in the Democratic primary, right now, if you want to become the Democratic Party leader, you have to win liberals in Iowa, white liberals in Iowa, and more independent voters in New Hampshire, and traditionalist African American voters in South Carolina. And so what it ends up creating is a preference for very coalitional candidates. The Republican Party, which is an overwhelmingly white Christian party that does not have to put together these coalitions of different groups, allows you to go much deeper. Donald Trump was a candidate who very intensely appealed to a particular kind of person, which is how you got him in 2016.

[Isaac Chotiner]

And also in a very polarized system which you're writing about, someone who wins a major party nomination can get 46% of the vote and win the presidency, even if they're unpopular, because there are only two options, and people are very partisan, and Republicans will largely vote for one person.

[Ezra Klein]

Right. So you can run this argument both ways. And so let me do it this way. In 1950, the American political Science association releases a report called Towards a Responsible Two Party System. Very famous report. And what it basically says in a way that sounds very weird to modern ears, is there's a huge problem in American politics, and it is that the parties are not polarized. And the argument APSA makes, the political scientists make is that the most fundamental choice that people make in a system like ours is which party to vote for. But in that period, exactly what you're saying is happening, we don't really know what's going on inside the party. So maybe you vote for Strom Thurmond in the south, but that's also the party of Hubert Humphrey in Minnesota. And so your vote is kind of being taken and turned into a muddle. You are voting for one agenda and you're not getting it. So the reason I say all this is that I think right now, within our discourse about polarization, the way people think about it is polarization is breaking the American political system. So what we need to do is turn the clock back on polarization. We need to become depolariz. I would actually argue it in many ways the reverse, in part because I don't think we're going to become depolarized. But another thing you can imagine doing is changing the way American politics works so that it can function amidst conditions of polarization.

[Isaac Chotiner]

So what would fixes look like to make our system more majoritarian?

[Ezra Klein]

The tricky thing here is that as soon as I say this, people are going to be like, well, that won't pass, because that's a problem. Polarization will make it so nothing can pass. But at a small level, you can imagine things like getting rid of the filibuster, which creates an added super majority requirement in the Senate. Get rid of the Electoral College. So right now we have a US President who did not win a majority of votes. We have a Senate majority that did not win a majority of votes. And because of that, we have a Supreme Court majority that was put in place by people who did not win a majority of votes. Or even pluralities, or even pluralities in some cases. You could also do something and you can imagine this at different levels. You could add states, you could take them away. You can court pack. You can not court pack. You can make Puerto Rico and D.C. states, which you should do for justice and equity reasons anyway. You could then imagine the parties competing at the majority level and that what you have then is more aggressive forms of governance that then the voters have to choose accountability. We've basically made a choice in our political system to have less voter accountability, but less ability for the other party to do things. You may not like that. We prefer the muddled accountability that comes from a system tuned towards inaction against the possibility that. That we will have effective governance and the public will like things that I don't like. And I just think that's wrong. I think the way political systems work best is that people can vote in a party, that party can do the things it said it was going to do, and people can decide if they like the outcome of that. I think it's a little bit crazy that we've gotten so attuned to a system that is about making sure people can't get the thing they voted for because we fear that, I don't know, that voters are too stupid to decide if they liked it or not.

[David Remnick]

Ezra Klein talking with staff writer Isaac Chotner. Klein's new book is called why We're Polarized. This is the season for one of our great annual traditions at the New Yorker Radio Hour when we bestow the most prestigious honor in filmmaking, the Brody Awards. The Brodies, unlike the Oscars, aren't decided by a huge pool of unaccountable people floating around Hollywood, but by one guy, Richard Brody. Richard writes about Filmfornewyorker.com and he sees more movies in a week than most people see in five years. Joining me to do the honors here today is staff writer Alexandra Schwartz, who writes about theater and books, but who's basically here for the M and Ms. And the popcorn. It's that time of year again.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

It's the most magical time of the year.

[David Remnick]

It's the most magical time in the year. So here we are surrounded by M and Ms. Cheese doodles that aren't quite cheese doodles and some popcorn. And we are ready to go on the Brodies. Welcome, Alex. Welcome, Richard.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Glad to be here.

[David Remnick]

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna just do four awards. The biggies. Best actress, Best actor, both in leading roles, Best director and best picture. And of course, these are all Richards nominees, not the Academies.

[Richard Brody]

Alas, I don't think in a better world.

