How long is this episode of Caged In: Coppola Connections?

This episode is 2 hours and 19 minutes long.

When was this Caged In: Coppola Connections episode published?

This episode was published on February 14, 2023.

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Yes, a full transcript is available for this episode. You can read the complete transcript on the episode page.

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Troubled Productions - Caged In: Coppola…

Hello and welcome to Caged In, as ever brought to you by the Breadcrumbs Collective, most of you by me, Petros, Pat Silver's, you're worn out, you're starving artist, you're alter under immense pressure of deadlines to try and get stuff done, but everything seems to be going wrong on this episode. We're going to be talking about troubled productions, films for whatever reason, it might be the evil studio system, acts of God, or most commonly, the hubris of men led to chaos on film sets. Some of them are box office poison, others grandfollies, and of mere few, are some of the most celebrated films in cinematic history. Joining me to navigate these choppy waters is someone well versed in box office flops, one half of the W-rated podcast, Claire Ellen Hope, how are you Claire?

That does make it sound like I've had box office flops, and I would only be so lucky. I went to Zayla and I went to Zayla and I went to Zayla and I went to B2, I don't want to be Zayla Berg, I went to Dorson Niri, Dorson Niri went to B2, so I felt like it came full circle, and I was like, that time, I'd take a box office block only day of the week. The immensity it takes to make a film, like I would just getting it over the finish line, I imagine being like immensely difficult, like making anything good. I mean, it's like, so I feel like we need to get this out of the way.

You need to get it out, we need to rest the evening. I don't, well, the irony of this episode is it is currently gone nine o'clock. We were supposed to start recording this episode at 8pm for a whole host of laptop-related issues, the main one being my laptop is 12 years old or so. Yeah, it just, I feel like, I feel malnourished and dehydrated in the middle of the Philippines right now, but I'm not, I'm in a freezing cold shed in the back of my garden.

This is my apocalypse now. Where as I feel like Florence Pugh and don't worry darling, going, we're going to get started. Come on, what we're doing, how long are we in here, how much do I have to drink before this is happening? I'm going to take over this, I'm going to direct this show, Petros, heading on the road.

And do Venice, the control freak that I am, you're now recording on my podcast platform rather than your one. That is true, that is true, that is true. So yeah, this episode in itself is a troubled production. So, appreciate the irony guys, and hopefully you'll listen to the forthcoming, however long this episode is to hear about some issues that are far greater than the ones that we're talking, that we've had ourselves.

But what led me to want to talk about troubled productions is last month, and it's better podcasts would have been hot to trot and we'll this out in a different. We were going to be quicker and then we also delayed this. So we really have trouble with how to raise production issues, let's say what happens during that edit. It feels like, I think if you had the talk, if, if this was your full time job podcast, I could have easily researched four films in like two days, but I also have a life, but imagine you like yourself.

So it's like, Jimmy, we're not, we're not, we're not, we can't get that spot fine, we can't just go, hey, we've got, we've got an idea for episodes, let's do it tomorrow, let's be hot on the button. We're not quite ready to be the discount, Sean, kind of seeing the man doing a very well. We're not quite there. Well, I think we're very much other than the bottom of the barrel version at the moment, because they would have been like, hey, this has happened.

It's not an episode. It's out, it's out in two days time. Do you know what I mean? Let's get Bobby Waggoner on the phone now.

Get, get, get, get, get recording. But yeah, it was the Francis World, well, the rumors around the mega-oppolis production issues. What, like, did you read, did you read about this at the time, Claire? What do you kind of, and what are they for people who don't know what the rumors were?

So I kind of have them through you as where I get most of my coffee information these days, all days. And so yeah, the rumors are as rumors go both in terms of Mr. Coppola's life and just in terms of movie set gossip, that there are mad, crazy issues going on in the coffee, mega-oppolis, mega-oppolis. I'm never going to be able to go and see that film.

Yeah, I just have the book a ticket online. Like that one, Queen of the Post-Star. And there's those issues on the set that he has some reports that he filed the entire art department, some reports that they walked out, reports that it's way over budget, that it's really under time, under schedule, and behind schedule. Yeah, that's great.

Other schedules what you want. It's by high schedule, it's what you don't want. I'm a scitula for a living, so I should really know those words. It was a troubled start and I did have a few whiskeys whilst you dealt with our second shoes.

So the words are not flowing them off. Yeah, so there's just all of these rumors and I think it kind of, we can go into them more specifically. But as you said, I wasn't so aware of them because I feel like every other day there's a rumor issue on the set or every other day there's reported reshoots or every other day there's an argument or a report of inappropriate behavior. And whilst I think some of these are important to be reported in terms of people having their stories, things like that, like I'm very pro, nothing about the effects, there's a lot of disasters at the house of Disney.

If that is important, those effects artists get them, they're not judgement much. But I do think we know a bit too much about films these days, a bit too much about film sets. And again, we can come on to it when we talk about some of these things, it was such a joy for me to watch a couple of documentaries about some of these films, to find out absolute chaos after the fact, watch the finished product, enjoy the finished product, and then see how the cake was made. I want to go into the kitchen after any and not before.

I think, and I think, and what we'll kind of realise as we talk about these films, is that kind of, as the film is kind of spiraling out of control in production, really kind of clouds people's judgements of the finished product. And in some of these cases, the finished films are like our great work of art, like, I mean, like kind of achievements of kind of technical ability and stuff like that. Whereas like people just get bogged down in the Quagmire, like one of the ones I'll be mentioning is Heaven's Gate, which is a film that looks beautiful, but has a lot, I stress a lot of kind of issues that went on with it. Yeah, so I haven't seen that one and I didn't research that one, but in our lovely shared Google Doc that we have, I just kept every time I scroll, seeing more and more points about animal gifts.

And I was like, oh, I'm very glad I didn't watch that one. Yeah, we'll get on to this. We'll get on to Heaven's Gate and Michael Chameeno's Wicked Ways. Yeah, that's kind of a litany of animal abuse.

Yeah, we'll get to it. What do you like, Meguropless? Do you like, I don't want to be like, I don't know, a harbinger of dick, but it feels like it's got a kind of couple of like horsemen of the apocalypse for your film kind of being a bit like dodgy to begin with in the fact that like despite kind of allegations against Shilabuff, Francis Ford, Cobra has gone fuck it, I'm going with him. Like John Voigt is kind of ultra right wing kind of a bit of a bit of a loon.

He's he's cropping up. He's got again, allegations made against Dustin Hoffman, like, hopefully seems to be like, hey, like round up the guy round up the posse. We're making a movie. And then there's, you know, my serious movie, darling, love Adam Driver, like Mr.

Jeff T is out there like a Pokemon catch, catching all the top directors in the world. He's like, if you were on the BFI top 100, I will be doing the film with you. And like the fellas doing it, but I'm like, oh, I'm really, this isn't a one. Maybe this is not a one.

Have you seen any of the set on set photos for Meguropless at all? I've been avoiding them and I tried to avoid it. I like on my Twitter, I have muted like set photos, things like that. But I think the other thing is there are certain films, mostly kind of MCU's, but there's too much information.

I kind of felt like if I saw one more set picture from the Batman during the pandemic, I might have killed someone. Like, I can't, I know he's gonna be a bat. Just leave it there. So I haven't seen them.

Actually, I can tell, you know, we're discussing this and we've shared to Docs, I actually didn't even know what the pop was. I didn't realize it was a post apocalyptic drama or if drama is even the right term. And that also had my kind of, oh, read-up because I must have asked when we had a bit of apocalyptic drama. It kind of like the premise of the film is like somebody trying to build a better world out of the kind of rubble and it was a film that again has already had its Like production issues like was gearing up to be made in like 20 2000 2001 Copa has been talking about since the 1980s that this is kind of like the film he wanted to make and I think the breaks got pumped on it Around 2001 because of 9-eleven and it's like it's basically about New York being destroyed It's like they say in the time and then copa floated with the idea waiting for like the kind of proverbial dust to settle or one of a better term and kind of yeah Put the project to bed in 2007 and then it was only 2019 But he kind of yeah retooled it back up and was like let's let's go baby I'm selling the vineyard to get the budget for this movie I think with that is like in some ways why fucking not like he's bloody loaded.

They have so much money and real estate They're getting on it. There's probably thinking of retiring. They're probably already thinking of downsizing He's probably thinking about retiring in the distant but not so distant future It's not like their kids are completely self-sufficient You know, they're not thinking about what can be the deposit for the fear and I should never get out of the housing market I think it that you know everyone's so it's I guess for him if you're thinking right when the next 10 years I'm probably gonna sell up and I'm probably gonna you know, hang the chair back up Well, yes, why not sell off everything and try and do your you know the one that got away Yeah, I hate to be morbid about it. It's 83 years up Jeremy.

Yes So if he's not gonna do it now, he's never gonna do it and I do respect that you know because there's a big deal People being like oh, we should put your money in it. You should never sell finance obviously coffee has been there I'm back again But you know, he doesn't he's don't need the money if God's ready passes away They're fine. I'm sure that they have life insurance policies and George partner will be fine And you know do they need a multiple amount of minions in their 80s? You mentioned his his wife Ellena copler who throughout this conversation will realize is an absolute gem of a woman like the most I probably like the most supportive wife of all time back in the like late 60s Francis Ford copler made a film called the rain people and He basically loaded up his family.

So so feel would have like maybe just been born It's got Roman who's like a few years old Ginco Coppola is there as well They're basically in the back of a station wagon driving the length of the country filming a film in one of the other cars They've got George Lucas who's filming behind the scenes footage for it like and that's kind of indicative throughout the whole kind of journey of his filmmaking career and I feel like it's a perfect kind of segue to talk about like well coplers. Yeah kind of history with troubled productions and kind of a Director has always kind of put it on the line. I always remember like a quote of him saying like Well, why why not just like risk it if you can like what's the point? It's like if yeah What you're not gonna if you can't risk it or to get something made then why make it all in the first place That's the kind of like paraphrasing what he said which is kind of like admirable in a way like even if it is kind of I don't know Yeah Selfish at the same time like to be putting other people's like like professions and names on a steak for your kind of grandfollies I guess yeah, because I was telling you like who does it really hurt?

