Civil War with Screen Slate mastermind Jon Dieringer + M. Emmet Walsh (R.I.P.) Outtake
Plus: documentary essentials from CPH:DOX
Dear Last Thing I Sawfolk,
Last weekend, Civil War came to cinemas—the new movie about a future United States riven by war. It stars Kirsten Dunst as a photojournalist, and it’s imagined from a curiously vague standpoint that one critic recently described as “the view from nowhere.” To talk it over, I rang up Screen Slate editor-in-chief Jon Dieringer, who was fresh from a (somewhat odd-sounding) screening at a local Regal. Our friendly chat, with an absolute minimum of chair-throwing, can be found below.
I’m also sharing the previous episode of the pod, where I discussed some essential new documentaries I saw at CPH:DOX with that delightful festival’s sharp head of programming, Mads K. Mikkelsen.
Finally, in honor of the late, great M. Emmet Walsh, I’m throwing in an outtake from our interview many moons ago. More goodies are on the way, but that’s the news for now.
Thank you to all the supporters who make The Last Thing I Saw possible!
Nic
THE PODCAST
Ep. 237: Civil War with Screen Slate chief Jon Dieringer, plus Road House, Quiet on Set, The Eclipse
Jon Dieringer is the founder, director, and editor-in-chief of Screen Slate.
Ep. 236: CPH:DOX with Mads K. Mikkelsen on Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other, Kix, more
Mads Mikkelsen is Head of Programme at CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. Pictured above: Joel Meyerowitz and Maggie Barrett in Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other.
Episodes of The Last Thing I Saw are also available at many other podcast places.
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Streaming selections
Numéro Zéro (Criterion) Jean Eustache interviews his grandmother
Yannick (MUBI) Quentin Dupieux directs
The Damned Don’t Cry (Criterion) Joan Crawford
Anatomy of a Fall (Hulu) See it again for the first time! Or just see it
Comrades: Almost a Love Story (Criterion) Maggie Cheung
Los Angeles Plays Itself (MUBI)
“Emperor penguin chicks jump off a 50-foot cliff in Antarctica NEVER-BEFORE-FILMED FOR TV” (Nat Geo via YouTube) – Penguins take to the sea for the first time. Everything about this is absurd and glorious
BONUS TRACK
Long ago for the LA Weekly, I wrote a feature about character actors. It was probably partly an excuse to talk to M. Emmet Walsh, who passed away last month. I remember calling him up and leaving a message; when he called back, he began by poking fun at my dorky answering machine message. I think he even played it back to me. The interview continued to be a lot of fun, full of insights from “a consummate old pro of the second-banana business.” Here is an excerpt of Walsh talking about playing a private detective in Blood Simple, the Coen Brothers’ debut feature. He said he’d had no idea the movie would be successful…
“I just thought I’d flesh it out. I said to myself, ‘Twenty years down the line, I know how I’ll do it when they offer it to me in a really important movie.’ So I got a handle on it. Long ago, I was taught that if you gotta play a villain, a baddie, twisting the mustache is the obvious way to go. My man—the guy’s name was Visser, it says it on the cigarette lighter—he’s collecting money at the church on Sundays, walking around with a basket, taking his grandchildren someplace. The nicest guy in the world. That way, it gives it a little more color. Makes it more human, and better. . . . I do the best I can with everything I got. I never know when I’m just going to keel over and look at the sky, and I don’t want to think, ‘Oh shit, I didn’t try on that last take.’”—M. Emmet Walsh from an interview with Nicolas Rapold
THE END
Here I may end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw! I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. Feel free to get in touch re: writing, editing, moderating, programming, podcasting, etc. by writing me at nicolas.rapold[at]gmail.com
Besides hosting the podcast, I’m a writer and an editor. My features, interviews, festival reports, and reviews are published in The New York Times, Screen Slate, Sight & Sound, Filmmaker, Air Mail, The Los Angeles Times, and W Magazine. (Plus dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.) For notes on my superfun programming experience, drop me a line.
On the editorial side, I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment magazine, where I was for 15 years in all. I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted The Film Comment Podcast and Talks, curated and hosted Film Comment Selects screenings, learned from brilliant writers, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Costa, and Frederick Wiseman. Film Comment received the Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics.