#22 Marchel

No, this is the operator. I have a collect phone 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:10.080 call from Jonathan Goldstein for doctor Jackie Cohen. Do you 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:11.200 accept the charges? 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:14.880 No, I don't accept the pay Jackie. That wasn't even 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.959 the operator. I know it wasn't the operator. That was 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:19.160 my assistant, Khalila. 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:20.760 Hi, Khalila, I remember you. 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:21.360 How are you? 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:22.240 Don't answer? 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:24.200 I'm fine, don't I'm in. 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:26.239 The middle of trying to get the kids do their homework. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:27.800 I'm in the middle of dinner. 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:30.920 I play. This is just a test. What are you 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:32.479 going to do when I'm in trouble? Someday? In a 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:33.440 real operator call. 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:35.519 There are real operators anymore. 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.160 John, wouldn't you say that I'm a real operator? 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:39.959 Would you say you're a real operator. 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:49.479 I don't know. I think I'd like to think. I 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:55.279 don't know. Maybe not a big time operator, small time operator. 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:56.200 Okay, Can I go now? 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:57.040 Yeah? 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:08.120 You can go now? Can I go to Yeah? From 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:13.960 Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight today's 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:29.039 episode Marshall. In the late nineties, I was working on 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.319 an experimental novella, an erotic coming of age story told 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.720 as a series of picuresque vignettes that so defied categorization 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:42.080 that even now, almost twenty years later, the best description 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.840 I can come up with for it is an erotic 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.440 coming of age story told as a series of picuresque vignettes. 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.640 To support myself during this prolonged parents nightmare, I got 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.720 a job reviewing movies for a local alternative weekly. It 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.000 didn't pay much, but after spending all day working on 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:05.320 my novella, hating my writing and myself, it felt good 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.480 to direct my critical gaze outward for a while. Because 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:14.720 for me, nothing was ever quite right food, music, clothing. 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.839 I'd made it into my late twenties only having ever 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.960 found one T shirt that met my strict sartorial standards. 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.959 Material was always too scratchy, neck holes always too tight. 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:31.800 Reviewing films gave my negativity a place to prance free. 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.959 Some of my headlines from the time include Ted Demi's 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:45.080 Blow Blows and American Beauty is No Beauty. Because I 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:47.880 was from Montreal, my editor put me in charge of 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.720 the foreign film reviews, and even though I understood zero French, 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.800 I still found a way to be critical, focusing on 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.960 less plot related criteria like runtime and lighting. Of Suleasaba, 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.640 I wrote nothing of Charlotte Rampling's intense performance. Instead, I 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.320 complained that the ninety two minute film was too bright. 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.600 It was around this time that I discovered the ninety 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:19.239 nine minute film Russian Arc. What drew me to this 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.799 Russian film was its willingness to experiment in the name 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:27.840 of art. Directed by Alexander Sokarov, Russian Arc takes place 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:32.120 in Saint Petersburg's Hermitage Museum, and it depicts three hundred 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.839 years of Russian history. But here's the thing. It does 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:43.000 so in one continuous, unedited, ninety minute long shot. This 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:48.160 means thirty three rooms, nearly two thousand actors, two different orchestras, 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:53.960 fifty makeup artists, sixty five costume designers, three centuries of 0:03:54.040 --> 0:04:04.680 Russian history, all presented in a single seamless take. At 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.960 the time, directors competed with one another to create the 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:12.400 longest unedited shots they could. Paul Thomas Anderson clocked in 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.160 at two minutes and fifty four seconds with the opening 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:19.120 discothech scene in Boogie Nights, and Martin Scorsese tipped the 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.040 scales at just over three minutes with Rayliota's entrance into 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:28.000 the Kopa in Goodfellas and here came Sokarov, saying, I 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:32.000 see your measley little scenes and raise you one entire 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:37.600 movie only. He probably said it in Russian. If the 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.400 accomplishment of an uninterrupted shot that spans ninety minutes is 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.000 still lost on you, let me just say, as someone 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.000 who works in the recorded arts, it's really hard to 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:54.720 make anything good without editing. Without editing editing, I screw it, 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:59.200 my good looking editor, Jorge, we'll fix that in post. 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.280 Though they'd been planning the movie for over two years, 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.400 Sokarov and his crew had only one day to shoot 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.800 the entire film, the twenty third of December two thousand 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.560 and one, with only three hours of sunlight. It's one 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.320 of the shortest days of the Russian year, which gave 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.840 them just a few hours to pull off a perfect 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.800 work of art, and as I remember it, they succeeded 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:32.760 almost The film is structured as a series of vignettes. 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.440 The camera drifts from room to room, catching glimpses of 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:46.080 historic sceness. The Shaw's grandson apologizes to tar Nicholas the 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.359 First for an attack on the Russian embassy. 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.119 That's been better with them. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:56.200 The camera lingers as Peter the Great reprimands a courtier. