Breakfast All Day Podcast: A La Carte With John Lang
Independent film producer John Lang and I have lots of Texas connections in common, so we had a great time reminiscing in this sprawling Breakfast All Day A La Carte interview. John talks about growing up in suburban Dallas during peak ’90s Cowboys, studying at the University of Texaswhere he learned from indie film guru John Pierson, and getting his start on film sets in Los Angeles. He also discusses what he looks for in a new project — his work includes Harry Dean Stanton’s final film, “Lucky” — and how streaming has changed the quantity and quality of movies we consume. Lots of good stories and information here, so listen and enjoy.
What is the name of the song playing at the beginning of the podcast? As always, great interview Ms. Lemire! 🙂
That’s “Don’t You Evah” by Spoon, thanks!
Re: Modern Culture
The weird thing about modern culture, is that if you use a phone to create a movie, you are good. If you use a phone to watch one, you are the opposite. Why should this little computer gadget be at the centre of our culture now, and why should it provoke such opposite reactions?
That’s the existential question (I’m attempting to stream a 1960’s character here myself now, like Quentin would do), except I’m trying to pretend I’m Norman Mailer arguing with Marshal McLuhan, about some time in America before the Inter States were built.
Is the phone the next major cultural intervention into the depths of the American psyche, since the Inter State? That’s what researchers some day who study the writings of Christy or Alonso (circa 2045 or thereabouts), might ask in a classroom.
A really interesting idea for a small budget project, to make today, might be to have the older John Lang as one of the old timers, many years from now. Being asked to show up and speak with a classroom full of film students in 2045 (where the class room kids then have an old Christy and Alonso piece, and ask John Lang, did you once meet them?).
In fact, that’s exactly what one would call the low budget feature or short, 2045.
The idea would be to show case the ideas of McLuhan, via the second generation revisionist teachers such as Lemire, whilst the old man character of Lang attempts to explain to the class of 2045, what Christy was really trying to say was.
what Christy was really trying to say, a little condescending don’t you think!
In the hypothetical small budget movie production, what you want to have happen is the classroom kids in the future, arrive at various and interesting misinterpretations of Lemire and Duralde. So part of what can make these stories interesting is the conversation that happens between Jong Lang in 2045, with a class room of unborn students.
Whay you want to have happen, as part of the story arch, in that the attempts of the olden Lang to interpret the writings of the old masters at it, for the young class, that he in turn begins to doubt his own interpretation. And finds something at Duralde or Lemire’s writing, that he hasn’t seen himself twenty five years earlier.
Remember Tommy Lee Jones acted in that film, where he corrects an upside down flag at the beginning of the movie. By the end, he’s saying that upside down is the right way to have the flag. So that’s an example of a small budget movie, that aimed to make one big statement about the broader world. But how they made that statement, was by focusing on some quite small details. That’s where the smaller budget does get to pack it’s punch.
I want to watch that Tommy Lee Jones movie again now. Because there wasn’t much in the way of exciting events, but somehow by using a series of devices and good character acting, they managed to tell a story that was full of intrigue. You just didn’t need a fortune to shoot it though. That sense of interest and intrigue is achieved with economy of means.
The thing with film making, is one must learn how to do the small budget manipulation of the editing, as well as the production standards and quality of the large feature. The great ones could then put the two halves together. Like that’s what Leone could do. You’ve the grand film making gestures in there, but you’ve got plenty of subtlety as well. With Taratino, I don’t know. He’s strong on the large gestures, I’m not as confident he ever mastered the small picture in the same way as Leone did (or had could do both, and knew how to use them in the same picture).
What I think I’d like to see Taratino on right now, are shorts only. I think he’s move to do this ‘Star Trek’ or whatever, is the exact wrong way to go. Because that’s not his weak side, it’s his strong one. And it’s the smaller picture, which has always eluded him. Until he confronts that, we’ve never actually witnessed his best, I think. But heh, what do I know?
That is, the small budget script for the movie, becomes about that conversation between Lang and the future younger generation (ideally, the present day Lemire would act as the character, who Lang sees only in his memory, twenty five years from the present). And it’s possible for the character of Lang in 2045, to be simultaneously streaming that memory through his mind, as he is engaged directly in debate conversation with his class in the future.
It’s costs money to go directly back into the sixties decade as Taratino would for. But using the small budgets, and a medium of film, it is possible to go back in to the 1960’s decade, by going to a classroom twenty five years from now.
Where at that point, and from that perspective, we are viewing the conversations that happened in 2019, against the much broader backdrop of the American writers of the sixties decade. Essentially, I don’t distinguish between the kind of objective that one is trying to pursue, with the smaller film versus the larger one. Especially, if what debate in the classroom staged a quarter of a century from now is wriiten by someone of requisite skills and power of imagination. No?
The point is, just because Tarantino goes back to some time or place, with no subtleties or use of device. He just simply goes there, period. Doesn’t necessarily mean that the past must remain inaccessible to smaller budgets too. But yeah, for that approach of just taking the audience back in one swoop, inside of a movie theatre he’s up there. I think that was one of Leone’s major talents also.
But what Leone did, was he went straight back in time, and brought the audience with him. But he also played around with time too. I watched the restored ‘Once Upon A Time In America’ this year, it makes so much more sense restored (there was an example of a big budget movie, which had so many small budget types of subtleties to it’s story telling, that it was extremely vulnerable to being re-edited).
That’s essentially where the small budget either lives or dies, is in the editing room. Not so much in whether it’s streamed, broadcast or projected. It’s just the editing. And that’s what the 1990’s was all about, if nothing else. In graphics, architecture, music, cinema and television. Back in the 1990’s we were trying to rebel against the sequential narrative, everywhere. And Tarantino just came right in at that point, when that was important.
I’d say ‘The Matrix’ though was about the pinnacle of where one could go with all of that. If ever the was something where editing was front and centre it was that movie work. And makers couldn’t really surpass that again. So we had to go off and do something else.