This week Chris Deacy is joined by Oliver Leader de Saxe to discuss the films; A Clockwork Orange, Heat, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and When Harry Met Sally.
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00:00 [Music]
00:13 Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:15 I'm Chris Deasy and each week I'll be joined by a guest from Kent to dive deep into the
00:20 impact certain films have had on their life.
00:23 Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:28 And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia where we quiz you at home about a film that
00:32 has a connection to the county.
00:35 And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:38 Outside of having a love of vinyl, good food and great movies, he is one of KMTV's newest
00:44 reporters, having joined the team after finishing his studies in Wales.
00:48 He is Oliver Leeder de Thax.
00:51 Welcome Oliver.
00:52 How are you doing Chris?
00:53 I'm alright, thank you.
00:54 I don't know of course Oliver what your selections are but we start with a classic, a Clockwork
01:00 Orange.
01:01 Why have you chosen Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange?
01:04 I think it's probably the greatest film of all time in my humble opinion.
01:09 I saw this towards the end of my school years when I was about 17.
01:15 It had a really transformative impact on what I thought movies could kind of be.
01:20 I mean obviously you kind of grow up in Britain in the 2010s, you kind of see the credit crunch
01:26 and you see austerity, you see quite a lot of deprivation.
01:31 You look back to a movie from 1971 and it's all kind of still there, still present.
01:38 And it's so ahead of its time in kind of capturing that sense of almost urban decay that lots
01:46 of movies just don't really have.
01:48 Yeah and there's something very prophetic about it and I remember the period when it
01:54 was not available to watch, it was abandoned.
01:56 We did see it in 1992 during the period when you couldn't really watch it anywhere.
02:02 This was when I was at university and of course word of mouth ensured that it had a very big
02:09 viewing experience.
02:10 But it really packed a punch and all these decades on it's really stayed with me.
02:15 It's almost like a horror film but looking back on it today, we're all horror films,
02:20 even things that are quite graphic like The Thing are quite quaint by today's standards.
02:25 This movie is so uncomfortable and uneasy in its subject matter and its presentation
02:32 and it really lingers.
02:34 It's really about toxic masculinity and going to a boarding school growing up you kind of
02:41 see a lot of that.
02:43 And I feel like this movie kind of spoke to a lot of things that I kind of saw.
02:47 Obviously not to the scale you see in A Clockwork Orange, it's quite a horrific movie in that
02:52 regard.
02:53 But it does kind of speak to that sort of real patriarchal malaise in a way.
02:59 Yeah and there's also that thing that is actually quite different from the novel, the Burgess
03:05 novel on which it's based, which is that there isn't really any redemption at the end because
03:11 we sort of go through this thinking is he going to be a changed person due to the fact
03:15 that anyone who hasn't watched the film, he's not a very nice person as you say.
03:19 And then through state intervention they try and reform him but they reform him by making
03:25 it impossible for him to commit violence.
03:27 And we're watching it thinking is he a good man?
03:30 We always think, we've just come out of the Christmas period, like the whole Scrooge story,
03:33 is he going to be a better man?
03:35 But here of course we have a very different kind of interpretation don't we?
03:38 Yeah because a lot of movies you kind of see a redemption but here he gets away with it.
03:45 But actually kind of almost benefits in a way.
03:47 The movie ends with him, for all the efforts of the prison guards to try and reform him,
03:55 things go awry and he ends up receiving a cash check at the end.
03:59 It ultimately condemns both society's inability to reform men like A Clockwork Orange, like
04:07 the Droogs, but also kind of condemns them themselves and how they keep moving through
04:13 the world without much real consequence for their actions.
04:16 Absolutely and there's that one scene isn't there where we see him going to church and
04:23 it seems to be quite close to the chaplain.
04:25 And then there's this reflection on the passion story and we think gosh is he going to become
04:31 a better person?
04:32 Is he looking at Jesus as a role model?
04:34 And of course he's identifying with the Romans who are persecuting Jesus.
04:38 And so you've got this story of a very bad man who doesn't really become better at the
04:42 end of it and I think maybe that's why it stood the test of time.
04:45 Yeah it's that sort of element of being on the wrong side of history but not quite knowing
04:53 that they're on the wrong side of history.
04:56 They don't quite recognise what they're doing is wrong and I think that makes it all the
05:02 more devastating as a piece of art.
