WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.399 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Hey there. Good 00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:04.879 to be diving in again. So today we're tackling 00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:08.220 a really fascinating figure in American filmmaking, 00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:12.380 the director James Gray. Ah, James Gray. Yeah, 00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:15.460 he's a bit of a contradiction, isn't he? In a 00:00:15.460 --> 00:00:17.660 really interesting way. That's exactly it, a 00:00:17.660 --> 00:00:20.160 contradiction or maybe a paradox. Yeah, paradox 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:22.820 works because you've got these two seemingly 00:00:22.820 --> 00:00:26.460 opposite poles in his work. Right. Describe those. 00:00:26.989 --> 00:00:29.350 Well, on one side, he's just the absolute master 00:00:29.350 --> 00:00:34.990 of these incredibly grounded, almost claustrophobic 00:00:34.990 --> 00:00:38.710 New York crime dramas. Like Little Odessa, that 00:00:38.710 --> 00:00:41.310 kind of vibe. Exactly. Little Odessa, The Yards, 00:00:41.390 --> 00:00:44.350 very specific, very rooted in place, gritty. 00:00:44.789 --> 00:00:47.810 But then you've got the other James Gray, the 00:00:47.810 --> 00:00:50.109 one who makes these massive kind of genre -defying 00:00:50.109 --> 00:00:52.829 epics. You mean like The Lost City of Z, that 00:00:52.829 --> 00:00:54.789 historical adventure? That one, yeah. Or even 00:00:54.789 --> 00:00:57.380 going further, something like Ad Astra. This 00:00:57.380 --> 00:00:59.840 big philosophical sci -fi journey. It's such 00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:02.539 a jump, isn't it? From, like you said, the specificity 00:01:02.539 --> 00:01:05.159 of a single Brooklyn neighborhood to the sheer 00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:09.260 emptiness of deep space. He operates in both 00:01:09.260 --> 00:01:11.500 those zones. Simultaneously, almost. It's like 00:01:11.500 --> 00:01:14.180 he contains both. And that's really the mystery 00:01:14.180 --> 00:01:16.079 we want to explore today. We've gone through 00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:19.519 a whole stack of sources on his career, and they 00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:21.959 really paint this comprehensive picture, you 00:01:21.959 --> 00:01:24.560 know, where his stories come from, which is deeply 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:27.019 personal stuff. Oh, hugely personal. You see 00:01:27.019 --> 00:01:29.420 it again and again. His key collaborators, you 00:01:29.420 --> 00:01:31.500 see the same names pop up. That's a big part 00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:33.420 of his process, yeah. And some really surprising 00:01:33.420 --> 00:01:35.519 side projects. I mean, we have to talk about 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:37.859 the opera. He directed an opera. It's kind of 00:01:37.859 --> 00:01:39.920 amazing. And then there's this whole other layer. 00:01:40.620 --> 00:01:43.099 This incredible list of films he almost made. 00:01:43.260 --> 00:01:47.379 The what ifs. Yeah. Films he turned down or ones 00:01:47.379 --> 00:01:49.359 that were in development for years and just fell 00:01:49.359 --> 00:01:52.900 apart. That list alone tells you so much about 00:01:52.900 --> 00:01:56.099 his path and maybe the industry itself. So that's 00:01:56.099 --> 00:01:58.180 our mission for this deep dive. Tracing that 00:01:58.180 --> 00:02:00.500 evolution. It's a fundamental question really. 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:03.219 It is. How does the director who became known 00:02:03.219 --> 00:02:05.780 almost synonymous with those gritty New York 00:02:05.780 --> 00:02:08.939 crime stories. Set in a very specific time, usually 00:02:08.939 --> 00:02:12.659 mid to late 20th century. Exactly. How does that 00:02:12.659 --> 00:02:15.819 filmmaker evolve? Or maybe graduate is the word. 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:19.360 How does he become someone tackling massive studio 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:23.280 pictures about historical exploration or, you 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:25.620 know, existential questions in space? Yeah, what's 00:02:25.620 --> 00:02:28.500 the through line? Or is it a break? It says a 00:02:28.500 --> 00:02:31.039 lot about the kind of ambition maybe hiding under 00:02:31.039 --> 00:02:32.840 the surface of those early films. Definitely. 00:02:33.469 --> 00:02:36.030 So to figure out the James Gray who went to the 00:02:36.030 --> 00:02:38.289 stars, I think we absolutely have to start back 00:02:38.289 --> 00:02:40.590 on Earth, specifically New York. Let's start 00:02:40.590 --> 00:02:42.770 in Queens. Right. He was born in 69, grew up 00:02:42.770 --> 00:02:45.770 in Flushing, Queens. And that setting, New York 00:02:45.770 --> 00:02:48.689 City, it's just baked into his early work, isn't 00:02:48.689 --> 00:02:50.830 it? Oh, completely. It's the canvas for, what, 00:02:50.909 --> 00:02:53.189 his first three, four films? Yeah. But the real 00:02:53.189 --> 00:02:56.069 key, the sort of emotional DNA that comes from 00:02:56.069 --> 00:02:57.889 his family's background. The immigrant heritage. 00:02:58.289 --> 00:03:00.789 Yes. But it's even more specific than just... 00:03:00.889 --> 00:03:03.129 Immigrant story, which is important, but his 00:03:03.129 --> 00:03:05.729 roots are Russian Jewish. Okay. His grandparents, 00:03:05.990 --> 00:03:08.050 they came from a place called Osterpol. It's 00:03:08.050 --> 00:03:10.250 in western Ukraine now, but back then part of 00:03:10.250 --> 00:03:12.490 the USSR. Right. So that carries, I mean, that's 00:03:12.490 --> 00:03:14.590 a specific historical weight, isn't it? Eastern 00:03:14.590 --> 00:03:17.610 Europe, the Soviet experience, leaving. Exactly. 00:03:17.729 --> 00:03:20.849 The upheaval, the survival, maybe the trauma 00:03:20.849 --> 00:03:23.710 of displacement. It hangs over things. And there's 00:03:23.710 --> 00:03:26.449 this amazing detail in the sources, a real nugget 00:03:26.449 --> 00:03:29.569 about the family name itself. Ah, yeah. This 00:03:29.569 --> 00:03:32.870 is fascinating. It wasn't always gray. No. The 00:03:32.870 --> 00:03:37.009 original name was something like Graysky or possibly 00:03:37.009 --> 00:03:42.509 Grayserstein. Wow. Graysky to gray. Think about 00:03:42.509 --> 00:03:45.949 that transformation, that shortening, that anglicization 00:03:45.949 --> 00:03:49.810 becoming gray. It's like a symbol of assimilation 00:03:49.810 --> 00:03:52.319 right there in the name. Absolutely. And you 00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:54.379 feel that echoes throughout his films, don't 00:03:54.379 --> 00:03:57.060 you? That sense of a changed identity or a hidden 00:03:57.060 --> 00:03:58.860 one. You see it in Little Odessa, certainly in 00:03:58.860 --> 00:04:00.879 The Immigrant. It feels like the ghost haunting 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:03.439 the characters, this struggle with where you 00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:05.099 came from and who you're supposed to be now. 00:04:05.379 --> 00:04:07.759 It connects him immediately to that whole tradition 00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:10.620 of American filmmaking, the one that grapples 00:04:10.620 --> 00:04:13.560 with old world heritage clashing with new world 00:04:13.560 --> 00:04:15.979 ambition. Often through crime, right? That's 00:04:15.979 --> 00:04:17.939 a common lens. Very often through crime, yeah. 00:04:18.220 --> 00:04:20.519 It becomes the pressure cooker for those tensions. 