This week Chris Deacy is joined by John Wills to discuss the films; Carnival of Souls, La La Land, Get Out, and Pig.
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00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:14 I'm Chris Deasy and each week,
00:15 I'll be joined by a guest from Kent
00:17 to dive deep into the impact
00:19 certain films have had on their life.
00:21 Each guest will reflect on the films
00:23 which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:26 And every week, there will be a Kent Film Trivia
00:29 where we quiz you at home about a film
00:31 that has a connection to the county.
00:33 And now, let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:36 He has a huge interest in video games, Disney,
00:39 and regularly goes to the cinema,
00:42 especially to watch horror films.
00:43 It is John Wills.
00:45 Great to have you on, John.
00:46 - Thanks, Chris, and lovely to see you again.
00:48 - Now, you've chosen,
00:50 I suspect horror will come up in your selection,
00:52 but do you wanna talk about Carnival of Souls?
00:55 - Yes.
00:56 Yes, we start off with a horror.
00:59 I think horror has always been part of my life,
01:02 the films rather than actual horror.
01:04 I remember in my teens watching far too many,
01:07 in the 1980s, this was,
01:08 watching far too many horror films.
01:10 I think at the time, there were video nasties
01:13 of films that weren't meant to be seen in a way.
01:16 And I remember watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre
01:19 and also some more arty, weird pieces
01:22 like Wizard of Gore, Splatter films, things like that.
01:24 So they've always been kind of part of my life.
01:27 And this is one of my favourite ones, Carnival of Souls.
01:30 It's actually, I think, quite a subtle
01:33 and kind of ethereal, ghostly piece in a way.
01:36 It's from 1962, and it stars Candice Hilligloss.
01:40 Hilligloss, I almost said that very strangely.
01:43 I think that's probably the only film she might've been in.
01:47 In this kind of brilliant role as Mary,
01:49 a woman who's just driving along with her friends
01:54 and across a kind of really classic American bridge,
01:59 and things go wrong, they have a car crash.
02:02 But miraculously, she seems to at least emerge unscathed.
02:07 And then the film follows what happens next.
02:09 She is a professional kind of organ player,
02:12 which is quite a rare job.
02:15 And she moves around churches playing the organ,
02:18 and the organ kind of haunts the whole movie, actually.
02:21 And gradually, it kind of unfurls
02:23 that things aren't quite as they seem.
02:25 And Mary has a range of kind of challenges that come up,
02:29 mostly from men, actually, in the movie that she grapples with.
02:33 Is this a film, then, that you have seen many times?
02:37 I'm getting the sense that it's something
02:39 that maybe you watched when you were very young.
02:41 Yeah, I think I've watched this a few times,
02:43 but I can't actually remember when I originally saw it.
02:46 Unfortunately, I don't keep a kind of diary
02:48 or log of everything I've seen,
02:50 but I did see it at quite an early time.
02:53 And then I watched it again.
02:55 I think I watched it during lockdown.
02:56 I'm not sure I find horror quite comfortable.
02:59 So I went through a period of watching lots of horrors
03:01 and talking about them with a few friends during lockdown.
03:04 So I watched it again in 2020.
03:06 And then I watched it again a few days ago,
03:08 just to remind me a little bit about it.
03:10 And did the lockdown experience have a bearing
03:13 on how you apprehended the film?
03:14 Because I certainly found during lockdown
03:16 that there were some films that kind of resonated
03:18 precisely because I wasn't able to do the things,
03:20 even indeed watching films,
03:22 in the place that I would normally go and watch them.
03:24 Did this film, Carnival of Souls,
03:26 have a particular resonance with lockdown?
03:29 That's such a good question.
03:31 I think that the movie, Mary, it plays,
03:35 the film is caught up in Mary's world.
03:38 And she lives in the film alone.
03:42 She's a lonely character.
03:44 And then she wanders these quite quiet areas as well.
03:48 She's drawn to a dilapidated carnival,
03:50 which is very mysterious in the movie.
03:52 And we don't really know why she's drawn there.