But I guess like thinking of a little bit of a little come up later Like one from the heart, you know, I don't think a lot of those actors went on to have much success after that So it can hurt people absolutely but you know His money every production is a risk and I think I do I respect his like his moxie You might say of I feel like he still respects film is this grand messy art form He's not he refuses to subscribe to the you know not to keep bringing them up at the Disney the MCU You know film back in the tea model and I love those films like I am Known for my love of anything from those studios But film can be different things and I respect him kind of again sticking back his guns and going back to you know I want to make art and I want to make my story and it's a storytelling tool. It's not a content creator Yeah, what's amazing from him is he kind of like made his bones like through the studio system like kind of in the six days he made a you made a musical called Finian's Rainbow, which I gene Kelly in it and and He like what he was doing at that time was basically filming throughout the day and then like Stealing film and like like borrowing equipment on the weekend to make the films he wanted to make which it turns out really fascinating But like and obviously he's kind of like the first one over the top for what got dubbed the new Hollywood generation of these kind of group of directors who Kind of went we're not doing it that old way like we're gonna make films that are very much like Direct to driven and like not so much like yeah, because I'm sure we'll get into the ills of the studio system with one of the pics on the list Yeah, it's funny that he decided he didn't want that then decided he did want that then Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's something that yeah, they've come to mind is he kind of wanted the the repertory like Everybody working for the same studio, but then yeah, I don't think the full ills of like say I don't know Mickey Rooney or Judy Garland being paid like $35 a week or whatever it was to like kind of make movies like and have like yeah Like you've just finished one movie. Yep. You started filming the next one this afternoon kind of thing like like it was like real crazy stuff So before yeah, let's talk about a couple of like troubled copa productions, but before we do it's wanted to play a clip of kind of copa coke yeah copa his views on what it was like making apocalypse now and this is from Can in 1979 so he's got the world's press there as he said this My film is not a movie My film is not about Vietnam It is And the way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam.

We were in the jungle There were too many of us We had access to too many too much money I never actually told our job too much equipment for the dick and little by little we went insane Apocalypse now was meant to be a 16 week shoot and ended up being 238 days shooting over two years and nearly left copa bankrupt nearly killed its lead actor people's lives were basically Ruined making this movie like what like first of all this is that you watch this movie for this episode? What did you think of it Claire? Professor says saying I don't like war films in general So that's I never seen it and I got accidentally screwed over because someone at CX the wrong disk in the wrong box And so I ended up with mucka lips now Redux which you know there were different opinions on the internet But it's known by many as the worst car um, oh my god, it was so long It's just so long it just felt like it would never end and my housemate was in and out the room for like the three hours I have a lot of what was just kept me like what they do now and I was like, they're still on the river And what they do now now there was some French people what they kept walking in with their like playboy bodies there I don't really understand the purpose of the bill Me when I started reading around it I realized I'm going down the river hold on and the river Whether they get down the river up the river, you know It's their descent into madness I was like that would make so much more sense if they didn't keep getting off the river every five minutes and doing like a 20 minutes segment with other people that never come back I know that it's obviously an element about an original car and the kind of all the pacing was lost all of the Emotion very stilted it was very subtle start and it really struggled a whole lot of my attention Which feels terrible to say the point that by the time I got to the end I was like Jesus Christ killing like an old with it and then I was like, it's gonna go home now I'm gonna have to watch for a minute to go back the other way But I then followed up parts of darkness and some reading and pain to completely respect it after that and so now I do I said like I'm annoyed because I know I was like I'm not a electrical car I'm not the kind of person unless it's on my door So it would watch what all the legends like give me a direct cut of La La Land I am there Most of the films I've watched with the actual will be done with it and Watching hearts of darkness which I found to be a farmer The respect I had and the absolute absurdity of what went on That they let it go on that they survived it and that they actually pulled out a decent even though it wasn't for me I can see where the cuts for the redux were can I do the original was quite powerful? Hey, oh my god, that was me like I would give it up when the rain came Yeah, well like if you think as well Yeah, it's like a six-year-old Sophia copler like running around in the rain Like Whilst like multiple members of the crew getting dysentery Martin Sheen ends up having a heart attack at one point That was the one that I just I actually my husband in bed and I went into a room That's like Jenny you know they died on the set yeah, and there's like so that opening that opening scene I think is the redux is the same with him in the hotel room where like and the way that was filmed is pretty like oh my god Pretty fucking crazy because at the time like Martin Sheen was a massive alcoholic and kind of just kind of said to copler like let's Do like I just want to I just want to film something on a kind of Copa's like we need to see that we need to see like the the Multitudes of this character like how good he is how like the darkness within him Martin Sheen like tapped into something like punches The mirror like that's him actually cutting his hand in the movie like it's a kind of thing that when I watched But I was just watching with everyone's I got this is very self-adulgent It's all of this needed and when you watch the behind the scenes, it's like oh my god This wow like I can't believe that they got that from that and so yeah, it's it's insane that that was allowed It's insane that like if you recorded me drunk, I don't know how much usable Content you care and so really great like it was The trust between copler and Sheen and that's the thing about I think when we talk about them We're gonna have to like recording Gonna have to ID on me saying that in and I have to train before it comes out But like where are these rooms to come out about and have my problems with the crew and crew walking out the actors have all come out Especially Adam driving me no, it's a great thing to break that really I've had such a effect for him he treats as well.

We're doing something that's not troubled here And while I was talking about how it's not the fact that so many of them stuck around for it And that Sheen and others were like that comfortable giving that war on a book Not even a woman's just giving like that control over in that raw emotion shows that whilst he thinks he's the worst director ever and he owns You know, oh my god, I'm gonna die. This is gonna kill me and I should you know Even if he doesn't think that maybe he's not the most controlled director in the world He's clearly an actor's direction. Yeah, and he's clearly a bomb And he's clearly he's a madman the fact that he went to the Philippines with no clear ending of the film in mind kind of like Writing it as he went along like I think that statement he made it can he's right like they went there and they lost their minds like At least they didn't do what the original people that were gonna make it wanted to do and just go to Vietnam during Vietnam Yeah, he's that one to work out. Yeah, so originally it was gonna be directed by George Lucas I like I don't know why I don't know that much about George Lucas But I could not see George Lucas having a good time in Vietnam John Millius on the other hand I could see him absolutely loving it like I think he wanted to he's one of the rare people who wanted to go to Vietnam and couldn't Because he had asthma Whereas like every like I think yeah every other director like copa Brian de Palmer They were all kind of finding finding excuses like to not get drafted German kind of going to see psychiatrists and Well I don't think it ever do it.

There's no there's not enough women. He's a leery bloke Brian de Palmer would love Would be like we need more women I do enjoy that the car I had had the most women of any car And I think there was only four women and at least three of them was actually assaulted So, you know Yeah, I think it's staying true to what was going on like for all the sense purposes I think a very kind of like embraces feminine energy to mean and like kind of like I don't know but like What are some of the craziest things that you learned about the making of apocalypse now that kind of blew you away? I think it was just like the absolute sheer determination to just take what they could when they could find it And it's like that almost like a real filmmaking such a big film with such a professional set up such a professional crew and cast The fact that they were like let's just go out to the land and just film randomly and oh We don't like the dialogue We have let's just let them roll and like I meant to do like they had them on soon and half of the sets got destroyed and like That obviously that was devastating like everyone involved and the fact like fair taste and then that they just went Let's let's embed it in let's roll with it. I love that.

That was so good And that again is the mark of he might be not polished and he might not be controlled That's a man that can see something can take it and make it something got it Yeah, well, there's like there's things that happen on set like so at the end like the kind of mirror image of Kurt's being killed Is kind of juxtaposed with like the That seemed to not go down well in this house. Yeah, the local people killing a water buffalo Is something that the local people like what we're going to do and they even said to copler like oh Would you like if you don't get it on the first take would you like to sacrifice another one and he said no like Do you know what I mean as much as like I think a lot of these films especially when they kind of get into the weeds and get a bit crazy There is and it will be mentioned in one of the films on my list is like abusing indigenous people and kind of like like yeah falling into areas of like Abusing their traditions and kind of exploiting them for well, even in this in the heart of heart of darkness documentary They were talking about like oh well if we'd have a film in the States we would have to pay union fees for all of our workers Because we're here we can just hire anyone and like I don't think it's a piece because we're paying them a dollar a day and then that's a lot Yeah Like a mark of the time like I think like not not not to like copler's defense, but like he says that's what they asked for like that's like Jimin like like no you're worthless. They keep saying to us women. Yeah, it's pretty It's pretty math the fact as well that like he put his he put his house and the rights for like his project up on the line to make this film kind of Kind of blows my mind.

It paid off in the end right? It was kind of Absolutely did and I just loved it his wife was like you know what our lives a bit big if we lose the vineyard maybe that'll be okay And what's really sweet about elinocopel as well is from obviously deep diving into the copler family is Loads of her own DB credits are for behind the scenes like footage on not just Francis's films But like so Fierce films Romans films like she's kind of she seems to me not just like oh, let's capture it. It'll be good like press stuff It's like you can imagine it's this is our kind of Hearts of darkness for them. It's like remember that like two year holiday.

We had in the Philippines Let's kind of fire it up. Yeah, I'm sure she's got tons of footage that was Part of it. I love that and I think that's been like you mentioned that it's for a publicity purposes Obviously he did kind of want her out there to film the making of but this is also way before the age of 80 D extras now we've kind of lost that I bought to a great album Um, but like the fact that they as a family have the foresight to do that the fact that he trusts her to do that the fact that she's happy to Just let it roll that she can you know, she's married to man. They have children together I have to imagine like there's so much love there they've been together for so long You know when he is having those absolute meltdowns that she's got the recordings of she can see His vision even when he can't and I think that that support I think probably really did and we mentioned we mentioned You know, like a woman in the film and you feel that lack of a nurturing touch and I like to imagine she had a bit of a hand and being like, okay, everyone Yeah, this is all right like we're just gonna go and have a beer and maybe you know drop a little bit less acid Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because we've got like you got to remember guys near the end of this shoot We've got Dennis Hopper Marlon Brando turning up who in themselves presented Some massive kind of troubles for the production So you're Dennis Hopper who's kind of hopped up on drugs and I think like it's reported that they the crew had to essentially give him A constant supply of cocaine to keep him going like on the film and he refused to wash He managed to get Lawrence Fishburn who at the time was 16 years old Um, it's rumored that Dennis Hopper got him hooked on heroin like whilst they were filming this film So, um, and then you've got Marlon Brando who Obviously copler had approached was all the first people he approached and he said yeah, I want a million dollars a week I want a minimum of like three weeks out there Um, I want a million dollars up front as well came to set hadn't hadn't read the script Yep, hadn't read the book didn't want to be on screen because he put weight on and then like all of his scenes are basically improvised But again, I love that like oh because I'm listening to another Brad Crabbie's collectives podcast pcc podcast Listen to their episode on it.