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.279 The camera moves on, capturing a man as he builds 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:12.200 a coffin during the Siege of Leningrad. It catches Catherine 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:23.440 the Great watching a play, then follows her as she 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:30.640 runs off to find a bathroom. The movie is virtually 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.200 no storyline, so the central drama, the thing that keeps 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:39.560 you watching, is this simple question wheel the filmmakers actually 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:44.080 pull off their crazy stunt at any instant. An actor 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.799 could stumble a line, a dancer miss a que, a boom, 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:52.279 mic could fall, a piece of lighting crash, someone could cough. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.719 At the twenty minute mark, you think this is doomed. 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:01.919 At thirty you grip the theater armress. At one hour, 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.720 you can't help but get on board, rooting at every 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:08.039 turn for the film's success. And when there's only ten 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.120 minutes to go, you realize that, against all odds, they 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:20.360 might actually pull it off. In the film's last remaining minutes, 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.080 the camera enters upon an elaborate recreation of the last 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:28.480 Grand Royal Ball before the Bolshevik Revolution. The room, in 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:49.320 this critics opinion is bright. The orchestra begins playing the Mazurka. 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.280 The camera swirls between white columns dozens of men in 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.120 formal military regalia mill about with women in freely white 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:05.480 dresses and feathers in their hair. And then it happens. 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.400 As the orchestra plays the final notes, one of the musicians, 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.960 a violinist, puts down his violin and, with the look 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:21.200 of a startled deer about to become roadkill, turns around 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:33.120 and stares directly into the camera. When you're watching a movie, 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.480 the real world disappears, but if an actor accidentally looks 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.720 into the camera and breaks the fourth wall, the whole 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.840 illusion is destroyed. It's a screw up so profound that 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:49.800 it actually has a name, spiking the camera, and because 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:53.040 Russian Arc was otherwise so perfect, the spike felt all 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.960 the more shocking. The film spell was broken, and I 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.560 was instantly plopped back into my crummy theater scene in 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:05.480 crummy reality, wearing a crummy malfitting T shirt, strangling me 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:14.079 at the neck hole. The same year Russian Arc was filmed, 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.679 I finally completed my novella. There was no book to her, 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.800 no advance, but none of that mattered. After a decade 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.000 of writing, my work had been published, and I was 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.880 on top of the world. For all of three weeks 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:34.080 at which point the first review appeared. The reviewer chose 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:38.640 not to focus on the unconventional structure, the scatological wordplay, 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.400 nor even the cover art, which was based on a 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:46.000 photograph I'd found in a pawnshop shoe box. Instead, she 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.840 directed her attention onto the one part of the book 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.199 that I'd barely put any thought into it, all three 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.240 short words printed at the center of the very first page, 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:04.679 the dedication for my sister. There's something offbeat, the reviewer 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.240 mused about dedicating the weird and lurid memories of a 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:13.520 sex obsessed Jewish teenage boy to one's sister. Here, I 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.440 was thinking I was all set to be the next 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:19.040 Luke Reinhardt, but instead I just outed myself as the 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.880 next Luke Skywalker in that first Star Wars movie, the 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.240 one where he totally wants to bang his sister Jedi style. 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:31.079 All of this to say, I understood the grand experiment 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.640 that ends in failure due to one small blemish. I 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.560 never wrote a novel again. In Alexander Soakroov, a man 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.760 who once said I want to screen real time, I 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.760 don't want to cut it or shrink it, never made 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.720 a single shot movie again. Was it all due to 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:59.480 the bungling violinist. When my novella was published in America, 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.000 I only got a chance to revisit the dedication. I 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.679 cut it out and moved on. But the filmmakers didn't 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.040 have the luxury of editing out their one mistake, and 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.240 they can't redo that day, can't shut down the second 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.200 largest art museum in the world for another try at 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:21.160 probably the biggest, most ambitious shoot of any of their careers. 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:22.840 But what if they could? 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:27.320 Good morning? 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.559 Hi? Is this Tilman Buttner? 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:30.800 Yeah? 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:36.600 Hello, Tilman Butner is Russian art cinematographer, the man behind 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.400 the camera that the heedless violinist had violently spiked into 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:47.600 the marble Mosaic museum floor that day. Butner only speaks German, 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.319 so he asked his son to translate our conversation. What 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.160 is your name, konste. 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:56.120 Constantine? 0:11:57.840 --> 0:11:59.959 Okay, great, so Butner. 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:07.360 My name is not Buner. My name is Temple, Constant, Temple, Constantine. 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:13.800 Okay, Constantine Temple. The camera Buttner used for Russian Arc 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.400 was one of the first HD cameras in the world, 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.080 and it required one terabyte of disk space to save 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:21.280 all ninety minutes. 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.040 Back then, the disc was as big as a giant 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:27.840 bag for an astronaut that wants to go to the moon, 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.959 a giant recorded that a different person had to carry 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:31.880 next to him. 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:36.520 A half dozen technicians followed Buttner around, hauling cable and 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.040 silently shooing people out of the way. By the end 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.240 of the shoot, Butner was left limping. At the time, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.240 there was only one other HD camera that was lighter, 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.880 but another indie art house director already had DIBs. 