Eli joins the other boys hot off of his Lincoln Center press screenings to tell us the must-watches and the maybe-skip-overs of this year’s New York Film Festival. But before that, Wilson and Ben briefly get their words in for the latest Paul Thomas Anderson joint, One Battle After Another. Catch Eli talk about other NYFF titles like Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, Olivier Laxe’s Sirāt, and possible film of the year: Bi Gan’s Resurrection.
Links:
Secret Goldfish - Bi Gan short film
I’m walking here at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
04:46 One Battle After Another (2025, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
13:32 No Other Choice (2025, dir. Park Chan-wook)
16:58 Sirāt (2025, dir. Oliver Laxe)
20:18 Queen Kelly (1932, dir. Erich von Stroheim)
25:29 Angel’s Egg (1982, dir. Mamoru Oshii)
31:27 Japanese Film Festival (in Singapore)
34:34 The Arch (1968, dir. T’ang Shushuen)
35:09 The Mastermind (2025, dir. Kelly Reichardt)
38:03 Mare’s Nest (2025, dir. Ben Rivers)
41:13 Jay Kelly (2025, dir. Noah Baumbach)
42:22 Back Home (2025, dir. Tsai Ming-liang)
44:49 Ecce Mole (2025, dir. Heinz Emigholz)
48:15 Peter Hujar’s Day (2025, dir. Ira Sachs)
50:34 What Does That Nature Say To You? (2025, dir. Hong Sang-soo)
53:10 A House of Dynamite (2025, dir. Kathryn Bigelow)
57:40 Resurrection (2025, dir. Bi Gan)
We are very excited to welcome Prof. Lisa Dombrowski to our podcast! She is a Professor of Film Studies and East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University. She’s the author of the books: The Films of Samuel Fuller: If You Die, I’ll Kill You! (2008), the editor of Kazan Revisited (2011), and co-editor of ReFocus: The Later Works and Legacy of Robert Altman (2022). (Ben worked on that last one!)
We took Lisa’s fantastic film classes and she’s a big reason this podcast exists, and why we talk about movies the way we do. (You can read more about the podcast’s origin story on Patreon!)
Together, we preview a newly restored film showing at the upcoming New York Film Festival and M+ Restored programmes, T’ang Shushuen’s The Arch, which Lisa teaches in her classes. Lisa shares with us the film’s unconventional transnational production context, and we have an in-depth discussion about the film’s groundbreaking use of film form to portray female subjectivity. Eli highlights the film’s use of deep staging, Wilson compares the film with Ann Hui’s A Simple Life (2011), and Ben explains what he means by an “oyako-don” pantheon.
Links:
Read more about and get tickets for the M+ Restored programme
Screening in NYC for NYFF at Film at Lincoln Center
Obey your ancestors at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:01:36 Introducing Prof. Lisa Dombrowski
00:06:48 M+ Restored
00:09:39 Context on director Tang Shu-shuen and The Arch
00:11:16 Lisa's relationship with The Arch
00:17:16 General reactions
00:23:30 Adaptation and subjectivity
00:26:06 Subtitles
00:28:06 Female gaze and melodramatic situation
00:30:28 The opening setup
00:33:28 Cinematography context
00:40:28 Love triangle and deep staging
00:43:34 Plum scene
00:52:37 Source material
00:55:28 Cultural context and societal norms
01:00:04 River scene and Mid-Autumn Festival
01:03:39 A Simple Life (2011) sidebar, subjective realism
01:07:25 Confucianism and social conditioning
01:10:29 Loom scene
01:13:04 Editing for meaning
01:16:32 The arch, the ending, the takeaway
01:24:57 Fractured images and liminal spaces
01:30:15 Lisa Lu and casting
01:31:32 The film's reception
01:33:56 Tang's approach
01:39:03 Cultural identity, transnational cinema, aesthetic expectations
01:43:32 Tang's career post The Arch
01:46:05 Outro
We are joined by special guest Alex Heeney, the founder and editor in chief of Seventh Row, to dive into Luca Guadagnino's 2017 coming-of-age masterpiece, Call Me By Your Name. They talk about their deep personal connections to the film, with Alex recounting her experience at the world premiere at Sundance and Wilson sharing his obsessive journey preparing for the New York Film Festival premiere of the film. Eli discusses the film's sensual direction, and Ben explains why he thinks this is Guadagnino’s most mature work.
