Episode 1617 - James Mangold

Summary

Summary of Episode 1617 - James Mangold on WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

Introduction

In Episode 1617 of the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast, released on February 13, 2025, host Marc Maron engages in a comprehensive and revealing conversation with acclaimed film director James Mangold. Renowned for directing films such as "Cop Land," "310 to Yuma," "Ford v Ferrari," and "A Complete Unknown," Mangold offers deep insights into his creative process, the challenges of filmmaking, and his latest projects. This episode delves into Mangold's artistic philosophies, his exploration of health and nutrition, and his experience directing a biographical film about Bob Dylan.

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Health and Nutrition: The Walnut Oil Experiment [00:00 - 10:32]

The episode kicks off with Marc Maron discussing his personal health regimen, focusing on the benefits of walnuts and walnut oil. Marc shares his experimentation with walnut oil, highlighting its purported benefits for heart health, brain function, and joint health. He mentions his vegan lifestyle, supplemented with occasional consumption of honey and leather.

Marc Maron [06:45]:
"I believe that the two things that have changed my body chemistry and my body's health are this pure walnut oil and magnesium potassium aspartate."

Marc seeks feedback from listeners about his dietary choices, questioning why walnut oil isn't more mainstream despite its health benefits. He reflects on his approach to health, blending practical needs with personal beliefs.

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Directing Philosophy and Filmmaking Insights [10:33 - 34:03]

Marc transitions the conversation to Mangold's directing career, praising his ability to communicate complex artistic visions. They discuss the pressures of directing major films versus indie projects, with Mangold emphasizing the importance of maintaining creative control while being open to collaboration.

James Mangold [14:56]:
"I just live with it. It's what fuels us."

Mangold shares his approach to managing anxiety associated with filmmaking, likening it to living with constant thoughts that drive his creative process. He underscores the significance of directors maintaining their "North Star" or core vision amidst the chaos of production.

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Crafting "A Complete Unknown": Balancing Vision and Collaboration [34:03 - 73:19]

A substantial portion of the episode delves into Mangold's process of directing "A Complete Unknown," a biographical film about Bob Dylan. Mangold discusses his intention to move beyond traditional trauma narratives to explore the complexities of genius and artistic solitude.

James Mangold [27:17]:
"Movies are inherently simple, although there's a real high density of information... to preserve what I love in movies, which is kind of the spaces between things."

He elaborates on the challenges of portraying a multifaceted character like Dylan, aiming to balance his public persona with his private struggles. Mangold reflects on his interactions with Dylan, highlighting the director's quest to authentically represent Dylan's enigmatic nature without reducing his complexity to mere trauma.

James Mangold [43:46]:
"It's about the characters who know something that others don't know is going on... so much loaded than if I were just living watching a kind of Disney."

Mangold emphasizes the importance of capturing the subtle, unspoken dynamics between characters, allowing for a more nuanced and authentic portrayal.

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Art, Genius, and the Burden of Creation [73:19 - 99:44]

The conversation deepens as Mangold and Marc explore the concept of genius and the isolation it can bring. Mangold shares anecdotes about his meetings with Bob Dylan, illustrating Dylan's introspective and non-cliché responses.

James Mangold [72:31]:
"So to dramatize it and to help actors make it come to life, I felt like this was what Bob really is meeting me with."

They discuss the burdens of artistic genius, with Mangold reflecting on how Dylan's intense talent and enigmatic nature present unique challenges in storytelling. The dialogue touches on the necessity of maintaining authenticity without over-explaining or boxing the subject into simplistic narratives.

James Mangold [78:07]:
"It's hard, and it can be both inspiring, but it can also take you off track. Like you can start trying to do what they do."

Mangold underscores the importance of directors staying true to their own artistic voices while navigating the influences and pressures from established figures in the industry.

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Future Projects and Continued Artistic Evolution [99:44 - 104:25]

As the episode progresses, Mangold shares his enthusiasm for upcoming projects, including a new adaptation of "Swamp Thing." He discusses his fascination with gothic horror and existential themes, expressing a desire to explore the character's abject loneliness and deformation.

James Mangold [102:37]:
"I love the Bernie writes in art... living in an abject loneliness, deformation and loneliness."

Marc appreciates Mangold's dedication to capturing the essence of complex characters and looks forward to seeing his future work. The conversation concludes with mutual appreciation, highlighting the depth and honesty of their dialogue.

Marc Maron [104:25]:
"If you want more director talk. We posted a WTF collection on the full Marin featuring some great directors when they were guests in the garage..."

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Conclusion

Episode 1617 of "WTF with Marc Maron" offers a profound exploration of James Mangold's artistic journey, providing listeners with valuable insights into the intricacies of filmmaking, the balance between vision and collaboration, and the personal challenges faced by creative individuals. Through candid dialogue and thoughtful reflections, Marc and James navigate the complexities of art, genius, and the pursuit of authentic storytelling.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Marc Maron [06:45]:
  "I believe that the two things that have changed my body chemistry and my body's health are this pure walnut oil and magnesium potassium aspartate."

• James Mangold [14:56]:
  "I just live with it. It's what fuels us."

• James Mangold [27:17]:
  "Movies are inherently simple, although there's a real high density of information... to preserve what I love in movies, which is kind of the spaces between things."

• James Mangold [43:46]:
  "It's about the characters who know something that others don't know is going on... so much loaded than if I were just living watching a kind of Disney."

• James Mangold [72:31]:
  "So to dramatize it and to help actors make it come to life, I felt like this was what Bob really is meeting me with."

• James Mangold [78:07]:
  "It's hard, and it can be both inspiring, but it can also take you off track. Like you can start trying to do what they do."

• James Mangold [102:37]:
  "I love the Bernie writes in art... living in an abject loneliness, deformation and loneliness."

---

This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of the conversation between Marc Maron and James Mangold, highlighting their discussions on health, directing philosophies, the creative process behind "A Complete Unknown," and reflections on art and genius. The inclusion of notable quotes with precise timestamps offers readers a glimpse into the most impactful moments of the episode.

Transcript

[Marc Maron]

Lock the gate. All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers. What the fuck, buddies? What the fucksters. What's happening? I'm Marc Maron. This is my podcast. How's it going? Welcome. You okay? Everybody all right? I guess I should tell you who's on the show today. It's a pretty big show. James Mangold, the film director, the movie maker, James Mangold, real deal, old school, in a way. Great director. He made copland. He made 310 to Yuma. Ford versus Ferrari. He's nominated for best Director at the Academy Awards for his film A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan movie, which you should probably see at least once. I've seen it once. I will see it again, I'm sure. But I'll be talking to him in a minute. I'll be in Iowa City tonight at the Englert Theater. Come down. I don't know if it's going to be snowing or what. A little nervous. I don't know if there's going to be air traffic controllers in the towers. A lot of things that my brain does that are probably unnecessary. Some of them practical, some of them just panic driven. I'm in Des Moines, Iowa, at the Hoyt Sherman Place tomorrow, February 14, Kansas City, Missouri, at the Midland Theater this Saturday, February 15. Then I'm in Asheville, North Carolina, at the Orange peel next Thursday, February 20th Nashville, Tennessee, at the James K. Polk theater on Friday, February 21st. Louisville, Kentucky at the Bommard Theater on Saturday, February 22nd. Lexington, Kentucky, at the Lexington Opera House on Sunday, February 23rd. Then I'm coming to Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina, Illinois, Michigan, Toronto, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York City for my special taping. Go to wtfpod.com tour for all my dates and links to tickets. All right, so here's where I'm at. I've decided and maybe I've talked about this in conversation. Call me crazy. I'm sure that knowing my audience, though, I know there's a separation between, you know, my audience, generally speaking in terms of health oriented stuff and, you know, off the grid whack jobs who were, you know, only cooking with tallow, eating lots of butter and probably not getting vaccinated, but, you know, the spiritual kind of new age health community. I'm sure I've got a few members. But, you know, there's, you know, there's an umbrella of those types of people. But I've decided that, look, walnuts. Can we talk walnuts for a minute? And then, you know, and I am Asking for feedback. And I imagine the subject line will be walnuts. And I talked to my trainer, who's pretty well informed and a nutritionist. They all are, you know, on the spectrum of nutritionists. So walnuts, they're supposed to be good for your heart, good for your brain, good for every, you know, you look these things up and they're kind of like, wow, these are miracle working nuts. A lot of nuts, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds. Now, because I've been vegan and also I'd like to mention that I do wear leather. I do. And I do eat honey. So if I'm not on team, you suck it up. That's the kind of vegan I am. It's not ideological, some of it is, but most of it is health oriented. So walnuts, let's just focus for a minute. Now these walnuts are supposed to be miracle drugs. So then I figure, why not just eat the oil? Like some people use walnut oil for furniture. It's very good for a lot of things. But I started to think while back that walnut oil, if walnuts are so good, why wouldn't walnut oil be good for you? And so I started putting like a tablespoon of walnut oil and stuff. I have to, I have to eat the nuts to get my omegas because I'm, you know, vegany and I make a meal like a ground up walnuts, pumpkin seeds, a few brazil nuts and hazelnuts to put in the oatmeal. So I get the full on omega omega oil effect. But I, I've really begun to think and somebody can, you know, somebody can chime in. You know, some of you sort of armchair supplement professionals, I believe that the walnut oil, which now I'm getting pretty high end walnut oil, virgin press walnut oil from this place called Corky's, they do this stuff small, it's a small operation, I think, but they do walnut oil. It's not, this isn't a plug, it's. It's just that I know somebody over there who I knew back in the day who is now involved with it. And they sent me this virgin pressed walnut oil. It's got a date on the bottle, so you know, they mean business. So now I'm just doing straight up walnut oil, not roasted walnut oil, virgin press, organic walnut oil. And I gotta be honest with you, I think it's affecting my joints, I think it's affecting my brain. I believe that it's helping my heart. Now what proof do I have? The only proof that I really have is Right now, like my mem. Well, my memory's good, but I do believe it's doing something there. But I do know that I have arthritic big toes and it's been significantly better in the last year. That might just be a vegan diet. It's an inflammation thing. But I've grown to believe that pure walnut oil, I take a tablespoon of it a day if I'm drinking after I work out. And if not, I'm just doing the walnuts in the oatmeal. I think it actually does something. And I can't say that for most supplements. I know a lot of them you're not going to feel. But I believe that the two things that have changed my body chemistry and my body's health are this pure walnut oil, which I don't do intravenously. I just mix it in with stuff. And a magnesium potassium aspartate vitamin I think has changed my entire gut health. So that's what I'm positing. That's what I'm saying. That's what I believe, that magnesium potassium aspartate and the walnut oil have had a significant impact on my health. That's what I'm putting out there now. I'll hear from you. But no one ever talks about walnut oil as being a thing. Why isn't it a thing? I don't understand why it's not a thing. Life is complicated, folks. But here's a suggestion to make things a little easier. If you need to set up home security or it's time for an upgrade to your system, use the home security experts we trust at Simplisafe. We've been using Simplisafe for almost a decade and they always provide the best, most up to date methods for protecting your home. Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's too late. Simplisafe's Active Guard outdoor protection can help prevent break ins before they happen. With AI powered cameras and live professional monitoring agents, there's always someone keeping watch over your property to detect suspicious activity. If someone's lurking around or doing something they shouldn't, those agents see and talk to them in real time. Hey buddy. What are you doing over there by the house, huh? Why you in the yard? You, I'm talking to you. They can also activate spotlights, even contact the police. All before anyone has a chance to get inside your home. Right now, head to SimpliSafe.com WTF to get the best value in home security. WTF listeners can get 50% off their new Simplisafe systems with professional monitoring and their first month [e-mail] WTF. That's simplisafe.com WTF for 50% off. Here's another thing I'd like some input on. Where do we stand on old school soy milk? Like, old school now? Like, I've heard all this stuff, you know, I've heard too much soy will, Will give me boobs. I don't think it's true. I, you know, I would look to China. Nothing but soy in China. And there's not a bunch of, you know, you know, I don't, I don't think there's a lot of fully defined man boobs everywhere. But I, I've been leaning into the old hippie Eden soy brand because it's got protein. So there. And it's not. There's nothing else in it. There's no gums or fillers or whatever. The. They just, you know, straight up unsweetened box soy milk. And I, I think that's also. That's the thing. I guess the reason I'm talking about this is, is that some people ask, you know, how do you, how do you, you know, do the vegan thing? Well, a guy named Mitch once told me, and this was, this was about something else. When I asked him how to maintain his weight, he said, I eat the same thing every day. And if you really think about your habits, you kind of do that. And people are like, how do you get this? How do you get that with vegans? And it's like you just basically eat the same stuff every day, just not meat. I don't need to talk about this all day long, but it's just, you know, and it doesn't mean I support rfk as Secretary of Health and Human Services, you know, I'm perfectly comfortable with almost all of Western medicine, but this is dietary stuff. And I know and I don't like, it's not speaking to me. I don't eat a lot of garbage. And if I do eat garbage, I know when I do and I'm doing it on purpose. How about a donut? How about a cheeseburger? There's a place here in LA that does. It's like a knockoff McDonald's. All vegan. I think it's called McDaniel's or something. I don't know.

