On July 26 of 2024, a story was published by entertainment industry trade magazine Variety about Francis Ford Coppola’s alleged behavior on the set of his film, Megalopolis.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Video has surfaced of director Francis Ford Coppola that shows the legendary director trying to kiss young female extras on the set of his ambitious sci-fi epic. Variety has obtained two videos that were taken by a crewmember last year during the filming of a bacchanalian nightclub scene.

Two sources told Variety that Coppola appeared to act with impunity on set. And unlike traditional movies, Coppola financed the entire $120 million budget himself, so there were none of the traditional checks and balances in place. The videos would appear to corroborate a bombshell report in the Guardian that claimed the 85-year-old director “tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras” and told them “he was ‘trying to get them in the mood.’” The Guardian story broke right before “Megalopolis” made its world premiere in Competition in Cannes.

[...]

After reading this story, I immediately experienced disappointment. As a filmmaker, I’ve admired Coppola, and considered him to be a venerable elder of the industry. Beyond disappointment however, I began to think of misogyny in the film industry - a matter of patriarchal society and power, among other things. This brings me to our guest, Mary Wild who, we're happy to say, has been on Film Conversations before to discuss Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

On Mary's bio page at the Global Center for Advanced Studies website she's described as a 'Freudian Cinephile’ and pop psychoanalyst, creating content related to cinema, philosophy, and the modern cultural landscape, founder of the Projections lecture series at Freud Museum London, applying psychoanalysis to film interpretation, which has been running since 2012. She teaches film at City Lit and Picturehouse Cinemas, and has produced events for London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, Picturehouse Cinemas, White Cube Gallery, and Morbid Anatomy. She also co-hosts Projections Podcast, contributes to Evolution of Horror Podcast.

In this episiode, we use the story of Coppola to examine misogyny in the film industry and beyond.

Variety article on Coppola

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/megalopolis-set-video-francis-ford-coppola-kissing-extras-1236082653/

Mary Wild GCAS Page

https://gcascollege.ie/mary-wild

Projections Lecture Series

https://www.freud.org.uk/tag/projections/

Projections Podcast

https://www.projectionspodcast.com/

Evolution of Horror Podcast

https://www.evolutionofhorror.com/player

Hollywood by Garson Kanin

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1105839.Hollywood

Why women had better sex under socialism by Kristen R. Ghodsee

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53284567-why-women-had-better-sex-under-socialism?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_18

In this episode, we discuss 1997’s The Edge starring Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, Harold Perrineau and Elle Macpherson, written by David Mamet and directed by Lee Tamahori.

Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry:

"The Edge is a 1997 American survival thriller film written by David Mamet and directed by Lee Tamahori starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. The plot follows wealthy businessman Charles Morse (Hopkins), photographer Bob Green (Baldwin), and assistant Stephen (Harold Perrineau), who must trek through the elements and try to survive after their plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness, all while being hunted by a large Kodiak bear and the men's fraying friendships. Bart the Bear, a trained Kodiak bear known for appearances in several Hollywood movies, appears in the film as the bloodthirsty Kodiak, in one of his last film roles."

[...]

Full at the Wikipedia entry

During our conversation, Charles offers an interpretation of The Edge based on an examation of the themes of masculinity it presents in a pop culture, action adventure film form (as that existed in the 1990s). Dennis came into the conversation with quite a few criticisms but adjusts his view, somewhat, as we chat. It was an interesting and lively discussion which I hope you'll enjoy.

References:

In today’s episode, we speak with our Dennis Claxton and his daughter Miranda about their personal histories of film viewing. Both are Angelinos who have taken advantage of the still existing film culture of Los Angeles (small cinemas, revivals of older films and other lovely things).

There isn’t a fixed film under review but Hithcock’s The Birds and Vertigo make prominent appearances.

Enjoy.

This episode began as a thought months ago, not long after the Oct 7, 2023 Hamas attack. At that time, we anticipated violence - there’s a long history of Israeli assaults on the Palestinian people. We did not, however, anticipate a genocidal campaign and widening regional war. It’s a wide ranging talk between Dennis and Dwayne since Charles was unable to join us this time.

Our conversation does not have the structure of our usual shows. There is a film, Farha, at the heart of things and we do discuss it but more as a point of reference than to critique or review. We’ll talk about Farha at greater length on a subsequent show.

The links shared with the show notes will point you to information resources we’ve found helpful in sorting through this unfolding disaster.

Resources

Farha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farha_(film)

The Great Book Robbery

The Great Book Robbery is a powerful and poignant chronicle of cultural destruction. It tells the story of the 70,000 Palestinian books that were looted by the newly formed State of Israel in 1948. The film weaves together a range of storylines to create a dramatic, engaging, and deeply emotional structure.

https://bbrunner.eu/movie/the-great-book-robbery/

Leila Khaled Interview: Palestine is an International Liberation Struggle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BBvzyKL-G4

A Life in Struggle: Exclusive with Leila Khaled, Icon of Palestinian Resistance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSv0Vqk_ILg

Solidarity with Palestine: Free Resources and Further Reading

https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/solidarity-with-palestine-free-resources-and-further-reading?_pos=4&_sid=e479de814&_ss=r

The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé

https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/jps/vol36-141/vol36-141_b.pdf

Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappe

https://www.jadaliyya.com/Author/4114

Gaza An Inquest into Its Martyrdom by Norman Finkelstein

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520318335/gaza

The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World

by Antony Loewenstein

https://www.versobooks.com/products/2684-the-palestine-laboratory

In today´s episode, we speak with Amrita De, Postdoctoral fellow in the Center of Humanities and Information at Penn State University about All That Breathes, a 2022 documentary film directed by Shaunak Sen. Let me read a bit about Amrita from her page on the Penn State University website:

Amrita´s research focuses on global south masculinity studies and affect theory. Her works have been published in NORMA, Boyhood Studies, Global Humanities and are forthcoming in other edited collections. She is also working her way through her first novel centered around contemporary Indian Masculinities.

