EPISODE 258: Perfect Days, Louis Gossett Jr. and M. Emmet Walsh
This may be one of the most far-ranging and far-reaching shows yet. Gareth and Jett get into the beautiful and sublime Wim Wender's film Perfect Days, look, and listen to, M. Emmet Walsh in Straight Time and The Iron Giant, marvel at Louis Gossett Jr.'s performance in Enemy Mine and Jaws 3-D, (the third dimension is terror), explore the Wings of Desire Cinematic Universe, wonder about Alejandro Jodorowsky as regards to Alexander Payne's The Holdovers and even find time to shoehorn in a few thoughts about Rod Steiger and Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man. Remember, “learn how to see, and in the act of doing so, learn how to be.”
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The conditions of your parole were that you were to go to the halfway house.
That's another way to help you save money.
Now, you agreed to that before your release. Why did you go there?
Because I just spent six years in prison.
I just want to look at the lights. I want to feel free.
I want to walk around and not have somebody tell me that I got to get in bed at 10 o'clock.
Max, I think you've got a serious attitude problem. Oh my God, folks, I am so excited. We're back.
This is The Film Talk, that ongoing conversation about movies and what they mean. I'm Jett Loe.
I'm Gareth Higgins. We thought the conversation has ended.
No.
But some things just can't. They just can't. They'll live forever.
They're in an endlessly repeating loop of joy and life-giving poetry.
Let me tell you, if you want a good, perhaps, I would argue, the best remake of Groundhog Day ever, you cannot do better than Perfect Days. It's the story of a monk whose monastery, Gareth, is the big city. Gareth, Perfect Days by Wim Wenders.
This is a film that proves you don't have to be subtle to be sublime. I got a quick question for you, Gareth. You know, the other day, I watched-
Take a breath.
I'm not taking a breath.
Well, I was watching the other day. You know, I love me some big-budget, but kind of flop films like 1985 sci-fi spectacular directed by the guy that did Das Boot, Enemy Mine.
Wolfgang, Wolfgang Petersen.
Wolfgang. I mean, you know, on paper, this is going to be a big hit. Everyone thought this was the go-to script everybody wanted.
Enemy Mine, big-budget, spectacular, flopped. It flopped hard. I was watching Enemy Mine, and I was watching 1979's Not Flopped, the Steve Martin comedy The Jerk, which got me to thinking, dear listeners, and Gareth, are Louis Gossett Jr.
and M. Emmet Walsh, are Gareth, are they still with us?
In many ways, they are still with us because their work will live forever, but of course, Louis Gossett Jr. and M.
Emmet Walsh, both died in the last week or so, and when presence on screen or behind the camera has meant something to us when they pass away, we like to talk about them, and we like to think that they are still with us because of the work, and to
have some sort of reflective dialogue about what their work meant. I want to say two things before we weave into them. I don't know if we're going to talk about them in depth right now, or wait till after we've discussed Perfect Days.
That was a teaser that someone has passed. It's a passing teaser.
This episode is off to a great start.
Folks, if you like the show, don't forget you can visit us on Patreon.
If you like the show, it's not because of this episode.
Okay. So you and I may agree to disagree a little bit on Perfect Days.
Here's the thing I was going to say. Character actor. People say character actor, and it's often a way of saying that they're small parts.
But I tend to think with people like Louis Gossett Jr. and M. Emmet Walsh, who we will discuss later in the show, their presence in films is actually an anchor.
And so I would rather we call them anchor actors.
Yes.
Because they bring the film into the real world, and we miss them. We miss them so. Interestingly enough, we were both watching Enemy Mine independently of each other.
Do you feel like starting this whole episode again?
No, I do not. We are barreling through, just like The Shark did in Jaws 3-D, The Third Dimension is Terror, that Louis Gossett Jr. was in.
And Simon McCorken did.
Yeah, in the Edge of Darkness protagonist role from Jurassic Park.
So that's a deep dive for you. Folks, before we get into Perfect Days, don't forget you can always go to Patreon and subscribe. Just go to patreon.com/filmtalk.
Also, you can go to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a review because that's going to be helpful in the next month because we've just rebooted the show after our original 2006 run.
Before we talk about Jaws 3-D, The Third Dimension is Terror, we've got to talk about this beautiful, moving, touching, yet kind of obvious film, but that's okay, Perfect Days.
So Perfect Days is directed by great German director Wim Wenders, who's still most known for Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire, and maybe his wonderful documentary, Pointe à Vista Social Club, co-written by Wenders and Takuma Takasaki and starring, and
that's an understatement in this case because most of the film appears to be close-up of this extraordinary actor's face. Starring Koji Hakusho takes place in Tokyo.
Our protagonist is a working class employee whose job is to clean toilets, public toilets around the city, and we see his daily habits unfolding over the course of a week. And I believe we have a clip.
We do have a clip. We're in a little bar. They also serve food run by Mama, character called Mama in Tokyo, and her patrons, her regulars want her to sing their favorite song.
So, let's listen.
Thank you.
And that is Perfect Days. Well, Jett, this was my favorite film of last year. It's only just recently been released, and hopefully some listeners will be able to see it in a theater because I would like to have seen this film in an enclosed space.
Sure.
Tiny, tiny cubby hole. In which you couldn't get your drinks there. You would have to go to a vending machine outside.
You know what I mean?
The focus that is afforded by being inside a theater rather than watching it at home, I have watched it at home three times.
I'd love to see it in the theater because it's one of those films that's a little bit like the documentary from 16 or 17 years ago called Integrate Silence, which induces a contemplative experience on the part of the audience.