Um, earlier today. I love to say just so that great because I obviously he owes his late career to copler And he should have some great bonuses thanks who obviously you can probably twist out and be like copler got his big starts by Someone like brando devings who would be on this set as someone much less known So it's you know hands in hand But again, it goes back to that we might want you to might say about copler being able to stick to budget stick to schedule Um stick to saying reasoning He knows his actors in fact that he got what seemed like a powerful performance out brando to then let it's all improvised But there was so much tension on set You that doesn't come across on the scene. It comes across as the tenseness comes across as this man being Deluded and powerful and you know Unhinged never you'd never imagine he didn't want to be there and I'm sure we've all seen films where the director and the actors don't get on and you can sense The mistrust of that none of that fair like copler does seem to be an actors director Well, yeah, there's reports as well that one of the weeks that brando was in the Philippines Copa just had to sit in his trailer and read him hearts of darkness So brando got paid a million dollars to be read Basically got paid for like an audible experience by by Francis Ford copler reading him hearts of darkness It's not really fair really that we've gone past this in the world i have to go to work I Feel I mean do I want to go to the Philippines for three months three weeks some people would maybe not me But if I had a condition in the trailer and someone was gonna read me an interesting book That's what we all want right um well I like I think there is a film that A film that's not talked about in coplers career that often like a lot of people don't even exist but like I think it's a perfect counterpoint to this film and the fact that it kind of He kind of at the same time not tried to do everything opposite to what he did on apocalypse now But then at the same time ended up making Different all the same mistakes and different mistakes and kind of again But not just his personal assets up on the line kind of put the jobs of people Like an entire studio like on the line to make one from the heart. So you watched this film as well Claire I did and what was really interesting for me I watched one from the heart before apocalypse now and then I did my research of both after having watched both And I had no idea these were so close together in terms of being made And that literally was his response to the madness of apocalypse now He talks about that how apocalypse now they went out there everything went mad and they had no control over nature And you know they they were so far away from everyone and they just get rolling that he thought right Let's let's bring it all in.

Let's let's have complete control over everything Let's make so-to-do studios. Let's have everything combined and together And yet somehow once again it turned into another folly of things going over budget and no Improvisation and no clear structure and the plot wasn't finished and it was quick wasn't finished And I'm like oh you just did the same thing again, but like in reverse Yeah, and he started the film with like No fun like basically not enough money to get him through the first week And then kind of had to go out with his hat Managed to find like a kind of oil tycoon from Canada Jack Singer who managed to like sling a load of money And like asked people his studio like do you mind being paid half your pay For the next like two to three weeks and like everybody kind of rallied around him because there's a great documentricled the dream factory Which is about zoetrap studios something like half hour long but kind of Shows you shows you the kind of optimism and kind of like I don't know like how great things could have been if like Belief in him and I guess like if you're working if you did someone tells you the guy who did the godfather and the guy that did a Chocolate now's making his own movie studio your apps are really signing up for that It won't act so fucking lonely and so yeah when he asked him to take pay them We're going absolutely believe in this dream and spoiler it's very sad that the dream really wasn't worth it It did not that out. Yeah, like the whole thing teated on whether one from the heart was a success In your eyes in your eyes kind of add a film is it a successful film player in no way shape or form So funny like again having now researched after watch I didn't really know what I was going into I had no idea what to expect and it couldn't have been Further away from what I expected but again having had that experience out in the Philippines from office now He decides he's gonna do everything on sets He's gonna build lastly this indoors and he's gonna build everything on a sound stage and everything to be recorded in this contained sound stage So that they can do whatever they want whenever they want to bear town but Whilst I'm sure during production Being out in the wild on location was a nightmare It's also the best thing about pocket now that they are immersed and Whilst it's not the worst thing in my opinion one from the heart Everything feels like a set and it feels flat It feels so the colors the lighting and the actual sets feel for that and then it's not just though if It's not just that the actual writing and the romance at the heart of the story for me personally could not have been less interesting It was it down. I just wanted them to go away I didn't want them to be on my screen.

Um, there's no chemistry and they're not enjoyable characters to spend time with So if it had gorgeous visuals, but they were horrible characters at least you have something Or if the story was amazing and using the sets rather than doing on location, but it falls flat completely on both accounts This there's no, I don't know. It just It was bad I've got I've got a weird soft spot for it just because again, I think it is this kind of like this grand falling I think I do get wrapped up in the kind of the production of it and like I felt very sad after watching that dream studio documentary. I felt so sad for everyone involved I felt so bad for how badly I reacted to it But it shouldn't make like the film would I never attend to it But they that dream actually document really recommend people watching on youtube Everyone just has such hope Yes, that's the leaf and they have such dreams for both the film and the studio and what was so sad One of the talking heads in that um documentary is michael lerman the director of heavards Who got his start working at zotrib studios along with a young david fincher that was like one of his first jobs in hollywood so it's like Even though like things spiraled out we kind of got like these like great things out of it. We got it I did it was just the wrong film It was the wrong story and the wrong film for what he wanted to do Yeah, and I think like yeah You sang about like the sets and stuff like that and like copola basically hold hold himself up Inside of like an rv to direct as well like you're saying like that complete opposite of Apocalypse now and it's kind of like it's sad in itself like and I think that is That is the ultimate thing of like copeless career And like I think this is kind of like everyone talks about apocalypse now being like the the disaster it was I think like this is the true disaster in his career because I think that's because the pockets now was a disaster But fucked it pay off and this was a disaster and wowed it not pay off I mean you know better than me how long between the ending of the wrapping of film We're gonna talk about now to the start of filming on this like what what's that?

Um, so this like it would have been like a year like at least like a year or so Or like two years so like he's being haunted by the ghost of apocalypse now He's probably thinking fuck we pulled that off that I never want to go through that again Whereas it's like oh actually maybe maybe you do thrive under pressure and maybe your skill set is chaos Rather than in your lovely utopia So it's our studios with a little child in terms like the little like kid in terms It was so sweet But I was like oh my god you had children working on this film like not in an exclusive way You know like getting experience right but I was like of course it was stupid You were asking a 14 year old boy to buy someone what romance is of course this didn't work And there's like I like just the sound of it. It's like it was pushing for the four day week every friday night was a big party Like it sounds of the part that's what's happening is often the documentary They're talking about like there was always these parties every night in from four o'clock they would choose outside the door Then they have footage of all these parties on the sets. They look great Where was that? The actual film the actual film so flat there's no energy so many other scenes almost like other than it's the dating of it You told me that was a coven production back here makes sense So many scenes on a random fake set which is two people and are those talking like where was the vibrancy?

I know you would hate me. You're probably gonna hate me for saying this but like I've like scoured the internet because I am like I am convinced somewhere in like my being But like Damien Chazelle has a soft spot for this film because no I could you I would never have pictured it But you have mentioned it and I completely can agree like la la la la is my favorite movie of all time La la la is like seeing this film and going like what if this was done right like these kind of like two people who kind of like Like the beginning of la la la is them in a traffic jam kind of Basically hating each other like she flips in the bird and he's kind of like disgusted at her And then coming together by the end and like going apart in their separate ways. It's kind of He did three things right. He found two leads that not only had chemistry but had previously proven chemistry this was our third film together So obviously I know that wasn't intentional it wasn't originally either of them in the roles that worked out greatly for all of us He also does it on locations so much of la la la la la was filmed in la Which is so important to the film and in one from the heart he kind of implies that it wants to be the subnet to later So I'm like them filming later.

Yeah, um or it is to just some establishing shots and they just even I don't know Um and then Colorful la la la is so beautifully colorful even just in its costumes You know the scene of the four girls getting ready and they're all in the primary colors walking down the street on their way to the party Like it's so vivid and in a love in the heart It's very hard to find a good copy of it. The copy I watched was definitely dated and did seem a bit washed out But even still it seemed very kind of dark and almost seedy which I guess maybe is a kind of Well, I think it's getting a it's it's getting a 4k restoration this year I would be interested not in watching it. It seems some screen cats Yeah, yeah, yeah I think for the release of that I may talk about uh, I may do another episode like this on on directors grand follies Just to kind of it feels like it feels like the perfect time to talk about that But yeah, I think this is kind of like the the one like that Really haunted copler like he he was basically paying this film off until 1996 Well, yeah, there's like I don't know if it's that same documentary though But it's like the next decade was spent doing for studio. Was that coming?

So he just like flat it's all It was right up until the rainmaker He was he was he was paying he was paying it off so like and that like I don't know He did he did he did he did some films I love in that bit like outside I don't know if I've ever seen the outside just let's go. I have seen more of his films I love that book it was one of the first things I ever taught. It's a great great book and a really good adaptation or really strong adaptation Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah And but again, I think you know I had the discussion when I was talking about pocket now redox online when I got to get And there are a few of us being like whilst you can be the best director in the world Sometimes you do need someone over your shoulder. Just say okay enough put the pen down and let me take it away So we've both worked in education and I'm sure you've had that with students But like they're doing a project and you can see they got it to the best it'll be and they're like oh, I'm just gonna add something else I'm just gonna change this and you're like no no no I'm just gonna take it out of a way right now instead Francis would copa presented Water merch with one.

I think it's like a hunt. Yeah, like 1.5 million Feats of film like yeah, which is like I think to this day the record Of of of of left for film that's been filmed for something like and that's it and even with pocket it's now obviously He went mad and had his own stuff that I think there was a little bit still a studio kind of overlooking where it's with one from the heart He was in his own place. He was his own money. He didn't have to take orders from anyone And I think we all need a bit of accountability every now and then and maybe he needed just another pair of eyes.

Yeah I think I think I think that case could be made um so yeah obviously he had some other issues Like we could get into the cotton club But that's more like he's more of a hired gun on that and that just kind of the legal issues around that are more kind of fallen bob Evans and some other players in that but like again, I think Throughout the 80s. There's kind of films that for whatever reason There's really heartbreaking this one called gardens of stone and like copa did an interview Like in the last five years discussing that film and it happened just after the the death of his Um his son ji- yeah ji-nakala copa And he basically says like he doesn't really remember making that movie and like I think like that's another one that kind of yeah Didn't have major issues, but like kind of I don't know it was a bit of a yeah kind of kind of kind of had its problems, but that was more kind of copa was Basically in grief making a film like I'm fair again. It goes back to my point right at the start of the part of I think we know too much You know, I have terrible days at work. Anyone knows how to have a days of work because I'm learning it to the turn of everyone But realistically most people in the world don't know I've had their work I don't have to disclose that to future in four years that for one week in January I did everything wrong and everything wrong at a terrible time everyone was mad at me because I still got my paycheck at the end of the day No one's judging me as long as I fix my mistakes because of this industry because it's his name at the top of the cool sheet Everyone knows that oh what's another copa production?

Oh, it's another copa production I'm like the man still consistently makes cinema the matter so consistently and like although he hasn't had a hit in a decade But then who has had a hit in the last decade to be fair and you know hello smackers um You know, he's still consistently working. He still calls it out of that. Not every day. It's gonna be your best day Not every day's performance review day, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think yeah I think it's just fascinating that he like he did it right he like kind of he kind of made the gamble and it's like I don't know.