[David Remnick]

So let's get right down to it. Let's start with the acting awards. First up is best Actress in a leading role. Alex. The Brody nominees, please.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Cynthia Erivo for Harriet, Adele Hanel, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Lupita Nyong' o us Elizabeth Moss, her smell. And Melissa McCarthy, the kitchen. And the winner is.

[Richard Brody]

Lupita Nyong' O for Us, Once upon a time.

[Ezra Klein]

There was a girl.

[David Remnick]

And.

[Richard Brody]

The girl had a shadow.

[David Remnick]

Richard. The last I looked, she was not even nominated by the Academy. What happened? What was the source of the snub? Or is it just the same old, same old?

[Richard Brody]

Well, I think, first of all, the enthusiasm for Us is simply less than the enthusiasm for get out was. And I think for very invidious reasons, I think that Jordan Peele here made a film that is no less a political film than get out, but its politics are not centered on the politics of race. And I think that, weirdly and unpleasantly, the Academy, like many critics, expects something very particular from an African American filmmaker.

[David Remnick]

Very particular and very predictable and very.

[Richard Brody]

Predictable from an African American filmmaker that they did not get in this movie. On the Other Hand, us is a much more comprehensive political movie.

[David Remnick]

Tell me a little bit about her performance. What distinguished it so much for you?

[Richard Brody]

On the one hand, she creates characters who are entirely comprehensible, plausible and precise in their milieu. And on the other hand, she captures something exemplary of the, let's say, the metaphysical experience, the haunting experience that makes it one of the most powerful political metaphors of the time.

[David Remnick]

Now, who do you think's actually gonna win? Who's the Academy gonna pick?

[Richard Brody]

I think it's gonna be very tough. The Academy likes biopics. I think that Renee Zellweger has a very good chance for Judy. I think her main competitor is gonna be Scarlett Johansson from Marriage Story.

[David Remnick]

No way.

[Richard Brody]

I think that she delivers the kind of performance which is simultaneously vulnerable and triumphant that will appeal to voters.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

What did you expect was gonna happen?

[Richard Brody]

I don't know. I guess I didn't think it through. But I thought we agreed we weren't.

[Ezra Klein]

Going to use lawyers.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

I want.

[Richard Brody]

I don't know. I'm trying to say this as undramatically as possible.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

I want an entirely different kind of life.

[David Remnick]

Alex, you got a winner for the Academy and your own choice for Best Actress.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Yeah, I mean, I think I'd have to pick Saoirse Ronan for Little Women. I mean, I am a fan of Little Women, the movie. I am irritated that Greta Gerwig was not nominated, as I feel she should have been for Best Director, for Best Director, and I thought that Saoirse Ronan was a great, spunky Jo.

[David Remnick]

All right, let's go on to Best Actor in a leading role. Alex.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Robert De Niro for the Irishman Adam Driver. The Dead don't die Winston Duke for us. Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems. And Paul Walter Hauser for Richard Jewell. And Richard.

[Richard Brody]

The winner is Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems.

[David Remnick]

Adam Sandler, who didn't get nominated. Adam Sandler, who seemed to maybe. I think the polite word is got screwed.

[Richard Brody]

Yeah, absolutely got screwed.

[David Remnick]

Why did he get screwed?

[Richard Brody]

He got screwed because he's in a movie that is a makes you a.

[David Remnick]

Nervous wreck from beginning to end.

[Richard Brody]

It's a frenzied, daring movie. It also features an actor whom the Academy doesn't take seriously.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

He got screwed because he's Adam Sandler, I think in part. And I did see an interview that he did where he said that if he did not get nominated, he was going to drop a stink bomb of a movie on all of us as revenge. And so I think we can look forward to that. Yeah, that's what the Academy thinks of Adam Sandler, but I'm totally with Richard on this one.

[Richard Brody]

Uncut Gems is the story of a man who is digging his own grave. It's the story of a gambler. His life is on the line at every step of the way. He works in the diamond district. He has a shop where he provides bling for basketball players. Kevin Garnett plays himself in this movie.

[David Remnick]

And he's kind of good.

[Richard Brody]

And he's really good.

[David Remnick]

Yeah.

[Richard Brody]

How many carats is this?

[David Remnick]

What, four, five thousand carrots?

[Richard Brody]

$3,000 a carrot. I'm not. Why's it got so many colors in it, man?

[Ezra Klein]

What is this?

[David Remnick]

That's the thing they say you can see the whole universe in opal.

[Richard Brody]

That's how old they are. Holy.

[David Remnick]

I've been telling you that's what I want you to see.