And actually, I'm sure, I mean, it's one of those films where you couldn't measure people's brain waves and the calm coming over people as they watch it. Jett, you're absolutely right.
He is a monk, although he would never claim that identity for himself.
Indeed, he encounters a literal monk and bows to him with such humility and such grace, same grace that he applies to the sapling that he gently digs up from just beside the roots of a tree, takes it home to care for it.
And as the film unfolds, we learn that he himself, like probably everybody, has been trampled on. There have been people who have trampled on him. There have been things in life that have trampled on him.
But instead of responding reactively or with retribution or revenge, he has carved out a life for himself in which the boundaries between him and other people are semi-permeable. He hasn't built a wall around himself that you can't get in.
He does actually relate to people. Yeah, maybe he needs a little bit of a push to connect further.
But frankly, if I spend a week of my life doing the things that he does, which include things as spectacular as living in a busy city and getting a decent night's sleep, things as dramatic as-
Are you calling that unrealistic?
Absolutely. No, I mean, it's film's tackular nature of the otherwise mundane facts of existence simply to be able to lie down and rest and let your mind go into the dream world.
As the extraordinary philosopher Peter Kingsley talks about, there was a form of meditation many thousands of years ago that we would call primordial meditation. And it was very simple.
You just lay down flat and with your mind, let your body sink into the earth, sleep.
And part of the challenge with the way our sleep patterns have been interrupted by electronic devices is most of us don't get the kind of sleep, not only that our bodies needs, but I would contend that our spirits need as well.
This character gets the kind of sleep that his spirit needs.
This character has all the adventure he needs in the course of a day, simply by having six or eight different toilets to clean, each of which is going to present them with the opportunity to encounter a human being.
It could be a child who's lost and in need of care. It could be a visitor from overseas who's confused and needs some help.
It could be the coworker who, part of the loveliness of this film is his coworker is kind of a jerk and kind of annoying and kind of irritating. Until we see he's also got a heart of gold as well. He just needs to grow up to, I could say a lot more.
I don't want to, there's not much more to say about the plot. I understand you making it an analogy with Groundhog Day because it is a scene in which at one level, the same thing happens every day and yet, and yet.
It's repetition like healthy meditation. It's a beautiful film to look at. It's a beautiful film to feel.
I've seen it three times. I discover more about myself each time I watch it. I'm eager to hear what you have to say about this wonderful film.
Well, I like to make little jokes.
It helps relieve the stress of my life. The protagonist of Perfect Days has his routine to live in some sort of grace and deal with his own trauma. I suppose maybe humor is how I deal with mine.
So yeah, I did make a joke about Groundhog Day but imagine watching Groundhog Day but you're watching from the point of he's already achieved some sort of enlightenment. So he's not a jerk.
The thing about this film, which I love so much, who reminds me of some of the ones that we did, we talked about in our Academy Award shows when we started this reboot of the show. I think I mentioned something about how past lives enriched my world.
Like I'm seeing the world deeper. And for me, Perfect Days did the same thing. It expanded the palette of my experiential receiving.
And there's a sentence that's never been uttered before. It expanded my palette. In a lot of ways, it's about learning to see.
And in the act of doing so, you're learning to be. I could put that on a poster. Learning to see so you could learn to be.
Now is now, as they say several times, right? At the end, now is now. And I think when we did our old show, I'm not saying I was kind of a jerk, but I was in the pre-Enlightenment, Groundhog Day stage of my life.
And I think after we finished the show, you know, I was always taking photographs, but then I actually got full-time paid to be a photojournalist.
And what I realized being a photojournalist, or a listener, is that it forced me, if I wanted to be any good, I would have to empathize with people. So it forced me to emphasize almost in a professional way, like that was my job to empathize.
And in doing so, that transformed me, and I think in a better way. And I think that's probably why I'm a little more empathetic. Maybe not in this episode, I'm a little grumpy today, but overall more empathetic person.
And that's what this film does. It shows you the power of learning to see, of opening yourself up. So we have these beautiful shots all throughout the film of the protagonist just looking at the trees.
And this is very explicitly seen as a transformative act. And we also see his practice, it's not just looking, then he transforms it into art where he takes photos of the play of the wind on the trees or the light and shadow.
Interestingly enough, we can talk about, I wanna talk about the whole kind of retrofuturism or the analog nature, but he doesn't use a digital camera or a phone. He uses a crappy old Olympus point and shoot with Fujifilm.
Now for me as a professional photographer, I couldn't believe this because Fujifilm, I did a whole book using Fuji. Fujifilm is famous for one thing, Gareth, but it's famous for nothing else. It's color.
It's beautiful Fuji color and he's taking black and white photos. It was killing me. But that's also what he dreams in.
So he's dreaming in this black and white and he's taking black and white photos and this is showing us that there he is allowing himself and putting himself in a position where he's in a waking dream during the day and then he's also alive while he's
awake. And I think while he's asleep, excuse me. So I think that's a brilliant, brilliant device. Does that make sense?
I mean, it's a beautiful film. It wouldn't work if it was an ugly film. The film has to be beautiful.
Well, it's also, you know, you understand this way better than I do.
You know, I miss Sally Lloyd. I definitely miss Sally Lloyd, not for kind of reasons of puritanism, simply because I just think it looks better and I appreciate it when digital imagery has been touched up to make it look more like film.
And I understand that it's, you know, it's definitely a net gain that it's so much easier to make movies these days because of digital technology.
There's something about, I've never been to Japan, you know, and I've heard like Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in.
And of course, Japanese industry is so associated with electronics and something of a piece that this film is shot digitally. It's something of a piece that it hasn't been.