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.640 George Lucas. He didn't give the camera. Yeah, we give her. 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.280 They asked him for it, but he wanted to keep it. 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.360 Lucas wanted to keep it for Star Wars episode two, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.199 Attack of the Clones. Although I've not seen it, I 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.239 assume it's about that same Randy Jedi traveling the Macroverse, 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.319 fighting the Evil Empire and the equally evil urged Abang 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:19.160 his sister Jedi style. If any Canadian theaters had screened 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.839 it in French rather than in its original Ewokees, my 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.840 headline might have read Attack of the Clones is an 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:31.120 attack on decent lighting. Constant Constantine explains his father's emotional 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.520 state around the time of Russian Arcs filming. 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.400 The night before he couldn't sleep. It was really focused 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:41.000 and really not nervous, but in a good way, you know. 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.480 Yeah, he knew that it was something really special, and 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.079 he was one hundred percent short that everything would work 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:48.920 out exactly the way they planned. 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.200 Except it didn't. I saw this movie when it first 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:58.040 came out, and there was one moment in it that 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.360 stands out to me. There's only a few minutes left. 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.480 I run him through the last few minutes of the film. 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:09.079 The orchestra, the mazurka, the feckless violinist, the incident looks 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:15.480 directly into the camera. I'm wondering if you remember that moment. 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.520 No, not this violinist that you were interested in. He 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.400 couldn't remember that this happened. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.600 I can imagine the casual viewer, distracted by popcorn and 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:36.040 milk duds, not noticing the conspicuous violinist. But I was 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.960 surprised that one of the filmmakers had missed it. Maybe 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.080 Tillman Buttner was too encumbered by his giant camera to 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.360 see the mistake. So I decided to try another member 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:47.840 of the crew who was there that day, someone whose 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.760 job it was to keep track of every air in shadow. 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:56.160 I'm speaking, of course, of the film's lighting designer, Barn Fisher. 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.080 As my past film re viewing suggests, I've long held 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.040 a passion for man made light. As a boy, I'd 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.760 monkey with a dimmer knob until my fingers were raw, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.640 sit down and eat your buttered Noodle's father would roar, 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.760 but alas too much dimness and melancholia would slowly descend 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:21.720 like a Sabbath elevator and a molasses factory. Too little dimness, 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.760 and I felt denuded, shivering like a vampire in the 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.640 frozen goods ayle. If only there was something with fewer 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.680 gradations than a knob, I'd lament some means by which 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:39.320 I could toggle between dimnesses emphatically, on off, on off, 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:46.320 some kind of light switch, if you will. I was 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:55.040 eager to speak with Fisher. Uh yes, Hello, is this baron? Yet? 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:56.280 Hi? Is this baron? 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.240 Once we corrected for the standard European two second time delay, 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:06.080 I properly introduced myself. Hello, sir, my name is Jonathan Goldstein. 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:10.080 I'm calling from the podcast in the United States. 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:13.560 That's the radio show What are you Doing? 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:14.040 What is that? 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.280 Or a texture? Fisher gets my work about as well 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:22.160 as I get his I ask him about the day 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:22.680 of the shoot. 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.360 The quantity of lights is just enormous because we have 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.560 to light I don't know, fifty rooms in a ballroom 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:31.080 and all at the same time. 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.040 So just aside from the sheer number of lights, there 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.080 was the setting. Most museums don't even let you take 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.440 flash photography, let alone make a movie that's bright enough 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.240 to win a coveted Lighty, the lighting award name for 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.480 Alfred J. Lightman that I've just invented. 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.160 So there was always someone standing next to us telling 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.560 us where to be able to put the light. Not 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.600 too close to the paintings, not too close to the wall. 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.120 They were scared that you would destroy things. 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.760 Fisher ended up using giant helium balloons to float his 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.760 lights just below the ceiling. And if the risk of 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.800 destroying priceless artwork during the shoot scared him, the possibility 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.040 of a slowly deflating balloon sinking into view of the 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.360 camera absolutely terrified him. 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.320 There was only one chance, so there was such a pressure. 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.520 Everyone's so concentrated and you know you're not supposed to fail. 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:31.879 So I know when the whole thing was done, everyone 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.080 was so happy. A lot of people were crying. 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.159 I didn't want to hear about tears of joy. I 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.320 wanted to hear about the sad kind, the bitter kind 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.040 that get caught in your throat like tiny clumps of 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:50.520 rye bread. So I brought up the bumbling violinists cameo, like, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:52.680 do you know the moment I'm talking about? 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.399 You know what I actually did. I just put the 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:01.320 film on my computer because I it here and I'm 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:05.280 just watching the scene as we're walking through the. 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.000 Hell are you are you watching that moment right now? 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:10.280 Right now? I'm watching this moment. 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.840 How do you remember where it is? 