03:54 And she keeps, her eyes keep going to it.
03:57 And I think during lockdown, actually,
03:58 I had the same sense at times of that kind of loneliness.
04:01 But there was also a sense whereby it was kind of,
04:03 in a way, quite comfortable with that loneliness too.
04:06 So I think it kind of, it did play into
04:08 just reassuring kind of state of mind that I was in.
04:11 And there are lots of films from the '60s,
04:13 I think of Seance on a Wet Afternoon,
04:15 that have a rating that means children can watch them.
04:18 But there are some films that I wouldn't necessarily
04:21 want my child to watch.
04:23 Carnival of Souls, do you want to say a little bit about
04:26 its rating, who it's aimed at,
04:28 who the sort of obvious audience would be for this film?
04:31 Gosh, well, it's certainly a film I would not,
04:33 I would not show my child, Jude.
04:36 He's eight years old and yeah,
04:39 showing him the sequences whereby Mary comes across
04:43 what seems to be kind of dead souls
04:46 is quite disturbing and quite horrifying.
04:48 There's a scene in the movie where she looks through
04:50 a car window and sees a figure.
04:53 And she also has visions, or might be reality,
04:56 of a range of really dark, grotesque souls dancing.
05:00 And so for me, it's a really mature movie
05:03 and a really, at times, quite dark movie,
05:06 even though if you think about it,
05:07 there isn't actually, when you watch it,
05:09 much kind of, there's no real violence on show.
05:13 There's a few tugs and pulls.
05:15 But yeah, it hits home at some deeper fears, maybe,
05:19 that horror movies can do sometimes.
05:22 And do you think it's a film that's impacted
05:24 on your research?
05:26 Because it sounds as though it's,
05:27 obviously you work with film and American culture,
05:30 but would you say this film is seminal?
05:32 I think that it's a great piece,
05:36 partly because it reflects the time,
05:40 in that really the men in this are all quite grotesque.
05:44 They're quite dark characters.
05:47 There's this particularly creepy lodger,
05:49 who is definitely kind of in a #MeToo movement,
05:53 kind of hashtag scenario.
05:54 He keeps kind of trying to touch Mary,
05:56 you know, make a hit on her.
05:58 It's very kind of quite disturbing and harsh to watch.
06:01 Yeah, I'm really intrigued.
06:02 And there's also a psychiatrist that deduces
06:06 that she's suffering hysteria,
06:08 which is kind of playing on ideas
06:09 about women having that issue in the '50s and '60s.
06:12 So it's part of that time.
06:14 But what I like about it is Mary has a kind of role
06:17 and an isolation for these male bullies in a way.
06:20 And she has her own kind of destiny in the movie.
06:23 So I actually find that quite a fresh element to it too.
06:26 Well, thank you, John.
06:27 Well, it's time now to move on to your second chosen film.
06:30 And you've gone for "La La Land."
06:33 Yes, this is a lot more upbeat than the other choices.
06:38 But at least I did the first like hour and a half of it.
06:42 Anyhow, I adore "La La Land."
06:46 I have fond memories of seeing it at a cinema
06:48 with a group of friends when it first came out.
06:51 Just the beginning few seconds of the movie
06:54 where it opens out on the Los Angeles freeway,
06:56 everybody dances.
06:58 It brings chills to me actually watching that movie.
07:00 I watched it again actually last night
07:02 and it's just such an incredible journey.
07:04 There's a range of things that appeal to me about it.
07:07 Yeah, it's incredible.
07:07 I had a hiatus from watching film for quite a few years.
07:11 And then when I returned in 2017,
07:13 this was "Fences" with Denzel Washington
07:15 and then "La La Land" was the second film that I watched.
07:17 And it made me think of all those great sort of like
07:19 Scorsese's take on the musical in the '70s
07:22 with "New York, New York."
07:23 But it's laden with cinema history.
07:27 Yeah, yeah.
07:28 I absolutely love it about the movie.
07:30 You have this ode to Hollywood, to old Hollywood,
07:34 to musicals, to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
07:38 The scenes are set up with 35 mil cameras.