They haven't done what The Holdovers did. Alexander Payne and the Danish cinematographer, Ergo Brill, what is it? E Brill?
They were The Holdovers, they added the gate weave and they added the grain.
Yeah.
Now you're changing your mind about The Holdovers now.
No. What you should do is do what Hiroyama, the protagonist of Perfect Days does and instead of reading a book before you go to sleep at night, watch The Holdovers every day for a week and see what happens.
That's the kind of thing that you would get in Alejandro Jodorowsky's Psycho Magic book as a prescription for what ails you, Jett, watch The Holdovers every day for a week. I'll leave that with you.
I'm not gonna ask you to make a commitment to it, I know, but you'll store up these thoughts in your heart.
You know, I'm all about commitment and communication. Well, in this film, I'd say communication equals connection, right? Isn't that part of the idea?
Learning to see is learning to be.
Yeah, now is now.
Can we talk about the importance of the physical world in this movie? Can we talk about that, please?
Yes.
Here's what I'm talking about. Because this guy, he's driving around Tokyo and he's listening to the incredible soundtrack of people like Patti Smith and Lou Reed, and he's listening, dear listener, to these songs.
It's amazing how much his taste in music seems to mirror what you think Wim Wenders probably isn't too at all.
Yeah, a hipster German director, the guy, the director of Paris, Texas, is like, hey, he's listening to Ry Cooder.
He's listening to his friends.
Well, it's lovely, although that enhances it for me. That enhances it for me.
It is, look, this is like a director's film. Well, actually, if not an actor's film, aka a film, but he listens to the, we're having too much fun on the show. I'm glad we rebooted it after 10 years.
He listens to all these songs, Batti Smith, on cassettes, which is great because it's hard to skip on cassettes. You have to fast forward, done even an eight-track. You're forcing you to listen, forcing you to pay attention.
Same thing as forcing you to look at the natural world around you, the trees and the breeze and the sun, what have you, the shadows. And I am fascinated by that.
They make it explicit pretty much thematically where his niece is talking about, can I listen to these songs that he listens to on cassette? Can I listen to them on Spotify? And he thinks Spotify is like a shop, like it's a physical place.
So it's really setting up this dichotomy, dear listener, between the cloud where everything is ephemeral and then the physical, when I would say the three-dimensional, the sculptural. And it really puts a lot of love and importance onto the physical.
We see him winding in cassette, which is something you have to do. Imagine if you're listening to Spotify and you had to scrub back and forth constantly to get the song.
You know, I'm sure there's some crappy app that tries to replicate the analog experience that forces you to do that. But I love that a lot. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does.
And I mean, there's also the kind of grungy spa that he goes to every day for his shower and his little kind of hot tub and his kind of relaxation room that he goes into afterwards.
There's something about the wood in that shower space that felt kind of more tactile and tangible too. I do want to say something about how it relates to other movies.
And this is maybe a little bit of, this is definitely a bit of a spoiler if you haven't seen Wings of Desire. And that is it felt to me, even though there is a literal sequel to Wings of Desire.
It was Colombo all along.
It was, even though there's a literal sequel to Wings of Desire called Far Away So Close, this film felt like a spiritual successor to Wings of Desire.
If Daniel, the angel played by Bruno Gans in Wings of Desire actually did live in the world that we inhabit and actually did forge a life for himself, what kind of person would he be?
What would it be like if I turned my attention, not just from like what my needs and wants are, but genuinely, and again, not from, I mean, maybe there's altruism to this, but I don't even think there needs to be an altruistic motivation to
experiment with believing that I have an impact on other people. Just believing my presence in the world has an impact on other people, and what kind of impact would I like that to be? I may not be able to save their lives.
I may not be able to do anything dramatic for people, but just showing up in the world and deciding to pay attention to the golden rule. What would I like to do for other people that I would like them to do for me?
Or what would I not want to do for other people based on what I wouldn't want them to do to me? So there's a lovely, I mean, you could easily watch this as a double bill with Wings of Desire.
Another film, a much bleaker film with a similar premise, and this is definitely also a spoiler, a film that has a very similar premise, is Five Easy Pieces from the early 70s about a man who has, I guess you could call it, all the trappings of the
Yeah, he literally walks away at one point, right?
He's in a car, he's in a traffic jam, Jack Nicholson, early 70s, and he just leaves his car ball. Just leaves.
And this is a much more, I mean, optimistic, yes. I just think much more humane. It gives a greater option to this guy.
You said some interesting stuff here.
Oh, well, thank you. Well, look, I'm just being honest. Basically, you boil it down to, don't be a jerk.
You're having interactions with people throughout the day. There are other service people. You buy a candy, you buy some noodles, whatever it is, buy some film.
Don't be a jerk.
You get your $1 Faulkner.
You get your cheap Faulkner. You imagine a pond, you throw the ripples in a pond. One little stone ripples out.
This is us. We're all interacting with each other all day. So don't be a jerk.
Treat others as you want to be treated. I think you're absolutely right, Gary. I just want to say one thing about Wings of Desire.
Yeah, you think about Wings of Desire. This film can totally exist in the Wings of Desire slash far away, so close cinematic universe.
Cinematic universe.
Because what is the thing we see throughout the entire film constantly? It's the Tokyo Skytree, which are world's tallest tower, right?
So you can think of the angels being on top of that tower just as they were in Angels Over Berlin, Berlin slash Wings of Desire, that he is one of them. He's one of the angels. And he's decided to take the mortal path, or they're looking down at him.
Or he can think of it as a spire of a church. That's another way. If he's a monk and he's looking at sort of a feudal monastery or a feudal church.