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.640 Well, I'm believing I know this ninety minutes, very very well. 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.120 I was dreaming of this nineteen minutes, walking it over 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.640 and over again. But there was no way to change 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.560 it anyway, you know, because it was like a ship, 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:32.760 you know, like a tangship which cannot break. Once we started, 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.720 there was no way to stop it. I think that 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:40.000 we were just happy that it worked. Hey, it worked, unbelievable, 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:41.040 it worked. 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:50.920 Except it didn't. Throughout my life, I've justifiably been called 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:55.359 a fuss pot, fussy, gus, fuss budget and by one 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:57.959 high school physed instructor who I believe might have been 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.920 an anti semite, A little miss fussy pants had my 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:07.520 fussiness finally gone too far. That night I rewatched the movie, 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:25.280 and the moment I rewatch it a couple times, it's 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.320 even worse than I'd remembered. Seconds before the adult violinist 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.800 turns back to the camera, we see him in a 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:36.959 long shot, seated among his fellow violinists, swiveling his head around. 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.640 It's as if he's searching for the camera, like he's 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.440 scanning a restaurant looking for a tardy dinner companion, except 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.119 in this case, his dinner companion is an elephantine camera 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.200 being hauled around by a crew of six to eight people. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.840 We would be allowed to take over the museum for 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:56.560 a whole day. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.280 Yen's mirror is Russian arcs producer. Perhaps he can produce 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.840 some answers for me. He explains that, aside from holidays, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.440 the Hermitage Museum has not been closed since the Second 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.399 World War, but in spite of that, they agreed to 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:16.119 give the films director Alexander Sokarov a day to shoot, 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.520 and once Sokorov explained the plan to film everything in 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.680 a single take, they offered an additional day. 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.119 But Sikorov said, no, it doesn't want that day. And 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:28.480 I looked at him and said, Sasha, you what you 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.240 don't want a day? He said, no, that would be 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.399 tempting Fate. It would be tempting God. It must be 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:36.879 done in the one shot, in the single day. And 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:37.719 that's what happened. 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:43.120 Well, yes, it did technically happen. MRR offers no accounting 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:47.320 for the twitchy violinist, but his beautiful accent intimidates me. 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:52.440 So like Barishnikov on an icy sidewalk, a tippy toe carefully, 0:20:53.600 --> 0:21:00.320 and it's an incredible accomplishment. And yet, and I know 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:04.080 I'm going to sound sort of like nitpicky, but there's 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:09.840 this moment at the end where this violinist turns towards 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:14.520 the camera. And do you know the moment that I'm 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:15.520 talking about. 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:17.600 Now? 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:22.040 Of course, I mean you are nitpicking, but it's peculiar. 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:23.840 I mean, you look at this film that there's only 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.080 one such moment in the whole film. There isn't another 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:29.840 one that is peculiar. Why is there only one? 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.760 Mirror tells me that they explicitly instructed all the performers 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.960 not to look into the camera and only one person 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:46.080 paid the instructions. Absolutely, no mind. He just has a 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:48.240 very kind of hapless look about him. 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.080 Well, don't you imagine that at that moment he must 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.359 have caught himself thinking, Damn, that's the one thing I 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.760 swore to myself I wouldn't be doing look into the camera. 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.280 We talked about it back then because of course it's 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:08.080 an imperfection. 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.720 So the basic tone of it when Tuckerov would bring 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.040 it up, was it like something that was kind of 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:15.000 like joked about. 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:23.000 You've never met Alexander Takorov. Obviously there's never much joking. 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.240 He's not like a prankster on the set like George 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:27.159 Clooney or something. 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:33.200 No, Alexander worked on every single image of this film, 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:36.399 and so it's definitely nothing that would ever be joked about. 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:40.640 To the question of the redo, Mirror says he lives 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:42.720 with it. It's just one of those things you have 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:47.400 to accept. What about Soakarov, I wonder how could a serious, 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.879 non pranking, non clooney asque artists like him deal with imperfection? 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:54.960 And so do you think if I put the question 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:59.000 to him, you know, would you redo this movie if 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:01.480 you had a chance? He would do it. 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:05.480 Huh, that's an interesting thought. 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.600 Would he redo this film because he is such a perfectionist. 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:13.119 Yeah, I don't know, God knows, you know, maybe we 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:14.119 should reshoot it. 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:20.600 Pose that question, that question being with Sokarov. Re rent 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.480 the costumes, re rent the helium balloons, rehire the actors, 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:27.639 musicians and dancers by a brand new tub of garlic 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:30.480 homas for the craft's service table, all because of a 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:34.160 fuddled violinist had a wandering eye and a morbid curiosity 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:37.920 about the art of filmmaking. I ask Mirror if he 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:39.399 can connect me with Sokarov. 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:42.119 I could try and put you in touch. He is 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:47.159 not an easy person to arrange for. 