[James Mangold]

Whatever.

[Marc Maron]

Also, Indian food people ask me about that. How do you eat vegan on the road? Indian, sometimes Thai, sometimes there's a vegan place. There's A fucking Indian place right down the street from me. I love Indian food and I hardly ever went to this place down the street and it's amazing. They've shifted half their menu to be vegan. It's fucking amazing. All India Cafe right down on brand. Anyways, look, I think it's time to take the stress out of renting and home buying with the Redfin app. Redfin makes it fun to search all the homes for sale and apartments for rent in your neighborhood. And if you find a place you love, Redfin makes it easy to to go see it in person. Just schedule a tour right from the app. Plus, if you're looking to sell, Redfin agents know how to get you the best price possible for your home. That's because they close twice as many deals as other agents and with a listing fee as low as 1%, Redfin's fees are half of what others often charge, which means you'll have more money to put towards your next home. So if you're looking to buy, rent or sell, Redfin's got you covered. Download the Redfin app to get started. James Mangold is here. And I love talking to directors. They're hard to get for some reason, but I've talked to a few recently, a couple anyways. And Mangold, the great thing about directors is when you make a movie and you make big movies and you know what you're doing is that these guys, they can speak to all elements of film and art and literature many times. And in terms of what they're dealing with, subject wise, history, I mean, the conversations are rich and full. I love it. I talked to Brady Courbet that that'll be upcoming. The guy who directed the Brutalist. And that was some high level Dan, high level intellectual gabbing. Same with James, about films. And it's just such a treat to have them in here. Great guy too. His movie A Complete Unknown is playing in theaters. James is nominated for the best director Oscar, which he deserves. It's quite a bit of business he pulled off there. It looks great, but there's so much thinking involved to really make a movie, right? And to honor your vision if you have a vision. That's the difference between like an indie movie that was a good script and people just did whatever they could to get it on camera and somebody with a vision. I've been noticing that. I've been watching films by just, you know, new directors or indie directors that clearly, you know, don't necessarily have a vision but they achieved the completion of a film and Indie directors that have a vision and you're like, holy shit, this person has a vision and they've created a space up there on screen that's kind of miraculous. And James definitely has a vision, creates miraculous space. But the levels of expression and concern that directors have to deal with is pretty profound. But this is me talking to James Mangold. So you can manage the anxiety of making a movie, but.

[James Mangold]

Well, it's what I've done all my life. So there's. I mean, I'm sure there's shit you've done all your life where it's somehow you know how to.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's. Yeah, sure. With like stand up or this. Yeah, yeah. But there is the finite amount of time and you've got the team and you got the.

[James Mangold]

Yeah. And kind of this stuff is more random rando. It's like, you know, is this a. Do you wear a suit to this? Can you be casual? Do you. Blah, blah, blah. Is there a red carpet? Do you have to. Do you get there in advance? And am I taking a car? Am I driving myself? And every day is a new set of just these logistical questions.

[Marc Maron]

And that's more exhausting than making a movie.

[James Mangold]

Yeah, because making a movie, it's just you've got ad, you know, you've got ads, they tell you where to be, you get in the damn car and.

[Marc Maron]

The rest of the day and then.

[James Mangold]

You do your shit. Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's interesting. I think I should start thinking about thinking about it more like that. So what do you do about just the day to day anxiety?

[James Mangold]

I don't. I just live with it. It's just. I mean, it's partly what fuels us, isn't it?

[Marc Maron]

But yeah, yeah, well, there is that. But then you have those days where you're like, but is it worth it?

[James Mangold]

Right. But that's life. I mean, that's just. I mean, I think that you ask yourself those questions all the time.

[Marc Maron]

If you're that guy.

[James Mangold]

If you're that guy. Yeah. If you're awake in the world, you gotta ask yourself questions.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Gets a little overwhelming though. And it doesn't seem like I thought for a minute there, like I was getting older and it was getting better, but I'm not sure.

[James Mangold]

No, I don't know better or worse. I just know.

[Marc Maron]

Constant.

[James Mangold]

It's constant, but it's also. The coarseness of everything is disturbing to me.

[Marc Maron]

Coarseness, yeah, that was very diplomatic sentence somehow. You mean the hell we're living through is existentially upsetting and terrifying every day?

[James Mangold]

Yes, yes, that. But I also mean that the coarseness in the. I feel like we've lost our ability to discuss or argue and that what are the syllogisms of kind of logic have been thrown out the window. And it's like it's just a free. For all of. And I'm not really talking politics alone. I'm talking almost everything.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Somebody wants the idea of shamelessly doubling down on everything.

[James Mangold]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Was entered into the culture as a way of communicating. It's. It's just all bets are off for. For. Yeah. To. To try to coexist and have this, you know, this idea that there's compromise and tolerance.

[James Mangold]

Yes. That. Well, those words in and of the. I mean, there's so many things. I mean, it's so. Yeah. Even just earnest feeling has become kind of. I mean, within the world we live in that is so snarky that there's a kind of. Some of the things I most cherish making movies, just feeling the spaces between words, the way people behave, which are fragile things that have a hard time existing in an atmosphere that's charged.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Well. But because of that. I wonder about this all the time because obviously show business has shifted into old school. Show business has shrunken and become a little more insulated and these sort of do it yourself operations that have become empires and dictate a lot of the cultural language which is not very artful or thoughtful or even genuinely intellectual or genuinely philosophical. Philosophical. And entertainment has been limited to what we can hold in our hand. I do find that the impact for me. But I'm a different guy than the regular people. I don't mean to say it like that, not to be condescending.

[James Mangold]

No, no, I know what you mean.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, exactly. That. You know, I can. You know, for me to be carried through a story or film or. Or something with nuance and. And poetry. I. I desperately need it right now. I mean, it's something that I go to.

[James Mangold]

And the kind of sensory overload. I mean, show business is such a broad word. I don't know how to address it. But you talk about movies.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, movies. And the idea that it held a primary cultural place for most people.

[James Mangold]

Yes. Now it's the. More of the Wild west in terms of.

[Marc Maron]

Totally.

[James Mangold]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

There's stuff comes out with big people and I'm like. I don't know where that is.

[James Mangold]

Where is that how you even find it?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. What is that on?

[James Mangold]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Well, it'll be on this for a month and then you can see it at this Other thing, Right.

[James Mangold]

Fuck, yes. Do I subscribe to that? Did I cancel that?

[Marc Maron]

Is that part of my box thing that I turn on?

[James Mangold]

Well, I'm. I mean, I've somehow managed or I don't know if it's managed or been stubborn or stuck, but that. That I just make movies. So the. And movies have a kind of very orderly way of presenting themselves to the public. There's a few weekends where you kind of have this platform, publicity or whatever running around. Yeah. And then it lives or dies out in the marketplace, and then after a couple months finds its way onto these other. You know, and then you hope it lives and you hope it lives. And the. But I have no experience making films for a streaming service or other modes where I don't even know completely how it works.

[Marc Maron]

I think how it works is with me, okay, so where I'm at doing standup, so I'm old school. I'd like to be paid to do a thing. So it's like, HBO is going to give me money. I'm going to do a special in May. I know how that works. But other people.

[James Mangold]

You tape the thing. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And they give you the money.

[James Mangold]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And then, you know, okay, So I hope it does well.

[James Mangold]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And I think that's the way that, you know, you were brought up in the business, because a lot of people are like, look, we'll make it ourselves, and then we'll try sell it somewhere or we'll just put it up and see who comes. That. That, to me is like, not only is it risky, but I can't sit there and watch how many people watch a thing on YouTube. It would make me crazy.

[James Mangold]

Well, but in some sense, even, you know, the world of film that we were talking about John Sayles and Matewan before we started and. But the world of independent film, which I came up in originally, my first movie, Heavy, was, you know, Sundance movie. I. Well, a lot of those movies are also. Could fall under the. Make it yourself outside the system.

