Film Junk Podcast Episode #417: The Great Gatsby and Upstream Color

The Great Gatsby

0:00 – Intro
3:17 – Review: The Great Gatsby
28:18 – Review: Upstream Color
53:42 – Headlines: Gravity Trailer, The World’s End Trailer, Captain Phillips Trailer
1:01:27 – Other Stuff We Watched: Airheads, Last Action Hero, Moulin Rouge, The Descendants, Walk the Line, Time Rider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann, Little Fugitive, Dark Skies, Red Dawn, Innocent Bystanders, The Transporter, Transporter 2, Texas Chainsaw 3D, Erin Brockovich
1:48:26 – This Week on DVD and Blu-ray
1:53:57 – Outro
1:55:23 – Spoiler Discussion: Upstream Color
2:14:32 – Spoiler Discussion: Celebrity Apprentice

Film Junk Podcast Episode #417: The Great Gatsby and Upstream Color by Filmjunk on Mixcloud

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  • Tommy

    Haha. Listening to the Upstream Color spoilers without watching the movie is amazing.

  • bullet3

    You guys got the basic jist of it with Upstream Color, though I can clarify a few things for you.

    First off, a 2nd viewing of the film is mandatory in my opinion, and took me from liking the movie to it being a masterpiece, and tons of little clues throughout jump out and click when you see it again.

    Spoilers

    The big aspect you guys didn’t really catch is what the audio recorder guy (“The Sampler” in the credits) is doing. On re-watch, it becomes clear that he’s actually able to look in on people’s lives, via their pigs. He’s sampling their life experiences, and uses this as inspiration for his music. You’ll note that in his earlier scenes he frustratedly throws out his sheet of music, then sits in on some of the people’s life stories (including a particularly tragic one where the victim’s wife doesn’t understand why he has all these emotional problems and commits suicide), then sits down, inspired, and starts composing music on his keyboard.

    The other thing that clears up a lot on 2nd watch is how the characters are able to track down the Sampler at the end. Kris doesn’t directly remember her abduction/hypnosis or anything that happened to her, but subconsciously, she still has pieces of Thoreau’s “Walden” memorized, and as she’s swimming, she unknowingly says some of the lines she’s remembered. Carruth’s character isn’t sure what to make of it and writes down some of the lines, she finds that piece of paper and starts to remember what its from, and tracks down the book. Then when they’re doing a call and response, and she’s quoting more and more from the book, this starts to jog her memory of what happened when she was under, including going to the Sampler’s farm, and more importantly, the sound that drew her there (this is what the scene when she’s underwater in the pool signifies in my opinion).

    So the two of them track down The Sampler’s recordings, and when they listen to them, they both recognize the sound that he played to draw them there in the first place. So they’re able to head out to where he lives, they find some of the places where he recorded the things on the discs and this also confirms that this is the right place, and finally they kill him.

    Those are the big elements that make more sense on 2nd viewing, there’s also lots of nice small details, like how the first time Carruth starts telling the story about his family vacation, Kris stops eating and is clearly bothered by something (that something being that he’s actually telling her the story of HER family vacation), but she doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t want to freak him out.

    In general it’s just a really touching story of two damaged people who’ve had their past stolen from them (she believes she was just crazy and takes anti-depressants now, he believes he must’ve been into hard-drugs and blames that on what happened) coming together and trying to find some peace, and are ultimately able to end this horrible cycle of victimization.

  • Carson Reeves’ of Scriptshadow wrote a pretty harsh and/but interesting article about Shane Carruth and Upstream Color. Reeves comes across a bit angry and not as balanced as he usually is, but I mostly agree with his take on the film.