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.159 I imagine a large Russian bear of a man, a 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:57.280 beard so pointy it could stab your flesh, and so 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.639 long that, once inside, you were to have a camera 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:04.720 mounted at its tip, could in one long, uninterrupted take 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:07.840 film all of your inner demons and then screen them 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:11.720 at the Berlin Film Festival and win an award. You 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:13.840 try to get a ticket and a plus one to 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:16.040 go see the movie about how gross you are on 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:19.720 the inside, because why not. But you'd never be able 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:21.920 to reach him, as he'd be filming a new project 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:26.520 at the North Pool. I wanted to sit opposite mister Sokarov, 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:38.239 artist to artist, experimental outeur to experimental outeur. I am 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:42.080 not flying you to Russia, says CEO and Gimblet Media 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:46.200 founder Alex Bloomberg. But Yen says it's hard to get 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:50.520 the great Alexander Sokarov on the phone. I say, who's Yen's, 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:55.160 demands Bloomberg, and who is the great Alexander Sokarov. He's 0:24:55.280 --> 0:24:58.439 Russian and he gets me. I say, maybe it's our 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:01.760 shared Russian blood. Family lore has it that great great 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.960 Grandpa Goldstein had a beard so wispy and delicate it 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:09.320 was spun into dainties for the Tsar's wife. Alex says 0:25:09.359 --> 0:25:12.800 that a good old fashioned telephone call will accomplish everything 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:18.119 I need, and so I email Sokarov asking if, like 0:25:18.240 --> 0:25:23.120 children playing broken telephone like businessmen in a nineteen forties musical, 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:26.600 we can talk on the phone. And a few days 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:32.679 later Sokarov replies, of course, He writes, it is necessary 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:38.760 only to determine the day and the hour after the 0:25:38.840 --> 0:25:52.080 break the day and the hour. Thank you for coming in. 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:53.159 Thank you. 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:58.440 Sokarov does not speak English, and I try as hard 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:00.560 as I may and yelling at as loud as I 0:26:00.680 --> 0:26:05.640 can prove incapable of speaking Russian. We would need a translator, 0:26:06.080 --> 0:26:08.840 and so I've hired Sasha, who has been translating in 0:26:08.960 --> 0:26:11.200 one form or another since she was a kid. 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:15.680 Well, when I was younger, my uncle loved to go 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:18.359 shopping to the open market and get stuff when he 0:26:18.440 --> 0:26:20.480 was super drunk, like to the point of like it's 0:26:20.480 --> 0:26:22.560 hard to talk. So he had to take me with 0:26:22.720 --> 0:26:28.120 him because this would be three kilograms of tomatoes, which 0:26:28.160 --> 0:26:31.480 I could understand but nobody else could. So I was like, 0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:33.639 I get you. I know what you're trying to do. 0:26:34.600 --> 0:26:37.200 Once we get set up in the studio, Sasha tells 0:26:37.240 --> 0:26:40.879 me she's excited to be translating for Alexander Sukarov, one 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:49.600 of the most well respected renowned Russian filmmakers in America. 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:53.919 Custom ring tone rings for phone owner in Russia, custom 0:26:54.040 --> 0:27:02.080 ring tone rings for you that hello, mister sokarof Hello, 0:27:04.760 --> 0:27:07.840 good day, I'm listening to you. To avoid confusion, I 0:27:07.960 --> 0:27:10.680 begin with the basics. Do you have podcasts? 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:12.719 Yes? 0:27:17.680 --> 0:27:18.480 What is a podcast? 0:27:18.520 --> 0:27:21.920 I don't know, Rather than getting into how their sound 0:27:22.000 --> 0:27:25.800 files owned by capitalist dogs like alex Bloomberg. I instead 0:27:25.840 --> 0:27:28.720 proceed straight to the source of all of Sokarov's troubles, 0:27:29.280 --> 0:27:31.640 his decision to shoot a movie in one long take. 0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:33.320 Why do it that way? 0:27:38.160 --> 0:27:41.359 Had a really important desire to remove editing. It was 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:44.960 very important for me. When you're shooting it with a 0:27:45.000 --> 0:27:52.920 single shot, it's an honest work, and the viewer trusts us. Today, 0:27:53.160 --> 0:27:56.480 editing is like a shot or a step of knife 0:27:56.640 --> 0:27:57.879 into a person's body. 0:28:00.160 --> 0:28:04.440 Were much because we're tricking our viewer. Of course, it's 0:28:04.480 --> 0:28:07.280 a trick, a dirty, rotten trick. And when I go 0:28:07.440 --> 0:28:09.600 home after a long day of stabbing you people with 0:28:09.680 --> 0:28:13.200 a knife, I take a long, hot shower, feeling absolutely 0:28:13.359 --> 0:28:16.520 sick about it. But consider what art would be like 0:28:16.640 --> 0:28:19.840 without editing. Raiders of the Lost Arc would contain a 0:28:19.920 --> 0:28:22.960 twenty five minute scene of Indiana Jones eating an egg 0:28:23.040 --> 0:28:26.360 salad sandwich in the cafeteria at the Fairfield, New York 0:28:26.520 --> 0:28:30.960 Archaeological Society, And this podcast would contain an additional two 0:28:31.040 --> 0:28:35.560 minutes of my trying to pronounce the word archaeological. But 0:28:35.720 --> 0:28:38.640 all of this was just semantics. What I really wanted 0:28:38.720 --> 0:28:42.760 to talk about was the incident one of the violinists 0:28:43.080 --> 0:28:49.080 watching turns around and looks directly into the camera. 0:28:52.520 --> 0:28:55.160 Of course, I remember, of course I remember. 0:29:02.680 --> 0:29:07.280 If you had the chance to redo the whole movie, 0:29:08.520 --> 0:29:15.920 to undo that one moment, that one imperfection, would. 0:29:15.800 --> 0:29:25.080 You I wouldn't have wanted to change anything. That's the 0:29:25.240 --> 0:29:29.200 value of the film. That's the value of works of art, 0:29:29.280 --> 0:29:33.720 because it is not repeatable in its advantages and disadvantages. 0:29:35.560 --> 0:29:39.200 Well, I appreciate how philosophical sokkerovs being about the whole thing. 0:29:39.600 --> 0:29:43.440 There's still that one disadvantage, that fiddling forth wall breaking 0:29:43.520 --> 0:29:46.880 disadvantage that must haunt his dreams. As I knew it 0:29:46.920 --> 0:29:53.800 would mine gingerly. I proceed. But in that moment when 0:29:53.880 --> 0:29:58.360 when you were watching him turn around, did you want 0:29:58.360 --> 0:29:59.120 to strangle him? 0:29:59.880 --> 0:30:02.840 Was? No? 0:30:03.440 --> 0:30:05.440 No, no, How can you say that? 0:30:05.520 --> 0:30:05.640 Now? 0:30:07.240 --> 0:30:09.520 I love them so much. I'm so grateful to him 0:30:09.560 --> 0:30:14.040 for agreeing to take part in such a difficult undertaking. 0:30:17.240 --> 0:30:21.560 If he stood on his head and stopped playing the violin, 0:30:24.160 --> 0:30:26.240 I would have said, thank you, my friend, thank you, 0:30:28.000 --> 0:30:28.600 thank you for that. 0:30:31.920 --> 0:30:42.520 Accidents happen, It happens. Soccarov and I are really nothing alike. 0:30:43.080 --> 0:30:46.240 He's talking about accidents happening like he's horsing around in 0:30:46.280 --> 0:30:49.800 a commercial for Laundry Detergent, while I, on the other hand, 0:30:49.960 --> 0:30:53.640 can't let anything go. Why I'm still kicking myself for 0:30:53.760 --> 0:30:56.520 not investing in IBM when it went public in nineteen 0:30:56.600 --> 0:31:00.360 eleven for new listeners, that was years before I was 0:31:00.400 --> 0:31:04.560 even born. And the difference is, don't stop there. Do 0:31:04.680 --> 0:31:07.680 you think you will ever make another movie that is 0:31:08.000 --> 0:31:08.960 is done in one take? 0:31:15.240 --> 0:31:17.640 I really want to make it happen, and I'm going 0:31:17.720 --> 0:31:20.320 to be trying to make it happen, whereas I never 0:31:20.440 --> 0:31:22.960 wrote and never will write another novella. 0:31:23.480 --> 0:31:27.040 Sokarov wasn't going to let the stumbling violinists mistake keep 0:31:27.120 --> 0:31:30.520 him from making another movie like Russian Arc. I asked 0:31:30.560 --> 0:31:32.240 him what this new movie will be about. 0:31:34.200 --> 0:31:40.280 It's a big secret. It's too early to talk about it. 0:31:42.160 --> 0:31:43.880 Will will there be musicians in it? 0:31:47.480 --> 0:31:50.000 It's too early to talk about it. It's too early. 0:31:50.240 --> 0:31:54.280 If there were going to be musicians in it? Do 0:31:54.320 --> 0:31:56.040 you know what My question? My next question is. 0:31:56.040 --> 0:31:57.600 Going to be, I take a questions. 