[Marc Maron]

Right. But there was a time where, like, now the idea with that is like, well, you know, it'd be great if it got on a streamer. I mean, when you did Heavy, you still wanted to be in a movie theater, at least for a month or two. And then there was still like this idea that, like, well, there are people like, I like independent film. And I don't know that people can even identify those distinctions anymore.

[James Mangold]

No, that's the part that, to me, is most disappointing about what's happened with, you know, if you try and be objective about it. And you go, okay, now there's all these platforms to watch movies and shows and any kind of audio visual entertainment.

[Marc Maron]

Right. So.

[James Mangold]

But contrary to what you might expect, all this bandwidth doesn't somehow promote variation, that independent films have a really hard time finding their way. Sure.

[Marc Maron]

Because the bandwidth has its own.

[James Mangold]

Well, it's just kind of a microcosm of the feature, what's happened in features. But it's all about the things everyone has to see and the things. The mega things of the month or whatever.

[Marc Maron]

Right, right. There's a pattern.

[James Mangold]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

But also the other thing is like, if you're in a movie theater, it's not like, yeah, I went to the movies, I watched it for five minutes and left.

[James Mangold]

Well, also there was. What was the streaming network that closed about five years ago that was nothing but old films. And now kind of Criterion has picked up that.

[Marc Maron]

What you mean like Turner or.

[James Mangold]

No, it was part of. They were using the Turner library. And I think what ended up kind of bringing them down was that Warner's pulled their library from this service. I don't remember what it was called, which only makes me sad in and of itself. But what I mean by that is that not just independent new voices, but also the kind of entire literature of movies is hard to find on.

[Marc Maron]

You have to look.

[James Mangold]

Given the fact you can watch anything, why is it that you can't and that the claim is you can kind of see any kind of film at any time? The truth is it's really hard to find old films. Particularly, you know, Criterion has a thing where they're kind of have a rotating schedule and those are pretty.

[Marc Maron]

That's heavily curated.

[James Mangold]

Yes, because I think it's a money issue. They can only afford to license so much.

[Marc Maron]

And also like the. That's true, you can't. But also the. The canon of anything is kind of gone. I don't know if it's people's interest, but then again, I'm getting old. You and I are like exactly the same age, I think. And I don't know what the young people are gravitating towards in any general way or what interests them. I do know that there are some young people that are sort of like I was and they go find this stuff, but culturally, I have no fucking idea.

[James Mangold]

No, but I don't. My thing is not that I. I feel like it's purely a kind of these are the must watch movies or the canonical films, but that it just gets you out of the current fashion.

[Marc Maron]

Well, what do you go back to like movie wise.

[James Mangold]

Oh, everything. I mean, I could talk and wax about golden age Hollywood movies.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean, you remade 310 to Yuma, so that must have had an impact.

[James Mangold]

Well, the original had an impact, yeah. And that was. The western has had a huge impact on me in terms of just how the beauty of the. Well, I guess I'd have to back up. Movies are inherently simple, although there's a real high density of information, visual and audio coming at you. That in order to preserve what I love in movies, which is kind of the spaces between things, the spaces between people, the behavior, images you can't. Plot is the enemy of poetry, of lyricism. Yes. So they're at war with each other as you make a movie. And so what's interesting as you construct a film from the ground up is you kind of have to make a decision how cluttered this thing is going to be with. Let's call it plot. And Westerns are. So they share this with noir films and samurai films. I think there's a kind of simple universe that doesn't mean simple. I don't mean simple minded and I don't mean simple thematically or character wise, but just less elaborate plot wise. And that what happens with the vacuum that's created in a narrative when the story can be told? You know, I'm a struggling rancher and I get the chance for 300 bucks to escort incredibly dangerous and infamous cattle thief and bank robber to justice. And that 300 may save my farm. Yeah. Therefore, I am now escorting this incredibly dangerous figure through uncharted territory with his gang stalking us. And at the same time coming to grips with my own sense of right and wrong. Self worth. Self worth. How much am I willing to sacrifice for the public good, for morality?

[Marc Maron]

And is that really it?

[James Mangold]

But the reason I could, in 12 seconds or less already have gotten to the themes that, for instance, Christian's character or Van Heflin's in the original struggle with is because the story is simple. And I don't mean, again, simple, dumb. I mean simple like it's not cluttered.

[Marc Maron]

That's funny because like, on those terms, and you know, you can. I think people say this all the time, that there is an element of a Western to the Dylan movie.

[James Mangold]

Yes. I don't. I see almost everything. A complete unknown. I see the western is a prism through which I feel like it helps me get extraneous shit out of the story by looking at it through that prism. The Western, in a kind of surface way, can be identified as a gunfight in the end. And everyone's wearing their hats and holsters and there's a saloon. But those are external.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Those aren't really it.

[James Mangold]

Those aren't really it. It's this because there is, you know, Yojimbo is a Western. There's no six guns.

[Marc Maron]

It's usually about a guy.

[James Mangold]

It's about a guy, but. Well, but it's also just about actually usually an incredibly complex existential or philosophical issue this person is faced with, which runs almost counter to the perception of Westerns as kind of shoot em up or surface.

[Marc Maron]

I just watched. When was the last time you watched Jeremiah Johnson?

[James Mangold]

It's beautiful.

[Marc Maron]

It's unbelievable.

[James Mangold]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And it's straight up a Western. But he kind of subverted the whole thing. Like it's not. The guy that Redford plays is a Western character, of course, but his journey is so different and it's so solitary.

[James Mangold]

Well, it's kind of a. It's a very 70s Western in the sense that it's starting to take kind of modern ideas of who am I?

[Marc Maron]

What does life mean?

[James Mangold]

What does life mean? And drop them into the context of this kind of. But I think that if you think about it, I mean, Gary Cooper was struggling with what does life mean in High Noon.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Mangold]

Van Heflin is struggling with what does life mean in the original 310A Yuma. And I hope Christian is in the version I made. But those questions, the beauty of the. What am I? How do I fit in? Part of what makes the Western beautiful is the. The barren aspect of the landscape. And again, I don't mean just visually. I mean, the absence of infrastructure means also the absence of plot complexity. That is more spaghetti.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And have you like. Have you always thought this way? I mean, I mean, like, I know.

[James Mangold]

Like, I've loved Simple. I mean, my first film, Heavy, was really influenced by the work of Yasujiro Ozu, who never made a Western, but told character stories with a kind of. I mean, precision or focus on performance, but also on the visual. Meaning that there's. To me, there's kind of a world of performance oriented movies where the machinery of production, motion picture production, is really used to record the performances.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[James Mangold]

In a sense, it's no different than what we're doing right now. There's all this gak on set to record wherever the actors wander and whatever happens.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[James Mangold]

That's not as personal. I love films. Cassavetes. There's films like that that are just kind of like, whatever happens, shoot it, follow it. Right that's never been, personally, my focus. I'm always trying to go, how can you get that lovely mess? The beauty. Like, I'd use a movie like on the Waterfront is a beautiful visual piece as well as. So there's the mess, the kind of sense of volatile unpredictability about the performances, yet the thing has also a kind of aesthetic. Sure. And that sometimes I always think that the trick you get into. And I thought about it. I certainly think about it when I make films involving musicians, and I can tell you why in a moment. But this aspect of recording something that's interesting versus the camera, investigating, framing, and participating in something that still my hope is, Feels. Is unruly or improvisational or unpredictable. If I were just chasing actors with cameras. But I don't want to chase actors with cameras. I want it also to feel like there's this harmony or this kind of sense that the filmmaker knows what they're doing, but at the same time, there's a kind of herd of cats. Spontaneity to what's going on at the same time.

[Marc Maron]

Well, doesn't that come down to the. It seems that when I've worked as an actor or behind a camera in the small amount of time I've done it, that really, the gift of any director is you harness all this stuff and then you do however many takes you're gonna do. But you've got to know instinctively when you say, that's the one.

[James Mangold]

Yes. But you also have to know, is it the one in the right shot? Meaning that's where the visual side comes to bear, which is that you can. I think, the most tricky thing, you know, when I teach, when I've done, you know, Sundance or film schools or whatever, and when I talk to younger directors, the most important thing. Directing is kind of terrifying, particularly for young directors, because you make a plan, and you might have thought about this plan for years, maybe a decade. You've got this in your head, right? You've written it, you've rewritten it. You've got notes. You've been told no. You go back, you write it again. You do storyboards. You think, you see a movie, you revise. You have this plan, and you're alone, essentially, with your plan. And then suddenly, in prep, the chaos begins. And then you land on this set, and now you have all these collaborators. And if you're holding too tight to the plan, to the specifics of the plan, these exact shots, this exact way, well, there can be a kind of beauty to that. But you are in a Sense your own hostage. Meaning that you are ruling out discovery.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[James Mangold]

Wow. I saw this whole scene in this building looking this way, but the sun's breaking through the windows on this morning that way. And it's stunning and evocative. But if I do that, my storyboards are out the window. Fear, panic, loathing. I have to lead this whole group of 150 people.

[Marc Maron]

What do you do?

[James Mangold]

And now I don't have my fucking map anymore. Or my actor comes up with an idea. And I had it all built upon this player staying at the bar while this player crossed to the window. And now this one is saying, why am I going to the window? And this one or the other one is going. I feel like I'm losing the scene here at the bar. I feel like I'm just doing it. Cause you told me to. And you can look at these as a kind of mutiny, which sometimes it can feel like you're just what you had planned to do is falling through your fingers through all this kind of space. Special orders, you know, can I have soy in that? Can I have. And suddenly you don't even know how to run your coffee shop anymore. But there is another way, I think, to think about directing, which is you make your plan, and then you look at your plan and you go, what is the plan? Meaning beyond the specifics. Oh, I see. I want to hinge. I want Mark sitting here so I can hinge off his looks to the other characters. I want to be in his. And the other characters exist at a distance. This one you'll see through the food slot in the kitchen. And this one you'll see pulling in through the window. So now how do you take that plan? And I turn to you on the set and I go, I get. You don't want to sit at the bar, Mark. But here's what I need. I want to hinge this scene off your looks to the cook in the kitchen and to your wife arriving in the parking lot. And I need somewhere to put you where I don't. Where you have sight lines to these things. And that's the moment that you identify architecturally what you need without being a slave to the exact blueprint you drew in a vacuum before you got there. And someone like you, I'll bet. And now you can tell me if I say that to you, that seems reasonable, right?

[Marc Maron]

I'm not gonna be like, well, I still don't know why I'm sitting here.