07:41 It's all very real and beautiful.
07:44 I think there's scenes that sometimes taken in one take.
07:46 And it's just, it's a beautifully made movie.
07:49 And it also appeals to me
07:51 because I've spent quite a lot of time in Los Angeles.
07:53 And I know quite a few people don't like the city,
07:56 but I've always kind of had a special attachment to it.
07:59 And that movie just celebrates the places
08:01 that we know of like old LA.
08:03 There's an amazing scene in the movie
08:05 in Griffith Observatory,
08:08 whereby they go around the observatory
08:10 and then they kind of ascend into the stars
08:12 in this magical romance.
08:14 And yeah, for me, it brings me to the LA that I love.
08:19 And the story is a magical love story too.
08:22 - Because it's both an ode to those Hollywood greats,
08:26 but also it felt quite postmodern as well.
08:29 It felt that it was doing something a bit different.
08:31 Do you want to say something about that element?
08:32 That it's, you know, what makes this distinctive?
08:34 What makes this of its time in 2017?
08:38 - Yeah, I think that it's playing a little bit
08:40 with that genre.
08:41 I think one of the obvious things to kind of talk about
08:44 without ruining it for anybody
08:46 who hasn't seen it, most people have,
08:48 is there's elements of realism that come in there.
08:52 You know, the failures of the characters,
08:55 their vulnerabilities,
08:57 and ultimately how them following their dreams
09:01 actually causes a real problem for their relationship.
09:05 And so the ending of the movie is very capturing
09:08 kind of a more gritty, realistic side
09:11 of what happens when couples can fall apart.
09:14 And also it shows the difficulties of the dream valet
09:20 at the same time as almost being a love song to it.
09:24 So I love how it walks the line
09:26 between kind of a fantasy fairy tale
09:29 and a kind of very real sense of challenge too.
09:33 - Because there are all those notions of belonging,
09:35 because I'm guessing that neither of them are from LA,
09:39 is that right?
09:40 But LA is the place that represents the sort of,
09:43 the dream that they want, but maybe can't have?
09:46 - Yeah, do you mean the actors?
09:48 - I mean the characters.
09:50 - Yeah, sorry, 'cause I was just thinking
09:51 with Ryan Gosling, yeah, his Canadian elements.
09:54 Yeah, I think that there's a sense of,
09:57 Ryan's character is trying to create his own jazz club
10:04 and bring jazz back.
10:07 And in a sense, one criticism of the movie
10:10 is the idea that he's trying to be a white savior of jazz.
10:14 But I think when you watch the movie a few times,
10:18 you get a sense that he's also part,
10:21 the people playing around him are African-Americans.
10:23 There's a sense of jazz bringing people together.
10:27 So I didn't quite read it that critically.
10:29 Yeah, and Emma Stone's character is really trying
10:34 to kind of find herself in Los Angeles
10:37 and become that classic actress going from coffee shop worker
10:42 through to higher heights.
10:44 They're trying to find themselves definitely there.
10:46 - And of course she won the Academy Award
10:48 in a year when of course "La La Land"
10:51 for about half a second did win Best Picture.
10:53 And then it was obviously "Moonlight"
10:55 that was properly identified
10:57 as the Best Picture winner that year.
10:59 - Yeah, that's a particular kind of embarrassment, isn't it?
11:03 Yeah, but I mean, both are phenomenal movies.
11:05 And yeah, I think for me, "La La Land"
11:08 just kind of speaks to a kind of,
11:11 I really get a sense of kind of love in the movie.
11:14 And anybody who's been in love
11:18 can kind of relate to their characters,
11:21 especially at the beginning, how they dance
11:24 and they keep doing things foolishly
11:26 and it's very, very awkward beginnings.
11:28 It's beautiful.
11:29 - Yeah, there's so much in there to unpack.
11:30 No, thank you, John.
11:31 Well, that's about all the time we have
11:33 for this first half of the show.
11:35 However, before we go to the break,
11:36 we have a Kent Film Trivia question for you at home.