I do get the impression sometimes Like I could have I would have maybe had a better script and so it's good. He's good have continued But yeah, and I think I think it would have it just any other film It just was the wrong cast the wrong script and the wrong production Hey, do we get do we get the great brand Snokers Dracula? If that would have worked on so I think that would have worked on sets. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Pretty much his sets right like yeah, that could have been a so I Lot of choices made that one in the book Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't think we get that film if he didn't kind of have those years of hardship like for better or worse We don't get the godfather free where he's like I really need to pay off these like a debt Let's just go back to the well on that one.

Yeah, I didn't realize that was such a you know Jock the drop for cash a sell project I had no idea it was such because I know it's never been regarded in the same league as one and two and it obviously lots of Issues with very similar but I didn't realize that he like didn't even want to do it Yeah, it's basically like one of the first legacy sequels. Do you mean it's like what it's 20 plus? Yeah, nearly 20 years after the original Oh again, like so my I don't know why this is my third appearance on the couple of connection parkter and you know, I have bloody clue Um, I don't know why you keep having me back and but yeah, I had no idea no idea from a folly in the jungle to follow in the studio Let's go to a folly at sea with your first pick Claire. What what are we gonna talk about for some of you?

Yeah, one of your favorite kind of onset fiasco I think it's after apocalypse now. It's one of the most infamous ones and similar pockets know what happy ending Uh, let's talk about James Cameron's epic 1997 romance historical disaster movie Titanic. Um, yeah, I mean what a picture, you know up there in top 10 films ever made At the time though, it turns into the most expensive film ever made, you know, copala got his record with the most amount of film used and camera Got his record for the most amount of money used. Um, but yeah, as I said to you, I think that there are quite a lot of Kind of parallels that can be drawn between Cameron and copala Cameron has his own history of ending up in the press because of his behavior on sets in a different way to copal It's not normally that Cameron sets though Titanic was in the headlines for running over You know, Cameron gets in trouble because he often does run over and he is like controlling on sets and you know People there at until walk out and curtains don't like him very much either But it seems to be in where copala is where our artists and let's just experiment and let's see what happens Cameron's very This is my set.

This is what's happening. If you don't like it Which is very interesting considering the amount of absolute decay or so it went the on the Titanic I'd hate to imagine how many people would have died in the production of this film if you didn't have someone who was so incontrolous It seems Cameron is because shit went wrong. So what what what they're going wrong? Like this is a film that as we're talking I think it's gearing up for what like a 25th anniversary.

Yeah, like 20. Yeah, yeah, it's like Yeah, it's like a iMac's pre-release like re-jig and I think Cameron as well, I've got I've got a I think he's finally admitted that Jack could have fit on that door. No, no he didn't think he can't That article he said they couldn't they even tested it. I don't know why so can't care about that debate why They were so aggressive.

So yeah, so what what did go wrong with Titanic because obviously yeah For years was like one of the highest grossing budget movie. Yeah, highest grossing movies of all time Yeah, so I mean the production over and for a myriad of reasons the number of filming days I'm from 138 to 160 which you know income has on top of it's now doesn't seem as many But that's just actual filming days not pre-production post-production and all of that And I mean during those production days and those filming days there was a drugging incident There was a few drowning incidents. There were quite a lot of broken ribs broken bones And so we can start with the infamous drugging if you'd like to go there Please As part of the film opening a set and as a Canadian Fisher crew go and search for the original Titanic wreck Which Bill Paxton is part of that crew and just one day on set someone still unknown still at large Just decided to dump a load of PCP in the clam childhood that they were having for lunch from the Services so everyone was just super fucked up on PCP and the whole cast and crew from that they had to be hospitalized overnight Wow They still know there was an investigation. They said I know he did it But Bill Paxton has done some great interviews on it There's a Larry King interview he gave when he talks about it And he said you know they were quite hot I thought some of them were very sick, but most of them were just super fucking high And there were some like wheelchair races and all sorts of nonsense going on in the hospital Cameron apparently realized what was happening rheumidly when they made himself vomit so that it wouldn't have as much effect on him But it sounds like that was you know chaotic to say the least Massively Massively like I can't even a mat like Did they try and film on the PCP or did they like It was on the lunch break and people just weren't like people were still just taking time at lunch and kept going back for like more I mean like god this can't show is amazing.

Good. I'm a third ball And I think that's the point in which someone was like, I don't know if we're well Yeah, I don't even know what the effects of PCP are but like I don't know but I'm allergic to shellfish and shellfish makes me really like my allergy I've only had it very limited with lobster makes me super drunk and really loopy So I imagine if I had lobster this factory PCP I'd probably die Jesus Christ what what what what what else happened? So was this early on in the production or was this kind of like midway through? I mean, I believe that was quite early on because it was a different set.

It was this was not any of this stuff on the boat This was not the stuff okay in Leo So I do think that was probably quite early on a different set a different crew So then when we have the stuff with Kate porcave and it was like bashed and bruised from this film So she got tons of injuries and you know just from bashing around because those scenes when they're trying to escape the boat You know, that's a real set and it turned out what Some of this they hadn't really thought when they were building the set about how that set might go when they submerged it And so the grand staircase which is anonymous for the film when that was submerged for the the flooding scenes It was made up steel and all the steel lifted and started by mental and that specifically trapped crew to crew members And they nearly drowned trapped underneath the stairs At one point there's a scene where Kate and Leo are trying to get through the gates when they're running through the bowels and like all the gates unlocked This one happened between takes the take ended and they cut the gate open for them to get out and get some towels And Kate's coat got caught on it and she got caught underwater And everyone is your cuts and all of this really paying attention Cameron didn't notice and she was there kind of drowning And I'm not sure she got herself there so someone got her nose But she was so scared of Cameron on set and he was so strict and so controlling that she didn't tell him that she had just You know really died and they just you know, he was like, oh, we already for another take and it took him until he won't take us to realize Something's not quite right with her, but he was like, well use it in the scene. Use the emotion I guess that's why like maybe he said Kate wins it. Oh, do you like is she in? Is she in wave water?

I don't know. I know who's actually got a Guinness world record for holding her breath underwater in wave water So I think having she took something from this set Yeah, like that that is how addictive of like how much I remember of that film and like I had a realization walking out of other Sarti is like I don't know which actor played like which character in it Then I remembered like I don't actually remember any of the character names So I can't even like match it up like when I'm looking on I'm DB No, I had heard that she was in it watched it completely forgotten that I was like wait Was it in that and I had to Google she was and you wouldn't know but good for her, you know He needs she nearly dar she nearly drowned on one of his other sets so this time she you know, she set a world record for being able to hold her breath or something insane And she's got hypothermia because the tank that they were filming in was so big And like tons basically the whole crew most of the cast got colds flus kidney infections Because there was so much kind of water based scenes It was like really cold and kind of somewhat dangerous shoe so that meant that those the crew members were dropping out There was a real revolving door This all kind of got fed to the press the thing the issues with the boat during the submergence scenes of the set the boat kind of got to the press as well So it was very much linked to there was Hollywood new and the well-new that stuff wasn't going quite right The screen up this year was had to do an investigation because of the concerns but they said it was safe enough No inherently unsafe finding this was the official ruling And but because it was so over time of budget Cameron did make a deal to take less of his original pay car And because he knew a lot of reasons were his fault And you know he gives a very quote on demanding I'm demanding on my crew in terms of being kind of minute arrest I think there's an element of that in dealing with thousands of extras and big logistics and keeping people safe I think you have to have a fairly strict methodology and dealing with a large number of people I'm like fair pay to him because you know Everyone was so scared of him and he didn't want to tell him what things were going wrong Can you imagine like a less controlling dedicated director on a set where you've got 100 200 extras in the water getting kidney infection getting hyperthermia another director which is completely support I think there's a reason he's known as one of the best because again he does his job well Yeah, he's like kind of he does have like a no nonsense approach I recently listened to an interview with him and Gilmo del Toro for like the director's guild podcast I kind of like seems like has like a little bit of a sense of humor But like the same time it feels like if he's not in the mood and imagine it like that being on set Like if if he's under the wire he like big gym is gonna be like we need to get shit done now I'm not taking any prisoners I Was you know It cost over 200 million so they were saying that it was a million per minute that they needed to make back And You know fox ended up having to pair with paramount to release it because it costs so much They didn't think that they'd be able to have shared a cost of distributing it And I don't know anyone knows this spoiler it turned out to be at the time of high-spiration film ever made So I think it worked out. Yeah, I think it was that that that thing of at the time was such a risk Right because it was expensive film it was like and it was his folly and everyone was saying like why is he doing this? Because at the time he was still kind of known for his like sci-fi or his metro man and here he is doing this delicate little historical romance And why are we letting him do this and why are we letting him take so much money?

But the man knew yeah, I think I think like from kind of as his career and easy gets to do more of what he wants to do I think he's just a big old softie at heart like like as much as I kind of didn't take to I didn't take to the water of the way of water I like I could just say there's just a big old heart at the center of it like he just loves family That's it. He loves family and he just fucking loves the ocean Like he just he wants to be like a male leader or a fish or a seagull or whatever it is that he wants to be in He just loves nature and loves love and yeah, you know he started his career with aliens and robots and I can call time in a robot I just felt suddenly bad like I was really kind of underselling But yeah, and I think again he can see So I think Cofaller's kind of skill is Taking the madness taking grandsales seeing madness and pulling up the story from within the madness Whereas I think Cameron's skill was taking the most simplistic thing boy and girl fall in love, you know Family seek safety and just then making the stuff around it so they'll up that you almost forget how simple the story is Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's kind of and I like I love the fact that I could mention where what but there's like there's like Almost like a greatest hit settlement to like the end of that film is there is like a sequence It's like oh, I'm watching like Titanic all of a sudden, right? Let's revisit that or like oh, I'm watching I'm watching Terminator It's like characters just like cannot be stopped and like yeah one man one mission. Yeah So let's move on to my first pick let's come away from the sea and go to dry land To the town of sweet Haven with Robert Altman's 1980 film Popeye you watch this film Claire Did I know what did you think of Popeye?