[James Mangold]

No, but you can sit somewhere else. Meaning it now becomes our shared problem to go where can we put you.

[Marc Maron]

Just so I can get these.

[James Mangold]

That you can solve your problems and I can still have my problem.

[Marc Maron]

So you have to leave it open for collaboration or else you're gonna get.

[James Mangold]

Into it without losing your North Star. Without losing your map. Sure. Meaning you still want to drive to Glendale. Yeah, I may be going a different way, but I need to. And you can't let your actors or your DP or anyone subvert the fact that you need to get to Glendale. So that's where I think it's hardest for a young director not to panic. Because the cacophony of ideas on a set can end up driving you to San Francisco when you want it to go to Gundale and been convinced that.

[Marc Maron]

It'S practical and it's what we should do.

[James Mangold]

You just. But for me, it's always being able to identify what the North Star. What is the movie about? Because I find that I've never met a DP or an actor who won't respond to and even make themselves an ally to carrying your largest purpose forward. Usually what they're struggling with is some specific that you're asking them to do that doesn't feel right. The other thing to do sometimes I do is I actually ask my actor to step off their mark. And I try and do what I'm asking them to do. And I suddenly realize, oh, this is awkward. Awkward.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

Yeah. And because you can suddenly sense why am I having them turn 180 degrees and their drink is on this side and the da, da, da. And it's like, who would sit like this when this person is over there? And you realize this is all servicing these sketches I made. But there's another thing that even happens, which is you get on set and you put your sketches into action and you line them up and you actually, if your eyes are open as a photographer or as an eye, that these aren't the best shots for this scene as it exists with these faces in this light and that. But that part of the reason we cling to this is that there's this kind of. Probably mainly created by Hitchcock. There's a kind of reigning idea of vision. Right. Yeah. That we all have as filmmakers, artists. We have a vision and then we make our film and all these people get in the way of our vision. The financiers, the executives, the actors, the crew who don't see art vision. And I see my job almost entirely as kind of a brain in a jar that talks. And my main responsibility is to evangelize. You could call It Vision. But it's not necessarily every shot exactly like this. It's. What is the broader agenda of the movie, to be specific. Like, I made this movie, walk the line 20 years ago with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. Johnny Cash movie. And what was so interesting to me about their story, and particularly his, was the ways that it told the story primarily of two people falling in love. But what was so interesting to me spatially, filmically, however you want to describe it, was they fell in love on stage.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And so that's kind of already a kind of contradiction. Like, love is almost defined by intimacy, but the stage is defined by massive exposure.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[James Mangold]

But at the same time, anyone who's spent any time on a stage knows there is a kind of intimacy on stage.

[Marc Maron]

Heightened.

[James Mangold]

Yes. That you. That if you're with someone on stage, there's a kind connection you have with them that is extreme and focused. Yes. And that the people in the audience, in a way, vanish or they're omnipresent as witnesses to this kind of intimacy. This makes sense what I'm saying. Right. Okay. So that became this really interesting place where I go. I haven't seen that in a movie at least. And it's really interesting to me, this aspect of two people, partly because they were married to others and partly because they met and kind of vibed on stage, fall in love literally in front of 10,000 people every night, and then have to kind of fold up their love relationship and return to their other domestic lives, only to return to this relationship. It's like it's for two, three hours a day, they connect and then they end. That it ultimately, in real life, ended up with Johnny Cash proposing to June Carter on stage.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's interesting, because, you know, as somebody who spends time on stage, everything, the focus, the world of focus you're in on stage is so heightened and so specific that whether what's around you quiets down or not, there's a singleness of emotion, you know, like it's almost pure.

[James Mangold]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

And so to capture that, because I sort of. Cause there was a bit of that as well. In complete unknown.

[James Mangold]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

The dynamic that unfolds with Joan and Bob, you know, is very specifically, kind of comes to life on stage.

[James Mangold]

Yes. But privately. See, now, here's where. So this is connecting Mark to a point I was making about kind of directorial strategy. Right. So when I made Walk the Line and then I'll bring this to a complete unknown, it occurred to me that to try, because this is, like, how I feel about my job. My job is to somehow photograph this unspoken thing. We're just talking about this kind of contradictory to normal logic, this intimacy that runs contradictory to normal logic, which is that intimacy means alone. But in this case it's the opposite. It's under the gaze of 10,000 so. But yet intimate. So that becomes a really interesting thing to try to photograph because it's first of all triangles, threes, it's always more one to one is kind of a ping pong match. But the second that audience is involved, the thing becomes more complex because there's three people involved, one being an audience and then the two, in this case, being on stage. Now, it's more complicated because these connections or moves or offerings between the two are all being witnessed and commented on by this kind of unseen through the haze of the spotlight and felt and felt by others, judged by others, or even misperceived or missed some of it, you know, a very cinematic thing is something the two people know is going on that none of them know is going on.

[Marc Maron]

But also that unspoken thing between people that you're talking about in the beginning that transcends plot and is the meat of the thing. The possibilities become, you know, so amplified. Yes, right. And because an audience feels whatever, they may not understand what they feel, but so how.

[James Mangold]

So how do you translate all the things we're talking about right now into a visual plan? Right. That isn't necessarily shot to shot, like drawn out. But I mean, I did board. But that you. But only to kind of try and solve this question for myself. And what it occurred to me was that every concert film we ever see, most of the cameras exist for a variety of logistical and aesthetic reasons. In kind of the premium seat, you.

[Marc Maron]

Have to capture the performance from the.

[James Mangold]

Audience'S point of view from like third, fourth row center, or tracking back and forth from that row or whatever. It is kind of capturing how a comedy special would be shot. But the reason you wouldn't shoot it with the camera, like, let's use you doing a show. The reason you wouldn't have a camera literally on your shoulder, breathing down your neck, looking over your shoulder as you sip and check your notes is because a. It would. Well, that might be cool, actually, but I like it. But the reality is that the reason people don't do it is it's a break of the default idea of kind of. Here we get into recording versus telling. What most people do in a comedy special or a stage show is record the concert event. They don't invade it with Cameras. To where the cameras would have to make themselves visible to the other cameras. There's a kind of technical distance that everyone maintains with longer lenses. So that everyone can kind of. All the cameras and stuff can exist without being omnipresent in other shots. When you make a movie, you're not doing that. So I'm thinking, how do I enter this arena, this bubble, this intimate bubble on the stage where you are with the performers? And so how does this translate? So when I was scouting that movie 20 years ago. The location scouts would bring me to all these theaters in Tennessee, you know, old theaters, where we would do a concert, one concert or another. And they'd show me what it looks like from the audience. And I'd be like. Instinctually, I go, you know, I don't really care what it looks like from the audience. Can we go on stage? And I'd go, what do the wings look like? What do the backstage. What do the backings look like? What does the audience look like from the stage? Because what I wanted to encourage everyone to think about on my crew and my actors. Was that this was a movie where the camera and the storytelling was gonna live on the stage. Not where a concert film lives. And that we were gonna be in kind of French overs. Or kind of in. With the actors around the mic.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And we were gonna feel what the audience doesn't see sometimes going on. The friction, the connections. The slight. Whatever warbles of drama that are going on between the characters. That create tension. Because the audience is unaware of the. Of the depth of what's going on. And what just happened in the wings. Or who's in the wings watching that the audience can't even see. Now, I have all this tasty cinematic shit, right? I have who's backstage, who's watching, what's going on between them on stage. How much does the audience know of what they're feeling on stage? It's much more loaded than if I were living watching a kind of Disney hall of Presidents recreation of a famous concert.

[Marc Maron]

And also, like, you know. So that what's. I guess, prescient on your part is that however long you're working on the Dylan movie, you got all the tools that you needed. You knew you could do that. You could have the language that you just talked about. Cause it was in place.

[James Mangold]

Yes. Meaning I was building off of a confidence I had. I mean, on many levels. Like the encouraging the cast to sing themselves, all of that. Because I had all the same people on this movie going, what if he can't do it. What if he can't sing it? What if he can't play it right? And I'd be like, well, you're never gonna find out if you don't try.

[Marc Maron]

And you've got guys like Joaquin and like Timmy that'll go deep. So you know they're going to figure it out.

[James Mangold]

Yes, well, that's the point. It's like I'm like a coach of a major team and I have to expect my players to reach high. Right. That's kind of the whole point, isn't lowering the bar when you have the best players. It would be raising it to where they're uncomfortable and have a challenge. But the, the point I was making about directing to whatever degree it's interesting, is that that doesn't. So that whole philosophy doesn't translate into an exactitude about where I'm going to be. The shots I must have sometimes are those. But that, that strategy is a strategy that converts well to an actor's mind, to my DP's mind. Meaning they understand what, what I'm trying to say with the camera and its relationship with the actors. And the actors understand, oh, I know how I can mine shit out of that. If the camera's here, you're gonna see stuff you'd never see if you're frontal on me at the mic.

[Marc Maron]

So you gotta stay open a little bit.

[James Mangold]