00:04:21.569 --> 00:04:25.449 Poverty, the law, family loyalty, identity. It 00:04:25.449 --> 00:04:27.470 all gets tangled up. His characters always seem 00:04:27.470 --> 00:04:29.269 to be wrestling with something internal, not 00:04:29.269 --> 00:04:31.629 just external threats. Yeah, they're often struggling 00:04:31.629 --> 00:04:34.110 with themselves, with that kind of fractured 00:04:34.110 --> 00:04:36.529 identity you mentioned. So before he could put 00:04:36.529 --> 00:04:38.550 all that on screen, he needed the tools. He went 00:04:38.550 --> 00:04:41.110 to film school. He did. University of Southern 00:04:41.110 --> 00:04:45.569 California School of Cinematic Arts. USC. Big 00:04:45.569 --> 00:04:47.430 film school. And apparently he stood out pretty 00:04:47.430 --> 00:04:50.230 quickly. Oh, yeah. His student film, a short 00:04:50.230 --> 00:04:52.110 called Cowboys and Angels, that was the thing. 00:04:52.209 --> 00:04:54.290 Oh, a special, bud. Just really well made, apparently. 00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:57.649 Showed a real command of visuals, storytelling. 00:04:58.329 --> 00:05:00.649 Enough that it got him an agent right away. That's 00:05:00.649 --> 00:05:02.529 impressive straight out of school. But the key 00:05:02.529 --> 00:05:05.589 connection was producer Paul Webster. The short 00:05:05.589 --> 00:05:08.430 film got to him somehow. Okay. And Webster saw 00:05:08.430 --> 00:05:11.189 something there, saw the potential. He basically 00:05:11.189 --> 00:05:14.480 encouraged Gray. who was, what, early 20s? Yeah, 00:05:14.519 --> 00:05:16.139 barely out of school. Encouraged him to write 00:05:16.139 --> 00:05:17.860 a full -length script, something Webster could 00:05:17.860 --> 00:05:20.480 help get made. And that script became... Little 00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:24.000 Odessa. His debut feature came out in 1994. And 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:26.019 Gray was incredibly young then, wasn't he? Like 00:05:26.019 --> 00:05:29.860 25? 25 years old. Yeah. Directing his first feature. 00:05:29.980 --> 00:05:32.480 It's pretty remarkable. And talk about specific 00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:36.279 geography. Little Odessa. Could be more specific. 00:05:36.379 --> 00:05:38.899 It stars Tim Roth, playing this hitman who has 00:05:38.899 --> 00:05:40.680 to go back to his old neighborhood. Which is 00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:43.279 Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Unvisal. Famously known 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:45.680 as Little Odessa because of the huge concentration 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:49.100 of Russian and Eastern European immigrants there. 00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:51.740 So he wasn't just making a generic New York crime 00:05:51.740 --> 00:05:55.060 film. Not at all. He was putting a pin in a very 00:05:55.060 --> 00:05:58.540 specific map, a cultural enclave, giving it this 00:05:58.540 --> 00:06:01.699 really potent cinematic voice it felt lived in. 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:05.120 And the reaction for a debut. Immediate acclaim, 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:07.360 especially internationally. It won the Silver 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:09.500 Lion at the Venice Film Festival that year. Wow. 00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:11.920 Wow. The silver line for your first film at 25? 00:06:12.120 --> 00:06:15.300 That's huge. It's an incredible launch. It instantly 00:06:15.300 --> 00:06:17.600 put him on the global stage, maybe more aligned 00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:19.800 with that European festival circuit than, say, 00:06:19.860 --> 00:06:22.259 mainstream Hollywood right off the bat. It signals 00:06:22.259 --> 00:06:25.040 a certain kind of seriousness, doesn't it? Definitely. 00:06:25.180 --> 00:06:27.240 And he didn't pivot away from that world immediately 00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:30.100 either. His next film sort of doubled down. Which 00:06:30.100 --> 00:06:32.459 was The Yards. Came out in 2000. Yeah, The Yards. 00:06:32.839 --> 00:06:35.819 Another New York crime story, really meticulously 00:06:35.819 --> 00:06:39.060 crafted, dark, but this time set around the city's 00:06:39.060 --> 00:06:41.680 commuter rail yards. So a different corner of 00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:44.360 the city's underbelly. Exactly. If Little Odessa 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:47.100 was about immigrant crime families, the yards 00:06:47.100 --> 00:06:50.420 felt more about corruption within the system 00:06:50.420 --> 00:06:53.220 itself, like American infrastructure, labor, 00:06:53.480 --> 00:06:57.199 politics. Still very New York, still very gritty. 00:06:57.360 --> 00:06:58.980 But there was some trouble with this one, right? 00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:01.500 Getting it released. Ah, yeah. Here's where you 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:03.600 see the first real sign of the friction. The 00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:06.079 film was actually shot way back in 1998. Two 00:07:06.079 --> 00:07:08.399 years before it came out. Two full years. Miramax 00:07:08.399 --> 00:07:10.959 had it. This was the Harvey Weinstein era Miramax. 00:07:10.980 --> 00:07:13.279 Uh -oh. And they basically sat on it, then finally 00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:15.800 released it in 2000, but apparently with very 00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:17.779 little support, not much of a theatrical push. 00:07:18.079 --> 00:07:20.319 So even with the Venice win for his first film, 00:07:20.459 --> 00:07:23.060 he was already hitting roadblocks at the distribution 00:07:23.060 --> 00:07:25.519 side of things? Yeah, it showed that his kind 00:07:25.519 --> 00:07:28.439 of complex, maybe less sensational, more atmospheric 00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:31.730 dramas. They weren't an easy fit for the commercial 00:07:31.730 --> 00:07:34.250 system, even back then. He was already in for 00:07:34.250 --> 00:07:36.930 a fight. Okay, so after The Yards finally gets 00:07:36.930 --> 00:07:39.670 out, what happens next? There's a bit of a gap 00:07:39.670 --> 00:07:43.110 before his third feature. There is. The early 00:07:43.110 --> 00:07:45.329 2000s seemed to be a period of trying to get 00:07:45.329 --> 00:07:47.990 the next project going. He actually had the script 00:07:47.990 --> 00:07:50.670 for We on the Night ready around 2002. But it 00:07:50.670 --> 00:07:52.870 didn't get made until... Production didn't start 00:07:52.870 --> 00:07:57.110 until 2006, and it came out in 2007. So, yeah, 00:07:57.209 --> 00:07:59.689 another gap there. But this one really cemented 00:07:59.689 --> 00:08:02.649 his ability to attract top tier actors. We own 00:08:02.649 --> 00:08:04.870 the night. This feels like peak gray, right? 00:08:04.949 --> 00:08:07.449 That specific New York atmosphere. Oh, absolutely. 00:08:07.670 --> 00:08:10.790 Pure distilled gray. It's set in 1988, which 00:08:10.790 --> 00:08:12.410 is, you know, right in the thick of the crack 00:08:12.410 --> 00:08:14.949 epidemic and the drug wars in New York. Very 00:08:14.949 --> 00:08:18.009 gritty time. And the cast is phenomenal. Joaquin 00:08:18.009 --> 00:08:20.560 Phoenix. And Mark Wahlberg. Playing brothers, 00:08:20.819 --> 00:08:23.160 which is key. Phoenix is a nightclub manager 00:08:23.160 --> 00:08:25.959 kind of walking this tightrope between his legitimate 00:08:25.959 --> 00:08:29.180 business and his, let's say, deep connections 00:08:29.180 --> 00:08:31.579 to the Russian mob. And Wahlberg. Wahlberg is 00:08:31.579 --> 00:08:34.000 the other side of the coin. He's a police detective. 00:08:34.460 --> 00:08:38.259 Clean cut. Buy the book. Moral center, maybe. 00:08:38.539 --> 00:08:41.039 So it's a Cain and Abel story, basically, set 00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:43.700 against this backdrop of crime and corruption. 