Here's the synopsis of All That Breathes from the film´s Wikipedia page:

All That Breathes is a 2022 documentary film directed by Shaunak Sen. It is produced by Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann and Teddy Leifer under the banner of Rise Films. The film follows siblings Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who rescue and treat injured birds in India.

The film had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2022, where it won Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema Documentary Competition. It also had a screening at the Cannes Film Festival in the special screening section, where it won the Golden Eye. It was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.

Two brothers Saud and Nadeem were raised in New Delhi, looking at a sky speckled with black kites, watching as relatives tossed meat up to these birds of prey. Muslim belief held that feeding the kites would expel troubles. Now, birds are falling from the polluted, opaque skies of New Delhi and the two brothers have made it their life’s work to care for the injured black kites.

[...]

This was an excellent conversation and we were very glad to have Amrita as a guest. I hope, you enjoy.

All That Breathes - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_That_Breathes

Amrita's webpage:

https://www.amritade.com/home

Variety Interview with the film makers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbLoQ8GPxeA

ASAP Connect Interview with Mohammad Saud and Salik Rehman

https://youtu.be/I5kL2YMb4Vk?si=I4Zx5RFMtsE-tNFs

In this brief annoucement, I talk about our September break, Ghost in the Shell (the 1995 release) and some of the things you can look forward to in upcoming shows including discussions of cinematic depictions of our home towns, Italian westerns of the 1960s and 70s, films from outside of the Hollywood orbit and more guests.

See you soon!

Oh and here's a link to the Wiki entry about Ghost in the Shell for the curious:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell

Hello everyone, this is Dwayne Monroe, one of the hosts, alongside RC Charles Roberts and Dennis Claxton, of the Film Conversations podcast. In today’s episode, we are very happy to welcome Mary Wild to the show to talk about Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece, Vertigo. On her Twitter page (I refuse to call that platform, X) Mary describes herself as a ​​Freudian cinephile and feminine jouissance maximalist, which is both a marvelous phrase and fantastic declaration. Mary is the creator of the Projections lecture series at the Freud Museum, London, co-host of the Projections Podcast, contributor to Evolution pod and the host of her own podcast on Freud, film and related topics. I’m happy to say I was a guest on Mary’s podcast a few months ago to talk about how AI is treated as a topic in film.

A note about this episode… We originally recorded an episode with Mary on August 6. Unfortunately, there was a technical problem that caused the loss of the entire recording. Very kindly, Mary agreed to come on again to re-record. We’re very glad and grateful that she did not only because it gives us a chance to talk with Mary about Vertigo but also, because it gives us a chance to more fully explore her Freudian approach to the film.

There will be links to all the references in the show notes. This was a great conversation which we looked forward to for some time; Vertigo is a brilliant film that rewards rewatching and Mary is a brilliant person to walk us through it. I hope you enjoy.

Links

Mary Wild Podcast

https://www.patreon.com/marywild

Freud Museum London

https://www.freud.org.uk

Projection Series at the Freud Museum

https://www.freud.org.uk/tag/projections/

Projections Podcast

https://open.spotify.com/show/2O5n4yhnRGpreyTS7tDfLm

Evolution of Horror Podcast

https://www.evolutionofhorror.com

In today's episode, my co-hosts and I will be talking about the work of Douglas Sirk, one of the great film directors of the 20th century. In the course of gathering notes for this episode and this introduction, I found an intriguing bio of Sirk, posted at the 'Senses of Cinema' website (link in show notes). I'll just read the first few paragraphs to set the stage.

"Douglas Sirk was one of the 20th century cinema’s great ironists. And perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the films he made in Europe and America is the way they are able to create a gulf between how his characters see themselves and our view of them.

Sirk’s characters grapple with the same problems that have always afflicted men and women and parents and children, to do with love, death and social circumstance. In some cases, they do so in a world of melodrama – as in films as various as Schlussakkord (1936), La Habanera (1937), There’s Always Tomorrow (1955) and Imitation of Life (1958). In others, it’s a world of colour and music – as in the trio of comedy-musicals he made during the 1950s, Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1951), Meet Me at the Fair (1952) and Take Me to Town (1952), part of a series he had planned about small town America. In others, it’s the excitement of mystery, romance or adventure – in films such as Lured (1946), Taza, Son of Cochise (1953, shot in 3-D) and Captain Lightfoot (1954).

But Sirk adds another layer to the shape of the films and to his characters’ struggles within them. All around, but beyond the reach of their vision, are forces which define the parameters of their lives. These are evident at the most basic level, in the way that the plots almost always hinge on problems for which the only solution becomes a convenient miracle, a deus ex machina."

We will talk about Sirk's work and life broadly and more specifically, we will use his 1956 melodrama masterpiece, 'Written on the Wind' as the focus of our discussion. I hope you enjoy it.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Sirk

Interview with Sirk (1978)

https://www.filmcomment.com/article/sirkumstantial-evidence/

Sense of Cinema Bio: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/sirk/

Douglas Sirk Remembers (in German)

https://youtu.be/a0YfrQMoJIw