You gotta stay open a little bit. But I never let go of that idea. And that idea translates into a kind of visual game plan that then hopefully gets you both the mess of live performance or what you feel like is something where it hasn't been worked out to the T. There's a kind of beautiful random blossoming to the acting. But also it's in a beautiful frame that's correct or right or feels right for that moment. That's kind of very old school thing I'm always kind of chasing when I'm making a movie. The difference that's interesting to me between a complete unknown and. And Walk the Line is on another narrative level which is that Walk the Line is really a story of. It's a love story, but it's also a story of addiction and psychological trauma. Yeah. And in that way the narrative fits in a fairly well established architecture establishing the trauma of the young man seeing it carrying with him, seeing him getting seduced into kind of self medicating to get through what he doesn't want to deal with in his past or in his heart or that's plaguing him. And then kind of the classical Ordinary people, Good Will Hunting. Walk the Line sequence where the character confronts the demons that haunt them. And by speaking their name, in a sense, eclipses them to one degree or another, or gains control over those things which he didn't have. Control. A beautiful story and one that I don't think will ever get tired. It's a part of human life. But I didn't feel that in terms of writing and directing a movie about Dylan, it's like the opposite. I didn't feel well at first. I was like, well, what if he doesn't have a secret? You know, I wrote this scene in Girl Interrupted a long time ago. Other movie I made that takes place in a mental institution. It was a scene that ended up being played by Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder. And I just thought of this, that in that scene, Angie's character confronts Winona's character, who's new at the mental institution. And it's an hour after her first therapy at the institution. Yeah, and I'm paraphrasing. Cause I don't remember it exactly, but Angie says something to Winona, like, so, did you cough up a big one? And Winona's kind of confused by this, and she goes, a secret. Did you tell him your secret? And Winona's character says something like, I don't understand. And Angie's character goes, you need to cough up a secret or else they don't let you out. If you cough up secret, they think you've confessed and kind of will eclipse the very thing I described. It's kind of like self awareness. The business of psychology is almost built on the same narrative, if you will. Or at least that's what I was presenting to this. And Winona's character in the scene goes, well, what if you don't have a secret? And I think Angie's response is something. Well, then you're fucked. But that's always been interesting to me. Like, yes, it's very convenient and manageable in a dramatic narrative to kind of isolate the trauma of someone's life and then kind of navigate their journey to kind of getting in grips with it? But what if the trauma is either a. Or the burden or the load they're carrying as a character. What if it's complex to the point that it can't be reduced to one specific or kind of one kind of hazing or torture or trauma? Yeah, what if it's more of an equation or what if it isn't even? What if. I mean, this is a lot of, what, 70s and 80s psychology? What if it's chemical, what if it's. What if it isn't even trauma at all? What if it's a. Kind of. Your burden is who you are and how you're wired. Yeah. And. And the narrative has had a struggle kind of telling stories like that because it defeats, in a way. We have a very kind of Aristotelian desire for kind of the simple thing that's going to get revealed for story, for story's point of view, that there's something from the past that's impacting the present. And the second they solve the shit from the past, the present will understand. It opens and. But as I began working, both talking to Dylan and writing and researching, it kept occurring to me that either what if what's unusual about him is more hardwired than trauma inspired.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that was the biggest trick of that movie for me, in terms of Dylan, is that Chalamet was able to play that. You never know what Dylan. If it's being intentionally mysterious or being, you know, or if it's a gimmick, you know, that, you know, when. When he says things that are cryptic or seemingly snarky. But there. There's something about Dylan not talking where you're holding. You're like, oh, my God. What the fuck is going on in there?

[James Mangold]

Yeah, it's. It's so interesting because I. Part of this is when you write about someone and you get to meet them and spend time with them, and they're very pleasant and enthusiastic, and you also are appreciating in a way. Of course, I go on a deep dive in his work, making a movie like this. And you are kind of inundated by the depth and power and prolific nature of his work. You begin to get very empathic toward them in the sense that the easy kind of adjectives that are used in the kind of TV Guide versions of describing them, enigmatic, mysterious, arrogant, difficult, become too easy.

[Marc Maron]

Well, the risk of building an empathic relationship with that guy, I would imagine, is that then you're out to sea in a way that you can feel it, but you're still. You feel like you could put your.

[James Mangold]

Well, I don't mean empathic. Like, I don't have objectivity to see when he's an asshole or when he's.

[Marc Maron]

No, no, no. I just mean to get into that quiet part of Dylan must have been sort of exciting.

[James Mangold]

It just kind of happened. It was exciting. But at first, what I did creatively on the screenplay level was make this kind of mandate to myself that I wasn't gonna do the kind of story we were just discussing for Walk the Line. The kind of classic trauma.

[Marc Maron]

But really it isn't there, though, that.

[James Mangold]

You could identify, of course. So the. Well, but this is gonna come full circle. Cause I kind of think there is a trauma. But now that I. But it's kind of interesting. But let me get there, which is that I wanted to do. One of my great teachers was Milos Forman, who made the film out of Peter Schaeffer's great play Amadeus, which is the. Ostensibly, the Mozart story. Although it's the movie. Yes. But it's really the Salieri story or other. Which is a really interesting and profound and brilliant narrative repositioning. Meaning the title character is not who you're kind of tracking closest. And I found that strategy to be really inspiring for tackling Dylan's story, particularly for these years. Because I felt like it freed me, at least in the beginning of the writing, from having to diagnose him as opposed to viewing him as a kind of strange and wonderful miracle.

[Marc Maron]

So there's not essentially a Salieri, but there's many people around him.

[James Mangold]

There's a consortium of Salieri's, each. None of which are experiencing. I mean, I wasn't trying to mimic no jealousy necessarily. Well, I think envy is a part of it, but I think.

[Marc Maron]

But not paralyzing.

[James Mangold]

No, I think it was more. I think there was. As much as that. There's also people falling in love with Dylan or Mozart for their talent or becoming. Or forcing them to ask themselves questions about themselves or their own work. All of that became really ripe to me and really interesting. And was my first effort on the script was to kind of. And that's how, by the way, I ended up meeting Dylan was. I really dove into Joan and Suze Rotolo and Albert Grossman and, of course, Pete Seeger. Because I thought there was so much dramatic juice in these characters.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's interesting, because then the onus isn't on you or Tim to explain himself verbally.

[James Mangold]

Yes, but. And that became really fruitful. But I caused alarm bells to go off in the Dylan camp. Because they read my script and were like, this is not the mandate we had wanted for this movie. We wanted this to be about the music, not about Bob's personal life.

[Marc Maron]

More interesting.

[James Mangold]

And I was like, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to make a movie that's just about the music. And Covid hit and kind of killed the movie for the near term anyway.

[Marc Maron]

Was this before you'd focused on this one particular time or was that always the arc?

[James Mangold]

That was always the arc. There was always the arc. But the anticipation, like the book, Elijah Wall book is not really. Doesn't really delve into the personal. But to put the book into film form without that other stuff, to me would have been a crime. Like, it would have removed the music from all context.

[Marc Maron]

But taking the heart out of the.

[James Mangold]

Movie, well, at least as I saw it. So the. The. So we were at a kind of moment of tension or impasse, and then Covid hit and in a sense made it irrelevant. And then about two months into Covid, this is 2020, I get a call from Bob's manager who goes, well, you know, Bob's tour was canceled. I'm like, okay. And he goes, so he asked to read the script.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And I go, okay. And he goes, and he likes it. And so suddenly the team, Team Bob had completely changed because Bob was at a different point of view than what they had anticipated. And he goes, and he'd like to meet you. So then that became a series of meetings with Dylan where we discussed the script and his life and this period and a million other things. But the point being that I suddenly had license to go to places that his team had said I couldn't.

[Marc Maron]

And had you read that autobiography?

[James Mangold]

His.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Because, like, as odd as that book is, the details of that time are so clear.

[James Mangold]

Yes. But then I got the in person version. Sure. And I got to ask the questions directly about all the figures in the movie and about his feelings about that time.

[Marc Maron]

Like what? Von Rock and all those people?

[James Mangold]

No, I mean, Von Ronck didn't figure so heavily in this narrative, so that.

[Marc Maron]

He'S like, in the movie for a second.

[James Mangold]

Yes, but like Seeger, I mean, we talked about all of them, but Seger and Baez and certainly Soos, who is called Sylvie in the movie, and Guthrie and all of that, but also him. What I wanted to know is what he doesn't talk about much is. And how did that feel? What did that feel like? What do you remember about what that felt like?

[Marc Maron]

And you could get that out of him.

[James Mangold]

He wasn't resistant at all. He wasn't. I didn't find. I mean, my four or five meetings with him, which were hours and hours long, I didn't feel like I was the one who was probably cutting it off. Like, there was a point where I felt like, you know, he was never going, we're done, or there was no one watching. There was no one listening. There was no one controlling was the two of us in an empty coffee shop for hours on end.

[Marc Maron]

And this is an older man with memories that doesn't have anything, I would imagine, that he has. And I don't know if he ever thought this way, but he has nothing to lose, really.

[James Mangold]

No. Well, of course there's something to lose in the sense that this is going to be a large scale, high profile.

[Marc Maron]

But, I mean, to tell the stories.

[James Mangold]

No, I think he has enough distance that he's comfortable talking about them. But I also think he was also honest in what he doesn't know. I mean, he really, Even as of 2020, when I was talking to him about this, didn't really understand why everyone freaked out so much and why. Meaning there was a level at the time. Yes. Which you could say is disingenuous with historical perspective, looking back. But when you transport yourself, as I had with the research into that moment, you're kind of. It does occur to you that there's a whole series of interpersonal bargains and agreements and commitments that have been made and set in place between these characters that would make Bob confused. For instance, Bob never promised not to play rock and roll. He never. I mean, one thing he was very clear to me about was that he never. The way we each imagine our careers when we're 18, 19 years old. He never imagined himself as being the musician he imagined, in his mind's eye was, sure, Woody Guthrie, but also Buddy Holly. Sure Pete Seeger, but also Little Richard.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Why wouldn't he?

[James Mangold]

He carried all of that in his mind on his way to New York. So the idea, from the moment he took the stage at Gertie's Folk City or the Gaslight, that he had, according to some kind of dogma or tribunal kind of pledge.

[Marc Maron]

Folk dogma.

[James Mangold]

Yeah. That he had pledged to never make something different in his life was completely bizarre to him. And he would never. I mean, and he had never made such a commitment in his mind. His point of view about his ascendance as a folk star in a solo act was that that's what happened. And therefore, of course, I had no money and no notoriety. And so I took what happened.

[Marc Maron]

But what's also interesting in what you're saying about what he's carrying as he heads to New York, what he was also carrying was complete control of what he did. Because he didn't have a band, he wasn't on a bus, he didn't have a drummer that drank.

[James Mangold]

So, like, he didn't have a manager or producer. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

He had the guitar and he had.

[James Mangold]

The beauty of total singularity. Yes.

[Marc Maron]

And so that's interesting, because then he becomes a collaborative artist, you know, not by default, but by the gravity of him.

[James Mangold]

One of the most beautiful and honest things I think he was telling me in these sessions was the reason he wanted to make music with a band was because he felt lonely.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, right.

[James Mangold]

I'm in a kind of loneliness. I'm sure you understand.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's interesting because that's the silence.

[James Mangold]

Yes. He described it. He said, you're alone in the car on the way to the show. You're alone on the stage in the spotlight. You're alone when it ends, and you're alone when you're writing the material. And that at some point he was looking at some people he admired and Johnny Cash, Richard, the Beatles. None of them were. Were alone. Yeah, they had. And. And that. I thought this married to something else going on for him at the same time, which was that all the relationships he did have in the folk community with his ascendance to this kind of megastar level had become quite transactional, or at least tainted with transactionality, meaning everyone had an agenda. They needed him to appear here.

[Marc Maron]

And also a politics within the community.