[Richard Brody]

Your ass crazy, man.

[David Remnick]

From stone to stone, garnet to stone. You know that that's a million dollar opal you hold.

[Richard Brody]

Straight from the Ethiopian Jewish tribe.

[David Remnick]

I mean, this is old school. Middle Earth got a dinosaur gymnast.

[Richard Brody]

But I think the secret to on Katjem's is that he worked with directors who had an idea about what Adam Sandler could and should be. It's by working with the most talented directors that actors expand their range.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

I also thought he was very good in the Meyerowitz stories by Noah Baumbach.

[Richard Brody]

Yeah, I agree.

[David Remnick]

So mischief is being played all throughout your list here. One of the pieces of mischief is that you nominated Adam Driver, not surprisingly, for best actor in a leading role, but you didn't nominate him for Marriage Story. You nominated him for a zombie movie directed by Jim Jarmusch called the Dead Don't Die.

[Richard Brody]

Why the Dead Don't Die is one of the great political movies of the time. And that seems to be a theme that's coming up this year. This has been a year of remarkable political films. The Dead Don't Die is a climate change horror story. Is it some sort of epidemic or what? It's zombies.

[David Remnick]

What are you saying?

[Richard Brody]

Well, it's the undead. They've been reanimated.

[Ezra Klein]

Caused by the earth having been pulled off its axis.

[Richard Brody]

Caused by the polar fracking.

[David Remnick]

But the authorities and energy people keep.

[Ezra Klein]

Saying that's not true.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Really?

[David Remnick]

Oh, my God.

[Richard Brody]

She's alive. No, she's not. She's just undead. Chardonnay? Holy shit. Did she just say Chardonnay?

[David Remnick]

Yeah, she did. Now let's move on to Best Director. Alex, who are the nominees?

[Alexandra Schwartz]

I'll just finish eating my cheese doodle. The nominees, Jordan Peele for us. Marielle Heller, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Jim Jarmusch for the Dead Don't Die. Josh and Benny Safdie, Uncut Gems. Martin Scorsese, the Irishman. And the winner is.

[Richard Brody]

This was very Tough, by the way. The winner is. Jordan Peele for us.

[David Remnick]

Why so tough?

[Richard Brody]

Because everybody's great this year. This was 2019 was an extraordinary year for really inventive direction. What got me about us is that it's a colossal movie. It's a movie that starts from a very particular experience and really takes on, like, the world.

[David Remnick]

Now, Richard, the big news about. Not that it's unique news from year to year, but the big news in Best Director is there are no women. Notably, as you mentioned before, Alex.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

No Greta Gerwig.

[David Remnick]

No Greta Gerwig. What is up? I mean, this category is particularly horrible when it comes to this category.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

And this year was a great year for women making movies.

[Richard Brody]

I think if you look at the list of directors nominated by the Academy, the results are dinosauric. The results are.

[David Remnick]

Who exemplifies a dinosaur choice?

[Richard Brody]

Well, Sam Mendes of 1917. Yeah. Even Quentin Tarantino, whose quality of direction has declined drastically over the years as he has become more attentive to his writing.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Richard, one movie that is all over the Academy's list to many people's delight, including mine, but is nowhere to be seen on your list, is Parasite. Why did it not make the cut for you?

[Richard Brody]

Parasite is a classic case of a pretty good movie. It's made by a director who has an authentic need to make this movie. You feel that he has something he wants to say. It's motivated by passion and what he.

[David Remnick]

Has to say has to do with rich and poor.

[Richard Brody]

Exactly.

[David Remnick]

Advantage, disadvantage.

[Richard Brody]

I think that fundamentally, he simply wanted to show spaces. He wanted to show that there are places that look one way where rich people live and that look another way where sewage spews out when there are storms, where poor people live.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Alex, I have to say, I found the film to be a lot more inventive and working on a lot more levels than my colleague here.

[David Remnick]

You know, when you call him your colleague, it's like in the Senate, the.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Gentlewoman from South Carolina, my beloved and esteemed colleague here. To me, Parasite was the movie that I wanted us to be. It had a more coherent vision. I thought visually it was more arresting and precise. I also thought the cast was terrific. And the cast has been overlooked by the Academy in a way that doesn't entirely surprise me. There is a lot of humor in that family dynamic. The family which begins with a son who gets a job as a tutor at a wealthy family's house and scams the rest of his family into the same. The same house, the same household. That's really a kind of twisted love that I appreciated seeing on screen.