Links:
Find more of Alex on Seventh Row. They are hosting a summit celebrating queer and trans stories called Living Out Loud. Check it out here.
Mina Le: why does hollywood love an age gap romance?
Women around the fountain video
Call us by your name at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:14 Introducing Alex Heeney
00:04:00 Our histories with CMBYN
00:21:50 Masculinity and Romance
00:26:03 Narrative structure
00:32:05 Performances
00:37:39 Scenes and blocking
00:41:00 The statue scene
00:47:44 The parents
00:51:20 The peach scene
01:00:30 Age gap discourse
01:10:42 Homophobia and queerness
01:13:05 Cinematography and Marzia
01:31:00 Editing
01:35:36 The Sufjan element
01:39:15 Outro
We continue our series on Akerman with a double-bill of personal documentaries about her mother, and of home. News from Home immediately follows her seminal Jeanne Dielman, and No Home Movie is the final film of Akerman’s filmography. In this episode, we thread the throughline across Akerman’s career in comparing both films, see the influence of structural and slow cinema, and marvel at her capacity for personal artmaking.
Links:
Celine Sciamma on Chantal Akerman
I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman (No Home Movie BTS footage)
Go home to our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
05:32 Plot summaries and Reactions
17:15 2015 critical reactions to No Home Movie
21:00 Structural films and emotional responses
27:07 Power of the cut
33:41 Akerman and her mother
40:33 Comparing Akerman with Varda
44:36 Private artmaking
48:33 Akerman's career arc
52:13 Preview for next eps
It’s about time. We tackle Chantal Akerman’s Sight and Sound topping Jeanne Dielman, and begin our series on her singular career. Ben introduces Akerman’s career, spotlighting her fierce conviction and crystalline vision, Eli loops in a melodramatic reading, and Wilson zeroes in on an ending that explosively caps off a 3.5h opus. And if you’re struggling with how to approach this film, as entertainment or as art, just remember: it’s about time.
Links:
Behinds the scenes of Jeanne Dielman
Stephen Gillespie’s Letterboxd review
Angelica Jade Bastien on Longlegs
Make coffee at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:03:03 General reactions
00:13:26 The S&S list
00:16:24 Akerman's career
00:23:45 Plot summary and structure
00:29:20 Cinematography and spatial representation
00:32:14 Depictions of women and melodrama
00:34:35 How Akerman directs Seyrig
00:37:53 Everything is "real"
00:39:10 Time
00:42:14 Patterning
00:46:40 What triggers the breakdown
00:50:16 Relationship between mother/son
00:57:18 Rituals
00:59:24 The movie exists as many things
01:00:25 It's place as #1 film
01:04:10 Akerman's conviction and vision
01:07:43 Scene dissections
01:13:04 Exterior scenes
01:16:47 Existential crisis
01:19:12 In conversation with cinema and larger culture
01:21:56 Ending
01:30:36 Outro
After a rocky relationship between Deep Cut and Mr. Pablo Larrain, we come back to the final film in Larrain’s “important 20th century white women” trilogy (as Ben describes it). Will Larrain redeem himself with a portrait of the final days of Maria Callas’ life? Or will he and Stephen Knight sh*t the bed again? Wilson praises Angelina Jolie’s comeback performance, Ben praises how pretty the film is, and Eli praises the prop glasses, but is all that enough to get the film over the line? Listen to find out.
Links:
Thomas Flight: Do Musical Biopics Have a Fatal Flaw?
Sing our praises at our free patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:33 General reactions
10:05 Saving graces of the film
14:10 Narrative
22:33 The Mandrax of it all
24:53 Supporting characters
27:36 Flashbacks and musical biopics
30:50 We pitch Maria Callas biopics
33:01 Pablo Larrain power ranking
38:18 Outro
We are joined by Asian Film Archive programmer Alexander Lee for our second installment in our Hong Sang-soo series! Alex talks to the guys about pairing Hong Sang-soo deep cuts with Eric Rohmer classics, and specifically the pairing of Night and Day with Love in the Afternoon. Eli chats about the narrative motifs that are on display in this film, Wilson tries to unlock the secret of Hong’s use of zooms, and Ben contends with the slimy protagonist of this film.