11:40 Which film based on a Cornelia Funk novel
11:43 has scenes take place in Hever Castle?
11:45 Is it A, "Inkheart," B, "Ink Spell," or C, "Ink Death?"
11:50 We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:53 Don't go away.
11:54 Hello, and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:07 Just before the ad break,
12:08 we asked you at home a Kent Film Trivia question.
12:11 Which film based on a Cornelia Funk novel
12:13 has scenes take place in Hever Castle?
12:16 I asked, is it A, "Inkheart," B, "Ink Spell,"
12:20 or C, "Ink Death?"
12:21 And now I can reveal to you that the answer
12:23 was in fact A, "Inkheart."
12:26 Hever Castle was transformed
12:28 into the Italian lakeside home of great Aunt Eleanor
12:31 as the historical home of Anne Boleyn.
12:33 The beautiful Italian gardens, complete with a lake,
12:36 were ideal for this family-orientated fantasy film.
12:40 Did you get the answer right?
12:42 Well, it's time now, John, to move
12:44 onto your next chosen film,
12:46 and we're back to horror with "Get Out."
12:49 - Yes, I thought I'd choose something a bit more recent
12:52 with my other horror choice.
12:55 And "Get Out" is a film that I found really had impact on me.
12:59 I watched it with my partner, Sam,
13:01 and it's one of her favorite films too.
13:03 We watched it at the cinema on release,
13:06 and it's just an incredible horror,
13:10 and it's also got a really great kind of criticism
13:13 of race relations that I really enjoyed,
13:16 I thought worked really well.
13:17 I love the director, Jordan Peele.
13:18 I've seen his other movies, they've been great too.
13:21 And Daniel Kaluuya, who plays the lead character, Chris,
13:24 basically an African-American young photographer
13:27 who has a white girlfriend,
13:29 and she invites him back to meet her parents,
13:31 which you think could be quite a normal thing to do.
13:34 And the whole story follows a massive unraveling
13:38 of meeting the parents.
13:39 It's probably the worst case of meeting the parents ever
13:41 that you could imagine.
13:43 - And also what I remember is watching it in Herne Bay
13:46 and not knowing anything about it,
13:47 so it would have been around Easter time in 2017.
13:50 And I didn't know about the film,
13:52 and I knew it was a horror film.
13:53 And of course it was unusual,
13:54 I suppose "The Exorcist" is an obvious exception,
13:56 but unusual for a film of this genre to get lots of awards.
14:01 We were talking about "La La Land," which did win Oscars.
14:04 But "Get Out," I didn't go in expecting it to be
14:07 as great a film as it subsequently was
14:10 with all the awards that were bestowed on it.
14:13 So were you bowled over when you watched this film?
14:16 Were you expecting it to be as good as it was?
14:18 - Yeah, like you, I hadn't actually,
14:21 sometimes I deliberately don't read anything about a movie
14:24 before going in because it makes it fresh.
14:27 Sometimes, as you know, trailers can be awful
14:30 in terms of telling you the whole movie
14:32 before you've watched it.
14:33 And with "Get Out," that's one example
14:35 whereby I deliberately kind of try to avoid
14:37 knowing what the full plot was about.
14:40 So I think that it does have a kind of surprise element.
14:43 And you're right too, I agree.
14:44 I think often horrors have been pushed to one side,
14:48 probably a range of reasons, in terms of winning awards.
14:51 But this one has a kind of,
14:52 I think it has a real kind of depth.
14:55 The script is really well finessed and finished.
14:59 There's some bigger issues and bigger qualities to this
15:03 than probably some of the kind of average horror movies.
15:06 - And there's so much in it because, as you say,
15:08 it's a commentary on, well, families, on race relations,
15:12 but it also gives us the full horror treatment.
15:15 So it's a fascinating blend, like a hybrid movie.
15:19 Is that the appeal, do you think?
15:20 - Yeah, I think for me, definitely, in that,
15:24 as we've said already, I love horror.
15:26 And this is subverting some of the kind of horror mechanisms
15:30 and typically in a horror movie,
15:33 a group of people going somewhere
15:34 and something horrible happening to them.
