Episode #88 - Jake Mulligan (Hail The Conquering Hero)

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"It really comes down to not what needs to be covered, but what do I want to say? What has provoked and created the strongest reaction?"

Boston-bred and born guest Jake Mulligan has always been something of a kindred spirit with Peter. Not just in terms of their approach to aesthetics, but also how and what they see the goal of film criticism can be. So it was perhaps inevitable that they would turn their interview into something of a state of the union in how and what writers should be doing when it comes to analyzing films and film culture. Jake recalls his entry into cinema through the bro film canon and how his path toward journalism has shaped his role in deciding what (and more importantly how) visual media should be worth covering. They then discuss how streaming and digital has affected the role that critics play, and perhaps shed some light on other alternative approaches of what is an increasingly robotic profession. But after letting out some steam, they get to the bread and butter by going deep into the political aesthetics of Preston Sturges's war time comedy, Hail The Conquering Hero, asking the very difficult question of what exactly is direction when it comes to Classical Hollywood screwball comedy.

0:00-2:37 Opening 

3:15-10:14 Establishing Shots — Charles Cohen Preview

10:59-1:16:58 Deep Focus — Jake Mulligan
1:18:00-1:46:49 Double Exposure — Hail The Conquering Hero (Preston Sturges)
1:46:53-1:49:05 Close / Outtake

Notes and Links from the Conversation

—Read Jake's work at Dig Boston, the Boston Globe, Esquire, and the Boston Phoenix
—More from Cohen Media Group, and more information on KCET's Friday night series
—Entertainment Week's Top 50 Cult Movies
—Monika Raesch at Suffolk University
—Watch Computer Chess featuring Gerald Peary
—Jake on Heaven Knows What and Sullivan's Travels
—On outdoor movie screenings
—On Suicide Squad and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on the same
—On The Dion Brothers
—On the rise of television and cinema's supposed "death"
—David Ehrlich on A24's suprirsing asscendency 
—A brief background about SCMS
—The New York Times's new site, Watching
—NFPF's Screening Room
—Watch the amateur films of Solomon Sir Jones featuring black Oklahoma communities in the 1920s
—Wesley Morris on The Help
—Jake on Noah Buschel
—David Bordwell on fake posters in The Miracle At Morgan's Creek
—Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

Theme Music: “Forward” by Northbound

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