    (“There’s a difference between being a skilled puzzle maker and just throwing a bunch of pieces on the screen.”)

    http://scriptshadow.net/movie-review-upstream-color

    And a couple of weeks ago, Shane Carruth was a guest on Jeff Goldsmith’s Q&A. First he’s interviewd by Rian Johnson, then by Goldsmith. That interview pretty much proves Carson Reeves’ point, I think.

    http://www.theqandapodcast.com/2013/04/upstream-color-q.html

  • Buttonman88

    Sean

    If you want some more background to THE LAST ACTION HERO then here is the Empire UK article about it from 2012:

    http://www.empireonline.com/features/last-action-hero

    Also, the ROD-NEY-KING chant you mentioned from Airheads was probably a riff/homage on Al Pacino’s AT-TI-CA crowd chant from DOG DAY AFTERNOON though I am gutted that Jay did not see and clarify this at the time. Greg was obviously Goat to Jay’s Pie-O-My and his performances have definitely being subpar since the schism in the House of Junk.

    Ho-hum – Not to be!

    Mike
    Ireland

  • Jonathan

    Blood above all else!

  • patrik

    I love Walk the Line. I agree it’s typical biopic stuff but I have no problem with that. Awesome performances and just to be a fucking nitpick and correct Jay, the line she says is “you can’t walk no line” or something pretty close to that. =)

    Last Action Hero = Amazing

    Moulin Rouge is easily the best modern musical. That is all.

    Can’t wait for the Star Trek podcast. Just saw Into Darkness last week and I ejoyed it a great deal. Don’t know why we’ve been getting some blockbusters before North America lately but it’s a welcome change.

  • Mike: I found that Last Action Hero article last week and it has some good stuff in it. Good point about the Dog Day Afternoon reference… my problem with it is just that the Rodney King joke feels both inappropriate and dated now.

    Herner Werzog: I think anyone trying to come at Upstream Color from a script standpoint is going to have a problem with it. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece but there is a quality to it that I think would have been lost if he had to break everything down and explain it more clearly. I can respect Shane Carruth for telling David Fincher to go fuck himself.

    bullet3: Thanks for the interpretation. I had forgotten about the swimming pool scene and at the time I didn’t fully understand the significance.

  • Wintle

    I agree with everything Jay has to say about Texas Chainsaw 3D, except I thought all that weirdness actually made it more interesting than it would have been otherwise. It was like it was directed by someone who has never had an interaction with another human being. Blood above all else, indeed.

  • I went to Catholic school and read Great Gatsby in Grade 11, so has nothing to do with the type of school whether or not it was in the curriculum.

  • Fair enough. I guess my school just had horrible taste in literature.

    The only non-Shakespeare/Shaw stuff we read was A Separate Peace, The Lord of the Flies, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights and A Man for All Seasons. I think.

  • patrik

    Marilou is the worst. When Trump said “I think you’re fantastic” and she was like, “I am.” Newsflash Marilou you’re not and you got fired you dumb beeaaatch!

  • Tommy

    Sean, you should definitely watch Walk Hard.

  • Henrik

    I watched Last Action Hero acouple of months ago and I thought it was amazing… When Arnold gets excited about classical music, it made me shed a tear. It made me think of hearing Ode to Joy in Die Hard as a young kid, thinking how John McTiernan was one of the first people to introduce me to classical music, and it all just came together. I loved it, so funny, so clever, and Arnold gives one of his best performances.

  • Dan

    From what I have heard about Gravity, both Bullock and Clooney are trapped in space. I can’t remember where I read that though

  • The Cornetto Trilogy (or Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy) is named for the fact that all three films feature a scene of the characters eating a different brand (and colour) of Cornetto ice cream:
    Shaun of the Dead – Strawberry (Red)
    Hot Fuzz – Plain (Blue)
    The World’s End – Mint Chip (Green)

  • bard

    I need you guys to revisit Walk Hard. I didn’t care for it the first time, but it hit me hard the second time.

    The music is amazing on its own, the acting is great (both comedy and drama), the satire is pitch-perfect to these lame music biopics, and the humor is just on another level.

    Don’t bother with the extended cut, the theatrical version is pretty much perfect. It’s my #2 favorite comedy of all time.

  • Goon

    I watched Upstream Color with a person who was seeing it for the 3rd time, so afterwards when discussing he was already getting to everything bullet3 talked about above. I throught a chunk of UC was watchable, but eventually I stopped paying much attention, because the characters’ relationship is really just piss poor and uninvolving. Carruth puts his intentionally abstract devices ahead of the core of his film.