05:06 And when you saw this was it big screen, small screen, were you watching it with other people?
05:11 What was the general kind of mood?
05:12 It was quite a bizarre evening so we actually double billed this with Martin Scorsese's
05:18 Goodfellas.
05:19 It was kind of a weird, we'd gone out for some food, we were having a nice relaxed evening
05:26 in a flat and we decided to put on a couple of movies and we saw these, these were classics,
05:30 one of my friends who's quite an artist or person was like, "You should watch these movies."
05:34 So I kind of watched it in a sleep deprived, half awake state watching this after one of
05:40 Martin Scorsese's best films.
05:41 It was a very strange to real performance, kind of drifting in and out of consciousness
05:46 while this movie came into my vision and it was kind of like, it was almost like a nightmare
05:52 but it had this real kind of visual flair that kind of made it almost dreamlike as well.
05:57 It was a really, really fun evening.
05:59 I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but a really fun evening.
06:02 And of course that mirrors what happens in The Clockwork Orange with the sequence where
06:06 he's forced to watch all this torture on screen so you must have had some quite surreal dreams
06:11 afterwards.
06:12 You can say that, yes.
06:15 Alright then, thank you Oliver.
06:16 Well it's time now to move on to your second chosen film and while you were mentioning
06:20 Scorsese a moment ago but Michael Mann and one of his classics, You've Gone for Heat.
06:26 Oh I adore Heat.
06:27 I think Heat is a premier action film and one of the probably the best examples of American
06:33 cinema.
06:34 It's a three hour film that feels like an hour and a half.
06:38 It just breezes by.
06:40 You've got Pete Robbie De Niro, Pete Cappuccino, probably in my opinion his best performance.
06:44 I haven't seen Dog Days but I would love to see a better Cappuccino performance than this
06:49 one because he's just incredible in it.
06:51 And it's like, a bit like how Clockwork Orange is about these people who are kind of unable
06:56 to change.
06:57 These two men, because of their inability to change, they kind of destroy their own
07:01 lives in pursuit of each other.
07:02 There's a bank robber and a cop and they're both the same side of the coin and they're
07:08 kind of in constant pursuit of each other at the expense of everything else.
07:12 I think it's just so gripping.
07:15 And the way that it blurs the line somewhat, the cop and the villain, you kind of see the
07:19 parallel stories and of course that acting masterclass between Pacino and De Niro sharing
07:25 the screen for the first time.
07:26 I remember watching it in a big multiplex, actually in the same week as Casino.
07:31 So talking about having these crazy double bills.
07:33 But then that was sort of acting masterclass.
07:35 Oh absolutely.
07:36 And also, don't forget Val Kilmer in it as well is equally fantastic.
07:41 Another example of another man in the movie who has a moral code he refuses to give up
07:46 on at the expense of his own marriage.
07:48 It's got these real powerhouse performances but it's also Michael Mann's directing.
07:54 He's one of our premier visionary filmmakers.
07:59 He makes such amazing images and I think I kind of miss him with his film and using film
08:05 stock because the colours in this movie, the deep blues, LA has never looked so cold and
08:11 desolate in a weird sort of way.
08:14 And it's all about these characters searching for connection because although you've got
08:18 Pacino in search of De Niro, his quarry, but they're both looking for love or they're trying
08:25 to find connection and you see them on date.
08:27 They do like what regular people would do and yet their lifestyles are hardly regular
08:32 and of course the film plays very well with that kind of disjuncture, that sort of lack
08:37 of alignment, isn't it?
08:38 They're looking for connection but it's impossible to their job to sustain those meaningful human
08:44 relationships.
08:45 There's almost like a pit in their soul in a weird way.
08:48 There's trying to fill in with crime and with trying to stop crime but ultimately they are
08:55 victims of their own inability to find that connection.
09:00 At the end of the movie, in the climactic shootout between De Niro and Pacino, it could
09:07 go either way and you're never quite certain and you see that in Al Pacino's eyes at the
09:12 end of the movie that he could have been that person and he kind of realises then that he
09:18 never really succeeded because even though he wins, it's such a cost.
09:26 It's so soul destroying in a weird way.
09:28 Though the movie is also incredibly entertaining, some of the fantastic, frenetic action sequences
09:34 but it has that real kind of emotional punch to it beneath the surface.