But I absolutely believe with you, I think it would make a great double bill with Wings of Desire or the new Godzilla King Kong film as well. Uh-huh, yes.
Only because after you watch that movie, you're gonna be so tired, you're gonna hate cinema so much, you wanna fall in love with cinema again. You gotta watch Perfect Days afterwards. You're like, good, I can't deal with Kong.
Chaser.
Wait, why does Kong, does he have a mechanical leg in this new one?
I don't know what's happening. It's like a $300 million reboot of a remake of Robot Monster.
Lord have mercy. Well, didn't we like Robot Monster?
No one likes Robot Monster, that's from the 50s.
Okay, I'm confusing my robots. I'm confusing my robots. What happens to all of us?
One more thing.
Yes.
One more thing, this thing about don't be a jerk. This is genuine curiosity for me. I don't know that the way to...
As you know, I grew up in a religious context and I'm still connected to a kind of, I don't know, a conscious spirituality and that's simply a descriptive term.
It's not an evaluative term, although I'm not sure what the difference between a descriptive term and an evaluative term.
I was still thinking about Robot Monster.
There's this question of the common good. That's a term that gets used a lot. And Wendell Berry, who's a tobacco farmer and incredible poet in Kentucky, I think would love this film.
If he ever watched movies, in my senses, I don't think Wendell Berry watches a lot of movies.
If you want to weigh into Wendell Berry's work, look for his long poem, The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, or perhaps another book of essays called What Are People For? But common good is normally understood to mean what's the most good for everyone.
I think we should, I've been imagining lately, we need to deepen that or elaborate on that definition a bit and allow for two meanings of the word common. One being the things we hold in common, the things that we all hold together.
And the other meaning of the word common, which of course is the mundane, everyday, ordinary, the common activities. And it's also kind of what, people mistake the meaning of the term common sense.
And usually I think when people say common sense, they mean the obvious thing, the thing that everybody, you know, the ordinary thing, but it could actually just mean what most people think they're in sociology.
People talk about common sense reasoning, and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. Sure. You know, most people can actually be mistaken about something.
So I've been thinking about the two meanings of the word common, what we hold together and the ordinary mundane facts of our lives. And then I've been thinking about something that you might call the cosmic good.
And I don't term, I don't use that term for no reason. And by cosmic, I also mean two meanings of the word cosmic. One being literally what most people think of when they think of the cosmos, outer space, right?
The unreachable and the stuff that we're mostly familiar with through those of us that are into things like quantum physics and those of us who are into science fiction.
And then another meaning of the word cosmic, which could stand in for metaphysical or spiritual, whether you believe in a God or some kind of animating force beyond that, or some kind of, let's call it reality with an uppercase R or love with an
uppercase L. And what I'm really interested in about this film and why I think it is a cut above, it goes deeper, is that this touches on both the common and the cosmic good and both definition of each of those words.
The things we hold together, the ordinary facts of our lives, something, I guess, a taste of the eternal, which we see most explicitly in the dream sequences that Hirayama has, and the fact that what he's dealing with, love, mercy, woundedness, rest,
Yeah.
Shadow dancing with a stranger, frankly looking into the eyes of another and saying, I'm willing to hold your gaze even for one second longer than I would do otherwise.
These are eternal things, or at least archetypal things that human beings have been dealing with ever since we became conscious and will continue to deal with.
So it's a list of like human universals. It feels like in this, I feel like you're approaching that. You could actually make a list.
Here are things that are all that have been with it. They're archetypal or built in components of us as biological beings. And this film touches on so many of them.
In all four quadrants, two versions are common, two versions of cosmic.
I'd have to watch it again to think about this more, but there's not much that can happen in a human life that doesn't happen in Perfect Days. At least at some kind of summary headline level.
Wow. Are they paying you to write the poster? I thought I was.
To be, what is it?
To be helps us to see. To see helps us to be.
I don't know, is that what I said? That's, the film is about learning to see and in the act of doing so, learning to be.
To be.
Past Lives. Oh no, wait, Perfect Days. I keep, in all of our corresponded to elicitors, I keep confusing the title.
Well, because you think Past Lives is the best film you've seen in years.
Oh, Past Lives is beautiful.
I got a list of questions. Here's the first one, I got like three or four of these. Because you're my spiritual advisor and cinematic.
Are you asking these questions of me?
Of you.
I'm asking them of you, because you're my spiritual and cinematic advisor in all things. Do you think, Gareth, if there was an American remake, they'd have him solve crimes in between cleaning the toilets? And if so, would it start Nicholas Cage?
And maybe Selena Gomez is his niece.
Selena Gomez is great. Have you seen Only Murders in the Building?
She's, I, you know, it exists. I am aware of it.
It's much richer than it looks. Much richer than it looks.
I've seen a couple, but life is short.
Like yourself.
Well, you know Cage or Nicholas Cage already did a remake, right? He did a remake of Wings of Desire, City of Angels. So I'm thinking-
I think it was a re-imagining.
Was it a re-imagining?
A remake, a re-imagining and a reboot.
Here's another, there's so many differences.
We gotta quickly, quickly, quickly.
Have you got other questions? Other questions beyond the kind of-
About his, I was, were you watching it? I was really hoping not to have any backstory. So were you disappointed to find out, oh, he actually is like, comes from a super wealthy background.
Did you feel, did you feel that sort of, or did it emphasize that he's like left that behind? Did that work for you?
No, I thought that was done with subtlety and we needed some backstory to understand why he got to where he is.
And frankly, to me, the possibility of change and of, I don't know if you can ever leave fully behind, but of forging a new life for yourself in the aftermath of unnecessary suffering and of pain being put on you by other people's mistakes or choices
is one of the two or three things that are storytelling in the world today, most lacks and most needs. The credible narratives about the possibility of change.