00:08:43.740 --> 00:08:47.440 Pretty much. Driven by loyalty, betrayal, moral 00:08:47.440 --> 00:08:51.230 choices. Classic gray themes. And it definitely 00:08:51.230 --> 00:08:53.889 got noticed. It was in competition at Cannes 00:08:53.889 --> 00:08:56.789 in 2007. Cannes again. He seems to have a strong 00:08:56.789 --> 00:08:58.629 relationship with that festival. He really does. 00:08:58.850 --> 00:09:00.789 Yeah. But the sources make a point of saying 00:09:00.789 --> 00:09:03.509 the reception for We on the Night was widely 00:09:03.509 --> 00:09:05.960 divergent. OK, what does that mean? Divergent 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:08.399 how? Well, it seems like the split often fell 00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:10.759 along geographical lines almost. A lot of American 00:09:10.759 --> 00:09:12.820 critics saw it as, you know, maybe well -made, 00:09:12.860 --> 00:09:15.179 good performances, but ultimately maybe a bit 00:09:15.179 --> 00:09:17.720 familiar. Another entry in the crime genre. Maybe 00:09:17.720 --> 00:09:20.320 not as flashy as, say, Scorsese stuff, which 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:22.519 had kind of redefined the genre by then. Right. 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:24.500 Expectations are different. Exactly. Whereas 00:09:24.500 --> 00:09:27.460 European critics, especially at Cannes. They 00:09:27.460 --> 00:09:29.279 seemed to respond more strongly to the underlying 00:09:29.279 --> 00:09:31.379 structure. They saw the, like, almost classical 00:09:31.379 --> 00:09:34.360 tragedy in it. Less genre exercise, more moral 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:36.580 drama. Yeah, they picked up on the Dostoevskian 00:09:36.580 --> 00:09:39.259 echoes, the weight of the choices. They treated 00:09:39.259 --> 00:09:41.879 it more like cinematic literature, perhaps. That's 00:09:41.879 --> 00:09:44.659 a really interesting distinction. And that perception, 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:47.620 particularly the European acclaim, apparently 00:09:47.620 --> 00:09:49.679 gave him something important for his next film. 00:09:49.799 --> 00:09:53.000 It seems like it did. The success, or at least 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:55.600 the critical validation from Khan for We on the 00:09:55.600 --> 00:09:58.600 Night. gave him essentially complete creative 00:09:58.600 --> 00:10:00.860 freedom for his next one. Which was Two Lovers 00:10:00.860 --> 00:10:03.860 in 2008. Two Lovers. And this is where he makes 00:10:03.860 --> 00:10:06.519 that connection explicit. The one between his 00:10:06.519 --> 00:10:09.419 New York realism and classic literature. How 00:10:09.419 --> 00:10:12.100 so? What's the film about? Well, first off, it's 00:10:12.100 --> 00:10:15.500 not a crime drama. At all. It's a romance, a 00:10:15.500 --> 00:10:18.279 really melancholic kind of painful romance. Starring 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:20.799 Joaquin Phoenix again? Phoenix again, yeah. Playing 00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:23.500 this quite vulnerable, fragile man who finds 00:10:23.500 --> 00:10:25.639 himself caught between two very different women, 00:10:25.940 --> 00:10:28.980 Gwyneth Paltrow and Vanessa Shaw. Okay, so a 00:10:28.980 --> 00:10:31.720 relationship drama. Where does the literary connection 00:10:31.720 --> 00:10:34.340 come in? It's based loosely, the sources say, 00:10:34.419 --> 00:10:37.360 on a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky, 00:10:37.399 --> 00:10:42.429 wow. Which story? White Nights. Ah, okay. That's 00:10:42.429 --> 00:10:46.509 a beautiful, very sad story about loneliness 00:10:46.509 --> 00:10:50.129 and fantasy delusion, maybe. Exactly. It's about 00:10:50.129 --> 00:10:53.570 this dreamer who has a brief, intense connection, 00:10:53.769 --> 00:10:56.549 but ultimately is left alone with his fantasies. 00:10:56.870 --> 00:10:59.850 Deeply Russian, deeply melancholic. So how did 00:10:59.850 --> 00:11:02.429 Gray take that and put it in like contemporary 00:11:02.429 --> 00:11:04.730 Brighton Beach? That seems like a huge leap. 00:11:04.909 --> 00:11:07.230 He focused on the emotional core, that feeling 00:11:07.230 --> 00:11:09.690 of profound alienation the narrator has in the 00:11:09.690 --> 00:11:12.529 story, this tendency to live more in your head 00:11:12.529 --> 00:11:15.110 and your dreams than in the messy reality. OK. 00:11:15.190 --> 00:11:17.309 And he just. transplanted that feeling, that 00:11:17.309 --> 00:11:19.490 sort of spiritual isolation, onto the backdrop 00:11:19.490 --> 00:11:21.710 of modern Brooklyn. You've got the family pressures, 00:11:21.850 --> 00:11:23.950 the noise, the setting. The dry cleaning business, 00:11:24.090 --> 00:11:25.889 I think. Yeah, the family business, the expectations. 00:11:26.509 --> 00:11:28.850 But the internal struggle, the emotional stakes, 00:11:29.129 --> 00:11:32.149 they feel almost Dostoevskian in their intensity. 00:11:32.539 --> 00:11:34.620 So even when the setting is completely grounded 00:11:34.620 --> 00:11:37.759 in his familiar New York territory, the drama 00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:40.740 is pulling from this much older European literary 00:11:40.740 --> 00:11:43.220 tradition. It's about the soul's condition, not 00:11:43.220 --> 00:11:45.200 just, you know, who shot who. Perfectly put. 00:11:45.299 --> 00:11:47.519 It really clarifies his reference points. And 00:11:47.519 --> 00:11:50.440 Two Lovers also went to Cannes, right? Kept that 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:53.340 streak going. It did. Premiered there, got good 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:56.820 reviews. It solidified him as this serious auteur, 00:11:57.019 --> 00:11:59.509 a festival favorite. And that momentum, that 00:11:59.509 --> 00:12:03.090 connection to a kind of classical European sensibility 00:12:03.090 --> 00:12:06.789 seems to carry directly into his next film, The 00:12:06.789 --> 00:12:10.549 Immigrant, in 2013. Yes. And The Immigrant, you 00:12:10.549 --> 00:12:13.190 could argue, is maybe the most direct engagement 00:12:13.190 --> 00:12:15.370 with his own heritage up to that point. Tell 00:12:15.370 --> 00:12:17.169 us about the backstory. How did this one come 00:12:17.169 --> 00:12:19.690 about? It's kind of a neat connection. Gray had 00:12:19.690 --> 00:12:22.309 co -written a script for the French actor -director 00:12:22.309 --> 00:12:25.070 Guillaume Quinet. Okay. What film was that? Blood 00:12:25.070 --> 00:12:27.809 Ties, another crime film, actually. And through 00:12:27.809 --> 00:12:30.190 working with Canet, he met Canet's partner at 00:12:30.190 --> 00:12:32.730 the time, Marion Cassiard. The French actress. 00:12:32.990 --> 00:12:36.350 Amazing actress. Phenomenal. And Gray was apparently 00:12:36.350 --> 00:12:39.629 so impressed by her, so captivated, that he specifically 00:12:39.629 --> 00:12:41.990 wrote the lead role in The Immigrant for her, 00:12:42.129 --> 00:12:44.750 the character of Iwa Chbulski. So what's the 00:12:44.750 --> 00:12:47.289 story of The Immigrant? It's set in the 1920s. 00:12:47.330 --> 00:12:50.070 Cassiard plays Iwa, a Polish nurse who arrives 00:12:50.070 --> 00:12:52.110 at Ellis Island with her sister. The classic 00:12:52.110 --> 00:12:54.570 entry point for so many immigrants. Exactly. 00:12:54.809 --> 00:12:57.769 But things go wrong immediately. Her sister's 00:12:57.769 --> 00:13:00.950 quarantined, sick, and Iwa is kind of cast adrift, 00:13:01.029 --> 00:13:03.389 vulnerable. She falls under the influence of 00:13:03.389 --> 00:13:06.950 this, well, this theater manager who seems charming 00:13:06.950 --> 00:13:09.289 at first, but is actually quite predatory. And 00:13:09.289 --> 00:13:11.809 he forces her into prostitution? Essentially, 00:13:11.909 --> 00:13:14.169 yeah. He runs this sort of burlesque theater, 00:13:14.269 --> 00:13:16.870 but also uses the women. She has to make these 00:13:16.870 --> 00:13:19.330 terrible choices to try and survive and save 00:13:19.330 --> 00:13:23.110 her sister. It's a really harrowing look at the 00:13:23.110 --> 00:13:25.509 dark side of the American dream. That promise 00:13:25.509 --> 00:13:28.149 of a new life turning into exploitation, it feels 00:13:28.149 --> 00:13:30.409 like it connects directly back to that idea of 00:13:30.409 --> 00:13:32.750 the Graefsky name change, the cost of assimilation. 