Episode #22 - A.O. Scott (The Player)

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"I think it's always interesting to ask what does this movie imagine it's audience to be...If we can say making and releasing this film is an act of communication, who do you want to see it [and] what do you want them to see?"

One year into The Cinephiliacs, Peter brings in a critic that he's read for almost a decade now: A.O. Scott of the New York Times. Tony joins Peter for a traveled conversation about his entry into cinephilia at the repertory houses of Paris and Cambridge, his thoughts on the craft of writing, and how to think about films in the context of their audiences. Tony also explains how he comes up with those "trend" pieces, the phenomenon of "critic proof" movies and why they matter, and the patterns and differences between recent American literature and film. Finally, the two discuss Robert Altman's The Player, which continues to be the only contemporary successful satire of Hollywood, perhaps because it so closely plays the line between satire and seduction.

0:00-1:05 Opening 

1:35-7:02 Establishing Shots -Montage of The Cinephiliacs: Year 1
7:17-9:13 Trivia Round

9:56-1:17:22 Deep Focus - A.O. Scott

1:18:59-1:40:53 Double Exposure - The Player (Robert Altman)

1:40:55-1:43:30 Close / Outtake - On The King of Comedy

Read AO Scott's work from the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and Slate.
Follow Tony on Twitter.

 

Notes and Links from the Conversation
-Voices during clip montage: Farran Nehme Smith, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Matt Zoller Seitz, Ali Arikan, Bilge Ebiri, Matt Singer, Peter on Leones, Vadim Rizov, Miriam Bale, Glenn Kenny, Keith Uhlich, and Katey Rich.
-Information on American Mary and the kidnapped Bansil sisters.
-Tony's essay on Eli Wallach
-A clip of Eli Wallach as Mr. Feeze
-Paris Review's Writers at Work Series
-The Brattle Theatre
-Robert B. Silvers
-On the myth of "The Great American Novel"
-Tony's essay on the last decade of cinema, with his favorite films and his influential films list.
-On Martin Scorsese and Shutter Island.
-Scorsese and Kent Jones's A Letter to Elia.
-Some Dargis/Scott debates: On Oscarmania, on the films of 2011, and film festival overload.
-Tony's recent Twitter rant about "critic proof" movies.
-The alluded to attack on Tony by Samuel L. Jackson.
-Trend pieces! On Luxury and Marraige
-Jeannie Basinger's I Do and I Don't: A History of Marriage in the Movies
-Neo-Neo-Realism (and Richard Brody's response) 
-On Beasts of the Southern Wild
-On John Hughes
-On Toy Story 3
-Michael Haneke reviews: Cache, Funny Games, The White Ribbon, and Amour.
-A dialogue between Tony and J. Hoberman in 2005
-A recent piece on Italian classic Voyage to Italy
-On Robert Altman's The Player and Altman's career.

Theme Music: “Forward” by Northbound

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