That's a great point. That's a great point.
Why thank you?
The world would be better. Is it possible I've never uttered those words before in our almost 260 episodes? See, I'm becoming more-
Nobody said that's a great point.
Jen, I think I've never said it.
See, I'm becoming more empathetic. I'm becoming more empathetic. Can we just talk before we move on to our segment still with us?
Can we just talk about the toilets for a minute? Can we just talk about these incredible-
Listen, you've also never said that. You've also never said that.
Okay, so apparently, according to the trivia that's out there in the world, did you know that this film originated as a way to publicize these toilets in the wake of the Japanese Summer Olympics?
You're kidding.
You're kidding.
Tell me, the Tokyo Tourist Board-
Yes, the 2020 Olympics got the issues with COVID, and so they're gonna commission a documentary about these amazing new toilets put in. They're incredible toilets. They're incredible toilets.
Apparently, Wim Wenders was attached to do a documentary about these toilets.
Are you serious?
I'm absolutely serious, this is like basically a promotional film, an incredible marketing film for Tokyo Toilets, these toilets. Gareth, you ever read any science fiction? You ever read any deliverers out there?
Little bit, not as much as you have.
You've seen- Well, Arthur Siegel, I have read some Ray Bradbury, read some short stories of Ray Bradbury.
Okay, with the long rain, you know the long rain?
It was one of the segments, it was from like 1950, and then they, it was called, I think, Death by Rain or something, and then they made it into one of the stories in the anthology film, or poor man too, whatever you want to call it.
Illustrated Man, with Rod Steiger. Everybody's favorite parallel universe, Patton, he turned it down. He turned Patton down, Rod Steiger.
And in-
Maybe the greatest actor there's ever been.
What about the protagonist of-
Not to be, not to go over the top. Of Perfect Days. Even in The Specialist.
Even in The Specialist.
Honbroker. But Popbroker. Would be a good double bill with this one.
We're talking about someone. How do you deal with life? And you sort of reintegrate with others.
Well, you mean like in the sense that they're being polar opposites.
One person's trauma completely overwhelming him.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
I think that's why I do the show, Gareth, these little insights. We call these jets, jetsites. They're little insights.
Paul, wait for me.
Teaching us to be through teaching us to see.
Oh, no. What have I done? So, oh, God, I'm going to be like one of those, like some sort of a think-fluencer, film-fluencer.
I think it's important to say because the listener can't see, because this is only audio thus far.
There hasn't been, amazingly enough, there hasn't been public demand.
No one wants to see this.
To watch us. But I'm noticing, I'm very much enjoying recording this episode. I'm very much enjoying talking with you.
I'm also noticing I have not touched my hair during the episode, but somehow my hair has got messier than it was at the start of the episode, just by the animation of talking.
You're freeing yourself. You're freeing as the ideas leave the body, the follicles expand.
Anyway, in the Rod Steiger illustrated man story or in the short story, Long Rain, the astronauts are on Venus, and humans are colonizing Venus, but Venus is raining all the time. It's miserable. You can't live.
You'll die. You'll die by drowning.
And so what the human society has done is put a series of sun domes, like 100, 200 sun domes scattered around Venus so that they can get, the astronauts can get to the sun domes and away from the Venusians who are trying to kill them.
It's raining and oppressive. And that's what I thought of watching, I was going to say past lives, Perfect Days. These toilets are like the sun domes in The Illustrated Man.
They're incredible. Again, knowing now, as I do after seeing the film, that maybe this movie was paid for by the Tokyo Olympics board. I'll say one last thing.
I love, love, love, dear listener, how we see him never put on his watch while he's working. He only puts on his watch while it's his days off. He can't wait.
He doesn't watch the clock when he's working because he's so involved and so present in his day to day. That, folks, is Perfect Days, a beautiful film.
A beautiful film. Perhaps not for you a perfect film, for me a perfect film.
You know, like I said at the top, it does show. You don't need subtlety. It's not a subtle film.
You don't need subtlety to be sublime. But it is beautiful. But listen, I was watching.
I think it's subtler than you're giving it credit for.
Well, I haven't seen it three times like you have.
This is good. So I got to rewatch it.
We've got to mention that without naming what it is. I mean, the last scene, the last scene.
Yes, the one that is the same as the last scene of Moneyball. It's the last scene of Moneyball. I'm not wrong.
Not a bad movie.
It's a good film.
More memorable than Perfect Days.
Perhaps more memorable than Perfect Days. It's also the last scene of Michael Clayton.
Do you know who I can't forget? I can't forget M. Emmet Walsh, Louis Gossett Jr.
Gareth, are they still with us?
They are still with us in ways that matter to those of us who didn't know them and condolences to those who did know and love them. Personally, thank you for sharing with the world. We've had them in our lives.
I mean, certainly in my life for at least 40 years, I've been aware of both of them for probably their best known performances. Although I don't think those are the performances we're going to discuss in this little tribute moment.
Their best known performances, Louis Gossett Jr. and an officer in A Gentleman and M. Emmet Walsh in Blood Simple.
But we're going to talk about a couple of films that they made. We did not discuss in advance, we didn't tell each other in advance what those films would be.
I have a feeling that we've agreed, we've chosen the same film for one and not for the other. Jett, can you tell us please the name of the Louis Gossett Jr. film and the name of the M.
Emmet Walsh film that you've chosen and also the names of their characters in those films? And I will do the same.
Okay, well, here's the thing. I just talked about Louis Gossett Jr. first for a second before I revealed the M.