    At any rate all the explanations do for me is having me making the jerk off motion. For such a straightforward point about human connection and breaking a cycle of broken people in relationships he makes you jump through a lot of hoops entirely for the illusion of depth.

  • Goon

    “ROD-NEY KING! ROD-NEY KING!”
    “Rodney King?”
    “He’s that guy…”

  • I’m so happy with the love that Prometheus is getting on this show (barring Sean, of course). It’s one of only a few movies that I love to defend. Just re-watched it on 3D blu and I gotta agree with Frank, it’s a thing of beauty. I would say it’s the best science fiction movie of the last 400 years.

  • bullet3

    I really disagree with this viewpoint that Upstream Color is somehow up its own ass, or overly cryptic. The only reason it comes off like that is that we’re used to constant hand-holding during movies, where characters constantly say out loud exactly what’s happening on screen. Well, why should that be the case? Film is a visual medium, why aren’t we exploiting that? I think UC is a brilliant example of visual storytelling, I think it’s consistently conveying its narrative beats through cutaways, or match-cuts, or insert shots. If an idea can be conveyed in a single sentence instead of 4, it’ll use a single sentence. More often than not it finds a way to show something with no dialogue at all (the entire climax). I don’t think it’s overly convoluted, in fact I’d say its elegantly straightforward, the whole movie is 90 minutes, and it doesn’t spend any more time with a given section than it has to. I think this really puts it a step above a lot of these more “experimental” films, because it never feels like its dragging, and even if you don’t click with it the 1st time through, it hasn’t wasted your time. I like Tree of Life a lot, but I think a lot of the negative reaction towards it from the average viewer was just due to how long it was, if it was 90 minutes I think people would’ve been much more open to it.

  • Kasper

    Last Action Hero is fantastic. People who don’t like it aren’t worth knowing.

    /Blood Above All Else

  • I’ve always viewed “Last Action Hero” as a guilty pleasure of mine. I know it’s hated by so many but I never found it that bad. That said, I haven’t seen it in years and years! I may think a bit differently now.

    Thanks for the cast, guys. Really enjoying them of late…and I appreciated a little Reid and Nuno’s appearance last week too. Thanks :)

  • Luda

    Listening to this episode made me wonder what The Great Gatsby would be like had it been directed by Shane Carruth.
    Looking forward to Gravity. In fact, anything that’s not based on a book or is a remake will get me excited these days.

  • Goon

    bullet3, the lack of hand holding isn’t the big deal, the problem is that UC is indeed so far up its own ass that it neglects its own characters in favor of design, to the extent that it’s not worth any emotional investment. It’s like trying to raise the perfect cow and cut the perfect steak, and then not bothering to cook it.

    And then saying “It’s not up to me to cook it man, you have to put your mind to work at how much thought we put into that steak, and imagine how good it would taste if you cook it”. It’s here that Carruth combines the worst of mathematical detachment with the worst of hippie dippie artist statement (aka bullshit) excuses.

  • Essie

    Whooo Death Grips!

    Thanks for the show guys!

  • darksiders

    I also feel that the cinematography detracted from Upstream Color. It was too stylized. I would have rather this been shot more like Looper. More realistic. All the tilt shift photography just felt like fake artistic fluff in a film that shouldn’t rely on that at all.

  • Captain Fram

    Cheers for that podcast link Herner Werzog, was great listening. I’ve yet to see Upstream Colour, but I’m trying something different with this film. I’m currently immersing myself in discussions and spoilercasts, then I’ll check it out and see where I fall. As someone who usually avoids spoilers, I’m keen to see how this affects my approach going into this film.

  • bullet3

    Probably won’t hurt it, much like Primer, it’s not a movie that lives or dies by “knowing what happens next”, its not a Sixth Sense situation. It’s much more about the audio-visual experience of watching it (specifically the editing and music choices).
    Carruth has compared it to a music album you come back to again and again, and that’s the way I like to view it.