0:32:00.600 --> 0:32:02.880 Better, not would you better? 0:32:03.840 --> 0:32:04.760 I have to ask. 0:32:06.240 --> 0:32:09.240 Would you would you invite this violinist to be in 0:32:09.320 --> 0:32:15.040 the movie. It does. 0:32:16.720 --> 0:32:17.120 Afford it. 0:32:17.440 --> 0:32:19.600 You do not enter the same river twice. 0:32:22.200 --> 0:32:28.200 That's a very nice way of putting it, mister Sakarov. 0:32:28.240 --> 0:32:30.080 I want to thank you so much for talking to me. 0:32:33.520 --> 0:32:35.920 Be well, goodbye, Oh, thank you, thank you very much, 0:32:38.240 --> 0:32:40.400 thank you very much, thank you, thank you. 0:32:40.960 --> 0:32:45.200 And yeah, he. 0:32:45.400 --> 0:32:48.560 Didn't he didn't call me an idiot today, No, but 0:32:48.640 --> 0:32:50.240 he asked, Okay, I was going to tell you, so 0:32:50.640 --> 0:32:51.000 he asked me. 0:32:51.040 --> 0:32:53.040 He's like, don't translate that, but what's up with this 0:32:53.120 --> 0:32:54.480 obsession with one little thing? 0:32:55.240 --> 0:32:56.520 Well, why wouldn't you say that to me? 0:32:57.120 --> 0:32:59.760 Because yeah, I think he's never been asked so many 0:32:59.840 --> 0:33:02.200 time about something, and you can see him being more 0:33:02.280 --> 0:33:05.520 aggravated with it, but in a very polite way. Yeah, 0:33:06.680 --> 0:33:07.959 he was trying to be polite. 0:33:09.600 --> 0:33:14.040 Anton In Chekhov, a Russian, once said good breeding does 0:33:14.120 --> 0:33:17.080 not mean you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but 0:33:17.200 --> 0:33:20.720 that you won't notice when someone else does. And here 0:33:20.840 --> 0:33:24.320 I am an impolite dinner guest pointing out a saucetain 0:33:24.440 --> 0:33:28.080 on the ninety minute long single take tablecloth. Everyone so 0:33:28.240 --> 0:33:32.360 proud of. In spite of calling myself an artist, I'm 0:33:32.440 --> 0:33:36.360 no soker of. I'm not even a tilman. Butner I 0:33:36.520 --> 0:33:44.320 am the violinist This is hardly the first time I've 0:33:44.320 --> 0:33:47.480 been confronted with proof of who I am. There was 0:33:47.520 --> 0:33:50.600 the moment I brought up the confused Violinist with Baron Fisher, 0:33:50.920 --> 0:33:51.840 the lighting designer. 0:33:52.480 --> 0:33:54.880 It seems like really bad as you have stories, but 0:33:55.040 --> 0:33:57.280 that's I mean, what can I say? I mean, that's 0:33:57.360 --> 0:33:58.760 not been the issue. 0:33:59.120 --> 0:34:01.840 When I brought it up with Hilman Butner, the cinematographer 0:34:02.160 --> 0:34:07.880 and his son Knstey Constantine Temple Butner, he is really interested. 0:34:08.400 --> 0:34:13.759 Why you, Jonathan, are so interested in that one specific violinist. 0:34:13.719 --> 0:34:16.080 And with Jen's Mirror, the producer. 0:34:16.120 --> 0:34:19.399 You are more bothered by it than I am. I've 0:34:19.640 --> 0:34:23.320 actually never heard a live audience notice it. 0:34:24.640 --> 0:34:27.600 Not only was Mirror not bothered by it, he actually 0:34:27.680 --> 0:34:29.759 empathized with the bedeviled violinist. 0:34:30.440 --> 0:34:33.120 Imagine you're the only person in an ensemble of four 0:34:33.160 --> 0:34:36.720 thousand people who fox up that moment. 0:34:37.440 --> 0:34:37.600 You know. 0:34:37.680 --> 0:34:40.360 I wonder the film has been shown very often in 0:34:40.440 --> 0:34:43.360 the hermitage in Saint Petersburg. He must have seen himself. 0:34:43.440 --> 0:34:46.480 Look at the camera. He's probably kicking himself, or he's 0:34:46.520 --> 0:34:49.719 being teased by his colleagues, or maybe that's the person 0:34:49.800 --> 0:34:50.920 you should track down. 0:34:52.600 --> 0:34:55.880 In my life, I've ruined a lot of stuff, water fights, 0:34:55.960 --> 0:35:01.720 flash mobs, sing alongs Abatchie dinner, Mongolian hot pot dinners, 0:35:02.200 --> 0:35:10.040 Shabbat dinners, July's fourth, white shirts, white tablecloths, yards and 0:35:10.200 --> 0:35:14.600 yards of tablecloths. And with each act of runation, I've 0:35:14.640 --> 0:35:19.239 always felt absolutely terrible, which is why whenever a moment 0:35:19.320 --> 0:35:22.000 of forgiveness did come, it felt like a ladle full 0:35:22.080 --> 0:35:25.919 of soothing, warm cherry sauce, lovingly ladled over my head. 0:35:26.920 --> 0:35:30.600 The beleaguered violinists never got that loving ladle, fool and 0:35:30.680 --> 0:35:33.840 if he's anything like me, he must be feeling awful. 0:35:35.000 --> 0:35:38.280 I needed to tell the luckless violinists that not only 0:35:38.440 --> 0:35:42.560 is all forgiven, but that the great Alexander Nikolaievich Sakarov 0:35:43.160 --> 0:35:48.800 even thanks him after the break a crown of cherry sauce. 0:35:57.040 --> 0:36:01.040 Even though Russia was probably lousy, with violinists fiddling on 0:36:01.120 --> 0:36:03.960 the roof of every major edifice in the country, it 0:36:03.960 --> 0:36:07.520 would prove hard to find this particular one. While the 0:36:07.560 --> 0:36:10.640 film's credits thank the orchestra, they do not single out 0:36:10.719 --> 0:36:14.160 individual musicians, so all I know is that the orchestra 0:36:14.320 --> 0:36:17.640 playing in the film's final scene is the Marinsky, one 0:36:17.680 --> 0:36:21.040 of the oldest orchestras in Russia, dating back more than 0:36:21.040 --> 0:36:24.880 two hundred years. Not knowing what else to do, I 0:36:25.000 --> 0:36:28.680 freeze frame the moment the unfortunate violinist stares into the camera, 0:36:29.080 --> 0:36:32.400 and I take a screenshot. I then crop the image 0:36:32.440 --> 0:36:35.680 and blow it up so that the woeful violinist slack 0:36:35.760 --> 0:36:39.320 jowed stare fills the frame. I then attach the grainy 0:36:39.360 --> 0:36:41.600 image to an email that I then send to the 0:36:41.680 --> 0:36:45.600 Marinsky Orchestra press office. I wondered if you might know 0:36:45.719 --> 0:36:48.960 his name. My email reads, I'm not sure if he 0:36:49.080 --> 0:36:52.120 even plays with the orchestra anymore, but any help you're 0:36:52.120 --> 0:36:56.080 able to offer is much appreciated. A day later, I 0:36:56.200 --> 0:37:00.160 receive a message. The violinist on the photo attached the 0:37:00.280 --> 0:37:06.600 email reads is Marshall Besnard. At my request, the press 0:37:06.640 --> 0:37:09.680 office sets up an interview. I don't tell them what 0:37:09.800 --> 0:37:17.960 it's for. I've been planting the seeds for a voyage 0:37:18.040 --> 0:37:21.719 to sweet Mother Russia for days now, reading Pinsky around 0:37:21.800 --> 0:37:26.000 the office and referring to Alex as Alex Sandair. It 0:37:26.160 --> 0:37:30.280 was getting me nowhere, and so I assumed my power stance, 0:37:30.880 --> 0:37:33.520 hunched over and squeezing the chewing gum in the front 0:37:33.600 --> 0:37:37.480 pockets of my American blue jeans. I confront Alex at 0:37:37.560 --> 0:37:41.120 his desk. I must insist you sail me to Russia. 0:37:41.239 --> 0:37:44.920 I say, I must insist you get out of my office, 0:37:45.000 --> 0:37:50.080 Alex says, laughing. He extends his hand for a high five, which, 0:37:50.480 --> 0:37:56.320 hating myself for afterwards, I dutifully spank, and so I 0:37:56.400 --> 0:37:59.320 get Sasha back in the studio to translate my phone 0:37:59.360 --> 0:38:07.200 call with the cursed violinist Marshall Besnard. Oh, hello is 0:38:07.239 --> 0:38:12.400 this mister Beard. Hello, good day, and good day to you. 0:38:13.880 --> 0:38:17.280 After exchanging pleasantries, we talk about the day of the shoot, 0:38:17.840 --> 0:38:20.120 everything leading up to his moment on film. 0:38:21.640 --> 0:38:24.920 It was a very ambitious project because the camera was 0:38:25.000 --> 0:38:30.719 not shut off, and all people are supposed to be 0:38:31.120 --> 0:38:37.760 extremely organized, extremely organized. I think I watched it twice, 0:38:40.080 --> 0:38:44.239 and my mother called me and said, I saw you. 0:38:45.600 --> 0:38:47.239 I saw you in the picture. I saw you in 0:38:47.320 --> 0:38:47.640 a shot. 0:38:48.920 --> 0:38:51.920 Aside from his mother's rave review, I wondered how his 0:38:52.000 --> 0:38:55.040 friends and co workers had reacted, whether there had been 0:38:55.160 --> 0:38:59.759 ribbing the painful kind. But I'd learned my lesson with Soccerov. 0:39:00.320 --> 0:39:04.719 The Russians are polite people, and so I proceed cautiously. 0:39:05.360 --> 0:39:10.480 Did anybody give give you feedback on your performance in 0:39:10.560 --> 0:39:13.200 the movie Smooth. 0:39:12.880 --> 0:39:21.920 As a silky pair of the Serena's dainties. No, it 0:39:22.120 --> 0:39:27.800 wasn't really discussed. But the thing is, I'm not a 0:39:27.880 --> 0:39:34.160 main character, thank god. I'm just one person that was 0:39:34.400 --> 0:39:37.080 on the screen for just one second. Nothing special. 0:39:38.840 --> 0:39:43.840 Well, here's the funny thing is that I saw the 0:39:43.920 --> 0:39:50.560 movie many years ago when it came out, and to me, 0:39:52.120 --> 0:39:56.680 you were the most special thing for a specific reason. 