Emmet Walsh. Here's the thing. Growing up, Louis Gossett Jr.
always great, right? He's always great. Look at this guy.
Wow, this guy's a pro. He's always great. Now as an adult and someone who's worked in media in all forms for 30 years, what I realized before revisiting his work for this show is how much I appreciate his professionalism.
We can talk about actors being always good or whatever, but let's face it, sometimes you just get the paycheck.
Yeah, it didn't matter what he was in. He brought it every time.
Here's the thing. The other week, I just happened to be watching Con Air. Now, you and I watch great movies all the time.
They're fantastic pictures, films like Perfect Days and Past Lives.
Yes.
For some reason, when I'm home alone or I'm home with my wife, we watch things like The Golden Bachelor or films like Con Air for some reason.
Yes.
Because I'm turning off my brain. But here's the thing. On Con Air, I haven't seen it since it came out.
You got John Malkovich. He's the villain. And John, have you seen Con Air recently, Gareth?
I saw it on its opening day 27 years ago.
That's when I saw it.
And I remember there being a toy bunny.
Okay.
Everybody's in it.
Yes.
In Con Air, which is a huge slice of cheese, John Malkovich is acting like he's in a black box Steppenwolf production of Sam Shepard's True West. He is so committed. It is unbelievable.
And that's why I'm thinking of Louis Gossett Jr. Like this guy, he's just always a pro. Now, so I wanted to test it.
I wanted to test this theory that he's a pro. So I thought, what is like the crappiest piece of crap that I could find? Sorry for swearing.
So I managed to locate a copy that I could watch on my TV of Jaws 3-D, The Third Dimension is Terror, to see as Louis Gossett Jr. basically playing, who's the guy who had that terrible experience in, what is it, Brighton Rock?
The 40s, black and white. He's the protagonist, Brighton Rock. Attenborough, yes.
Richard Attenborough, yeah.
Yes, Jurassic Park.
So that's basically who Louis Gossett Jr. is playing. He's playing that character in Jurassic Park.
His character's name is Calvin Bouchard. And he is the kind of the fast-talking impresario of Sea World in Jaws 3-D. Here's a clip.
Bouchard, here.
What about the pumps? No, no, no, no. Don't wait for Brody.
Just shut down the number two pump and switch over to number one. Simple as that. Because the car's too much to replace and they're burnin out.
That's why. And tell Brody to get down here to the Neptune Room on the double, yeah?
Clip doesn't tell us a lot, but it tells us that Louis Gossett Jr. is there and he's bringing it. So this confirmed to me that this man is always a pro.
And that's why I and I think so many others. I mean, he obviously had great range, got famous for his, the work in Roots and the film with the American gigolo guy. But he's really a professional.
And I will say one last thing, by the way, about Jaws 3-D. You know what the third dimension is, Gareth?
Terror.
Do you think when that film came out, there was like kind of a Rex Reed review of it that said, Jaws 3-D, the third dimension is terrible. I'm sure.
I actually, I do. It's funny. I do remember when it came out and I remember it was one of the last films that I really wanted to see that I was too young to see.
Here's what you got to do.
It's got to be on YouTube or something.
You have to watch. I have seen it subsequently.
The last five minutes of this movie, from the point where the shark does the final attack to the end credits, you got to stay right to the credits start, is something.
Something, something.
It is a kind of 80s cinema that is unimaginable from a production company and or studio of any kind. It's mind-boggling to see so many production problems they're trying to fix in post when they don't have what they need at any level.
And they try to cobble it together with the optical printing technology of the day. It is really something. Louis Gossett Jr.
You'll be missed. Tell us about your Louis Gossett Jr. experience.
My Louis Gossett Jr.
film is Enemy Mine, which you've already mentioned at the top of the show from 1985. And it's funny enough, a little bit like what you just described about things needing to be cobbled together because of budget problems, stuff like that.
Enemy Mine is a science fiction film made in 1985, set on a distant planet.
And the special effects look like they were made as a result of a little segment on an episode of Blue Peter involving what they would call sticky black plastic and a washing up bottle.
And however, they've been made with love and I enjoy those kinds of, I guess, DIY special effects, especially if the film isn't trying to be realistic. Here's the thing about Enemy Mine.
He dies too soon.
He dies too soon. It's a spoiler.
Well, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you look at Enemy Mine and the posters, a lot of the marketing materials have the two of them in profile, Dennis Quaid, Louis Gossett Jr. who also, oddly enough, the star of Jaws 3-D.
We all know what the third dimension is. And then Louis Gossett Jr. dies, what, halfway through, 40 minutes in, and it's like, oh no, that's a bummer.
It is indeed a bummer when he leaves, which is an indication of how wonderful he is in this role, what Enemy Mine is about, is the character.
I have his name down here.
Drac.
No, no, Drac is the name of the species. His character is called Jeriba Shigan, or Jeriba Shigan, and he is a Drac. And Drac are like an alien species.
It's not a remake, but it's the same premise as an astonishing film from 1968 that doesn't have the kind of reputation that it deserves.
John Borman's film Hell in the Pacific with Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin about two soldiers from opposing armies being shipped or plane wrecked on the same island. In the case of Enemy Mine, it's Louis Gossett Jr.
and Dennis Quaid, a human and a drac being space wrecked on the same planet and becoming friends with each other. No, archetypal premise, cheesy special effects, and unfortunately an ending that reduces things to the myth of redemptive violence.
In one of the most literal cases ever, they literally project all their anger. I mean, it is protective violence onto one single scapegoat played by Brian James, who has a nice connection. Is he still with us?