  • Markus

    I totally agree about Walk Hard! Nr.1 comedy of all time for me, i’ve seen it about 15 times and every time i find something new to laugh at! Even got Walk Hard tattooed across my knuckles haha, perhaps a stupid mistake from my younger days bit man is that a funny movie!

  • Jr

    The Netflix update is a great idea. Thanks!

  • rot
  • rot

    I do not get the Shane Carruth acting criticism, to me that is like critiquing Ben Affleck’s performance in To the Wonder. I thought he played it smart, his character Jeff is marginal in the film, and given how fragmented the narrative style is, there is not a single scene longer than a minute where you even get a chance of seeing Carruth’s character talking let alone emoting. Is he acting wrong in his gestures? I just rewatched Primer and I think for a non-actor he knows how to cut around himself to let the ephemeral character of the movie overtake any blight to his style of acting. Not to mention in Upstream it is written into the role a degree of disorientation, any anxiety apparent to his acting transfers to the character, someone who has been psychologically victimized and outwardly fractured (that he plays off another character even more damaged again buffers any acting defect to be a consequence of being maladjusted). The story is not about their undying love, they are in service of the ideas, as were the characters in Primer.

  • Something I haven’t seen too many point out, but the sound in Upstream Color is quite amazing (won an award for it at Sundance). It felt like a very aural-centric movie.

    I’m just not sure why he chose to make the plot so disjointed, other than the angle of trying to be an art house film. There is no reason it couldn’t have been more straightforward/accessible. You can make people think without leaving them confused, in my opinion.

    Anyhow, overall I did enjoy the movie very much, but not as much as I enjoyed Primer, precisely because of what I wrote above. Primer was the more accessible movie and worked much better because of that.

    In the end though, I think focusing on the plot in this movie is a disservice to the work Carruth and Co. did with the sound/music. I definitely think any film fan should check this one out.

  • bullet3

    Ya, the sound design is outstanding, especially in combination with his editing choices. He’ll cut into a scene in media-res, playing audio from the middle of the scene, while he’s cross-cutting the beginning and end of the scene, and the edits flow so well that you don’t even notice that’s what he’s doing unless you’re really looking for it.

  • Goon

    “It felt like a very aural-centric movie.”

    I absolutely hated the score of this film. It somehow both annoyed me and made me nod off at the same time. Considering the Junkers listed out all my complaints and still overall kinda liked it, perhaps this was the difference maker.

  • A crucial bit of advice I got before watching Upstream Color was to just watch it and not try to figure it out. This allowed me to view it just as a sort of art film. I enjoyed the enigma of the plot, but I was mostly won over by the tone of the movie. While Prometheus is fun to puzzle over and try to work out all the plot details, I found it more enjoyable to just let Upstream Color happen and experience it.
    I don’t think the cinematography is amazing, but I don’t dislike it either. Based on this and Primer it definitely doesn’t seem to be Carruth’s strong-suit. I didn’t mind his acting, however, since he isn’t really the main character. Both characters seem pretty muted so a non-actor for that role seems like a fine choice. Overall I most enjoyed the editing, one of the only aspects of filmmaking that Carruth split with someone else (an actual editor, presumably). Maybe that’s telling of how strong of an auteur Carruth actually is, but either way I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to checking it out again.
    How did you watch it, Goon? I’m curious if a theater viewing vs. a VOD viewing would alter the experience at all.

  • Ben

    Good call on the Netflix update!

  • Lior

    I just came back to you guys reviewing The Great Gatsby after watching the movie.

    I don’t know if any of you saw Australia, but I was hoping somebody did and would bring that movie up for comparison. Just like in The Great Gatsby, Australia’s first act is fairly comic with Luhrmann’s signature fast cuts and over-the-top performances, almost like a cartoon. Then the tone gets much more serious and the comedy evaporates from the film.
    I felt the uneven tone was jarring in Australia and it’s jarring again in The Great Gatsby. Like Frank says, the only film where this actually works and works beautifully is Moulin Rouge. I think it’s because of the complete artifice and hyper-reality of that film which somehow allows it, and the fact that it’s a musical.