0:39:56.840 --> 0:40:03.000 But watching specific you were the only person who actually 0:40:03.400 --> 0:40:18.080 turned and looked directly into the camera. Really, yeah, did 0:40:18.160 --> 0:40:18.600 you did you? 0:40:19.040 --> 0:40:25.759 Did you not know that? No, honestly, I did not. 0:40:27.239 --> 0:40:28.440 It's the first time that I'm hearing this. 0:40:34.600 --> 0:40:37.320 You're not in front of a computer right now, or 0:40:37.360 --> 0:40:41.000 it could could receive a screen shots from the movie 0:40:41.080 --> 0:40:41.799 so you could see. 0:40:46.160 --> 0:40:48.120 Yes, I can do that. I have a computer. I 0:40:48.200 --> 0:40:48.680 can look. 0:40:49.920 --> 0:40:52.439 It wasn't that I wanted to make Marshall feel bad. 0:40:52.960 --> 0:40:54.799 It was just that I needed to make him feel 0:40:54.840 --> 0:40:57.759 bad in order to make him feel good. If you 0:40:57.880 --> 0:41:01.400 send me your email, I can send you. Marcelle and 0:41:01.440 --> 0:41:03.560 I attempt to exchange emails. 0:41:06.360 --> 0:41:18.560 At Valieri Internet ready sending. No it says undeliverable. 0:41:19.600 --> 0:41:22.480 Don't look into the camera send me your email address. 0:41:22.960 --> 0:41:25.719 All his life, this poor man has been hobbled by 0:41:25.760 --> 0:41:31.720 an inability to follow simple instructions. But finally the email arrives. 0:41:33.880 --> 0:41:35.680 Oh, yes, it's already during the bows. 0:41:36.719 --> 0:41:40.400 So do you do you notice where everybody else is facing? 0:41:46.480 --> 0:41:49.640 Yes, I'm not looking there, I'm looking into the camera. Really, 0:41:52.000 --> 0:41:56.800 it was fifteen years ago. I was a young and 0:41:56.840 --> 0:42:02.600 handsome man. Yes, very didn't look bad at all. 0:42:02.680 --> 0:42:02.799 Uh. 0:42:05.680 --> 0:42:09.040 I attempt to ease into the subject of Sokarov's forgiveness. 0:42:10.120 --> 0:42:15.040 Do you think that Sokoro ever noticed you? Specifically? 0:42:22.520 --> 0:42:24.960 I know that he didn't talk to me about this, 0:42:26.880 --> 0:42:31.320 So there are two options. He either didn't notice, or 0:42:32.080 --> 0:42:34.320 he liked it and thought let it be. 0:42:35.600 --> 0:42:38.520 Yes, Sokarov had liked it, Yes, he thought let it be. 0:42:39.160 --> 0:42:42.359 But the presumptuous violinist had no way of knowing any 0:42:42.440 --> 0:42:45.160 of this. And why do you think that maybe he 0:42:45.200 --> 0:42:45.880 would have liked it. 0:42:52.239 --> 0:42:55.720 If he noticed, they would have had to redo it, God. 0:42:55.560 --> 0:42:58.719 Forbid, But but he couldn't. I don't think he could 0:42:58.760 --> 0:43:02.760 have redone it, and you can they only had one chance. 0:43:08.160 --> 0:43:10.799 I think that in reality, the question is not whether 0:43:10.840 --> 0:43:16.800 it looked into the camera. The question is the people 0:43:16.880 --> 0:43:20.120 that later on edited it, why did they keep the moment? 0:43:22.640 --> 0:43:30.160 They had no choice because because it's all one take, but. 0:43:30.200 --> 0:43:33.440 You can always cut out a few scenes and put 0:43:33.480 --> 0:43:34.680 it back together. Nobody would ever know. 0:43:35.160 --> 0:43:37.520 No, no, no, The whole point of the movie is 0:43:37.600 --> 0:43:40.319 that it's nines of one long. 0:43:46.960 --> 0:43:48.319 I know it's part in this. I know. 0:43:49.960 --> 0:43:51.920 More than being the kind of guy who'd stare into 0:43:52.000 --> 0:43:54.440 a camera, Marshall was the kind of guy who might 0:43:54.600 --> 0:43:57.240 very well stare into the sun during a solar eclipse. 0:43:58.080 --> 0:44:01.440 This is to say that Marshall was completely oblivious. 0:44:05.760 --> 0:44:08.279 I think it came to be beneficial for the film, 0:44:08.400 --> 0:44:10.480 right as Anderson, thank god, I'm very happy. 0:44:13.480 --> 0:44:16.480 Well, the great Alexander Sokarov might have found working with 0:44:16.600 --> 0:44:20.400 Marshall a blessing. I personally wasn't finding it such a treat. 0:44:21.200 --> 0:44:23.960 Clearly Marshall was not looking for or in need of 0:44:24.480 --> 0:44:28.799 any forgiveness. Do you remember being told on that day 0:44:28.920 --> 0:44:30.120 not to look into the camera. 0:44:38.840 --> 0:44:41.400 It would have been very strange if you were making 0:44:41.480 --> 0:44:43.479 a film and then people would be looking into the camera. 0:44:44.280 --> 0:44:47.480 So then why why did you Why did you look 0:44:47.520 --> 0:44:52.040 into the camera, and why did he. I proceed to 0:44:52.120 --> 0:44:56.279 audition a series of theories. Maybe he's jumpy and when 0:44:56.320 --> 0:44:59.560 the camera came by, he was caught unawares. Do you 0:44:59.719 --> 0:45:00.760 starttle easily? 0:45:08.760 --> 0:45:08.800 No? 0:45:08.920 --> 0:45:13.440 You know, any person can be startled by anything. The 0:45:13.560 --> 0:45:18.280 person can be startled from the fact that your close 0:45:18.320 --> 0:45:22.960 relative is sick with some incurable disease, or a person 0:45:23.040 --> 0:45:24.560 can be startled when driving. 0:45:27.280 --> 0:45:29.320 And sometimes you could be startled by a camera, a 0:45:29.640 --> 0:45:30.320 very big camera. 0:45:35.719 --> 0:45:36.880 No, I'm not one of these people. 0:45:37.560 --> 0:45:41.360 Maybe he's a bad listener or just forgetful. Are you married? 0:45:41.880 --> 0:45:42.360 Is nothing? 0:45:43.880 --> 0:45:44.080 Yes? 0:45:44.440 --> 0:45:44.920 Of course. 0:45:45.440 --> 0:45:50.160 Does your wife ever say, oh, Marshall, you're not listening 0:45:50.360 --> 0:45:51.360 to my instructions. 0:45:55.880 --> 0:46:00.560 She always says that, like any wife would, it's normal. 0:46:04.320 --> 0:46:09.520 I offer more theories while eyes shifty disposition, restless leg syndrome, 0:46:10.280 --> 0:46:13.040 and thanks to the miracle of editing, you find people 0:46:13.080 --> 0:46:15.880 don't have to sit through any of it. In a 0:46:16.000 --> 0:46:18.279 last ditch effort, I ask if he's just sort of 0:46:18.840 --> 0:46:21.400 let's a fair the kind of guy who shows up 0:46:21.480 --> 0:46:24.759 late to a surprise birthday party in Russia? Do you 0:46:24.920 --> 0:46:29.360 have something called surprise parties? Surprise birthday parties? 0:46:36.480 --> 0:46:36.800 How is that? 0:46:36.840 --> 0:46:38.440 I'm sorry, I don't understand. 0:46:38.200 --> 0:46:40.480 Where the person doesn't know they're going to be having 0:46:40.520 --> 0:46:46.600 a surprise and all their friends show up in advance 0:46:46.680 --> 0:47:01.120 of their arriving, and everyone yelse it's your birthday, would like. 0:47:03.680 --> 0:47:06.680 No, because you know, Russia is a very conservative country. 0:47:06.760 --> 0:47:12.680 Unfortunately, finally I just give up. I don't understand Marshall, 0:47:13.000 --> 0:47:17.080 and I'm not even sure Marshall understands Marshall. Maybe something 0:47:17.200 --> 0:47:21.239 was just being lost in the translation. Okay, well you 0:47:21.400 --> 0:47:24.240 you have a good rest of the Then. 0:47:26.560 --> 0:47:27.200 York, thank you. 0:47:27.280 --> 0:47:31.799 How is New York new York's great great city? 0:47:37.520 --> 0:47:37.799 Is there? 0:47:38.719 --> 0:47:41.200 Does the movie theater on twenty first Streets still work? 0:47:41.800 --> 0:47:41.960 Oh? 0:47:42.040 --> 0:47:42.719 Yeah, yeah yeah. 0:47:42.920 --> 0:47:50.879 In Chelsea, Chelsea, I went to see The term Year 0:47:51.040 --> 0:47:54.120 of Terminator three. Oh it was incredible. 0:47:54.520 --> 0:47:58.320 That's a good movie. Nobody looks in the camera. 0:48:03.160 --> 0:48:04.120 Except for the Terminator. 0:48:05.280 --> 0:48:15.399 Yes, yes, so you're like the Terminator In the movie 0:48:15.480 --> 0:48:18.959 The Terminator, the titular Terminator is sent back in time 0:48:19.040 --> 0:48:22.080 by Skynet to kill Sarah Connor before she can give 0:48:22.120 --> 0:48:24.680 birth to her son, John, who grows up to be 0:48:24.760 --> 0:48:28.680 a threat to Skynett. If Marshall was the Terminator, he 0:48:28.719 --> 0:48:32.799 would go back in time, find Sarah Connor, and rather 0:48:32.920 --> 0:48:35.960 than try to kill her, be all like give birth 0:48:35.960 --> 0:48:38.520 to your son all over again, lady, because I think 0:48:38.600 --> 0:48:41.160 he came to be very beneficial for the Terminator film 0:48:41.280 --> 0:48:46.520 franchise right as I understand. Thank God, I'm very happy 0:48:48.160 --> 0:48:51.560 Marshall isn't revisiting the past to fix an imperfect present. 0:48:52.200 --> 0:48:55.600 He may have looked into the camera, but he's no Terminator. 0:49:03.440 --> 0:49:07.080 Marshall had completely flow mixed me. I'd never met anyone 0:49:07.200 --> 0:49:11.480 so unburdened by past mistakes. For me, the past is 0:49:11.520 --> 0:49:16.080 a magical, spiritual place where regrets are born. For Marshall, 0:49:16.560 --> 0:49:18.960 it's just a place where one is young and handsome. 0:49:20.200 --> 0:49:22.600 The way I see it, there's only one person who 0:49:22.640 --> 0:49:25.600 can both share in my frustration with Marshall and also 0:49:25.719 --> 0:49:29.480 explain him to me. What makes Marshall the one person 0:49:29.840 --> 0:49:32.680 out of thousands of performers there that day to have 0:49:32.760 --> 0:49:35.759 looked into the camera, and what makes him so free 0:49:35.880 --> 0:49:39.759 of remorse? And the person who can answer those questions 0:49:40.680 --> 0:49:48.640 Marshall's wife after the break, rolling up my pant legs 0:49:48.800 --> 0:49:55.040 and entering the same river. Thrice, Actually at this point 0:49:55.040 --> 0:49:58.600 it's more than thrice, No four rice? Is that a 0:49:58.640 --> 0:49:59.920 word that's not a word. 0:50:00.200 --> 0:50:00.320 Is it? 0:50:00.880 --> 0:50:01.120 Five? 0:50:01.200 --> 0:50:01.439 Ice? 0:50:02.080 --> 0:50:14.040 Vanilla ice iced tea? Put some ice on it? Hello? 