00:13:33.049 --> 00:13:35.389 Absolutely. It's about the price you pay, the 00:13:35.389 --> 00:13:38.429 compromises, the loss of dignity, maybe even 00:13:38.429 --> 00:13:40.350 identity that can come with trying to make it 00:13:40.350 --> 00:13:42.409 in America, especially as a vulnerable newcomer. 00:13:42.409 --> 00:13:45.470 And the predatory theater manager. Let me guess 00:13:45.470 --> 00:13:48.830 who clicked him. Who else? Joaquin Phoenix. Of 00:13:48.830 --> 00:13:51.350 course. Their fourth film together by this point. 00:13:51.529 --> 00:13:53.870 That's right. Fourth collaboration. Phoenix is 00:13:53.870 --> 00:13:55.870 just perfect for that kind of gray character 00:13:55.870 --> 00:13:58.909 complex, morally ambiguous, capable of both charm 00:13:58.909 --> 00:14:01.970 and cruelty. He's both a victimizer and maybe 00:14:01.970 --> 00:14:03.909 a victim of the system himself in some ways. 00:14:04.049 --> 00:14:07.789 It's clearly a really deep, fruitful actor -director 00:14:07.789 --> 00:14:10.029 relationship. One of the great modern ones, I 00:14:10.029 --> 00:14:11.909 think. They just seem to understand each other 00:14:11.909 --> 00:14:14.870 on a fundamental level. And the immigrant. Cannes 00:14:14.870 --> 00:14:17.110 again. Cannes again. Nominated for the Palme 00:14:17.110 --> 00:14:19.850 d 'Or, making it his fourth film in competition 00:14:19.850 --> 00:14:23.289 there by 2013. Four films in the main competition 00:14:23.289 --> 00:14:27.250 at Cannes by 2013. That's a serious achievement. 00:14:27.529 --> 00:14:30.590 It really is. It cements him as this major international 00:14:30.590 --> 00:14:33.330 auteur, someone whose artistic vision is taken 00:14:33.330 --> 00:14:35.970 incredibly seriously on the world stage, even 00:14:35.970 --> 00:14:38.070 if maybe his box office numbers in the U .S. 00:14:38.070 --> 00:14:40.009 weren't always huge. He hadn't quite crossed 00:14:40.009 --> 00:14:42.009 over into being a household name for the average 00:14:42.009 --> 00:14:45.500 American. moviegoer, maybe? Not yet, but critically, 00:14:45.659 --> 00:14:48.659 he was absolutely top tier. So this feels like 00:14:48.659 --> 00:14:50.879 a natural turning point. He spent, what, nearly 00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:53.759 20 years mastering this very specific kind of 00:14:53.759 --> 00:14:57.240 film, the New York story, the moral drama, often 00:14:57.240 --> 00:15:00.240 rooted in crime or intense relationships. Yeah, 00:15:00.299 --> 00:15:03.120 perfecting that intimate, often quite dark vision. 00:15:03.299 --> 00:15:06.100 And then he does something completely different. 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:09.600 The sources really mark the lost city of Z in 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:12.299 2016 as a massive shift. Oh, it's a huge pivot 00:15:12.299 --> 00:15:16.580 in scale, in genre, in setting, everything. Talk 00:15:16.580 --> 00:15:18.779 about scale. What's the difference? Well, think 00:15:18.779 --> 00:15:21.059 about it. He goes from the cramped apartments, 00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:24.700 the dimly lit bars, the train yards of New York. 00:15:24.860 --> 00:15:27.480 Right, claustrophobic spaces. To the Amazon rainforest. 00:15:28.279 --> 00:15:31.120 The vast, suffocating, seemingly endless jungle. 00:15:31.240 --> 00:15:32.779 It's based on the David Grand book, right? The 00:15:32.779 --> 00:15:34.840 nonfiction one. Exactly. Incredible book. It 00:15:34.840 --> 00:15:37.539 tells the true story of Percy Fawcett, this British 00:15:37.539 --> 00:15:39.860 explorer in the early 20th century, played by 00:15:39.860 --> 00:15:41.840 Charlie Hunnam in the film. And Fawcett was obsessed 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:45.179 with finding this ancient lost city in the Amazon. 00:15:45.639 --> 00:15:48.779 Utterly obsessed. It consumed him. The film follows 00:15:48.779 --> 00:15:50.980 his expeditions, his struggles, his family life 00:15:50.980 --> 00:15:54.940 back home, and ultimately... his mysterious disappearance. 00:15:55.379 --> 00:15:59.019 It's an epic in the truest sense. But it's interesting, 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:01.220 even though the scale and setting are completely 00:16:01.220 --> 00:16:04.720 different, the themes still feel kind of gray 00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:07.559 -like, don't they? Obsession, the search for 00:16:07.559 --> 00:16:10.019 something unattainable, the cost of that search. 00:16:10.340 --> 00:16:12.980 Absolutely. You hit it right there. He basically 00:16:12.980 --> 00:16:18.049 took his core thematic concerns that... Dostoevsky 00:16:18.049 --> 00:16:20.190 and psychological depth, the collision between 00:16:20.190 --> 00:16:23.029 aspiration and reality, the potentially fatal 00:16:23.029 --> 00:16:25.769 nature of obsession, and just projected them 00:16:25.769 --> 00:16:28.750 onto this enormous canvas. Instead of a moral 00:16:28.750 --> 00:16:30.970 struggle in Brooklyn, it's a physical and spiritual 00:16:30.970 --> 00:16:33.509 struggle in the jungle. Exactly. It required 00:16:33.509 --> 00:16:36.539 a completely different filmmaking approach. Huge 00:16:36.539 --> 00:16:39.220 budget compared to his earlier work. Massive 00:16:39.220 --> 00:16:41.039 logistics, shooting on location in incredibly 00:16:41.039 --> 00:16:43.000 difficult conditions. It's the total opposite 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:44.700 of the controlled environments of his New York 00:16:44.700 --> 00:16:46.779 films. Completely. And the film premiered, not 00:16:46.779 --> 00:16:48.379 at Cannes this time, but at the New York Film 00:16:48.379 --> 00:16:50.840 Festival in 2016. And the reception. Did people 00:16:50.840 --> 00:16:53.000 think he pulled off this huge leap? Generally, 00:16:53.039 --> 00:16:56.320 yes. It was widely praised as this ambitious, 00:16:56.440 --> 00:17:00.110 visually stunning... intelligent epic. It proved 00:17:00.110 --> 00:17:02.570 he wasn't just a director of small, intense dramas. 00:17:02.789 --> 00:17:05.769 He could handle scope, history, adventure. He 00:17:05.769 --> 00:17:07.990 was a formalist, capable of painting on a much 00:17:07.990 --> 00:17:10.250 larger canvas. So after conquering the Amazon, 00:17:10.430 --> 00:17:12.730 where do you go next? Apparently, you go to space. 00:17:13.009 --> 00:17:16.549 Ad Astra. Ad Astra. News came out around 2016, 00:17:16.809 --> 00:17:19.289 I think at Cannes, actually, that he was finally 00:17:19.289 --> 00:17:21.509 going to direct this project he'd had in mind 00:17:21.509 --> 00:17:24.869 for a long time. His space epic. This felt like 00:17:24.869 --> 00:17:26.809 his biggest swing yet, commercially speaking. 00:17:26.809 --> 00:17:30.190 Oh, definitely. A big studio sci -fi film, 20th 00:17:30.190 --> 00:17:32.809 Century Fox, starring Brad Pitt, one of the biggest 00:17:32.809 --> 00:17:34.890 stars in the world. What's the premise? Pitt 00:17:34.890 --> 00:17:38.049 plays this astronaut, very stoic, very controlled, 00:17:38.230 --> 00:17:40.529 who has to travel across the solar system, like 00:17:40.529 --> 00:17:44.250 way out there, to Neptune. Wow. To find his father, 00:17:44.349 --> 00:17:46.849 played by Tommy Lee Jones, who was also a famous 00:17:46.849 --> 00:17:49.069 astronaut, but disappeared years ago on a mission 00:17:49.069 --> 00:17:51.450 near Neptune and might now be posing a threat 00:17:51.450 --> 00:17:53.569 to the entire solar system. Okay, so it's got 00:17:53.569 --> 00:17:55.890 the epic journey of the father -son thing. But 00:17:55.890 --> 00:17:58.569 it's really an internal journey, too. It's deeply 00:17:58.569 --> 00:18:01.210 philosophical, existential. It's been described 00:18:01.210 --> 00:18:04.690 as like Apocalypse Now or Heart of Darkness set 00:18:04.690 --> 00:18:08.069 in space. Wow. That's ambitious. Hugely ambitious. 00:18:08.309 --> 00:18:11.049 Yeah. And visually, it's spectacular. Premiered 00:18:11.049 --> 00:18:13.769 at Venice in 2019, it really shows him pushing 00:18:13.769 --> 00:18:16.849 his themes onto the grandest possible stage, 00:18:17.089 --> 00:18:20.509 isolation, connection, the search for meaning. 