[James Mangold]

Of course.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

So he felt such suddenly, not only alone as an act, but also alone in the community. Because as the center post holding up the whole tent at that point, I think there was a tremendous amount of pressure and a tremendous amount of agenda laid upon him that I think made him yearn for just company.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And that was. I mean, that was what he said to me was the primary reason to wanting to get in a room with other musicians was to play and to not feel any of. In a way that seemed so pure and easy to understand. And therefore, this movement toward electric and toward a band didn't come from someone going, I'm going to turn the historical. The culture. I'm gonna make cultural history today and more. So I saw Newport as the script took shape and these conversations took shape as a kind of Thanksgiving dinner run amok in a family that had been living with some tightly held beliefs and the prodigal son wasn't gonna live with them anymore. He couldn't. He had to break from dad, break from sister, break from everyone. This was the. The night he gave the big angry speech at Thanksgiving and got in the car and drove off. And that it ended up making history was a beautiful and interesting additional observation. But that to dramatize it and to help actors make it come to life, I felt like, what was so wonderful, coming from Dylan himself, was this sense of the extremely personal feelings that were driving all this for everyone. Like how uncomfortable for Pete Seeger that he's this. I mean, Seeger and Dylan are such different artists, which is so interesting to evaluate. You know, Seger probably wrote a handful of songs in his whole life where Dylan has written over 600, 700 songs of humongous importance to the culture and. And hits and that. Well, what is the difference? Seeger's focus was building a movement, was changing the world.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

Political populism and literally affecting change through music, through community and music and the way music binds us together, which is all beautiful. Dylan's was much more pure artistic, even narcissistic journey, which is, I want to express myself through my shit, through my.

[Marc Maron]

Thank God for the beatniks.

[James Mangold]

Right. The. So you almost have them destined for a kind of conflict from the moment they're bound together. Because to Pete, Bob is an. Is not just an incredibly talented artist, but an instrument for elevating the movement and advancing the movement. To Bob, Pete is a stage and a platform for which to get started in this world as an artist and to get. To find an audience and to find a community. But the goals, the agendas of each character were never alike. And that therefore. And Joan, to one degree or another, was very much bought into the folk dogma. Many of the artists of that. Most of the arguments and discussions. What is folk? What isn't folk?

[Marc Maron]

Well, why wouldn't you want to be part of a context through which you knew how to rise? You know, like, once you lock in, I mean, whether you believe folk music is the big, powerful change it is, it's certainly like, well, if I play this, I can play at this place, and I'll be on the same stage as these people. And, you know, I have a certain amount of intention and I believe enough. But I think all artists are a little selfish, maybe.

[James Mangold]

You know, some more so than others, maybe. Or maybe what drives them is essentially more internal than others.

[Marc Maron]

But I think it's interesting what you're pointing out is that Dylan was unbounded in his desire to express himself. However it was gonna come.

[James Mangold]

And I don't necessarily see that as arrogance. No, it's kind of like any one of us. Sure. I identify in my own humble way with it. I've made movies of a lot of different genre. I've made independent Sundance films. I've made gigantic studio pictures. From where I sit, the experience is awfully similar one to the. I'm not sure if you find it that different. But you essentially have to get in a space with a camera. Make a scene seem real. The core tasks at hand don't change much.

[Marc Maron]

But also you have in your own sort of lexicon of people that inspired you. It's not unlike Buddy Holly and Woody Guthrie. There's a full spectrum of people who express themselves and have made a mark. So why limit yourself to any one?

[James Mangold]

So what was so intriguing to me about the story of this period for Dylan and why? I thought because I didn't want to make. I'm not. I wasn't such a Bob Dylan superfan. That I was like, driven to make a Bob Dylan.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's helpful. Always. Even me when I talk to people. It's better if you're not a super fan.

[James Mangold]

Well, it will screw you up. Yes. And what you always want to do. Like I was describing about Walk the Line. Is how does the movie eclipse the kind of. The recreation of history and characters to be about something bigger than just. I mean, obviously audiences and press are gonna describe this movie as the Bob Dylan story. They're describe the other one as the. But if the movie's gonna have any kind of transcendence. It's gotta be about something more than just an historical recreation of scenes from this artist.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, you found the story.

[James Mangold]

And the story in this case is not about. All this stuff is interesting in the folk dogma. And the community versus the self and all. But where it gets interesting is when it starts to become not about Bob and about. Well, what is an artist's duty? Are you part of a movement or are you listening to your own voice? But even more importantly. And this is where I try and get full circle with what we were talking about earlier. When I was saying Bob didn't have a kind of visible or obvious trauma that I could see. It did start to occur to me that there was one which was genius itself. Or let's call it intense talent. Because the word genius creates such reaction. It's so polar. But let's just say someone who is intensely talented, who's touched. Which you have to see Dylan as given. The pro. The.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's a rare thing. You can't.

[James Mangold]

Not even. He doesn't know where the songs were.

[Marc Maron]

That's why that beautiful interview he did with Bradley Bradley on screen.

[James Mangold]

It's great.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know where it came from.

[James Mangold]

And the honesty of it is beautiful. But that in itself could be a kind of trauma. Meaning that let me.

[Marc Maron]

Certainly in terms of loneliness yes.

[James Mangold]

Right on. It separates him from everybody else. It means that he's tuned into a station that no one else is hearing. And it means that. That as he's living his life, part of his brain is tuned into that thing and part of him is present with them. Trying to be present, trying to be present. And the struggle becomes a kind of, how do I nurture this thing which is not only keeping me alive, but making me a star and pleasing people around the world, but also stay present and intimate and with those around me, and how do I navigate that? And my behavior is, in a sense, being evaluated by those who don't have that secondary voice in their head.

[Marc Maron]

And it's never present. And I would. I'd imagine, in your interpretation of it, probably consuming.

[James Mangold]

Yes. And also gives him the most pleasure. Meaning that as success drives forward and most relationships become transactional and people want shit from him.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

What is the purest place he can retreat? And this is something any artist can identify with that solitude, with your voice, in his case, a voice that is so acute and so intense, such a lightning bolt at that moment, the work is coming so fast. How rewarding to be a vessel with that kind of electricity running through you. How could you not retreat into that? And how does one then navigate being alive and present in the world with your friends and lovers and business compatriots and whatever, and also tuned into that thing that none of them have, but even worse, some of them resent or to them feels like hokum or a mystery or does it even exist?

[Marc Maron]

Try to put you in a box.

[James Mangold]

And that, to me, became. Let's not call it a trauma, but a problem the character had to navigate.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I like the way he shot some of that, where he's like. That becomes the primary relationship. Even when he's among people and he's just writing, it's like, all right, I'll leave. You know, like, whatever.

[James Mangold]

And one thing Timothy and I talked a lot about was how. Because, you know, it's hard to tell an actor to play a condition. Arrogance, aloof. There is no such thing as aloof if you're playing it as an actor. Meaning no one is aloof. Where is the loof? Where are you?

[Marc Maron]

What's the interior?

[James Mangold]

You have to be somewhere else. But to play that, you need to identify where are you? That isn't here. And. And that became what I just described, became for Timothy and I, at least one kind of tool to help him maintain a secondary active brain life and emotional life in every scene. That in A sense was leaving everyone else out.

[Marc Maron]

So you explained to him.

[James Mangold]

We talked a lot about it, about.

[Marc Maron]

This other world that Bob was also.

[James Mangold]

But it's also. I don't view myself. Timmy was also doing. We did. I mean, he was with me on this for almost five and a half years of work on. He was in. Learning the music, in entering Bob through the music, which is largely what he did. I think he was encountering from his own end. I mean, I was telling him all I had learned from Dylan and all I was observing. But I think he was absorbing on his own end a kind of similar observation which is these streams of thought and music could only come to someone. What. That only comes to him between, like, he's nine to five, he punches a clock and. And. No, it's. It's. When it comes. It comes. And you gotta. You gotta write it down. And it doesn't matter if you're in your girlfriend's bedroom or if you're. If it's 3:00am Or. Or you're in your dressing room, shit's gotta stop for you to get this down because it's good. And. And. And that. That struggle, that tension internal, as you said, became a way to not play aloof as a condition, arrogance as a condition. But to play. Well, it's not arrogance I'm actually carrying on. I'm actually trying to be polite to my other conversation as well. Meaning I'm trying to be polite to two simultaneous conversations and probably failing my creative voice at times. And definitely failing my interpersonal life at times.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's a brilliant insight. And now, you know, it explains a lot to me on how he approached that role. What was interesting in talking about your love of Amadeus is that Foreman did that amazing audio montage with Salieri looking at the unfinished pieces.

[James Mangold]

Yes. We're hearing them in his head.

[Marc Maron]

And that explained everything.

[James Mangold]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And, you know, that was the way he managed that.

[James Mangold]

And in many ways, I. I feel like. I mean, some of it's silent in the sense that you're just drawing it off Edward Norton's eyes or Monica Barbaro's eyes. You're just looking at these people and you're seeing not just admiration but there's all sorts of thoughts they're having as they watch this, which I think is really interesting, which is that Salieri energy, which. Which doesn't have to get to murderous jealousy but can just get to a sense of one's own limits in the face of one who has less of them. And one is forced as we all are at moments to confront people who have broken through something.

[Marc Maron]

I know it's hard for a creative person.

[James Mangold]

It's hard. And it can be both inspiring, but it can also take you off track. Like you can start trying to do what they do.

[Marc Maron]

Have you had that moment?

[James Mangold]

Of course.

[Marc Maron]

With who?

[James Mangold]

Oh, well, watching old films, it's easy to be at peace with it. But watching. No, I remember watching Boogie Nights and just going, holy fuck, he is brilliant.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And Paul. And feeling utterly dwarfed by the courage for him to leap into the kind of the world he was leaping into. And then the way he was being unselfconscious about it and kind of like it was empathetic. Too empathetic. In a world that had only been kind of treated with a kind of judgment. And there was. There was. I remember that. I mean, I can remember even as a. As a young. I mean, it's kind of amazing that my life has taken me to befriending some of these people. But like. Or Spielberg on another side.

[Marc Maron]

Oh my God.

[James Mangold]

There's. You know, you watch the Close Encounters with the 39 or JAWS or I just recently saw the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan.

[Marc Maron]

Oh my God.

[James Mangold]

And it's just like. Or there's someone put up a scene he did in Munich or. Because I did the Indiana Jones movie. I'm watching his staging. Like just the beauty of his blocking and staging and it's awe inspiring. And there's moments where you're like, how did he do that? And it's not that it's complicated. It's that it's so crystalline and pure and that drives us. I think the place where you can always get screwed up as an artist is. If you're. Is. You can't be what they are.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[James Mangold]

You have to be what you are.

[Marc Maron]

And that can be hard under the pressure of that.