09:39 I think you're right because it's the sort of film you could watch it again and quite
09:43 conceivably have a different sort of outcome because there's so much investment in the
09:47 characters you kind of feel that it's almost by chance that it works out in the way that
09:52 it does and this film does not in any way feel generic.
09:55 He kind of redefined the crime genre.
09:58 Oh absolutely.
09:59 Look at the influence it's had on a range of popular culture.
10:02 The heist genre has never been the same since.
10:05 Even like video games like GTA 5 is a very blatant rip off of Heat.
10:10 I mean it's a very interesting influential film but also I think it kind of speaks not
10:16 just to these characters but also LA.
10:18 It feels like very much an LA film in the same way KMTV makes stuff for Kent that feels
10:24 Kentish that reflects Kent in all its glory but also some of its darker recesses.
10:29 I think Heat kind of captures a space as well.
10:33 Yeah and when did you first see this film?
10:35 I'm guessing it's a film that you've returned to on a number of occasions but can you remember
10:38 the very first time you saw this and thought wow.
10:41 I remember watching it over the shoulder of one of my friends at school on his laptop
10:46 the sound kind of coming in and out with his headphones and I was like oh this looks interesting
10:52 I'll give it a watch myself and I've just kept coming back to it.
10:54 It's almost like a yearly rewatch for me in the same way like Home Alone is for some people
10:58 at Christmas you know.
10:59 I always come back to it and I enjoy each and every time a little bit more and I get
11:06 a little bit more out of it as well.
11:08 Have you ever seen it on the big screen?
11:10 I am just I haven't yet.
11:12 I really want to.
11:13 I'm hoping a 4K restoration comes to a screen near Chatham near Medway very soon I would
11:20 lap that up.
11:21 Brilliant well thank you.
11:22 I hope that happens.
11:23 Okay well thank you Ollie.
11:25 It's about all the time we have for this first half of the show.
11:28 However before we go to the break we have a Kent film trivia question for you at home.
11:33 Which film featured the historic dockyard in Chatham as a rebel safe house?
11:38 Was it A) Mind Torture, B)
11:41 Children of Men or C)
11:44 Amazing Grace?
11:47 We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:49 Don't go away.
11:50 [Music]
12:02 Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:05 Just before the ad break we asked you at home a Kent film trivia question.
12:10 Which film featured the historic dockyard in Chatham as a rebel safe house?
12:15 I asked was it A) Mind Torture, B)
12:18 Children of Men or C)
12:21 Amazing Grace?
12:23 And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact B)
12:26 Children of Men.
12:28 Slip three at the historic dockyard is the setting for the rebel safe house where Julian,
12:34 played by Julianne Moore, first enlists Theos, played by Clive Owens-Help, to protect Key,
12:39 played by Claire Hope Asherty, a young Fijian woman who needs to leave the country.
12:46 Did you get the answer right?
12:49 Well it's time now to move on to your next chosen film Oliver and you've gone for Scott
12:54 Pilgrim vs The World.
12:58 Well I adore Edgar Wright's films.
13:00 I mean I have watched Shaun of the Dead more times than I can count but it was this one
13:05 that kind of like, it was weird when picking this list together, like choosing between
13:10 this and a complete opposite film, The Lobster, in how a film kind of got me into like film
13:18 not as a casual watcher but someone who really enjoys it as like something more.
13:23 I remember watching this on film 4, it was film 4 premiere, I remember watching this
13:27 and going wow look at that editing, look at all the creative little flares and like things
13:32 that he does with the adaptative medium that kind of like makes it a little bit more engaging.
13:37 It's not just like, obviously it's massively entertaining, blockbuster, rom-com with some
13:41 great creative action sequences but it's kind of like, it's so technically proficient that
13:45 you kind of like, it blows you away really.
13:47 Yeah and it's not a film that I've actually seen so did you want to give me a little kind
13:52 of insight into how you first saw it, the first impression and what you would most recommend
13:58 for someone like me who clearly needs to see it?
14:01 So obviously it's quite a silly premise, so you have Scott Pilgrim played by Michael Cera
14:10 who is a bit of a, probably describes a loser really, he's not a very nice person to be
14:19 in the movie but he falls for Ramona Flowers, this eccentric, aloof sort of figure in his
14:26 life and he then realises he has to fight her seven evil exes to win her over, leading
14:32 to a lot of hilarity and drama.