00:18:20.690 --> 00:18:22.869 But... There's always a but when you talk about 00:18:22.869 --> 00:18:24.849 these massive studio films, isn't there? Especially 00:18:24.849 --> 00:18:27.450 for an auteur like Gray. There often is. And 00:18:27.450 --> 00:18:29.190 this is a really crucial point the sources bring 00:18:29.190 --> 00:18:31.750 up regarding Ad Astra and Gray's experience with 00:18:31.750 --> 00:18:35.289 the studio system. Gray himself has stated, quite 00:18:35.289 --> 00:18:37.450 publicly and on multiple occasions since the 00:18:37.450 --> 00:18:39.970 film's release, that the version of Ad Astra 00:18:39.970 --> 00:18:42.509 that ended up in theaters was not his final cut. 00:18:42.730 --> 00:18:46.309 Ah, studio interference. It sounds like it. He 00:18:46.309 --> 00:18:48.190 specifically mentioned issues with the voiceover 00:18:48.190 --> 00:18:50.150 narration. Which is quite prominent in the film, 00:18:50.250 --> 00:18:52.950 Pitt's voiceover. Very prominent. And apparently 00:18:52.950 --> 00:18:55.490 much of that was added late in post -production, 00:18:55.710 --> 00:18:59.190 sort of against his wishes, essentially to make 00:18:59.190 --> 00:19:02.470 the plot clearer or more palatable for a wider 00:19:02.470 --> 00:19:05.240 audience. Ouch. That's got to be frustrating 00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:07.599 for a director. Terribly frustrating. It's that 00:19:07.599 --> 00:19:09.819 classic tension, isn't it? The auteur's vision 00:19:09.819 --> 00:19:12.420 versus the studio's need for a commercial hit, 00:19:12.519 --> 00:19:14.240 especially with a big budget film like that. 00:19:14.359 --> 00:19:17.220 It suggests that while he could navigate the 00:19:17.220 --> 00:19:20.039 literal jungle of the lost city of Z, the sort 00:19:20.039 --> 00:19:22.119 of bureaucratic jungle of Hollywood might be 00:19:22.119 --> 00:19:24.000 even harder to manage when you're playing at 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.259 that budget level. Creative control becomes the 00:19:26.259 --> 00:19:28.039 battleground. Absolutely. The stakes are just 00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:30.420 so high financially. And it's fascinating what 00:19:30.420 --> 00:19:33.099 he did next after that experience. It feels like 00:19:33.099 --> 00:19:36.390 a direct... It really does. After grappling with 00:19:36.390 --> 00:19:38.869 the, you know, immense scale and maybe the compromises 00:19:38.869 --> 00:19:42.430 of Ed Astra, he does this complete U -turn. Back 00:19:42.430 --> 00:19:44.170 to New York. Not just back to New York, but back 00:19:44.170 --> 00:19:46.589 to his own childhood, deep into his personal 00:19:46.589 --> 00:19:50.769 past with Armageddon time in 2022. This was explicitly 00:19:50.769 --> 00:19:53.289 autobiographical, wasn't it? Or semi -autobiographical. 00:19:53.529 --> 00:19:56.569 Yeah. Described as a coming -of -age drama based 00:19:56.569 --> 00:19:59.529 loosely but very intimately on his own memories. 00:20:00.059 --> 00:20:02.940 growing up in Flushing, Queens in the 1980s. 00:20:02.940 --> 00:20:05.799 What themes was he exploring there? Big themes, 00:20:05.960 --> 00:20:09.539 but grounded in personal experience, race, class, 00:20:09.740 --> 00:20:13.279 privilege, friendship, family dynamics, particularly 00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:15.279 looking at the relationship between a young boy 00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:18.140 basically standing in for Gray himself and his 00:20:18.140 --> 00:20:20.400 friendship with a black classmate and how the 00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:23.319 societal structures and family prejudices impact 00:20:23.319 --> 00:20:25.900 that friendship. It sounds incredibly personal, 00:20:26.039 --> 00:20:28.220 almost like a palate cleanser after the vastness 00:20:28.220 --> 00:20:30.900 and potential conflicts of Ad Astra. It feels 00:20:30.900 --> 00:20:32.859 like that, doesn't it? A return to home base, 00:20:33.079 --> 00:20:35.440 emotionally and geographically. And he still 00:20:35.440 --> 00:20:37.920 attracted major talent. Who's that? Anne Hathaway 00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:40.240 played the mother figure. Anthony Hopkins was 00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:42.380 the grandfather. Jeremy Strong played the father. 00:20:42.579 --> 00:20:45.960 A really powerhouse cast digging into this very 00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:49.160 humanist, character -focused story. And let me 00:20:49.160 --> 00:20:51.880 guess, Khan. You guessed it. World premieres 00:20:51.880 --> 00:20:53.980 at the Khan Film Festival. The connection remains 00:20:53.980 --> 00:20:56.720 strong. And he might not be done with that particular 00:20:56.720 --> 00:20:59.380 story, right? There's talk of a follow -up. That's 00:20:59.380 --> 00:21:01.619 right. He's expressed serious interest in doing 00:21:01.619 --> 00:21:04.660 a sort of semi -sequel to Armageddon Time. Focused 00:21:04.660 --> 00:21:07.690 on who? Specifically on his mother's story. The 00:21:07.690 --> 00:21:09.829 character played by Anne Hathaway. What aspect 00:21:09.829 --> 00:21:12.089 of her story? It would apparently cover this 00:21:12.089 --> 00:21:14.650 really difficult, devastating period. It's when 00:21:14.650 --> 00:21:17.490 his father, after years of struggling, finally 00:21:17.490 --> 00:21:19.970 achieved some significant financial success. 00:21:20.450 --> 00:21:23.210 You know, the American dream finally clicking. 00:21:23.329 --> 00:21:26.190 Okay. Only to have it all taken away, confiscated 00:21:26.190 --> 00:21:27.849 by the government because of some kind of legal 00:21:27.849 --> 00:21:31.039 trouble the father got into. Wow. That's brutal. 00:21:31.279 --> 00:21:33.180 And this financial collapse happened at the exact 00:21:33.180 --> 00:21:35.660 same time that his mother found out she was terminally 00:21:35.660 --> 00:21:38.299 ill, found out she was dying. Oh my God, that's 00:21:38.299 --> 00:21:41.240 incredibly heavy. Isn't it? The dream achieved 00:21:41.240 --> 00:21:44.039 and then immediately shattered, coinciding with 00:21:44.039 --> 00:21:46.960 this ultimate personal tragedy. It sounds like 00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:50.319 incredibly powerful, potent material. Very gray. 00:21:50.500 --> 00:21:53.099 It really taps into that fragility of success, 00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:55.839 the vulnerability underlying everything, even 00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:58.240 when things seem good. That feels very much in 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:00.559 his wheelhouse. Completely. The American dream 00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:03.660 as something precarious, easily lost. Okay, so 00:22:03.660 --> 00:22:06.059 that brings us to a really fun section based 00:22:06.059 --> 00:22:09.200 on the sources, what we're calling the Gray Files. 00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:12.339 Ah, yes, the land of what might have been. Exactly. 00:22:12.559 --> 00:22:15.819 This is all about the films that James Gray didn't 00:22:15.819 --> 00:22:18.519 make, either because he turned them down, sometimes 00:22:18.519 --> 00:22:21.440 famously. Or because they were projects he spent 00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:24.140 years developing that just ultimately didn't 00:22:24.140 --> 00:22:26.480 happen. fell apart. And this stuff is really 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:28.859 revealing about his priorities, his career path. 