15:36 One of the African-American characters
15:38 used to often die at an early point
15:40 or not even have many lines,
15:42 whereas Chris is the focus in this movie and his journey.
15:45 I think that it's offering the viewer
15:50 lots of kind of little nuances
15:52 of there might be danger ahead,
15:54 danger just around the corner,
15:56 and it becomes very violent at the end,
15:58 like a proper horror movie often does.
16:01 But at the same time,
16:03 there's all these little nice touches around
16:06 finding out about how these parents
16:10 are actually behind this huge racist project,
16:13 and they're actually running a business of modern slavery.
16:18 And Chris, there's a brilliant scene whereby,
16:21 for the audience, you suddenly realise the scale of this
16:24 when you have a range of white customers
16:27 from various backgrounds coming in and bidding on him
16:31 without him knowing it.
16:33 And for example, it's a really funny scene whereby
16:35 somebody's testing his muscles,
16:37 and he doesn't know yet that he's about to become
16:40 the property of somebody.
16:42 And they're testing his muscles, seeing how strong he is.
16:44 And there's all these warning signs for the viewer.
16:47 I love the little script details.
16:50 So for example, when he's walking through the parents' house,
16:53 the dad talks about how he's such an Obama fan,
16:56 but at the same time,
16:57 he talks about black mould lurking in the cellar
17:00 and about Jesse Owens beating in a race
17:05 one of his, I think it's his father or his grandfather.
17:08 So you can see there's signs that this is going to go,
17:12 this is a racist household and it's going to go wrong.
17:14 And there's one other thing that really strikes me with it.
17:17 I think it's great how it's not set in the South.
17:19 It's set in New York deliberately.
17:21 And you get this sense that racism is everywhere.
17:25 It's not just about the old South.
17:27 Modern racism can be anywhere you go.
17:30 And of course, Jordan Peele was so much the flavour,
17:33 I was about to say the flavour of the month,
17:34 but the flavour of almost the decade,
17:35 because like M. Night Shyamalan,
17:38 did a lot of sort of horror-based films,
17:40 but also with the subsequent films as well,
17:42 tried and tested different formulas.
17:44 Yeah, I loved watching, I watched "Nope",
17:47 recent one of his, and it was trying to do
17:52 bits with science fiction,
17:54 a kind of like a feel of the landscape and the environment
17:57 was really strong in that.
17:59 And it's a film, again, the imagery kind of stays with me
18:03 and kind of the power of it.
18:06 And that was with Daniel Kaluuya again.
18:07 And yeah, so great work.
18:10 Yeah, great film.
18:11 - Fantastic, John.
18:12 Well, it's time now to move on to your final chosen film.
18:15 And of course we had to choose a Nicolas Cage film,
18:17 or rather you had to choose a Nicolas Cage film.
18:19 You've chosen one that I haven't seen of his, "Pig".
18:23 - Okay, so firstly, I can't believe you haven't seen this.
18:25 Like this might be the only film you haven't seen ever.
18:28 So I draw attention to that.
18:30 But now this is a Nicolas Cage movie from 2021, I think.
18:35 And it's a very small movie.
18:39 It's a very intimate movie.
18:40 And it's also quite serious and subtle even
18:43 for Nicolas Cage, if you can believe that.
18:45 It's about Nicolas Cage playing the character of Rob,
18:48 who's living in the Oregon forest by himself.
18:53 Apart from he has a truffle pig
18:57 that he very much loves.
19:00 And he also makes a living off the pig
19:03 by finding the truffles he gets by.
19:05 But he's kind of lost in life.
19:08 He doesn't have a shower where he lives, nor a mobile phone.
19:12 He's completely disconnected.
19:15 And then what happens is,
19:16 unfortunately, somebody steals the pig.
19:20 And the journey follows whereby he wants his pig back.
19:25 And he's very upset, very angry about this.
19:28 And he has a background as a chef.
19:31 And gradually we learn more about his backstory
19:34 and the pain and suffering that he's felt.