14:36 Obviously I probably haven't really done the movie justice because it is just so funny,
14:40 it's like a gag a minute sort of film and a lot of the gags are just like, if I explained
14:45 to you Chris, you'd be like, Olly, what are you talking about?
14:50 But that's always the thing isn't it about a film that sometimes when you try and break
14:53 it down, I've been in that position when I've walked out of a cinema and somebody said,
14:57 so what's it all about?
14:58 And then as you start explaining it you realise that you've lost them immediately but you've
15:01 also lost yourself because the film can often be about music for example, it can be about
15:05 the score, it can be about the cinematography, the acting and they're not always the things
15:09 that it's easy to convey to somebody who hasn't seen the film.
15:12 I mean with this movie I think like, even if you don't want to watch the film, the score
15:16 alone is worth the price of admission.
15:19 It's got loads of original work from great artists like Frank Black of obviously the
15:24 Pixies fame, it's got Beck as well, like the original songs in this movie, it's not quite
15:30 a musical but it's got enough musical performances that if you enjoy that sort of genre you probably
15:35 will get a kick out of it.
15:37 Obviously if you enjoy Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead and Edward Wellsend, also you're
15:41 missing out.
15:42 Yeah and some films of course need to be watched with an audience or at least with somebody
15:47 that you can check in with afterwards.
15:49 Did that happen in your case?
15:50 Was there a kind of go-to group of people who either watched it with you or who recommended
15:54 it?
15:55 So I found this movie by myself and I was in search of an audience for the longest time
15:59 to watch it with so I forced it upon my university housemates a few years ago and I'm not sure
16:06 they got the same kick out of it as I did.
16:09 A few of them really loved it, I think a few of them were confused.
16:14 Because it plays a lot into popular culture it may not be as accessible as other blockbuster
16:20 films but it's still worth watching with an audience just to kind of see their reaction
16:26 to some of those big laugh out movies.
16:28 I think comedies need kind of an audience to really get the full experience.
16:31 Yeah and I've seen some comedies with a big audience and everyone's laughing at the bits
16:36 that I wouldn't necessarily have laughed at and it's a graphic novel isn't it that it's
16:41 based on?
16:42 I think one of the most interesting parts about it is that it was kind of made almost
16:45 alongside the source material if I remember correctly.
16:48 So it adapts like a comic book cartoon but in the process of making it kind of feeds
16:57 into the production of that comic as well.
17:01 I think Edgar Wright worked closely with the original author or writer, their name eludes
17:07 me now, but I think what he does with that style and translating the screen I think only
17:15 Sam Raimi has managed to pull off with the Spider-Man movies.
17:18 And I have to ask, you said that you were in search of an audience to watch that with.
17:23 Did you succeed in finding the right audience to watch this with?
17:27 Oh that's a good question.
17:29 I think you kind of need to find a very like-minded audience.
17:37 I think if you have an open-minded audience that love rom-coms and are probably a bit
17:44 nerdy you're probably going to have a fantastic time.
17:47 So why haven't I not watched this before?
17:49 So you've persuaded me.
17:51 Okay well it's time now to move on to your final chosen film and you've gone for a rom-com
17:59 classic, When Harry Met Sally.
18:02 Well obviously I kind of missed the festive period but it's the New Year so why not pick
18:07 the ultimate New Year's movie.
18:09 A movie that kind of captures that kind of sense of moving through the years.
18:13 I mean I adore Harry Met Sally.
18:15 I think it's one of the finest rom-coms ever made.
18:18 I'm a romantic at heart.
18:20 I love the movie.
18:21 I think it's fantastic.
18:22 Rob Reiner directs the hell out of it.
18:25 It's got this amazing autumnal kind of look to it and obviously it's Nora Ephron's script
18:30 that's just kind of incredible.
18:32 I mean everyone knows the line "I'll have what she's having".
18:36 It's just one of the funniest lines in all of cinema history.
18:39 And I'm glad that that was where you stopped with your quotation.
18:42 If anyone has seen the film you know what we mean.
18:44 And actually that was Rob Reiner's mother who watches and comes out with that classic
18:49 line.
18:50 But just before Christmas I saw a film called What Happens Next which is Meg Ryan's second
18:56 directing film and it's very much a rom-com in this kind of vein.