[David Remnick]

Let's go on to the final Best picture. The main event. Alex. The nominees, please.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

The nominees are. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Atlantics, the Dead Don't Die, the Irishman, An Elephant Sitting Still, Frankie, Her Smell, Little Women, Uncut Gems and Us. And the winner is.

[Richard Brody]

The winner is the Irishman, which is the gangster movie someone gasped to end all gangster movies.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

I'm sorry, but I thought, you know, the way things were going, it looked like us.

[Richard Brody]

How are you? Listen, I got that kid I was talking to you about here. I'm gonna put him on the phone and let you talk to him, okay? Hello? Is that Frank? Yes. Hi, Frank. This is Jimmy Hoffa. Yeah, yeah. Glad to meet you. Well, glad to meet you, too. Even if it's over the phone. I heard you paint houses. Yes. Yes, sir, I. I do. I do. And I. I also do my own carpentry. Ah, I'm glad to hear that. I understand you're a brother of mine. Yes, sir. Local 107 since 1947. Yeah. You know, our friend speaks very highly of you. Thank you. He's not an easy man to please. Well, I do my best. The Irishman is not to be denied. It's the kind of big historical movie that very few directors dare make and even fewer can make. Well, in case anyone ever suspected that Martin Scorsese romanticized the Mafia, that shibboleth is completely debunked in the Irishman, the subject of which is organized crime has been rotting out American society for the last 70 years at least. Politics, business, family life, community life. There is no aspect of American life that is not completely corrupted by organized crime.

[David Remnick]

But let me ask you, as a fan of the Irishman and as a huge fan of Scorsese, is there a little bit of having your cake and eating it too? On the one hand you were saying, well, you know the mob. In fact, this is an anti romantic film. It's the opposite of the Godfather. On the other hand, it's an incredibly romantic project. These his pictures about the mob?

[Richard Brody]

Well, Scorsese's very story is temptation. This is in some weird way a deeply metaphysical film, the subject of which is the loss of a person's soul. But it's not just loss of a person's soul, it's the loss of collective soul.

[David Remnick]

Richard, among your nominees are some big and big name movies. The Irishman, Little Women, even us. But as is customary, you have a number of films on your best picture list that probably not a hell of a lot of people have seen this year. Of all of those, what's the one that you dearly hope everybody out there gets to see at some point or another? One. You get one.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

And I have one to add. If it's not yours, Richard, it's the.

[Richard Brody]

One with a title that seems most obscure, namely An Elephant Sitting Still. It's a four hour long Chinese movie made by a young director named Hu Bo. There's an unfortunate story involving him. He killed himself before the film was released. So it's his first film feature and his last feature. It starts out as a very simple story of a teenage boy who is accused of stealing a cell phone. And from there it expands to a spectacle, a quiet, intimate spectacle of utter degradation in daily life. It is not a fun movie, but it's a deeply moving film.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Alex My choice would be Atlantics by Mattie Diop, a French Senegalese director. And actually it makes a really nice pairing with one of my other favorite movies of the year, the Souvenir by Joanna Hogg. They're both movies about young women who are in love and deeply affected by loss. They both have unique viewpoint. The Matty Diop movie, which you can also see on Netflix like the Irishman, is visually stunning and what it does with the idea of migration and these dangerous travels across the sea that many of us read about in the news is spectacular.

[David Remnick]

Richard, was this a good year for movies?

[Richard Brody]

All in all, this was a fantastic year for movies. All in all, this is a year of unbelievably audacious filmmaking, and the one theme that brings the best films of the year together is the underground. Whether the criminal underworld in the Irishman, whether the zombies in the Dead Don't Die, whether the doubles in Us or even Parasite, the main theme of the year is there's a second world doubling this world and menacing it.

[David Remnick]

Alex Schwartz and Richard Brody, thanks so much.

[Richard Brody]

David. Thank you, Alex. Thank you.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

See you next year for the Brody's 2021.

[David Remnick]

Wouldn't miss it. Richard Brody. You can find all his picks for best films and Actors of [e-mail] Alex Schwartz is a staff writer. I'm David Remnick and thanks for listening to the New Yorker Radio Hour. Hope you'll join us again next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

Co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Bottin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corvey, Karen Frohman, Kalalea, David Krasnow, Caroline Lester, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses and Stephen Valentino, with help from Danny Bonner, Allison McAdam, Meng.

[David Remnick]

Fei Chen and Emily Mann.

[Alexandra Schwartz]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Torina Endowment Fund.