I watched this film on my phone whilst very drunk walking through an airport and sitting on a plane in the sky And honestly if you told me that I had imagined the whole thing I believe you because this film made no sense And I didn't really know what was happening and I didn't really know what was being said I couldn't really follow the story and I got to the point where I was like, I don't think this is because of drunk I think this is because this is the film and It was I think we mentioned it up top, you know, sometimes you should get to the end of something and you're like We're talking about you know how we take a flop just the absolute pain of getting a film out there So difficult I feel like I've left them they probably got to the end of the shoot and they were like Do I want this done just get it done? I just want to move on I just want to do a different project Well, I think for all intents and purposes they had a lot of fun making it so like oh good Robert Altman is kind of known for like Lots of people and like this kind of has like from stuff like Nashville and He did it in a western people probably shouting at me right now But like yeah, he did like a western set movie It will come to me probably the dead of night But he has this weird thing where he just like he records everyone He's kind of mics up everyone and just plays them all at like a similar level And I think they carried that on over to my pie but like I did not work in my pie because I was like whose story is this It's pretty like and Well, let's get into like Let's get into some of the issues of this film like the first thing is this film is filmed on mortar Well, mortar is basically a large rock Um, there is no indigenous wood to mortar So just to build the sets of this film they had to ship all of the wood from the Netherlands They had to build 19 structures a hotel a schoolhouse a post office a church a sawmill tavern casino gangways boardwalk sheds and timber shoots That all worked so everything worked so the production designer on this absolutely like did a bang up job of kind of creating and uh, so there were 100 Yeah, there were uh 1000 log wooden planks eight tons of nails and 2 000 gallons of paint I love that kind of fact with this film that like that's what made up and they had a 200 And uh, yeah 250 foot breakwater to make sure that the town did not wash away and the town is still there Till this day but I do love that they thought about that though because that is not something kind of But where things start to like go wrong with this film is So I guess I guess it falls on the feet of robin and the kind of sets that he keeps Every night when they had dailies Harry nelson who wrote the songs for this film would perform a part it would like perform a show for them He was out there recording the music with them. It would turn into like just a full-on Shindig they're like yeah people got people got married because of this film people got divorced Like babies were were had because of this film like it got to it got to that kind of like level of It got to the other artery Um, the shoot was 147 days So you think for for for a kind of uh A kind of fluffy film like they were financially struggling throughout the production So michael isna brought on disney to co-produce the movie halfway through This is one of the rare movies that doesn't seem to appear On disney plus and seems to be locked in their vault for like forever by the looks of it Um, I don't think one of the one of the best stories from this is so the producer on this is robin evans He was one of the producers on the godfather He was the head of parrot pictures at one point. Um, so he came over to maulter to be like to see what was going on like like, yeah, just kind of be be amongst it and He had a trunk that Let's just say was full of co-game that went missing and he had to He had to call in a favor from fingers like the secretary of state henry kissinger or like the former secretary of state henry kissinger To write a letter to the mortise prime minister to ask him to look for the case But at no means look through the case Amazing so bob evans could get it back at times like through the shoot They were through the props and like dummies and stuff like that.

They were smuggling cocaine onto mortise so they could continue the party You tell me that this whole film was actually just a drug running front makes the film itself makes so much worse Yeah, it's like everyone it was just like it was just a massive party and you think Shelly devou would have come straight from the set of the shining another trouble production Where she had a particularly terrible time. Yeah, so I think a party in the middle Williams like was nice to her. Yeah, I'm sure he was he was He was off his face on co-game the whole time So funny because we mentioned like danny and chiselle baban on a lowerland and like one of the things in baban on is how you know In the swingy in 20s during the like the silence You do the film opens with this party when there is just that room for those drugs and there is just a big chest full of coke The film kind of supposes that they lost all the glamour and the fun The filmmaking when it moved to the talkies so you know, it's right to know that back then it came around Well, I think what they had to do was go to the other side of the world So they didn't have the prying eye of the studio to kind of like see what was going on Um, they heard about all the acid they were dropping on a pocket now Like how can we do this but less scary and no one gets eaten by tiger? Yeah, there's like there's so many issues with this it kind of um, they realized pretty soon on or like kind of late in the day Yeah, I think it's late in the day that nobody could understand a single word that robin williams are saying Nope, no I know that they tried to fix it.

It didn't help So every one of his lines is adard Um all of the songs like for most part which like they try to record them live Again, and it they they're so quiet. There's songs are so quiet and there's no velocity I didn't even realize as the songs are playing like wait In the song is a musical and it's mad because you would think like we all know how to do musicals and it's so quiet There was there was issues as well that they had with robin williams his arms So he has like the famous pop-eye arms They like started to basically like turn yellow in the sun I'd like they had to get they had they're like degrading on his arm So that to get somebody like a mortise woman to basically make new ones for him That's like kind of change it up and like hand punch all these hairs And it was just like a real a real fiasco to do it again like they Like disney finally caught wind of what was going on with this film and said like you have to wrap up the film now And like the party has to end the planned ending of this film was pop-eye and blu-to tearing a ship down as they fight But they had no money left in the budget so the film kind of as you would have witnessed kind of just Fizzles out and ends right like say like It's never built up to anything either in its defense Yeah, but yeah, it's very episodic and it's very weird and that's the thing it's one that I find like it's something I watch weirdly a lot as a kid And having affinity for like the songs like the soundtrack album apps. It's love like I love I love shelly devows he needs me. I just think that's such a beautiful song I think I even love it more with its use in punch-struck love the paul tomah sanderson film It's kind of peppered in the soundtrack of that like kind of a film that I think is like a As a massive robot orphan fan that pt8 is I feel like that's his kind of weird love letter to pop-eyes like I'm gonna take a comedy actor and put him in A genre that you wouldn't expect like Robin Williams of the musical and Adam Sandler with a kind of I don't know offbeat Romantic comedy drama and it's like I'm gonna use that song as well No, it makes me have a much better appreciation for the film now that I know it was just fucking very crack and the reason It makes no sense because they were all just drunk and high and live in their best lives I'm like well then third-play because I respect your workplace that it's fun And I respect people that don't break their backs because at the end of the day It's just a job and none of you are heart surgeons.

So like they're they're fox to them I think Robert Altman as well like kind of I don't know had a bit of a A diss regard for his own family. So the baby in this film is his own grandson Ah like Industry hanging off a crane at one point. I believe in this I did I was very surprised how much of the baby stuff was a real baby and I did think wow this would never get a day So interesting that it was done in Malta where I'm guessing health and safety rules are a lot lack sir And that it was a child from within the family. So he could just be like that's fine So anyone listening as well, um, you can actually go to pop by village Malta My sister went a few years ago and sent me some photos and I was like wow like and it's kind of the same declare earlier before we start recording this like One of the weird like bucket list.

I have a very short bucket list of like places I want to go and this is one of them just because I think it's such a weird oddity and I imagine like the The ghosts of that production probably still are still lingering. I would want to Find the chest of cocaine because we could go and look for that Yeah, I feel like that's the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not good I'm gonna be like, I did Harry Nelson hang out with where's Robert Altman's office Maybe there's like a booby trap like door or something There's a loose there's a loose like floorboard or something Rob Evans is secret stash amazing. I think I love that you also said you can get married there I do I don't really enjoy weddings Um, but I am gonna need someone to get married there so I can go or at least just look at the pictures Definitely definitely any potential suit is for me. That's what's gonna happen We're getting married at Bob and Mitch Motor, okay?

Don't hold don't hold clean up there don't flop the inbox right? Hey, lucky you're not a woman on Twitter the inbox is always I'm sure I'm sure there's gonna be a drought in my inbox of women wanting to get married at Popeye village. That's been honest there. Um, so yeah, that that's kind of it for Popeye's A fun disaster and the film itself uh It is a bit of a mess, but I think it's got some charm to it at the same time and like I don't know like I wish it was as fun as the set sound did This is a case of they had too much fun and a lot of things did go wrong But like we've all done a halo over shift and it sounds like the whole film was a halo So where are we moving to next Claire?

Let's move to a not fun production a not fun film and one that ended up with some jail time I'm talking uh, roteable 2002 not to do a little self-clog if you want the deep dive on this film We do have a w rated episodes about it so I won't go too far into it But for those that don't know it's a remake of a 70s film Renade by director john McTynan who you might know from such films as diehard Um, so this is I just really make this film McTynan McTynan is the what's the what's the phrase You know the the creator of his own downfall or whatever that phrase is because he he real just set himself up for support Uh, there was brilliant first draft script everyone in the industry said it was brilliant It was a great remake it really updated it perhaps could be better than the original He didn't like it didn't have enough action throughout he wanted the film to be like wwe And he was actually so multiple read drafts He put an intense focus on fights and the showmanship he changed the character he changed the ideology of the film So the film ended up being something completely different and when it was test screened It was some of the most negative test screenings ever and people were very angry They said it was really violent really good tests and she's really terrible with some people when saying it's so bad They wish they kept it that bad because at least it would have been a thing At this point mgm have got a new head of marketing and distribution who ever 11 He convinced McTynan to go into a load of reshoots and re-edit the film and get it right down to a pg 13 So that they could just still vibrate. I think they knew they had a thinker on their hands Let's just get some money. One of the great reshoots is a infamous night vision scene So if you've not seen the film just randomly towards the end of the film It's just a chase sequence in the desert that the whole scene is filmed through night vision goggles Despite the fact that no one in the scene is wearing night vision goggles And there are no night vision goggles. The worst part of the day, they sound like oh, they fucked up They actually shot it and realized it was so dark They needed they had to spend a load of money to go back out to the desert and reshoot the scene because they had fucked up and they couldn't see it because of darkness They then when they reshot it made all the same mistakes and the secondary shoot was still so dark that they still couldn't see anything So someone somewhere in an editing street just went fuck it throw a night gov all vision night vision Over the top of it and we'll just say it was a stylistic choice So there's just a random five-minute sequence in the film that's completely green It reminds me of like people's profile pictures on like bebo that were done in that kind of like Not so much night vision, but like, you know, like I don't know what like uv like opposite colors kind of like like kind of really washed out weird Like yeah, like almost like looked like a picture on a on a nocchia screen Like that kind of like that kind of color way It just gives me mad and it's because they say to me a film teacher but mad like Year 11 project vibes like so many students would do something and they'd have all this footage and they wouldn't have an ending So they always fucked up filming their ending and they'd be like fuck it And they'd end up making some weird slow motion black and white montage to end it would just be like the villain walking towards the screen And they'd be like fuck it that'll do and this just sticks with that But um, yeah, so all this happened very bad And part of the reshoots tons of reshoots tons of re-edits They took out all the nudity and a lot of the scenes they digitally changed the blood to look like sweat Just lots of you know and the final product just is not a good film It's just not it's not there Um, but the real disaster actually came in 2013 a mere 11 years after the film was released When it turned out that john mctin and ended up having to do a little stint in federal prison Because he made a false statement to the fbr in 2006 because during the production of this film He hired a private investigator to illegally wiretap one of his producers Charles robin because he was in a disagreement about what the type of film The film should be and was convinced that robin was calling in the studio to go against him So he had him wiretapped and then lied to the fbi about it in 2006 and then the end 2013 had to do All the other things in jail, I think he did quite a year.