No, he's not still with us. He's not still with us. Most people would know Brian James from Blade Runner, another film in which-
The player, Robert Olm is the player.
Which M.
Emmet Walsh helps to anchor, not a character actor, an anchor actor. But here's the thing about Enemy Mine, right? I went back and watched it the day after Louis Gossett Jr.
died. Do you remember what is unique about the character of Jerry the Drak? What is physiologically unique about that character?
Yes.
Other than the fact that he's an alien.
They don't have genders the same way we do, right?
So we identify him as male and then he gets pregnant.
Absolutely.
Which is a great, fantastic part of the...
And this is a film made 40 years ago and it's a big kind of alpha blockbuster type action science fiction movie about eliciting empathy.
I didn't watch the film as a child or when it came out because that poster had the two faces kind of face, like in a face-off with each other to coin a phrase.
It didn't appeal to me and it maybe wasn't that easily available, but I picked it up for six pounds in a used Blu-ray shop in Belfast a few years back just because I don't want to see that film. It's great. And for the purposes...
Dear listener, I wish you could see Jett's vigorous affirmation.
Here's the thing. Hell in the Pacific has Tashira Mufoon and Lee Marvin. They're evenly matched.
Dennis Quaid, God bless him.
Hadn't yet had the experience as an actor to evenly match.
He's not Lee Marvin. He's not Louis Gossett Jr. At this point in his life, or Lee Marvin.
So imagine if it had been, you know, Krusty Clint Eastwood. What if it had been Clint Eastwood and Louis... You don't need to say Krusty.
There are things in this film that don't work.
There are things that are clunky in this film. But the thing that works most of all, and that is the reason why I will watch it periodically, probably for the rest of my life, is this performance by Louis Gossett Jr.
is as serious and as credible as anything else he ever did and manages to articulate a range from rage, violence, aggression, fear, humor, connection, empathy, tenderness, things that would be conventionally referred to as feminine, things that would
be conventionally referred to as masculine. I mean, non-binary isn't a big enough term to describe this character, but honestly, if you're wanting to put something out in the midst of this ridiculous culture war that we're in the middle of right now,
that might open some people's minds to, let's imagine the possibility that some things we haven't thought about before might be true. And then there might be some gifts that come to conventional mainstream society through questioning some of the
harder boundaries that we've had before. Not to mention the one that's more on the surface about we should give each other a break and try to see things through the eyes of the other. I'm so glad this film exists.
As I say, I'm sorry that it ends the way that it does because that comes close to negating everything else by showing, yeah, we always need to find an enemy who will destroy.
But up until that point, and thankfully Louis Gossett Jr.'s character is long dead by this point, it's got some lovely, lovely stuff and I'm glad for the opportunity to watch it again.
Maybe there's time for a reimagining, reboot.
Yes. In all seriousness, I would love it. Always.
I would love it if we could have a little clip here from Enemy Mine in which Jerry the Drac sings a song and if you haven't seen this film, dear listener, listening to this clip will decide you on whether or not you want to, but I think you should.
We've already spoiled it that Louis Gossett Jr. doesn't make it to the end credits. I'm so sorry.
Let's listen in. You make it sound pretty thin.
Thank you.
The lineage is very rich. Thou which learned it from me, allow me to do you this honor. It will be.
Don't extract you.
That was Enemy Mine. Not a great movie, but a great B-movie, and a great performance that many people don't think about when they think of Louis Gossett Jr. but they should.
Absolutely.
Go see it. Or, you know, there's other Louis Gossett Jr. films to watch.
We can agree to disagree. I think it's ripe for reimagining. Maybe with Nicolas Cage.
Let's get Nicolas Cage back in there playing Drac. Playing Jerry the Drac.
Nicolas Cage's track record of remaking, rebooting, or reimagining, or recycling films, not so great.
Don Cheadle's The Astronaut, and Nicolas Cage is Jerry the Drac.
Is it Jerry the Drac, yes.
I'm telling you, it could work. Okay.
Yeah. You know who else has other films?
234 films he made before he left us and ascended to whatever great anchor, anchor star, anchor actor sphere there is in the sky. 234 credits, Mr. M.
Emmet Walsh. Gareth, can I just read you some of his character names? I just picked these at random.
I was hoping you would.
I was hoping you would.
Private Detective, Madman, Joe O'Neill, Catfish, Tex Hopkins, Husband in Trailer Automobile, McCabe, Lieutenant Jack Doyle, Las Vegas Gambler, Gallagher, Gabe McCutcheon, Shotgun Guard, Earl Frank and finally, Lloyd Herman Eckworth.
Well, now that I believe he also played a character called The Writer.
I have no doubt.
In Calvary, the best of all the McDonough films.
What if you made a remake of Oh God and he played God?
Well, if we can get a camera to heaven right now, there's no one better for that role. Well, can I tell you what my M. Emmet Walsh, M.
Emmet Walsh, M. Breath, M.
Emmet Walsh. Can I guess? Is it Enemy Mine?
It's not Enemy Mine, but he is one of those actors, as Gregory Burt said of Harry Dean Stanton.
I think he also said of M. Emmet Walsh that no matter what he's in, makes the film worth watching. The film I'm going to choose is another film in which he plays a character called Earl.
Yes. I sense is that every character he played at least had the middle name Earl. Yeah.
It's implicit. This is a film I think is a masterpiece, genuine masterpiece. From 1999, he played a character called Earl Stutz, a sea captain, his voice is the first voice in it.
It is of course Brad Bird's beautiful animated version of Ted Hughes' story, The Iron Giant and I believe we have a clip. Tell the truth, dang it.
It came from outer space. It was headed toward land. I called the government in Washington.