19:00 But almost like the same characters 30 or 40, well 25 specifically, years on.
19:06 And so there is something about When Harry Met Sally which is kind of the template isn't
19:09 it for the rom-com.
19:11 It feels almost like the archetypal rom-com which is kind of interesting in the sense
19:15 that it probably, if you look at rom-coms, it kind of does go against the grain of a
19:20 lot of rom-coms in the sense that they tend to be more brash, more lewd.
19:25 But it kind of has taken on this kind of cultural identity as the rom-com, the great rom-com.
19:32 Like this kind of very clear set three act structure, this kind of almost enemies to
19:37 lover kind of trope as you see in about three different stages in their life.
19:42 It really kind of captures that almost realistic sense that some rom-coms are lacking.
19:48 There's no like grandiose big weddings or holidays from hell with the parents.
19:54 It's all very much people walking, talking and falling in love with each other.
20:00 And Billy Crystal has been asked, would you ever make a sequel?
20:05 And he said, why would you want to?
20:07 And I think your answer there just captured why you shouldn't do that because it's already
20:11 got everything in it.
20:12 And he joked and said, what would you call it, when Harry left Sally, etc.
20:16 But in a way all of those different, the make-up and the break-up appears within that film
20:21 and actually you can return to that one many times over without kind of feeling the need
20:26 for something additional.
20:29 What would it be about?
20:30 Like 30 years of seeing them in a happy relationship.
20:34 It's very much, I think the core of the movie isn't even necessarily the romance.
20:37 It's like that initial platonic relationship that kind of dominates the midsection of the
20:43 movie that kind of dances around the question of whether a man and a woman can ever be friends
20:48 that the movie poses quite early on.
20:51 And that's what the movie I think is more interested in than necessarily the rom-com
20:56 element.
20:57 I think the romance comes from the movie saying like you need this kind of platonic heart
21:03 at the core of it.
21:04 So if you made a sequel to it it would just be more of that I suppose.
21:08 I mean, not that I would complain but I mean.
21:11 Yeah, I think you've encapsulated that because of course at different periods during the
21:17 film you've got older couples who are sort of looking back on their life and it kind
21:21 of mirrors what goes on between Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal.
21:27 And so you've got that sort of interjection of I don't know if they're actually real face-to-camera
21:32 sort of moments but they kind of give it a real universal easy to empathise with underpinning.
21:41 I think I read somewhere, don't quote me on this, but that they were actually real couples
21:46 that they found for the movie.
21:48 Which obviously as a journalist I mean great, great finds by whoever was researching all
21:53 those different couples.
21:55 But I think that's another element of this kind of universal is that it is this universal
21:59 love story that like everyone else's love story is kind of unique but has these kind
22:04 of very core underpinnings that you can see in this film.
22:11 And you see it in all these different couples.
22:12 They all have these weird eccentric relationships that all come back to that friendship.
22:18 Yeah, and there's something about that film that kind of resonates because it's quite
22:23 a cosy film in so many ways and it has that sort of great New Year sequence and the apartment
22:28 going back to the very early 60s is also in that kind of vein.
22:33 But there is something about that, the applicability angle, about that question which you touched
22:37 on about whether it's possible for two people who are best friends to have a relationship
22:43 and the way that impacts.
22:45 And I guess it's that sort of resonance angle that has made this film last since what 1989
22:51 when it was released.
22:52 Yeah, I mean it's funny looking over my whole list and going how much, a lot of my favourite
22:57 movies are movies that kind of have a resonance beyond the period they're made in.
23:02 And I think this is no exception to that.
23:07 This relationship is one I've seen in day-to-day life every single day of my life.
23:12 I've experienced it myself plenty of times.
23:16 It's kind of like the setting, the timelessness, it doesn't really take away from it.
23:22 It kind of adds to it.
23:23 It's something I could show to my grandkids one day and they'll probably get the exact
23:27 same kick out of it that I did.
23:28 Perfect.
23:29 Well, thank you, Olly Willa.
23:30 I'm afraid that that's all the time we have for today.
23:33 Many thanks to Oliver Leeder de Sacks for joining us and being such a brilliant guest.
23:38 And many thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:40 Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week.
23:45 Until then, that's all from us.
23:47 Goodbye.
23:47 Goodbye.
23:48 [Music]
23:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]