0:50:14.800 --> 0:50:20.800 Is is this a miss Ah? Miss Hammond? 0:50:22.280 --> 0:50:23.000 What is she saying? 0:50:23.680 --> 0:50:24.480 It's not Russia? 0:50:27.000 --> 0:50:28.879 Maybe you have a bad connection. We could call back. 0:50:30.400 --> 0:50:32.879 I'd ask Marshall to send me his wife's phone number. 0:50:33.520 --> 0:50:37.000 Considering how poorly he follows instructions, I can't say I 0:50:37.120 --> 0:50:39.040 was too surprised to find he might have gotten a 0:50:39.160 --> 0:50:40.200 digit or too wrong. 0:50:47.400 --> 0:50:59.480 Did you say, Solomon lam? Yeah, yeah, alakum salaam, All right, 0:50:59.520 --> 0:51:00.000 let's hang out. 0:51:01.360 --> 0:51:14.400 But finally Hello, Hello, yes ah? Is this missus Besnard? 0:51:17.520 --> 0:51:19.440 Yes? Yes, okay, thank you. 0:51:19.960 --> 0:51:23.759 Marshall's wife's name is Otilia. By way of introduction, I 0:51:23.880 --> 0:51:27.560 explained that after seeing Russian ARC almost two decades ago 0:51:27.920 --> 0:51:31.560 and becoming obsessed with her husband's three second performance, I 0:51:31.640 --> 0:51:34.640 spent countless hours tracking him down to speak to him 0:51:34.640 --> 0:51:37.000 about it, and now I wish to speak with her. 0:51:37.880 --> 0:51:40.400 In response, she says she hasn't seen Russian ARC in 0:51:40.440 --> 0:51:42.799 a long time, and so I ask if I can 0:51:42.880 --> 0:51:44.560 send something to refresh her memory. 0:51:49.160 --> 0:51:51.600 So you want to listend the moment when my spouse 0:51:51.719 --> 0:51:52.640 turned into the camera. 0:51:53.120 --> 0:51:55.080 Yes, you know about that? 0:51:59.440 --> 0:52:08.560 Of course I remember that you do, yes, yes, yes, everyone. 0:52:08.680 --> 0:52:10.479 He is just he cannot just sit still? 0:52:14.520 --> 0:52:17.680 And why couldn't he sit still? Marshall had no answer 0:52:17.760 --> 0:52:20.080 to that question, but Utilia does. 0:52:23.000 --> 0:52:26.480 When he plays the violin, he doesn't notice anything around himself. 0:52:30.480 --> 0:52:34.280 When you're playing the music that you like, your thoughts 0:52:34.360 --> 0:52:38.560 and your soul go into the music. He wasn't even 0:52:38.680 --> 0:52:40.520 thinking about what was happening around him. 0:52:41.080 --> 0:52:41.400 Mmm. 0:52:42.360 --> 0:52:45.520 Do you think Marshall gets so taken up in the 0:52:45.640 --> 0:52:51.879 music music that he wouldn't even notice at ten people 0:52:52.080 --> 0:52:55.680 carrying a huge camera coming by. 0:53:01.239 --> 0:53:04.560 I think he just had a job music. I don't 0:53:04.560 --> 0:53:06.239 think he was thinking about anything else. 0:53:08.800 --> 0:53:11.480 Ottilia has known Marshall since they were seven years old. 0:53:12.040 --> 0:53:14.239 She says music has always been the thing he's most 0:53:14.320 --> 0:53:17.640 focused on. How when he's immersed in his music, everything 0:53:17.680 --> 0:53:18.560 else falls away. 0:53:22.640 --> 0:53:26.240 He differed from all the other boys because he already 0:53:26.280 --> 0:53:28.520 had a goal, because he's been playing the violin since 0:53:28.520 --> 0:53:33.560 he was five. Uh huh, Cardiginian official teachers, I agree 0:53:33.600 --> 0:53:35.760 on the screen. So every day he played the violin 0:53:35.880 --> 0:53:41.399 for three hours every day, sometimes even more football when 0:53:41.440 --> 0:53:47.479 everybody else was playing soccer or hockey. He was practicing at. 0:53:47.400 --> 0:53:50.719 Twelve years old, Marshall went away to study music. He 0:53:50.800 --> 0:53:53.800 and Ottilia didn't see each other for another twenty five years. 0:53:54.719 --> 0:53:58.640 During this time, Marshall attended the Rimsky Corsicov Saint Petersburg 0:53:58.719 --> 0:54:02.440 State Conservatory and then got a position at the Marinsky Orchestra. 0:54:03.480 --> 0:54:05.320 It was while he was back home for a vacation 0:54:05.840 --> 0:54:08.640 that he reconnected with Ottilia and asked her out on 0:54:08.719 --> 0:54:09.040 a date. 0:54:11.719 --> 0:54:16.640 We walked almost until the morning. It was around midnight, 0:54:17.320 --> 0:54:20.520 and we went to our school and we walked around 0:54:20.560 --> 0:54:26.400 the school and we remembered, we remembered about our childhood. 0:54:33.719 --> 0:54:37.600 After their first date, Otilia says they were inseparable for 0:54:37.680 --> 0:54:40.719 two weeks straight. They talked every day, went for long 0:54:40.800 --> 0:54:44.319 walks which lasted early into the morning. It was after 0:54:44.400 --> 0:54:47.560 one of these long walks, after they'd said goodbye at 0:54:47.600 --> 0:54:51.040 two in the morning, that Marshall phoned Otilia at her home. 0:54:53.120 --> 0:54:56.960 If I come to you with a proposition. Well, you 0:54:57.080 --> 0:55:01.040 listened to me and I said yes, of course. So 0:55:01.120 --> 0:55:06.239 he came to my balcony and I looked out and 0:55:06.320 --> 0:55:13.120 he asked me whether I would marry him, And from 0:55:13.200 --> 0:55:15.400 the height of the second floor, I thought that he 0:55:15.560 --> 0:55:20.880 was just joking. At two a m. And I asked him, 0:55:20.880 --> 0:55:25.400 where are your flowers? So he came and picked a 0:55:25.560 --> 0:55:29.759 flower out of the lawn, and I came to the 0:55:29.840 --> 0:55:35.319 first floor and agreed to marry him. We were laughing 0:55:35.400 --> 0:55:39.959 because at two a m. It was very unexpected, because 0:55:40.000 --> 0:55:43.319 he dropped me off and then he went back home, 0:55:43.400 --> 0:55:46.040 and in those few moments he decided to get married. 0:55:48.160 --> 0:55:48.960 He turned back. 0:55:51.400 --> 0:55:51.839 He came back. 0:55:51.880 --> 0:55:56.399 Of course, he turned back, just like he turned back 0:55:56.480 --> 0:55:57.000 in the movie. 0:55:57.120 --> 0:56:06.560 You know, yes, yeah, yeah, That's what I'm telling you. 0:56:08.360 --> 0:56:10.760 Because he has those unexpected moments. 0:56:17.239 --> 0:56:21.239 Marshall only had one chance. Like Sokarov, he wouldn't have 0:56:21.320 --> 0:56:25.719 wanted an extra day, so he turned back, not to contemplate, 0:56:26.080 --> 0:56:29.520 edit or fix the past, but to throw himself with 0:56:29.719 --> 0:56:35.640 passion into his future with Ottilia. I am not Marshall 0:56:36.040 --> 0:56:39.880 and I am not Sokarov. Neither of them is interested 0:56:39.960 --> 0:56:45.960 in redoing the past in art or in life. If 0:56:46.000 --> 0:56:48.719 you've ever seen a Persian carpet, which I only did 0:56:48.800 --> 0:56:51.160 once I was in my late thirties. Growing up, my 0:56:51.280 --> 0:56:53.800 family was more of a wal to wall shag operation, 0:56:54.600 --> 0:56:58.160 you'll know that it's some pretty impressive stuff. They say 0:56:58.200 --> 0:57:00.919 that as they're being made, though the weavers make sure 0:57:01.040 --> 0:57:04.840 to leave in one small mistake on purpose as a 0:57:04.920 --> 0:57:09.520 gesture of humility, because they say only God is perfect 0:57:09.880 --> 0:57:13.680 and has the right to create works of perfection. Humans 0:57:13.719 --> 0:57:17.000 are imperfect, and we find other humans to love us 0:57:17.120 --> 0:57:22.240 for our imperfections. It's a lot more rewarding than criticizing stuff. 0:57:24.160 --> 0:57:26.520 The Canadian Weekly I used to write film reviews for 0:57:27.040 --> 0:57:30.200 has since shuddered, so I can't reread my review of 0:57:30.280 --> 0:57:34.320 Russian Arc, but I'm sure the headline read something like 0:57:35.000 --> 0:57:38.840 Russian Arc sinks to the bottom of my memory because, 0:57:38.880 --> 0:57:42.480 in truth, in spite of its scope and ambition and artistry, 0:57:43.080 --> 0:57:46.600 other than Marshall's moment, I didn't remember much about it. 0:57:47.960 --> 0:57:51.360 So in the end, Marshall's mistake brought value to the film, 0:57:55.000 --> 0:58:00.240 right as I understand. Thank God, I'm very happy. 0:58:00.120 --> 0:58:38.280 Be now that the fern ures returning to its goodwill home, 0:58:41.800 --> 0:58:45.880 now that the last month's rent is scheming with. 0:58:46.080 --> 0:58:50.680 The damage to possible, take this moment to dissolve. 0:58:52.720 --> 0:58:54.800 If we meant it, if we tried. 0:58:56.480 --> 0:59:03.960 We felt around for far too from the last accident leaves. 0:59:08.280 --> 0:59:11.120 Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me Jonathan Goldstein along 0:59:11.160 --> 0:59:14.320 with Stevie Lane. Peter Bresnan and Khalila Holt. The show 0:59:14.440 --> 0:59:17.840 is edited by Jorge Just, with additional editing by Alex Bloomberg. 0:59:18.160 --> 0:59:21.640 Special thanks to Emily Condon, Shruthy Pennaminini, Chris Neary, and 0:59:21.840 --> 0:59:25.000 Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with music by 0:59:25.080 --> 0:59:29.120 Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Michael Hurst, and he himself 0:59:29.840 --> 0:59:32.840 Bop Up Up, Up, Up Up Up Bobby Lord. Additional 0:59:32.920 --> 0:59:35.680 music credits can be found on our website Gimbletmedia dot 0:59:35.760 --> 0:59:38.880 com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by the Weaker 0:59:38.920 --> 0:59:41.840 Than's courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is 0:59:41.880 --> 0:59:45.080 by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or 0:59:45.240 --> 0:59:49.200 email us at Heavyweight at gimbletmedia dot com. Our very 0:59:49.280 --> 0:59:52.200 special season finale is coming up next week