[James Mangold]

And it may be what you are will never hit like what they are.

[Marc Maron]

But you can't be what you are.

[James Mangold]

I have to be what I am, Right? Yeah. And maybe it will. Meaning that Steven never knew whether his particular outlook in the world was going to explode. Paul never knew. You just do it. And. And we also never know how long it's gonna hold or whether it's momentary or just this movie or we all live with that fear. The world is filled with artists who have their moment and then that moment goes away. And. And. And they're still artists. And. And. But the.

[Marc Maron]

So I think you did do something amazing with this though.

[James Mangold]

Thank you.

[Marc Maron]

In terms of like, you Know, to make that story and to make that character, you know, live and be appealing to people of all ages. Like, the number of young people that are, you know, taken with that story and also taken with the reality of Dylan is pretty phenomenal.

[James Mangold]

It's pretty cool.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, it's like. I don't know if you could have ever anticipated that.

[James Mangold]

No. The only other thing I ever thought when I was making it, it was a movie. You speak. We started talking about westerns. It was a movie. And you talked about how it might apply to this. And it's a really good observation. The simplicity in shooting style. I shot it in a way, I felt like Bob is such my whole cast. And the world is so eccentric in the film, in a way. So rich. And their world is so rich in style. Their uniforms.

[Marc Maron]

You got that right. Thank God. You got that perfect time in the 60s where the clothes were cool. You didn't have to be bogged down by psychedelic bullshit. And it was so.

[James Mangold]

Well, it's early 60s.

[Marc Maron]

I know. That's what I mean.

[James Mangold]

The beauty of it is the totally.

[Marc Maron]

Because, like, all of that stuff, it's about to change.

[James Mangold]

When our movie.

[Marc Maron]

That's right. And it's like, this was the last cool time.

[James Mangold]

No, Dylan had a great observation about that, which he said. He said to me, you know, the 60s, there really was no 60s.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

He said the 60 to 65 was an extension of the 50s.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And 66 on was really the 70s.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's because they were still wearing the clothes of the late 50s. They were just making them their own with a different idea.

[James Mangold]

And musically and artistically, what was happening. The beats and the. It was all 50s and in music, and then it all went upside down. But the temptation, like a lot of my collaborators on the movie, when they came on, it's like, are we gonna do this super grainy and kind of handheld, like a measles film or. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was like. I feel like putting too much directorial, overt style on a movie about characters who were so style positioned already would be like a hat on a hat on a hat, as they say. And that in a way, I wanted to observe and to watch and to be focused more. I tried to. You know, another real icon for me and a kind of touchstone for me is like, Ilya Kazan. I mentioned Waterfront, but also east of Eden. It's a great movie.

[Marc Maron]

And so that Technicolor, whatever that was.

[James Mangold]

And widescreen and the way I love the Way close ups. You have these kind of asymmetrical close ups where you have this really obviously wide screen, so a face, you don't want to plop it in the center with kind of these two big wings coming off. So it's kind of the close ups get asymmetrical or you end up with these incredibly beautiful two faces within the rectangle anyway, blah, blah, blah. But it was really interesting to me to try to just land in the world and to let us try and experience that world and to hope the camera was ferreting out some of what we've been talking about without spelling it out verbally, but just seeing it was perfect, that color. Thank you.

[Marc Maron]

And I have to assume though, because I can see your passion for New York at that time and I assume you grew up there.

[James Mangold]

Yeah, I went. Well, I was born in the Lower east side in New York in 63.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And there's something that never leaves New York. It may have almost left at times.

[James Mangold]

I have sense memory, I think of the late 60s and the pickle barrels and the knish salesmen and the Hebrew bookstores and just. I mean, some of that's still there. Not the pickle barrels and the garbage blowing in the street. Just general the smell and feel.

[Marc Maron]

And against that, what was the classic melting pot emerges this thing, the character of New York is always prone to birthing things that come from a lot of different places.

[James Mangold]

Think about that moment in New York. Within just a 1/2 mile radius you've got literally Bob Dylan at the Gaslight, Von Rank, Baez, Onward. And then around the corner you've got Coltrane and Davis and I mean, this is literally the same three blocks.

[Marc Maron]

Sure. And Ginsburg's around probably.

[James Mangold]

Oh my God. And I mean. And Edward Hopper is painting over there. And I mean it is a hot. It is. It's just a square mile with like so much shit going down, it's hard to believe.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And how much that's inter braided into trucking companies and bookstores and shipping and pickles and conditions and smoked fish and Chinese restaurants and you know, and those clubs weren't even clubs, but kind of retrofitted, you know, Italian restaurants. They weren't built as clubs. They were kind of things that just happened in basements or in places. And. Yes. Such an extreme.

[Marc Maron]

There's an intimacy to it.

[James Mangold]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

And I thought you got the. I thought the one moment that like there's a couple moments that stand out to me that I thought were so exactly what you said, that it wasn't about plot, but it was about that space between people and just that moment, which must have been an interesting decision on your part that when you had that moment where Cronkite is saying that we might be bombed and everybody's freaking out and Joan's trying to get out of the city, and she walks by and Bob is just playing guitar in a basement, you know, like, disconnected from it all that this was.

[James Mangold]

Or is he more connected? Whatever it was, where is he gonna run?

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[James Mangold]

Why not die doing what you like? Right.

[Marc Maron]

But I thought that was great about him.

[James Mangold]

It's really interesting. And this thing about plot is. I mean, we could obviously talk forever. Plot is. I think plot has been just over defined with, like, bad guy, good guy, and then this one makes this move, and then there is such a thing as an emotional plot.

[Marc Maron]

Yes.

[James Mangold]

And I think it's more foreign to audiences at this point because they've been so stuffed to the gills with the world will end if this doesn't happen movies. But there is, you know, watching Joan fascinated, repulsed, and falling in love with Bob at the same time is really interesting and has many movements to it. Watching Bob kind of in awe of Joan and kind of envying her career and her guitar playing and wanting and being so ambitious and hungry for his own shot at things. Watching, you know, Sylvie Elle Fanning's character kind of wrestle with being almost our emissary as a kind of regular human in this world. World of. Each of these characters has so many movements, but they just don't involve a bank heist or needing to get X Y. But that's where movies get exciting to me is when that kind of, you know, I mean, I think Syd Field had a gigantic effect on a whole generation of filmmakers.

[Marc Maron]

A screenwriting book.

[James Mangold]

Yeah, with like page 10, this, page 15, turnabout, blah, blah, blah. I never was able to work from that stuff. And partly because I just felt like what I was doing was so architectural and unalive when I was trying to write that way. I'm not saying it couldn't work for someone else that it was. I really felt like I learned to write from a director, actually. Milo Schwarman at Columbia University.

[Marc Maron]

He taught you personally?

[James Mangold]

Well, he taught me by example.

[Marc Maron]

He was teaching there.

[James Mangold]

He was teaching there. And it was a directing class and. And each student was supposed to come to the directing class with something to direct. And he came to. There were five of us, and he comes to me and I'm like, I don't. I just have an Idea about a fat guy who's invisible.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And he goes, okay. And he goes, what's it about? And I go. And I remember saying something terribly pretentious, like, cinema.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And he goes, you can't make a movie about that. What's it about? Like, the people. And he just said, here's the deal. Here's my address. Write 40 pages a week and send them to me, and I'll come in and talk to you about them. And what could be more inspiring? So I'm writing 40 pages a week feverishly, and just sending them to Milos. And what he did immediately is instead of me having to follow, oh, I need a hook, or I need a. I just wrote about characters I knew. And then he would come in and he'd go, page 37. This is life.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And he goes. And it was a moment. It's actually in the movie where Debbie Harry's character is showing Liv Tyler's character how to show the cash register. Use the cash register. And she's going, no, don't press this. Press reset first. And then you hit this. And then the drawer opens. And it was so funny. Milos circled this page. It was just people talking about how to use an old cash register. And he goes, this is life.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And that was one lesson, which is life itself, when recognizable, is compelling. And so sometimes you don't have to identify this bomb under the table. If humanity itself, there's a kind of universal something where we all recognize ourselves in that moment. That in itself can hold an audience. One lesson from him. The other was there was a point when I was writing and I didn't have really, a story where he goes, page 52. So he. Your character comes home after his mother dies at the hospital, but he doesn't tell anyone that she's died.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And his mother runs the place. He works. And I go, yes. And he goes, that's your movie. And he goes, just make it as long as possible before he tells anyone what happened. And that also was. He was helping me find my plot, but through a kind of organic exploration of character instead of this kind of, like, logline kind of methodology, which never worked for me.

[Marc Maron]

Wow. And like with Dylan, there's this moment that I'm kind of hung up on outside of your film is that he's always. You know, despite the fact that he's a vessel, he's always hyper present somehow.

[James Mangold]

Yeah. He's hyper intelligent. I found that with him. I mean, there was a lot of these perceptions about him. Just seemed so inaccurate. I mean, Like, I had driven a car to go see him the first time. And he had walked me out to the parking lot as I was leaving. And a year later, I saw him again. And, you know, I had a different car because my lease had gone up. And he was like, what happened to that other car, man? And it wasn't like I was driving some kind of. Of Mach 7 something. And he's an observant person. He remembers shit. And he's present. And he had seen Copland and 310 Yuma. And when I referred to Ozu, he knew what I was talking about. And he had this whole way of embracing what I was doing that a. He wanted to get it true to the feelings of the characters at the time. But he also, as. As a storyteller, recognized artistically what I had to do with his life to make it a movie. Yeah, I remember this one. He said, I love the way you use Woody. And he goes, you know, it begins with Woody and it ends with Woody. Yeah, it's like a sandwich. You're almost. You're home free. Because it doesn't matter what's in the middle. Cause you got bread on both sides. And it was so Bob, first of all, he's saying this, and it's just so Bob. And he's teaching me how to write him as he's saying this. But the other aspect is, he's right. He's recognizing symmetry and circularity and kind of Aristotelian theory and storytelling. I mean, that's what he's recognizing in his own way and showing awareness of. And that was this incredibly freeing aspect, which is that he wasn't there just to protect his image. He was really interested in it being a good movie.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Mangold]

And that was incredible license to drive in a way that I am really grateful to.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Well, that beat that I was gonna tell you about. Did you watch that doc, the weird rolling thunder thing that.

[James Mangold]

Oh, yeah, it's great.

[Marc Maron]

But, like, it's all building to him getting back on stage. And then after he gets off stage, the moment he gets off stage, I don't remember who. The guy who's holding the camera goes, how do you feel? And Dylan goes, about what?