Maybe it was a Sputnik or an invader from Mars.
It's an invader from Mars.
An unidentified flying object.
Unidentified?
Knowing you, Earl, I'd say it was either whiskey or beer.
So that's The Iron Giant, one of the greatest animated films ever made, a film that's so well designed, but particularly in how it portrays its town and coastal main, it feels like it's live action, it's a real story, it's really alive.
And one of the reasons I'm naming it similar to why I named Enemy Mine is because it's probably least likely M. Emmet Walsh film to be named. And it's hard to do voice acting in a way that shows commitment.
And I guess you could call it shading and nuance to the character. And the character of Earl Stutz really does feel like the captain of a boat in a small town in coastal Maine. You know it's M.
Emmet Walsh from the start. He had a very distinctive voice and he's lovely in this film. Always a welcome presence in everything I ever saw him in.
And there's something else that connects The Iron Giant and Enemy Mine because it's another film with its heart squarely in the right place about making peace between warring entities.
The signature line in this film is not, what is it, learning to be in order to learn to see? That's what you're saying?
Are you asking what it is that I coined?
Learning to see in order to learn to be.
It's a film about learning to see and in the act of doing so, learning to be.
Learning to be, yes. Well, so is The Iron Giant.
Copyright jet low, 2024.
It's important when we're talking about empathy between people and building bridges to ensure that you own the intellectual property on that idea. So copyright jet low, 2024. I am not a gun.
Best light in The Iron Giant. Gorgeous movie. If you've never seen it, I urge you to see it.
I wouldn't urge you to see every single film that M. Emmet Walsh was in. Some of them a little bit creaky.
Some of them a little bit bleak. And this one is just beautiful in every way.
You know, that's a great point, Gareth. It's a great film. I wholeheartedly agree.
I was gonna play a clip from, you know, My Choice, which is the amazing late 70s picture with Dustin Hoffman, Straight Time, in which M. Emmet Walsh plays a parole officer. Ulu Grossbard?
It is Ulu Grossbard. Good, well done. It is Ulu Grossbard.
It was a really interesting career. But you know what? I don't wanna play a clip because I want the listeners to watch the whole movie and I don't wanna spoil it for you.
Think about what a big actor Dustin Hoffman was, how important he was to movies, he was a box office draw, and you have this practically unknown anchor, not character, anchor actor, and he, M.
Emmet Walsh just dominates the scenes in a way that's appropriate. He's not showboating. He's perfect.
You talked about the light and shade and the shading, right, in The Iron Giant, and he comes across, it's a masterclass, his scenes with Dustin Hoffman, in that it's both completely artificial, the shading in order to shape a scene, how you shape a
scene. This is a movie, this is a cinema, this is an entertainment, this is a narrative, and at the same time, he is completely naturalistic.
So it works, it's almost as if I'm watching a documentary and a piece of scripted cinematic art simultaneously. That's very hard to pull off. And M.
Emmet Walsh always did that. Everyone remembers him in Blade Runner. He knows he's in a cheesy 1940s film noir, but at the same time, it also feels completely realistic.
M. Emmet Walsh, Louis Gossett Jr. Gareth, are they still with us?
Still with us, still with us.
They're still with us, folks.
This has been a fascinating episode. I feel I've grown a little bit. I don't know how much, but at least a little bit.
You out there can show us how much you've grown by going to Patreon. Yes, that's right, patreon.com/ The Film Talk. Or you know, since we've just rebooted the show, Apple will surface the show.
They'll surface the show. The more reviews and ratings we get.
Like Jaws.
Yes. The third dimension is what, Gareth?
Terror.
Or terrible, yes. So leave a review on Apple Podcasts if you happen to have an Apple ID.
Please, please, please.
Are there any reviews? I haven't actually looked.
If you, there are, there are reviews. People, people have been very kind.
Okay.
And, and, and, and in all, in all sincerity, friends, apparently it does help the show find its way to people who don't know about it, if it has good reviews.
And so it only takes a moment if you're, if you're willing to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. And if you can support with a few bucks, patreon.com, The Film Talk, and we're also glad you're here, whether you support or not.
Yeah, you can just go to our Facebook page as well. We're at The Film Talk, obviously, stop by and say hi, and we're also on Spotify. If you do have Spotify, it's not a physical place, it's there in the cloud.
And if you have any questions for us, we used to have an old segment.
But you do need a cassette, an in-car cassette player in order to access Spotify.
What if we change the business model of the show and we just mail out cassettes?
Yes, that's a good idea.
Well, you know, we talk all about physical media. Dear listeners, years ago, Gareth is now all about the physical media. Years ago, he gave me, I don't know what, all of his old DVDs and he gave me boxes.
I still have them. They're in the shed.
You look at a very nice, you've got a very nice Werner Herzog box set.
My question is, why do you have so many copies of the late 60s Planet of the Apes? I don't know. Gareth has got tons of them.
I do have at least two copies of that, yes, I do. We had a segment in the old show called Ask the Film Talks. You had any questions for us or suggestions or things you'd like.
If you wanna go to a cassette only model, we mail it out. You can just email us info at thefilmtalk.org. That's info at thefilmtalk.org.
We have a very big special episode coming up later this month.
Enormous.
Enormous, huge. Oh, I'm looking forward to talking to these directors. I'm really looking forward to talking.
We've got some, we've got our first interview.
Mystery directors, mystery directors.
Mystery directors, and these are some good films. So we're rebooting the idea of us interviewing folks as well. But we're gonna, we're gonna get out of here.
Folks, I've been Jett Loe.
I've been Gareth Higgins and we'll keep talking.
Next time.