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:31.420 It absolutely is. It shows a clear pattern of 00:22:31.420 --> 00:22:34.680 maybe resisting the obvious commercial move. 00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:37.019 Like what? Give us an example. Okay, get this. 00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:40.440 Early on, after the success of Little Odessa, 00:22:40.579 --> 00:22:43.539 when he was the hot young director, he was offered 00:22:43.539 --> 00:22:45.740 Good Will Hunting. He was offered Good Will Hunting, 00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:48.480 the Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Robin Williams film. 00:22:48.599 --> 00:22:51.460 The very same. Huge hit Oscar winner. He was 00:22:51.460 --> 00:22:53.920 offered the chance to direct it, and he passed. 00:22:54.329 --> 00:22:56.589 Wow. Can you even imagine a James Gray version 00:22:56.589 --> 00:22:58.309 of Good Will Hunting? It would be different. 00:22:58.450 --> 00:23:00.990 Radically different, probably. Much darker, more 00:23:00.990 --> 00:23:04.390 ambiguous. Who knows? But he said no. That's 00:23:04.390 --> 00:23:06.849 a major turning point right there. Choosing not 00:23:06.849 --> 00:23:09.509 to take that big mainstream opportunity. It shows 00:23:09.509 --> 00:23:11.970 he was already committed to a certain kind of 00:23:11.970 --> 00:23:15.289 filmmaking. Maybe a more personal, less easily 00:23:15.289 --> 00:23:17.630 categorizable path. Any other big ones he turned 00:23:17.630 --> 00:23:20.180 down? He also turned down The Devil's Own. the 00:23:20.180 --> 00:23:22.500 thriller with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt. Really? 00:23:22.579 --> 00:23:25.259 And apparently Pitt himself offered it to him. 00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:27.519 They were friends. Yeah, the source says Pitt, 00:23:27.640 --> 00:23:30.059 who was his friend, brought him the script. He 00:23:30.059 --> 00:23:33.160 still said no. He just seems consistently drawn 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:36.140 to his own material, his own specific world. 00:23:36.299 --> 00:23:39.220 It seems that way. He even turned down an acting 00:23:39.220 --> 00:23:42.400 role. An acting role? In what? In Wes Anderson's 00:23:42.400 --> 00:23:45.220 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the part 00:23:45.220 --> 00:23:47.829 that eventually went to Noah Taylor. Gray turned 00:23:47.829 --> 00:23:49.970 it down. Okay, that's fascinating. He clearly 00:23:49.970 --> 00:23:51.829 has a very strong sense of what fits him and 00:23:51.829 --> 00:23:54.190 what doesn't, even beyond directing. Definitely. 00:23:54.630 --> 00:23:57.130 But just as revealing as the films he turned 00:23:57.130 --> 00:23:59.990 down are the ones he wanted to make, poured energy 00:23:59.990 --> 00:24:03.029 into, but couldn't get off the ground. Especially 00:24:03.029 --> 00:24:06.109 some ambitious historical or genre pieces long 00:24:06.109 --> 00:24:08.150 before he actually made Lost City of Z or Ad 00:24:08.150 --> 00:24:11.890 Astra. Like what? Well, back in 1997, he was 00:24:11.890 --> 00:24:13.769 apparently in talks to direct something called 00:24:13.769 --> 00:24:17.690 Killer Spy. Killer spy? About who? It was a biopic 00:24:17.690 --> 00:24:21.269 about Aldrich Ames, the CIA agent who became 00:24:21.269 --> 00:24:23.869 a notorious spy for the Russians. Oh, right. 00:24:24.109 --> 00:24:27.089 Big Cold War betrayal story. Huge story. And 00:24:27.089 --> 00:24:29.250 Kevin Spacey was being discussed for the lead 00:24:29.250 --> 00:24:32.369 role back then. Imagine that film in 97, directed 00:24:32.369 --> 00:24:34.650 by Gray. That sounds like it could have been 00:24:34.650 --> 00:24:37.190 amazing. Why didn't it happen? Who knows? These 00:24:37.190 --> 00:24:39.170 things fall apart for a million reasons. But 00:24:39.170 --> 00:24:41.289 then there was another big one around 2000. Yeah. 00:24:41.390 --> 00:24:45.069 A project about... Edgardo Mortara. Edgardo Mortara. 00:24:45.190 --> 00:24:47.589 That name rings a bell. Wasn't that a really 00:24:47.589 --> 00:24:50.130 controversial historical case? Extremely controversial. 00:24:50.170 --> 00:24:53.150 It was this infamous incident in 1858 in Italy. 00:24:53.269 --> 00:24:56.529 A six -year -old Jewish boy was secretly baptized 00:24:56.529 --> 00:24:58.869 by his family's Catholic maid when he was ill. 00:24:59.390 --> 00:25:02.509 Then the papal police, under orders from Pope 00:25:02.509 --> 00:25:05.509 Pius IX himself, basically kidnapped the boy 00:25:05.509 --> 00:25:07.279 from his family. Because he was now technically 00:25:07.279 --> 00:25:09.339 Catholic. Exactly. And they raised him as a Catholic. 00:25:09.380 --> 00:25:11.779 It caused this massive international uproar. 00:25:12.119 --> 00:25:14.759 Huge historical, religious, political implications. 00:25:15.160 --> 00:25:17.440 And Gray wanted to make a film about that back 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:20.519 in 2000. He planned to direct it and co -write 00:25:20.519 --> 00:25:23.490 the script. I mean, talk about ambitious, complex 00:25:23.490 --> 00:25:27.089 material dealing with faith, power, family, anti 00:25:27.089 --> 00:25:29.470 -Semitism. That sounds incredibly challenging. 00:25:29.630 --> 00:25:32.329 Again, didn't happen. Didn't happen. Maybe too 00:25:32.329 --> 00:25:34.690 controversial, too difficult to finance. It's 00:25:34.690 --> 00:25:36.309 a recurring theme. And then there's the story 00:25:36.309 --> 00:25:40.410 of the Gray Man. Ah, yes. The one that eventually 00:25:40.410 --> 00:25:42.769 did get made, but very differently. Right. So 00:25:42.769 --> 00:25:45.369 Gray was originally attached to direct this. 00:25:45.549 --> 00:25:48.809 When was that? Back in 2011. It was based on 00:25:48.809 --> 00:25:51.019 the novel by Mark Greeney. An action thriller 00:25:51.019 --> 00:25:53.440 set up a new regency. And who was attached to 00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:56.380 Star back then? Brad Pitt, again. Pitt and Gray 00:25:56.380 --> 00:25:58.220 trying to get something going. Seems like it. 00:25:58.279 --> 00:26:00.500 But eventually both Gray and Pitt dropped out 00:26:00.500 --> 00:26:02.480 of that version. And the project just sat there. 00:26:02.619 --> 00:26:05.339 For years, yeah. Until eventually it got revived 00:26:05.339 --> 00:26:08.720 as a big -budget streaming movie directed by 00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:11.059 the Russo brothers, starring Ryan Gosling and 00:26:11.059 --> 00:26:13.619 Chris Evans. A very different kind of film, by 00:26:13.619 --> 00:26:15.339 all accounts. More of a straightforward action 00:26:15.339 --> 00:26:18.890 blockbuster. Yeah. which suggests Gray's take 00:26:18.890 --> 00:26:20.549 would likely have been something else entirely. 00:26:20.730 --> 00:26:24.009 More character -driven, maybe darker, more textured. 00:26:24.309 --> 00:26:27.230 It's another example of his style maybe not quite 00:26:27.230 --> 00:26:29.470 fitting the mold the studios often want for these 00:26:29.470 --> 00:26:32.670 big genre pictures. It seems that way. And that 00:26:32.670 --> 00:26:35.130 struggle continued. There was another big espionage 00:26:35.130 --> 00:26:37.609 project he was attached to more recently. What 00:26:37.609 --> 00:26:40.799 was that? I Am Pilgrim. based on the big best 00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:44.019 -selling spy novel by Terry Hayes. MGM hired 00:26:44.019 --> 00:26:46.680 him to direct the adaptation back in 2018. I 00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:48.599 remember hearing about that. Sounded like a potential 00:26:48.599 --> 00:26:51.539 franchise starter. It did. But Gray confirmed 00:26:51.539 --> 00:26:54.859 himself in 2022 that the project was, in his 00:26:54.859 --> 00:26:58.619 words, officially dead. Why? What happened this 00:26:58.619 --> 00:27:00.539 time? Basically said it just got tangled up in 00:27:00.539 --> 00:27:02.880 a business mess. Studios changing ownership, 00:27:03.180 --> 00:27:05.539 priorities shifting, budgets getting lost in 00:27:05.539 --> 00:27:07.799 the shuffle, bureaucratic collapse, essentially. 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:11.140 Ugh. That sounds so frustrating, pouring years 00:27:11.140 --> 00:27:13.440 into developing something. Only to have it die 00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:15.299 because of corporate restructuring or something. 