I think he just did some months But um a film production so fraught and bad that it led to wiretapping a federal prison Wow, I think I think I've got some deaths on some of mine, but I don't know about jail time Maybe I think they should be jail time with some of the ones that I've got on him Well, I just the thing is as well, you know the film other times we talked about They really wanted them turned out to be good films and even one from the heart Why don't we good but it has a stamp in history? You know the it's got a bit of a cult and the people that know that it left a mark Rolleball 2002 left no mark on any culture They'd no mark on the box office it made no mark on culture, but it was still so bad that someone went to jail And I just think what was the point of any of it? Yeah, like I'm sure I'm sure the original roleable has got like a cult following Do you know what I mean? Because Jimmy can't film like people are like I'm sure that got a lot of like airtime when he passed away But yeah, let's let's go back to this you can imagine that being like I don't know like a booty Blu-ray release and like I'm like I'm on a fun little island.

It's like violent. It's fun. It's this sounds yeah It's not jumping up my watch list. Let's just say that Claire.

No, it's six-style Amazing amazing. Well, let's let's go back to 1999 now and talk about the man who killed donkey hotey So a film that kind of the film that saw its kind of life in the early 90s Well, yeah with Terry Gillingham wanting to Wanting to make this film is kind of like a burning passion project in the way that mega opolis is for I just feel like Terry Gilliam just just maybe needs to take a step back from his ideas man His brains too big but what his hands can create well this this this film and there is an amazing documentary called Lost in La Mancha that people can check out this again like many of these started off as promo material for like the DVD release and then just turned into I don't a slow-motion account of the wheels falling off of this production so Terry Gillingham told the studio that the film would cost $60 million to make and he got he got private investment for this is an indie film for like European investors They offered him $40 million. It was such like a passion project for him that he was like, you know what? I'm gonna make it work.

He had Johnny Depp on board after working with him in Fear and Loving in Las Vegas and approached John Rushford to play Don Quixote. So Don Quixote is a kind of yeah novel from like I don't know 400 years ago about a guy who Gets can read too many romance novels and basically just goes mad and decides he's gonna be this character called Don Quixote who's gonna like bring back chivalry and like go on these adventures and takes takes it takes a long Sancho pancho like it's kind of More men should do this Every single missing the chivalry. Where are the Don Quixote? So um, so yeah, he calls John Rushford who learned English over seven months to be in this film.

So like really dedicated to it like he's a French actor and he's like I'm gonna learn I'm gonna learn English to be in this film but things started going wrong quite early on in this production so The pre-production started they were kind of like scouting things out getting costumes ready getting sets ready Neither of the principal actors could be in Spain Madrid where they were filming And like yeah, the wheels are starting to come off So they couldn't be there pre-production. They couldn't be there for costume things and they couldn't be there for rehearsals Um In Madrid they needed a sound stage. They went and found basically the only sound stage they could find Terry Gillian walks in clicks his tongue notices there is a massive echo In the sound stage the last thing you want for your interior shots is for that to be an echo You want to be able to record sound John it sound dampened you want it to be able to manipulate it in poster You want to be able to do whatever you can so that that I think is a sign of things ain't gonna go right and The wheels of this fall off pretty quickly. So So week one week out from production the actors are meant to arrive John Rushford just doesn't turn up He was a shot for a pre-production.

He didn't chop a hat. He didn't chop a costume designs Why would he turn up for the production? Well, he was he was going to arrive and he had a pain in his abdomen and was convinced he had prostate cancer So he just didn't arrive at all. So Terry Gillian was like, okay, the next day he kind of gets in touch He's like, I've got a prostate infection and flies out.

So he's he says, I'll be okay. I'll be okay to do it Um The the location of like whether I've got a first shoot first day of shooting is a desert located four hours out of Madrid Just being there alone the kind of expense just added more money to the budget So that's a pay for everyone to be put up in accommodation They kind of had like all these kind of add-ons and stuff and they the but it was saving the money because they could have time to Film on location back at the soundstage. They could be building the sets and kind of carrying on with some of the production design um, so they they go to film on the first day a sequence of uh, Sancho panchia kind of Is locked up and a gang of uh, yeah, they're on a chain gang and they managed to get the keys from the guard and set him free None of the actors knew the choreography I think they're trassel Well, no, these are just like the the extras none of them none of them knew the choreography So Terry getting them pivots and says all right. We can't do that Well, we'll film some of the dialogues it's they go to film the dialogue out of nowhere and f 15 fighter jet flies overhead The loudest thing they've ever heard Terry getting on set like I don't fucking believe this like We can't record sound he gets to the point.

He's like fuck sound We'll just record what we can and then hopefully in the close up We will be able to get the dialogue we need and match it up with the wide shots So they do that and then next thing genre's horse decides it's not going to move So this is day one all of this is going wrong We move on to day two. They're back out in the desert. They think you know what we'll try again The sky is filled with dark clouds So everything they would have shot yesterday is not going to look the same today because of the clouds So Terry getting them always a resourceful man says what we'll do is we record close ups We can do that. We're just like like the shit out of it.

We'll be able to get close up to everyone They go in for the close ups. What happens next is the sky starts thundering Start to think the couple is idea of filming everything on the sound stage might have been correct Thunder is not where it stops the next thing they get what comes with thunderclare Like being so they down tools for the day and then a storm in shoes They wrap all of the gear in top alling And the rain comes and washes all of their gear away Ruining ruining what they've got or severely damaged Yeah, not only that is what run I made that decision. Oh no Not only that is the rain changed like the look of the landscape So as it as it was like afterwards it just didn't look the same It was like a kind of white desert and it kind of looked brown and red Like once it had rained so they just couldn't film That day at all and then Day three comes they take a skeleton crew up to another part of the desert And what happens the fighter jets come back Dave five the equipment dries out in the crew already They try to film a scene between the two leads on horseback They notice that john roshford is uncomfortable on the horse. They can actually see him wince getting Unlucky so he He he has flown straight back out to paris to see his doctor The first assistant ad feel paterson says changes need to be made We need to really kind of like change what we're doing here on this film Just really isn't going to work What so ever And then this is yeah, this is the end of the first week the beginning of the second week They have 60 members of the financing team coming to visit them on set So why are there 60 members of the finance team?

No one do you have no money? Well, I think it is I think it is the like the finance years So like people who put money in they just like it's kind of spread out It's one of those you know, I mean it'd be sat there for too many You're gonna be sat there for five minutes at the beginning sing Like vanity cards at the beginning because there's so many like pots So like terry gillingham puts on like a dog and pony show for them like to say like hey Here's johnnie dep with will film the scene with him. We'll keep going And then things get like a little bit Yeah, like a really start to go off the wall because The producers here that john roshford won't be back for at least a week So their principal actor Is not it's not able to return at all like for a week putting your health first is important Is the right thing john we support you of course and this is where like things get weird because with an indie film if you have to stop People still have to keep getting paid That's not because you would imagine it would be the other way around and that it would be a studio production that we'd have that Because the studios kind of have a lot more control over everything and can kind of like change things whereas There are basically like investors from so many different places that they're they've signed up for something being This this is this is the plan like we can't go over whereas Contract specific like contractor contracts rather than salaries and things like that So this is what gets really good. This is what gets really like messed up is They're they're met by the completion guarantor who tries to help them And moving forward on the film depends on john roshford coming back And it's now been said that he won't be back for at least 10 days And the insurance companies say that they won't get any money for the time lost with john roshford because It is a act of force majeure that he's ill it's nothing like that could It's nothing to do with the set so he they won't be They they won't they won't be recouping any money from that They can't recast you on roshford because him and johnnie dep are essential elements in the budgeting of the film So if they recast him they have to completely re budget the film so they are literally on their knees fucked They hope They hope that he'll return in two weeks in that two weeks.