19:37 And also he's helped by the truffle trader, the dealer.
19:41 It's almost like drugs, really, truffles.
19:43 The dealer that kind of helps him out on this journey.
19:47 - And I also think because Nicolas Cage
19:48 has done so many different genres.
19:51 There's the film he did with Ridley Scott, for example.
19:52 As you were describing that,
19:54 it was also a very kind of sober Nicolas Cage,
19:57 a very restrained Nicolas Cage.
19:58 And of course he's well known
20:00 for sort of bursting out in his performances.
20:02 But do you think that he is integral to this film?
20:05 Is this real sort of craftsmanship?
20:08 - I think when you start off with the line of,
20:11 this is going to be a movie
20:12 about somebody's truffle pig being stolen,
20:14 you think this could be a Nicolas Cage film.
20:17 Who else could do such a strange storyline?
20:22 And I think that there's that element.
20:26 But it's not a typical Nicolas Cage film
20:29 because you haven't got these huge kind of outbursts.
20:34 There's only one scene in the movie
20:35 where he loses control,
20:36 whereby he starts kicking in a Camaro car
20:40 because he's just so angry.
20:42 But it's a very mature and reflective performance for him.
20:49 At the same time, I also love his other movies.
20:53 I mean, I like the older ones like "Wild at Heart"
20:57 and things like that.
20:58 But modern ones he's done like "Mandy",
21:01 "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent"
21:04 that he did recently,
21:05 a film about himself.
21:06 I am a massive Cage fan for my sins.
21:11 So this is straight up there.
21:13 But "Pig" really hits home.
21:16 I mean, I've watched this movie twice
21:18 and both times I've actually cried
21:21 because he passes on this idea
21:24 of so much loss and suffering.
21:26 And it's not just about the pig.
21:28 We find out that he's lost his wife, his partner.
21:32 And we see scenes where he visits
21:34 his partner's old house.
21:38 And you can see the pain in him
21:41 and how tentative he is going there.
21:43 And a little boy is now living there
21:47 at the back of the house.
21:48 It's a kind of porch area or something like that.
21:50 And they just sit down and have a chat.
21:53 And there's something magical about his honesty
21:58 and his emotion.
21:59 You can feel how sad he is.
22:01 And you never escape that sadness in the movie.
22:04 And at the end of it, I'm going in tears almost
22:09 because you feel it.
22:10 You feel something so strong.
22:11 It's such a small movie.
22:12 It's such a confined piece of work.
22:15 - Because Nicolas Cage, of course, does so many films
22:17 and he's well known for churning out many
22:20 in the course of a year.
22:23 But when you have a film like this,
22:25 where his talents are really properly used
22:28 in the right kind of way,
22:30 and it can have that kind of surprise reaction,
22:33 did it make you go back through his back catalogue
22:36 and revisit some of his other films?
22:38 Do you kind of feel that this is seminal Nick Cage?
22:40 - Yeah, I do think this is seminal Nick Cage
22:42 because in a way, he at times has become a bit of a joke.
22:47 And that's partly, some of his statements are hilarious.
22:50 I think he's a shaman actor or something.
22:54 He's a bizarre character.
22:57 And he's made also some, even by my standards,
23:00 and I let him off the hook, he's made some bad movies.
23:04 And this is showing really his class as an actor
23:07 and his depth.
23:08 And he really is so subtle in everything he does
23:11 in the movie.
23:12 You can see one of his strengths is he puts,
23:15 where most actors put 100% to the role,
23:17 he seems to put 300% good or bad interacting.
23:21 But in this film, it works.
23:23 You can see him really concentrating on slowing things down
23:26 and being meditative about things.
23:28 And it's really quite incredible.
23:30 - Fantastic.
23:31 Well, thank you, John.
23:32 Well, I'm afraid that that's all the time we have for today.
23:35 Many thanks to John Wills for joining us
23:37 and being such a brilliant guest.
23:39 And many thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:41 Be sure to come back and join us again
23:43 at the same time next week.
23:45 Until then, that's all from us.
23:47 Goodbye.
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