00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:17.359 It's a painful side of the business, especially 00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:20.059 for ambitious projects that need stability. It 00:27:20.059 --> 00:27:22.160 seems like a real pattern for him with these 00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:25.380 larger scale genre or historical pieces he tries 00:27:25.380 --> 00:27:27.599 to get off the ground. It does. The ideas are 00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:29.700 there. The ambition is there. But navigating 00:27:29.700 --> 00:27:32.200 the system to actually make them is incredibly 00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:35.319 tough. OK, so that's the past. The what ifs. 00:27:35.930 --> 00:27:38.970 But the good news is his current pipeline looks 00:27:38.970 --> 00:27:41.910 incredibly busy. He seems to be entering a really 00:27:41.910 --> 00:27:44.390 productive phase now. Yeah, the list of upcoming 00:27:44.390 --> 00:27:47.029 projects is quite something. Suggests he's found 00:27:47.029 --> 00:27:49.470 ways to get things moving. What's first up? There's 00:27:49.470 --> 00:27:52.069 something called Paper Tiger. Right, Paper Tiger. 00:27:52.490 --> 00:27:54.809 Filming started or was set to start in 2025. 00:27:55.569 --> 00:27:58.630 It's described as a blue chip crime drama thriller. 00:27:58.930 --> 00:28:00.630 Okay, sounds like he's returning to his roots 00:28:00.630 --> 00:28:03.210 a bit. Crime drama. Seems like it. It's about 00:28:03.210 --> 00:28:05.730 two brothers chasing the American dream who get 00:28:05.730 --> 00:28:07.750 involved in some kind of scheme that's, you know, 00:28:07.750 --> 00:28:10.289 too good to be true. Classic setup, but probably 00:28:10.289 --> 00:28:12.910 with his signature depth. Sounds promising. What 00:28:12.910 --> 00:28:15.509 else is on the slate? A big biopic. It's called 00:28:15.509 --> 00:28:19.230 Mayday 109, about a young John F. Kennedy, specifically 00:28:19.230 --> 00:28:21.970 focusing on his time in World War II, when his 00:28:21.970 --> 00:28:26.089 patrol boat, the PT -109, sank, and he famously 00:28:26.089 --> 00:28:29.930 helped save his crew. Wow. A JFK war story. Who's 00:28:29.930 --> 00:28:31.890 playing Kennedy? Bill Skarsgård is attached. 00:28:32.430 --> 00:28:35.349 Interesting casting. So that's history, heroism, 00:28:35.369 --> 00:28:38.029 endurance. Yeah. Themes we've seen him explore 00:28:38.029 --> 00:28:40.210 before. Definitely fits. Then he's also jumping 00:28:40.210 --> 00:28:42.609 back into sci -fi. Really? After the Ad Astra 00:28:42.609 --> 00:28:45.589 experience? Apparently so. He's taken over directing 00:28:45.589 --> 00:28:48.009 duties from Neil Berger on a film called Summer 00:28:48.009 --> 00:28:50.990 Frost. Zoe Saldana is attached to star in that 00:28:50.990 --> 00:28:52.869 one. Okay. And there's a murder mystery, too, 00:28:52.930 --> 00:28:56.569 with a big star. Yes. Kill Your Darlings. Yeah. 00:28:56.650 --> 00:28:59.309 It's based on a novel by Peter Swanson described 00:28:59.309 --> 00:29:01.750 as a murder mystery told in reverse. Told in 00:29:01.750 --> 00:29:04.230 reverse. Interesting structure. Yeah. And it's 00:29:04.230 --> 00:29:06.789 set to team him up with Julia Roberts. Gray directing 00:29:06.789 --> 00:29:09.329 Julia Roberts in a reverse murder mystery. That 00:29:09.329 --> 00:29:11.809 sounds fantastic. Doesn't it? The sheer variety 00:29:11.809 --> 00:29:13.710 in these upcoming projects is really striking. 00:29:13.890 --> 00:29:17.349 Crime, biopic, sci -fi, mystery. He's really 00:29:17.349 --> 00:29:19.390 stretching his wings now. Seems like it. Although, 00:29:19.490 --> 00:29:22.269 there is one project, the ultimate dream project, 00:29:22.430 --> 00:29:24.839 that still seems out of reach. What's that? His 00:29:24.839 --> 00:29:28.000 massive personal epic about the Russian Revolution. 00:29:28.519 --> 00:29:30.920 Connecting back to his roots again. Deeply. It's 00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:33.059 apparently called The Dream of a Thousand Men. 00:29:33.299 --> 00:29:36.799 But he said himself recently, I think in 2022, 00:29:37.180 --> 00:29:39.900 that he feels it's unlikely to get made anytime 00:29:39.900 --> 00:29:44.380 soon. Why? Too big. Too expensive. Geopolitics, 00:29:44.380 --> 00:29:47.640 mainly. He cited the invasion of Ukraine. suggesting 00:29:47.640 --> 00:29:50.319 that making a huge, complex film about Russian 00:29:50.319 --> 00:29:53.380 history is just not feasible or perhaps appropriate 00:29:53.380 --> 00:29:56.059 right now. That makes sense. So that dream, the 00:29:56.059 --> 00:29:59.160 Graefsky family history meeting the grand sweep 00:29:59.160 --> 00:30:01.759 of the revolution, that remains on hold. For 00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:04.339 now, it seems, a casualty of current events. 00:30:04.539 --> 00:30:06.599 One last thing on his upcoming work, he's also 00:30:06.599 --> 00:30:09.440 moving into television. He is developing a limited 00:30:09.440 --> 00:30:12.700 series. About? About the novelist Norman Mailer, 00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:15.549 based on a major biography of Mailer. A double 00:30:15.549 --> 00:30:18.769 life. Wow. Mailer's a huge, complex, controversial 00:30:18.769 --> 00:30:20.890 figure. That sounds like rich territory for a 00:30:20.890 --> 00:30:23.069 limited series. Absolutely. It seems like he's 00:30:23.069 --> 00:30:25.069 really embracing different formats now to tell 00:30:25.069 --> 00:30:27.470 the kinds of complex stories he's drawn to. It's 00:30:27.470 --> 00:30:29.150 an impressive slate. He's clearly not slowing 00:30:29.150 --> 00:30:31.769 down. Not at all. If anything, he seems to be 00:30:31.769 --> 00:30:34.779 accelerating. So beyond the feature films and 00:30:34.779 --> 00:30:36.880 the upcoming projects, we should touch on some 00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:39.099 of his other work, which also reveals different 00:30:39.099 --> 00:30:41.759 facets of his artistry. Right. Like many directors, 00:30:41.940 --> 00:30:44.220 he's done some commercial work. Yeah. The sources 00:30:44.220 --> 00:30:46.960 mention a Chanel commercial. That's right. In 00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:50.799 2015, he directed one of the Bleu de Chanel men's 00:30:50.799 --> 00:30:54.039 fragrance ads, the one starring the late Gaspard 00:30:54.039 --> 00:30:56.960 Hulet. I think I remember that. Very stylish, 00:30:57.039 --> 00:30:59.759 cinematic looking. Yeah. Filmed in L .A., very 00:30:59.759 --> 00:31:02.259 polished. Shows he could do that high -end commercial 00:31:02.259 --> 00:31:04.980 aesthetic when needed. But the really surprising 00:31:04.980 --> 00:31:07.759 detour, the one that really underscores his connection 00:31:07.759 --> 00:31:12.900 to classical European art forms, is the opera. 00:31:13.339 --> 00:31:15.960 The opera debut. It's kind of mind -blowing when 00:31:15.960 --> 00:31:17.980 you think about his gritty New York origins. 00:31:18.180 --> 00:31:22.099 What opera did he stage and where? In 2019, he 00:31:22.099 --> 00:31:24.940 directed Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Mozart, 00:31:25.240 --> 00:31:27.420 one of the absolute cornerstones of the repertoire. 00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:30.180 Exactly. And he staged it at a very prestigious 00:31:30.180 --> 00:31:33.259 venue, the Théâtre des Champs -Élysées in Paris. 00:31:33.559 --> 00:31:36.319 From Brighton Beach to Mozart in Paris. That's 00:31:36.319 --> 00:31:39.460 quite the journey. Isn't it? It requires a completely 00:31:39.460 --> 00:31:42.289 different skill set. Understanding the music, 00:31:42.369 --> 00:31:45.529 the staging, the pacing of opera versus film, 00:31:45.630 --> 00:31:49.099 it's a huge artistic leap. It really speaks to 00:31:49.099 --> 00:31:51.660 his intellectual curiosity and his alignment 00:31:51.660 --> 00:31:53.680 with those European traditions we talked about 00:31:53.680 --> 00:31:55.640 earlier. And it was apparently a very high profile 00:31:55.640 --> 00:31:58.259 production, too. The costumes were designed by 00:31:58.259 --> 00:32:01.019 Christian Lacroix. The legendary French fashion 00:32:01.019 --> 00:32:03.279 designer. The one and only. So you've got Mozart, 00:32:03.579 --> 00:32:06.339 James Gray directing, Lacroix costumes in Paris. 