They still have to look yeah They basically have to Either keep people on pay but people start jumping ship It's mad that for a pocket now our main actor had a heart attack and they managed to make it work for three weeks without him This someone has an infection and they're like well, no movie Well, it turned out he didn't have an infection he had a double herniated disc Okay, more respect for not being able to get on and off the horse i was starting to think he was just being a bit wimpy But i imagine that's incredibly painful was on horse Yeah, so so so so he had that they kind of the first 80 leaves the production says i can't do this the way that it's going And then the wall the wheels basically fall off like terry gilling and realises This is not being made so within within the space of 10 days the film is It is folded It then takes him to 2018 to actually make this film From and throughout the way there's so in 2009 he tries to make it again jonnie dep has been attached the whole time to make the film with him He's obviously in like some of the height of his career. So that's the leaf You and mcgregor and Robert de vale step in as like so you mcgregor is the johnnie dep bro and robert devours the john russia d ro Finances fall apart on that 2014 they try and go again getting them re-teamed like retools the script for a modern day and says the film is about how films hurt people September 2013 it is announced that john hurt will start as donkyo'd say august 2015 amazon or announce that they will finance it And soon after John hurt is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. So won't be able to do the film 2000 march 2016 you mcgregor moves on and jack o'connell steps into the lead at can That same year gillingham states that adam driver is on board and now michael palim will pay donkyo tea At the same time whilst they're trying to get this made there's a guy called paulo bronco Who lied about financing he had access to and was kind of signed on as one of the producers And he tried to get terry gillingham to basically sign over all of the rights to him that he had like complete rights to the film And like would basically swindle terry gillingham out of money um and it was meant to go into pretty yeah it's meant to go into production september 2016 but just Like the finances never turn up basically the money is still on made well. This is where we get to it so terry gillingham takes the film away from paulo bronco We tries to sue him in breach of contract amazon have left the project at this point because of paulo bronco and then in march 2017 the film actually went into production and uh paulo bronco sued terry gillingham and the production to stop the film playing at can film festival in competition The ruling was too late like a decision that the film couldn't compete At can but they were managed to screen it as the closing film for the festival and it was released production wrapped is more than i'd say the words production wrapped yeah yeah so the film was released in 2018 it was very much like a a bit of a damp squib of a film and like i do remember it sort of people were like wow he did it okay and there's reports of him saying like about the film that like he just felt like he had to get it out of him he referred to it as a tumour basically like he had to just get rid of it like i think it's one of those things that just like plagued him and it's like i don't even care if it's going to be a good film anymore i just need to i just need to do it otherwise like i can't move on with my life and i think that's such shame but like i've heard again i've not seen the film but i vaguely aware of it in passing because of its infamy and i believe this is another one of those terrible productions that has a great documentary attached yeah lost in lamentsia it's fantastic it's it's really it's really great and you get some you get some amazing like terry guillium isms like kind of similar to when Francis Ford Coppola on the set of poplips now is talking about martin sheens heart attack and he's like why the fuck do people know like like like like i think terry guillium says on the set of this is like it's like i don't want to know i don't know i have to when we're fucked like i need to tell you that we're fucked like i should be told that we're fucked like i should be told that we're fucked like i should be told that we're fucked like yeah it's very much that kind of film um have you got yeah what let's should we do should we do one more each it's getting like it's getting late i'm going to go with a shorter more modern one just because i mentioned it right up the top of the shows i feel like i could circle back to it let's talk about one of our most recent and modern production fiasco is don't worry darling 2002 directed by livia wild so in fairness to this film they really almost aged the finish line so when the film was when the film was in production the biggest drama was that charloboff dropped out and harry star stepped in and everyone was just letting it go along people were excited and every while i was follow up to books are um just a florence pew picture is always great i believe it was originally a blacklist script so people were always interested in that and the set pictures and the concept design is stunning and then kind of comes out towards the end of shooting that livia wild recently uh split from jason sudeikis is perhaps in a romantic relationship with her co-ed or co-lead harry star it was that raises some eyebrows jason sudeikis's internet husband uh tae lasso you know crew rise and also like i was just not home jason in those couples yeah and there's just the age difference so there was some eyebrows raised but realistically people doing their personal lives doing their both in the age of consent and harry stars in the history of her older women we could just you know move that move that aside and then as the film is wrapped and it's heading towards you know it's getting some festival sucks and it's heading for a release day people are starting to notice that black q isn't doing much press which is not normal for her she's very proactive star she's very proactive lead she really kind of goes above the onto her films um you know people are like oh um you know things happen she was getting a lot of flack for her relationship with satt but this is where the wheels start to fall off and she starts giving interviews talking about the whole production and talking about how one of the best things and strongest things she did was fire shallabooth and sites that his methods were quite aggressive and it didn't work first she has a note of arseholes on set rule and it didn't go by and the role she's trying to create in the atmosphere and set and this is where the problems start because it turned out should i have some receipts and in his mind he was not fired he walked away still not really being decided what the truth was there but he shared some emails and text messages some videos the video is very damning um we get the infamous miss flow uh monica for Florence pew and it definitely seems like a livia world is very dedicated to keeping shire on set and that it gives me impression that her loyalties are very much with shire and not with Florence in any way shape or form this poor gasoline all over those rumors that Florence is unhappy why isn't she promoting the film where is her presence the only thing Florence has really said about the film is that she's unhappy with the marketing that she feels like the marketing has reduced the film to the sex scenes and that the marketing is all about a scene which Harry uh you know called sexual act on her and she's you know quite rightly so annoyed because the film is about much more than that then this is where the room is from what must sound like a very code set suddenly the doors start opening up and there are rumors of a bit of drama that crew were not happy when the relationship between wild and styles came out that there was favoritism given to him there's one and i know that you're a kind of bringing a podcast the um ring a dish have a great episode on all the dramas and one of the claims that they talk about there is that between because it was a pandemic production cast and crew have been asked to knock her home for families over the break to really be safe avoid contact people as much as they possibly could to keep the production on target on schedule on budget and then it looks like we got to it's after christmas harry and Olivia seen a wedding holding hands basically announcing their relationship and just to know our wedding in a pandemic so people weren't so happy um and then we get these rumors that Florence is in some ways taken over direction there's rumors that Olivia was off with Harry perhaps you know we don't know what they were doing or she just wasn't around and that Florence and the first dp um from the first ad because they had the storyboards they had the shots ready to go and the actors were rehearsed they just started rolling filming and Olivia would turn up when she turned up and would just take over which you know apparently that no such a understandable then uh we'll get to Venice Film Festival can't believe it wasn't there one of all i am i was 30 before and i missed all of this um but you get spit gate which let's not go into but spigates are holding google it it's just a weird optical illusion it's very strange but it's not drama the great thing about this film is it's it feels like a film um um um followed up that's the perfect impression of mr styles there followed up by his also quote i don't really know what i'm doing always what you want to hear at the very prestigious film festival about a very expensive film what uh just one of s um Florence refuses oh no doesn't really says that she cannot be at Venice Film Festival cannot do any press because she's filming dune too but to be sure that me who is the lead character in dune is at Venice Film Festival do it press but then you get you know Florence has some great pharmaceutical media she has been out in from this purple suit afro spritz arriving in Venice whilst the press conference is going on we have her like makeup or like her stylist yeah let's say like here's miss flow yeah kind of adding adding adding fire to the flames like of kind of what's going on like yeah i i was kind of on 10 turns right i like i didn't particularly like this film but like it's one film from 2020 that like i kind of semi own well i've got a t-shirt it's like an illustration of like the poster if you know like the two of their faces and it just says darling i'm worried and we were all worried um and because of the thing that strikes me about this is again like so much was held back no one knew these problems were happening on set until the film was released and then one of the things that came out after release were it took the two actors of color kiki nane and ariel satchel and mr so sorry basically edited out the film apparently they filmed so much more their characters in the script were meant to have real importance and they are just basically not in the film and i personally enjoyed it i thought it was great fun i called it black mirror for the barbie gels um i thought it's great and it's funny because there are issues with the film and it doesn't quite work and the third act falls apart but it's one of those ones that i don't think any of that is actually linked to the on set issues i think it's actually just a script issue i think the third act and that's that's a rewrite of the original third act which in my mind was actually worse you can find it online so it's really funny that i do think that all involved had almost agreed to keep these on set gripes locked under key because they just wanted the product to go out there and be seen as the product but you know loose licks lips and chips and once it lived your world started doing that press i think people started getting rubbed out the wrong way and all the skeletons came out of the closet and more skeletons continue to come out because even now there's still constantly more things about what went on on the set and it's fascinating that it doesn't it doesn't really come across as themselves as somewhat weaker the film depending on your view of him i thought he did his best but it was too big a role for him and but like i don't think you can see at all that florence and wilder fighting obviously we don't know what seems actually directed by wild who knows and that's an unsubstantiated room also so don't sue me but i don't think any of the drama shows on the film i think it just shows in the press and it's kind of a unique one in that regard yeah i think there is there is there's an amazing teller to come out in the years to come i reckon i reckon once there's like dust that dust that dust that's settled and i think this one is really fascinating to look to what the future will be because like we've seen with many of the directors we've talked about so front sword copler robin johnson and all of these male directors terry gillingham after making these kind of flops had a chance to bounce back it would be interesting to see like what one of the films we could have talked about in this is ish tar the elaine may film which basically just put her in permanent director jail and like it would be interesting to see if hollywood gives a living wild another chance to direct absolutely and it's like i was like shout out to benny melissa who you know during the time all the promotion and stuff was really beaten that drama men have done so many worst things then all this stuff which is unsubstantiated whether it's true or not men have done proven documented things so much worse and time and time again given another check and another project and i'll have to keep going if the worst thing that she did was got a bit googoo eyed and a bit distracted on set well let's look at the other films was she there with a suitcase of cocaine was she poisoning people accidentally drowning them where they all do in pcp and killing buffaloes no she just sort of fell in love with one of the biggest heart friends of the last 10 years it happens yeah yeah well let's let let's change gears and i feel like i feel like this is a perfect one to end on because if frontist ford copler is the kind of like the godfather for one of a better term of the new generation of course this director is somewhat the kind of harpinger of doom of the new hollywood generation i think like he kind of snatched the keys away from people being given so much leeway in making films and that is michael tromino's heavens gate released in 1979 1980 on 1981 depending on which release we are talking about this film has a very troubled production a troubled editing process and a very troubled release um i need to get my check book out and start writing the peter animal cruelty check now um yeah i think so so let's start off you saying about animal cruelty this is the film that is the reason that we have the no animals were harmed in the production of this film because of the ill treatment of animals on this and the humane society doing investigations into this film which we will get into but i'll give you a trick awarding now we will be yeah i'll be i'll be and i need you i'm sorry let's start the beginning of this so michael tromino just come off the back of making the deer hunter and was kind of like a wonder kid and won the the academy award for best director and best film for that film um united arts really wanted to kind of get into bed with him and like have a hit basically they had had a free film run of like academy award winners so anne hall rocky and something else that escapes me but like i'd kind of been on a hot streak and i could tromino beat them so like hey how can we have another hit let's get let's get tromino to director film so he comes to them with heavens gate and gets a 1.5 million dollar advance with that money he has to secure his lead who's chris christophason and arguments start on this pretty early between michael tromino and steven bark one of the like lead producers on this um and the first argument i had was over is about epere as like being one of the female leads in this film steven bark said like i don't know if she's like right for this like one of the weirdest things that they said was oh is is she gonna look as sexy as chris christophason and christopha for walkin and it's like uh yes yes she is she is a bell repair like those two are weird looking men yeah i mean everyone's got their kinks and all but okay so um chameen did not believe in storyboarding the film um he wanted the freedom to film the film in 360 degrees any given moment considering this is a film that is like on epic scale there are scenes with thousands of extras in the background and um on april 16 1979 production started and he had promised them bear in mind he had said yes we will have this film ready for christmas 1979 do you think he gets it claire do you think he makes it i'm gonna go not does not so one week after yeah this was one week after getting the award or the dehunter um one of the people who was supposed to be in this film is one of the like key players in this was william de faux who during a lighting setup laughed at one of