[James Mangold]

Right, right.

[Marc Maron]

The whole build was to this moment. And then he just sort of.

[James Mangold]

But don't. You know, don't you. Haven't you done. I mean, I'm in the middle of it, but the most often asked question I arrive. How does it feel to be nominated for Da da da da da. What does it feel like and it's like, yeah, what are you gonna say? Awesome. I don't want to say. Like, the one thing I have to say, having gotten to know him a little bit, is Dylan doesn't want to speak in cliche or kind of obvious. So, like, it's kind of like going, do you like the cake? Yes, I like the cake. It's, like, so boring. Like, what you're asking me is so boring.

[Marc Maron]

So he'll take it out into another zone all the time.

[James Mangold]

Yes, because it's just so. It's kind of. You're asking me to be. To become a zombie by asking me a zombie question. You know, and if I. If I. And that was. I mean, I never felt that pressure with him because I just don't think I asked. What does it feel like?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, he just wanted to beat you.

[James Mangold]

Up, so that was such a triumph. You must have been so, like. I never did that kind of thing.

[Marc Maron]

You just let him lead well, but.

[James Mangold]

Also doing exactly what you're doing here, which is just talking.

[Marc Maron]

Did he see the movie?

[James Mangold]

No, not that I know of. He. According to him, he hadn't seen any movie that's been made about him, that he was happy to participate in the screenplay. And I kind of get it. I kind of go, would I want to watch? There's a whole amount of kind of shit you'd have to go through watching a picture like this. And I'm not sure he was really into going over the script, understanding me. I felt like he was really trying to. You know, he told. I felt like, you know, his manager called me after the first meeting and was like, he likes you. And I was like, oh, good.

[Marc Maron]

And he goes, that's not Rosen.

[James Mangold]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, Jeff. Yeah.

[James Mangold]

And he said, you know what he said, which makes me know he likes you. And I go, no, he goes, he doesn't have an agenda. And to me, that also taught me so much about. I mean, of course, I had agendas galore, but I know what he means, which is I didn't have some kind of. Of preordained biographical observation. I was out thesis. I was out to prove on his back. I was actually trying to live in his world, assimilate all this shit, and then put something on the screen that was hopefully transcendent or evocative, but that was also true to the mixed up, crazy feeling of that time without having one conclusion or another. And. But that fear of the agenda, I think the agenda to categorize that, to me, is a part of Dylan I really identify with, which Is that need for. We all have in order to talk about something, to box it in in a way that can be. That three sentences are good enough. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And that's the death of.

[James Mangold]

It's the death of everything.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. It was so funny. Cause I tried to get Dylan on this show.

[James Mangold]

Oh, that would be great.

[Marc Maron]

I know, but it was so funny because I'd met Rosen a million years ago, and I wanted to get Dylan to do our. Like, it was a anniversary episode. And I was told by the publicist, like, maybe you should write a handwritten letter. And, you know, and he'll maybe respond to that. But I know I had talked to Rose. I knew I met Rosen. So I write this handwritten letter and I send it off. And then all of a sudden, I get a message like, just call Jeff. And I'm like, okay. So I get on the phone with Jeff, and I'm like, look, you know.

[James Mangold]

Who'S great, by the way? Super honest guy. I mean, in terms of just being really frank with you about.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I say, look, you know, this is our 2000th episode or whatever. It was 1000th. I don't know. Like, I think it'd be really great to have Bob on, because we could, you know, would be great for the show. It'd be great for me. I think I'm good for talking to him. And I just do this big, big pitch. And I go, so what are the chances of him coming on next to nothing. No, Jeff literally said zero. And he goes. He says. And I'm like, what? He's like, look, he's not great at the interviews, and he doesn't have an ax to grind, and there's just no reason for him to do it. And I said, well, what about you? Why don't you do it? He's like, no. How do you think I keep this job? I'm not talking to anybody.

[James Mangold]

Right. But the thing is, I didn't. And the other thing I didn't ask. Which was him to explain his songs or his.

[Marc Maron]

How is he gonna do that?

[James Mangold]

Well, people seem. I mean, this is a whole separate topic for another day. But, like, the. The whole idea that he's an enigma who has written over 600 songs and released 55 albums of original music played and sung by him, is so unfair to me. What he really is is a really vexing and interesting artist whose music asks questions that we want answers to and he won't get.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's what art is, right?

[James Mangold]

But, like, it's just maybe a kind of oversimplified thing. But, like, think of Frank Sinatra. Probably released a similar amount of records.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

Never wrote a song or just a few, but no one calls it him. An enigma.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

So why. Why does one guy get kind of why is. And he. He lived behind walls. He wasn't open. They didn't do interviews all the time.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

But it's. It. Why is this mantle. And I think it's because he's such a successful and provocative artist. Dylan. That we keep wanting more. And there's a finite limit to what he's gonna give us. And when we reach that limit, that boundary, we get frustrated with his mystery. Because we are now in a world where. Look at what I'm doing with you. Where artists arrive and explain themselves ad nauseam and don't just let the world speak. And there is. I have no problem with it because film is incredibly complicated and.

[Marc Maron]

But you're talking about Kraft. And even in Bob's book, you know, he spends like a good 30 pages talking about a chord progression.

[James Mangold]

Right. And I think he'd be happy if he had some kind of guarantee that the conversation was gonna live in craft. I think he's got a lot to say. I think that the problem is this. This. This kind of prophet to explain himself.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[James Mangold]

That everything becomes another quote down from the mountain that then gets amplified and. And turned on its head and analyzed. And it's a burden. Like. It is the burden. The burden of that. We were discussing the burden of genius.

[Marc Maron]

You know. And he's gonna SAP you of your energy. And why would you want to focus on that?

[James Mangold]

No, he's. He likes making art.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I tell you. There's a part in. To Switch films in Ford and Ferrari.

[James Mangold]

Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Where One of the great moments in that. And it's really just. It was totally a human moment. We got letts as Henry Ford. What was it? Second or third?

[James Mangold]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

And he takes that ride in that Corvette and he's crying.

[James Mangold]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

It's the best thing.

[James Mangold]

It always terrified me in the script because we had written it. And it was kind of just sitting there that he balls. And it just. And even Matt Damon was teasing him on the day, you know. And. Oh, today's you crying day. Which I was shocked at by the.

[Marc Maron]

Way Damon was busting Tracy's balls.

[James Mangold]

Yes. I mean, like. I mean, just. It shows you the kind of locker room bullshit in the makeup trailer sometimes. But the. But Tracy just. He not only nailed it, but it's so primal. It's such a beautiful thing because it actually endears you thought it was gonna be was just a scene about kind of the corporate chairman being kind of flustered and freaked out. And what Tracy does with it makes. It's utterly. He's a guy who's lived in a velvet bubble all his life, and suddenly he's had this primal life. Life endangering experience. And it's just caused this kind of pouring of a feeling.

[Marc Maron]

And.

[James Mangold]

Well, Tracy is a brilliant actor and a brilliant, brilliant playwright and a great guy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, great guy.

[James Mangold]

But he really. That is a moment in that.

[Marc Maron]

So good. Right.

[James Mangold]

And that is, you know, another movie about artists in a way.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[James Mangold]

It's got no music singers in it, but it's just changed guitars for a wrench. And it's kind of a similar story.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's great.

[James Mangold]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And. Okay, so one last thing. So is this true that you're gonna. You're gonna do Swamp Thing?

[James Mangold]

It's true. I'm. I'm working on a story for Swamp.

[Marc Maron]

Thing because, like, I'm not a big comic book guy, but I love Swamp Thing.

[James Mangold]

Me too. I mean, I literally wrote to the new team at DC when they took over and just said, if this was available, I'd love to try something.

[Marc Maron]

What is it about Swamp Thing?

[James Mangold]

Gothic horror, kind of Frankenstein legend. The whole concept of man plant I find really like, kind of.

[Marc Maron]

But there's something about that character that is sort of like.

[James Mangold]

I love the Nick. I love just the title. I love.

[Marc Maron]

But he's an existential character.

[James Mangold]

The Bernie writes in art to me of the original series is so incredible. And the aspect of kind of being separated from your life and suddenly haunting the woods and kind of living in this abject loneliness, deformation and loneliness, and that's really interesting. I honestly don't know what's coming next. I've kind of wished. Went really rapid fire through a series of movies, the last three. And this is kind of my kind of. And then I didn't anticipate, you know, the kind of whole fall season dance of which is a commitment in and of it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, it's very. It's exciting. I actually talked to. Talking about Copeland. I talked to Robert Patrick. Oh, he's something, man.

[James Mangold]

He is. He is. He's a force to be reckoned with. And. And he was great in that movie. And he is also in Walk the Line. I love him.

[Marc Maron]

Did he play the dad?

[James Mangold]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Hell, yeah. He's great. Well, great talking to you, man. I really appreciate it.

[James Mangold]

You too. I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much, Mark.

[Marc Maron]

There you go. Complete Unknown is still playing in theaters. And that was a lovely chat. And he offered to be of service to me if I get to the. The opportunity. If I get the opportunity to direct a film which I'm hoping to do by the end of this year. And that's a nice guy. That's a nice guy. Hang out for a minute.

[James Mangold]

Folks.

[Marc Maron]

If you want more director talk. We posted a WTF collection on the full Marin featuring some great directors when they were guests in the garage. William Friedkin, Greta Gerwig, Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro, and Paul Thomas Anderson.

[Unknown]

I mean, these stories are good. These kind. An end of a certain kind of innocence, you know, that always sort of makes for a good thing. And I think that's what's going on there. It's singing in the rain, basically. It's like, you know what happens when we got to start talking? You know what happens when video comes in now anybody can make a porno movie. Yeah, what the fuck, you know?

[Marc Maron]

Now how much porn did you grow up with outside of consuming it? I mean, did you know houses in the Valley? Did you?

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah. There was one across the street from my grandmother's house, honest to God. And I probably wouldn't have put two and two together if she hadn't been so indignant about it all, that she saw this van there all the time and the windows were blacked out and, you know, if you waited long enough, you would see some pretty suspicious looking characters coming in and out of there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown]

And then I remember. I remember so well looking at the frame of the front window. It was a kind of a bay window in the front of the house. And anytime I would watch a porno film, I'd be looking for that bay window. I'd be looking like, where's that bay? I wonder if that's in that house.

[Marc Maron]

To subscribe to the full Marin, go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by Acast. Here's some guitar. Tried to keep it simple and sloppy. Yeah, that. That's what I do. Boomer lives Monkey and the Fonda cat Angels everywhere.