00:32:06.759 --> 00:32:09.599 It's this synthesis of high art forms. It really 00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:12.240 broadens the picture of who he is as an artist 00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:14.900 beyond just the crime movie guy. Absolutely. 00:32:14.980 --> 00:32:17.559 And if you want one more window into his... his 00:32:17.559 --> 00:32:21.180 artistic soul into what drives him, look at the 00:32:21.180 --> 00:32:23.119 films he loves. Ah, the sight and sound poll 00:32:23.119 --> 00:32:25.079 list. Directors choose the greatest films ever 00:32:25.079 --> 00:32:27.859 made. Exactly. He submitted his top 10 list for 00:32:27.859 --> 00:32:30.680 the 2022 poll, and it's incredibly revealing. 00:32:30.819 --> 00:32:32.859 It basically maps out his influences perfectly. 00:32:33.160 --> 00:32:35.640 Okay, what's on the list? Any surprises? It's 00:32:35.640 --> 00:32:37.880 this amazing mix. You've got the towering American 00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:40.859 classics you might expect, Citizen Kane, The 00:32:40.859 --> 00:32:43.119 Godfather, parts one and two counted as one, 00:32:43.319 --> 00:32:49.700 Raging Bull, Vertigo. And 2001, A Space Odyssey. 00:32:49.940 --> 00:32:52.240 Okay, those are undeniable pillars of American 00:32:52.240 --> 00:32:54.880 cinema. Films about ambition, power, psychology, 00:32:55.119 --> 00:32:57.680 scale. Exactly. They represent that epic scope 00:32:57.680 --> 00:32:59.759 and deep character work. But then look at the 00:32:59.759 --> 00:33:01.640 other half of the list, The International Choices. 00:33:01.779 --> 00:33:03.380 What did he pick there? Fellini's Eight and a 00:33:03.380 --> 00:33:06.329 Half. Visconti's The Leopard. Another grand historical 00:33:06.329 --> 00:33:09.470 epic from Italy. Dryers or Death, the Danish 00:33:09.470 --> 00:33:12.430 spiritual masterpiece. Jacques Tati's playtime 00:33:12.430 --> 00:33:14.789 from France, that incredibly ambitious, almost 00:33:14.789 --> 00:33:17.730 architectural comedy. And Ozu's Tokyo Story, 00:33:17.990 --> 00:33:20.769 the quiet, devastating Japanese family drama. 00:33:21.049 --> 00:33:23.130 That's an incredible list. What does that combination 00:33:23.130 --> 00:33:26.069 tell you? Godfather and Tokyo Story, 2001 and 00:33:26.069 --> 00:33:28.170 Ordet. It tells you he's drawn to both incredible 00:33:28.170 --> 00:33:31.029 scale and profound intimacy. He loves films that 00:33:31.029 --> 00:33:33.309 grapple with huge existential questions. Faith. 00:33:33.640 --> 00:33:36.480 The Nature of Time in History, The Leopard 2001, 00:33:36.900 --> 00:33:39.400 The Creative Process, Eight and a Half, Societal 00:33:39.400 --> 00:33:41.779 Change, Playtime. But also films that find the 00:33:41.779 --> 00:33:43.400 universe in the smallest human interactions, 00:33:43.660 --> 00:33:47.519 like Tokyo Story. Precisely. That blend of the 00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:50.400 epic and the intimate mirrors his own career, 00:33:50.539 --> 00:33:53.000 doesn't it? He started with the intense, small 00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:55.539 scale of Family and Crime in New York. And then 00:33:55.539 --> 00:33:57.920 reached for the historical scale of Lost City 00:33:57.920 --> 00:34:01.269 of Z and the cosmic scale of Ad Astra. It all 00:34:01.269 --> 00:34:03.130 makes sense when you see his canon of influences. 00:34:03.509 --> 00:34:05.890 He's wrestling with those same big themes, that 00:34:05.890 --> 00:34:09.389 distance between the personal and the epic, the 00:34:09.389 --> 00:34:11.630 old world and the new. He really seems to carry 00:34:11.630 --> 00:34:14.090 the weight of history, his family's cinemas, 00:34:14.090 --> 00:34:16.650 the immigrant experience into everything he does. 00:34:16.849 --> 00:34:19.550 Yeah, creating these films that feel deeply rooted 00:34:19.550 --> 00:34:22.570 in a specific place, often New York, but resonate 00:34:22.570 --> 00:34:25.329 with these much larger universal human questions. 00:34:25.670 --> 00:34:28.150 So wrapping this up, if we look back at James 00:34:28.150 --> 00:34:30.590 Gray's path. It's quite something. He starts 00:34:30.590 --> 00:34:33.010 out as this, you know, almost definitive voice 00:34:33.010 --> 00:34:35.110 for a certain kind of New York story. Yeah, the 00:34:35.110 --> 00:34:37.449 master of that insular, deeply personal crime 00:34:37.449 --> 00:34:39.789 saga. You can see his own Russian Jewish heritage, 00:34:39.969 --> 00:34:42.050 the immigrant struggle, reflected so clearly 00:34:42.050 --> 00:34:44.269 in films like Little Odessa or The Immigrant. 00:34:44.619 --> 00:34:47.559 Themes of belonging, assimilation, the cost of 00:34:47.559 --> 00:34:50.119 survival. But then he completely defies easy 00:34:50.119 --> 00:34:52.800 categorization. He proves he can handle these 00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:55.619 enormous canvases. Absolutely. The historical 00:34:55.619 --> 00:34:58.199 sweep and geographical challenge of the Amazon 00:34:58.199 --> 00:35:00.860 and the lost city of Z. The technical demands 00:35:00.860 --> 00:35:03.619 and existential weight of deep space and ad astra. 00:35:03.760 --> 00:35:06.199 And his critical reputation is just consistently 00:35:06.199 --> 00:35:09.989 stellar, isn't it? Five films. competing for 00:35:09.989 --> 00:35:12.570 the Palme d 'Or at Cannes. That's remarkable 00:35:12.570 --> 00:35:15.230 consistency at the highest level. It really is. 00:35:15.289 --> 00:35:17.449 He might consciously avoid the easy commercial 00:35:17.449 --> 00:35:19.989 path, the obvious hits he turned down. Right. 00:35:20.170 --> 00:35:23.030 But he commands this immense respect from critics 00:35:23.030 --> 00:35:25.789 and festivals worldwide. He's a true auteur in 00:35:25.789 --> 00:35:28.409 that sense. Which brings us to our final provocative 00:35:28.409 --> 00:35:30.849 thought for you, the listener, to chew on after 00:35:30.849 --> 00:35:33.909 this deep dive. Considering James Gray's intense 00:35:33.909 --> 00:35:36.809 focus on personal memory, which we see so clearly 00:35:36.809 --> 00:35:39.110 in Armageddon time, and you can I find that with 00:35:39.110 --> 00:35:42.289 his deep love for these grand, often dark, philosophical 00:35:42.289 --> 00:35:45.190 international films like The Leopard or Ordet. 00:35:45.570 --> 00:35:48.409 What connections can you draw between that very 00:35:48.409 --> 00:35:52.369 specific early 20th century Russian Jewish immigrant 00:35:52.369 --> 00:35:55.730 experience, the Graevsky roots that clearly define 00:35:55.730 --> 00:35:58.329 his youth and his early work and his later drive 00:35:58.329 --> 00:36:01.210 to tackle these vast, almost unattainable horizons? 00:36:01.409 --> 00:36:03.730 You mean like the Amazon jungle in Lost City 00:36:03.730 --> 00:36:06.150 of Z, Deep Space and Ad Astra, even wanting to 00:36:06.150 --> 00:36:07.869 make an epic about the entire Russian revolution? 00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:11.159 Exactly. Is there a link between the struggle 00:36:11.159 --> 00:36:13.800 to escape or understand the confines of that 00:36:13.800 --> 00:36:17.119 specific past and the ambition to reach for these 00:36:17.119 --> 00:36:19.599 immense, almost abstract futures or historical 00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:21.980 moments? What does that tension tell us about 00:36:21.980 --> 00:36:23.900 the American dream itself, that idea he keeps 00:36:23.900 --> 00:36:27.099 circling back to in all its complex, often tragic 00:36:27.099 --> 00:36:30.239 forms? From the stale to the stars, perhaps. 00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:32.360 What's driving that reach? That's a great question 00:36:32.360 --> 00:36:32.820 to ponder.