the like an extra made a joke and william de faux laughed michael chameen on the spot and you can see william de faux for one shot in this film it's like the teachers for all first day of like term one kid makes mistake give them detention to show the rest you need business so let's get into some of the the craziness within the stuff that michael chameen did so well so all of yeah so the film starts off with a load of hats being like fron and like uh and they had to have all of those hats shipped over from england and handmade so they're we're talking thousands of hats so again budget because they were like they were top hats period specific top hats that weren't made anymore and those like a factory is i'm england or somewhere in europe that kind of had that to fire up the factory yeah yeah yeah and like get the made michael chameen i personally auditioned three hundred horses for this film how many did he hire i'm not entirely short but he killed four um okay uh he personally had his own hands no but through the production um they were he had a train re-routed so it could be on set there were six weeks of weapons dance and roller skating lessons for the cast he sent all the women who work in a bordello in this film to live in a brothel for a week what do i think that's legal yeah uh at one point not only was he like a director he was also a painter and and like he did like architectural design he noticed the set wasn't right so instead of just moving like it was like it needed to be six feet wider the street instead of pulling down half of the set he made them pull down the entire set and like rebuild it which cost the production a million dollars famously this film was five days since shooting and was six days behind on the schedule um chameen at one point was nearly fired and replaced like he bought he called the studio's bluff um the film yeah the film was costing united artist two hundred thousand dollars a day to make it was originally budgeted for us eleven eleven point six million dollars and ended up costing 30 million dollars he is um steven bark at one point called chameen's bluff what because he kept using this whole thing of like oh i can go to any other studio to get this film made so he called his bluff one day and he actually approached every other studio and said to michael chameen nobody else will take you you either need to like get in line or like we'll re-budget the film at twenty five million dollars and we'll like we'll get it done and you need to like every day there's going to be an audit into what you're doing and there's like there's stipulations of like you cannot you cannot fuck around anymore but like the type of thing you ordered or on that set like so it's very you've had two glasses of wine the things that michael chameen was doing so he was basically painting scenes so he would spend most of the day hand picking extras to be in the back and placing them to kind of like making these beautifully lavish shots and like kind of everyone kind of looks period specific and kind of looks like a living character but would take that level of detail over every specific little thing that kind of a at one point they try to fire michael chameenot and get on david lien to take over the production who said no fucking way uh when when they gave him these stipulations of how to work michael chameenot told one of his like closest producers on the film tell the studio what they want to hear and do what we want anyway coderos with michael chameenot's advance we can only we can only imagine this he bought land in montana where this film was filmed steven bark realized whilst they're filming why are we spending so much on renting the land they found out that michael chameenot was charging them an extortionate rate to rent land off of him so he was getting money back on them rent you know what i was starting to respect this car right the hustle is well starting to respect what is kind of like fascinating about this all of this is happening throughout for throughout 1979 it managed to stay out of the press how you like it claire nobody knew what was going on how sets you know beta thrills at this point as well they had they had pushed back the release date by year that's how kind of far back they were and in september 1979 there was a guy called lez kapay who's the right for the new yorker like had moved to montana for like an easier life i tried to get an interview with michael chameenot to write a puff piece for like a local newspaper just kind of like the film filming in the local area how's it going yeah he was like rudely denied by the production they were like really arrogant about him like we ain't no uh so lez kapay took it upon himself to get hired as an extra on the film and ended up writing an expose that he called shoot out of heaven's gate where he listed off the following things that were going wrong and set there were dangerous working conditions extras were falling off of wagons and horses extrons were getting crushed feet by horses there were 16 violent injuries people were passing out because of all of the smoke that was used in interior scenes um the makeup department had remarked how violent the film was and said that anybody like his own families basically in the film they're using local people like whole families to be extras they said like do not take your kids to see this but when it is released like it is it's atrocious um he actually broke laws in montana they were using real slaughtered animals in an area of montana where it's illegal due to bear attacks so they were basically leaving like slaughtered animals as set dressing um that would have just brought like basically waiting for bears to attack the treatment of animals on this was terrible um horses were actually bled out so they could use the blood to douse actors in blood for scenes instead of using fake blood they used trip wires to like flip over horses or something that was like unfortunately it's an old old old school thing that like was outlawed by this time that hadn't been done for years and they did it um the humane society came on to the set and declared that yeah four horses were killed and many more injured the horses that they bled out as well where um no painkillers were administered or anything like that they just kind of just kind of like did a nick on them got them and no longer expected us there is a shot in this film of a cart and a wagon like a horse drawn cart blown up by dynamite so there's a horse being blown up by dynamite on screen that's actually in the film on screen um there is depictions of actual cock fights to capitated chickens cows were disembowed to create intestines for actors um yeah as i said this is where the the humane society called upon the whole like no animals were harmed in the production because animals were harmed in the production of this and it's so repulsive because it's very difficult when you look at films from the 20s and 30s because the medium was still new people didn't know what they were doing and they didn't have the resources and they didn't have the skills and they didn't have the mindset so this is the late 70s and the early 80s they know how to make fake blood they know how to make fake intestines this is sheer laziness and arrogance so think like that's just production things don't end there Michael Trimino is kind of did he start kicking all the dogs at the premiere he just walk out into the street and you know like you know dogs deserve to die too no he didn't do that but he presented i think you would feel like you'd feel this is pretty bad so one of the things he decided on this film is he wanted to shoot more film in Francis Ward Coppler had shot on apocalypse now didn't manage it he only did 1.2 million feet of film but was over 220 hours of footage he had filmed he um he he yeah he presented the film to the studio heads at a five hour cut the final battle sequence of this film was 90 minutes alone just christ does anyone care that much they told him to go away and re-edit it ready for the premiere the studio did not watch the film until the premiere at which point like everyone hated it people like Chameenos asking like people i was nobody drinking the champagne people like we hated the film they're walkouts in the premiere people hated it it was due up for general release and uh in yeah in 1980 and then within two weeks was pulled from theaters at Michael Chameenos request and said i can i can edit the film again like please let me do it so it annoys me that it was a his request that he was so arrogant that he's like oh people don't like it another took it back and redo it it's like no honey fucked up suffer so he he re-edited it and then it was released in April um 1981 in like people like that version it's like a two hour and 18 minute cut so considerably shorter but i think within all of the footage people say there is a great film like you can get you can get that yeah i think criteria for release it there are many kind of additions of the film like it is one of those and i think it is the thing of it's it was made like in horrible conditions there is great stuff in it like you undeniably like some of the kind of the right editor can put out something and some of the imagery in it as well like i said like with the extras like you could kind of freeze frame it and like make a painting it would be like a painting but it's kind of does the ends just the means just by the end basically with this and it Michael Chimino makes it very difficult to to make you agree with him and i think what is fascinating yeah he is basically he arguably killed new the new Hollywood generation by like this kind of folly like the grandest of follies fucked up and doing it on american's do it all as well yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah construction workers were dying by the filipades yeah i mean still happens in certain countries but yeah so yeah michael yeah so that's that's heaven's gate and the kind of furor around that like but people people went to town with it i think it does kind of draw back to copler and i think like i would say it won a golden razi for worst director and whilst i have a mixed relationship with the golden razis their fucking place they um because i think what happened with heaven's gate is people went back after that film came out and re-reviewed the dehunter on the basis of like that film but a lot of it seemed to be their disdain for him and stuff like that which i like i think draws in that question of the art versus the artist in some way but then at the same time this predilection we have like we're saying like not knowing about the set in this case probably for the best that we do know the kind of ills that went on yeah because they're now legal things in place to stop that happen again so they were you know yeah good that we know what we're not but at the same time like should we be going back to his previous work as saying their pieces of shit now because we did like we didn't like maybe not yeah yeah yeah yeah it's kind of it's kind of fascinating i think like i don't know like we've offered everything we talked about looking at like troubled productions do you think like there is an element like the i don't know the media like not in this kind of conspiratorial way but like a route to get copler with this kind of like yeah we're with everything that's gone with mega office he came out and said it's fine like like this was all a part of the plan obviously firing entire departments isn't great but he's not a poor player and that's the thing when you look into it it sounds like he knew he was out of the budget and they said they're changing the way in which they're doing the effects so it completely makes sense that they'd have to remove the effects team because if they're doing a different way to do the effects well what does that team don't know how to work with that product that software um i think the issue because we talked about quite a lot of like older films the issue with modern films is that people that be people like you people like lots of our friends we all want to be film journalists and we all want to talk about films and we all had a deeply unhealthy relationship to talking about films and we've created this whole industry of film journalism and film news and show this news and people need and people need information so click by class anyway if a thing it's a click it's a google it's an seo you know it's a buzz word it's a keyword yeah so i think that's the main one with mega office mega office mega office did it guys only took two hours 18 minutes mega office um but like even when we look back at the second cuckoo's answer like that i think it's still back in those days it was also it wasn't about clicks it was getting selling columns selling space and Coppola made a brilliant name for himself and he was a household name and even taking it all the way to now Olivia Wilde if that was just any old female director or any old guy not Harry Styles and not someone who was also a famous actress turned director that wouldn't have got half the press but when you get a big name involved you're looking for that headline you're looking for that you know five second distraction to get the money get the clicks get the newspaper sales and i think it's fascinating so i was still you know we have films 1920s looking at the Hollywood system and we have films in this year like Babalot talking about the Hollywood system it's a fascinating beast because it's always going to look different from the outside than it does inside yeah definitely like yeah even like well like a film that Babalot knows massive debt too is singing in the rain which like kind of does the same thing looking into like the Hollywood system and like the the studio system of the day and like kind of how corrupt it was and like how weird it was and it's kind of interesting that we kind of keep moving forward and like the way films that are made the way films are made in the way films are talked about it like there's argument even we're talking about like the the journalists first for blood for like Francis Ford Coppola maybe me and you doing this conversation is a part of the problem as well right and the words are saying it's me hi i'm the problem it's me yeah followed by one of the weirdest lines in music i've heard in a long time hey sometimes everyone is a sexy baby all right and it's awkward when you're not amazing well thank you so much Claire for coming on this grand of a follies with me where can people keep up to date with yourself and everything you're doing with W-rated you guys seem to you guys always seem to be having some production issues always kind of delayed what's what's happening with the pod we have a lot of production issues because my wonderful music i host Daisy is the most busy human being i've ever met and it turned out i actually got quite busy too because i got a new job which keeps me busy and we just stopped recording we are back to recording so you can find me at Claire Ellen Hope and you can find W-rated on twitter at W-rated pod and at all good podcast and platforms and as we speak we are in the phase of recording our road to raziz season which is a number of films that could be considered follows these are the films that have been voted for worst of the year we are looking at them to see what what did the raziz get wrong what isn't that bad about them what can we celebrate about these films so we're not going in looking to rip things apart and so they'll be releasing in the next few weeks we're going to be releasing almost an episode a day to make up for the fact that we have not released an episode of six months will there be a justice for Ryan Kira Armstrong episode talking about the the mishap of that whole ordeal yes the fi the film that seems not as well as a matter of two awards so they have rescinded her nomination but it is still nominated for another award so we are going to talk about that and the recent days the rescinding of the award and she's pretty great she was recently in the old way the the new Nicolas Gatorill and playing his daughter and she's fantastic and I know that I kind of ended up going down a rabbit hole and she's going to be in the new Sam Ishmael film with Julia Roberts yeah I was like she's she's getting up there so like she's one to watch no absolutely yeah we will definitely be talking about and as so far we've recorded episode on on rabbit's next episode and another film that I've already forgotten and so yeah but I have not edited all of this and then we'll be coming soon amazing well again thank you so much for coming and making some copal connections with me and one day we'll work together thank you this podcast is presented by the breadcrumbs collective home of the podgehole Santa cast case in copal connections a drip tonal memory main franchise and many more to come our shows are all presented ad-free and may possible by listeners like you please support our show by subscribing leaving ratings and reviews and becoming patrons at patreon.com if you'd like to learn more about breadcrumbs head over to breadcrumbs collective.com breadcrumbs is more than a podcast network it's family

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