Singaporean listeners to Deep Cut you can catch Night and Day on July 13th at the Oldham Theatre. Buy tickets here!
Links:
Hong Sang-soo Notarized: Night and Day
Get drunk on soju at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:17 Alex introduces Twin Tales
00:06:45 Film Context
00:10:21 General Reactions
00:20:58 Hong’s big stylistic choices
00:23:22 Narrative Motifs
00:28:30 Yoo-Jung
00:31:55 Sung-nam
00:33:14 Odd patterns
00:37:22 Night and Day vs. Love in the Afternoon
00:40:41 Tech and sex of the 00s
00:42:42 The male mess of Hong
00:45:52 Dream sequences
00:50:54 The look of the film
00:56:18 Being married?
00:59:16 Hong notarized
01:00:40 Opening of the film and Hill of Freedom
01:02:43 Music
01:04:30 More on zooms
01:05:35 Paris
01:07:52 Other small odd things
01:09:24 Preview of Twin Tales
01:13:11 Outro
Deep Cut partners with Asian Film Archive which is presenting Twin Tales: Éric Rohmer and Hong Sang-soo, a special programme featuring six pairings of films by French New Wave director Éric Rohmer and prolific Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo. Buy tickets here!
We’ve teased this for YEARS! And it’s finally here. The DC Trio break the ice by introducing notorious Korean director Hong Sang-soo to the canon by talking about a 2006 deep cut, Woman on the Beach. We talk about the pairing with Rohmer’s The Green Ray (our ep. 24), discuss why this feels odd in Hong’s filmography, and debate on what shape this movie looks like. Join us for a lively first foray into the work of Hong Sang-soo.
Links:
Film at Lincoln Center: Hong Sangsoo on Woman on the Beach
The New Yorker: Hong Interview with Dennis Lim
Hong Sang-soo Notarized: Woman on the Beach by Ryan Swen
Get drunk on soju at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:13 Twin Tales: Hong x Rohmer
00:05:00 Our journeys with Hong
00:15:34 Hong Sang-soo Overview
00:24:02 Woman on the Beach Summary and Reactions
00:31:40 Notarized Hong
00:34:03 Whose story is this?
00:41:31 Men vs Women
00:43:09 Some scenes
00:45:06 Characterizations
00:47:28 Comparison with The Green Ray, and others
00:54:38 Cinematography
00:57:21 Diagrams
01:00:54 Restaurant scene
01:02:32 Triangulation
01:05:58 The Ending
01:10:36 Outro
I want to podcast with you. Without speaking. On this episode of Deep Cut Upkeep we step into 1950s Mexico City and dive into the lush world of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer. Wilson expands more on his love for the film and why it topped his 2024 film list. Eli talks about the narrative constraints of this (bio)pic about William S. Burroughs. Ben draws links between Queer and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Together, we talk about performance, Guadagnino’s eye for style, debate that Ayahuasca sequence, and end the episode with a quick round of Luca Guadagnino power rankings.
Links:
Natalie’s letterboxd review of Queer
Take a TRIP to our free patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:50 General reactions
08:26 Spoiler warning
09:31 Production context
12:50 Narrative structure
16:30 Craig's performance as Lee
19:12 Blocking and eyelines
21:03 First meeting between Lee and Allerton
25:09 Act 2
27:35 Yagé
29:28 The relationship
36:40 Comparison with In The Mood for Love
40:32 The trip
47:15 The ending
50:55 Comparison to other Guadagnino
58:33 Outro
As voted for on our Patreon, we return to Kelly Reichardt with her 2010 Western, Meek’s Cutoff.
Ben argues that no discussion of the American Western is complete without Reichardt’s film, Wilson highlights the film’s fraught production that miraculously led to its poetic ending, and Eli frames the film within the larger context of America’s problematic Manifest Destiny.
We get serious, analytical and near-academic with Reichardt’s masterwork… all the way until you hear us try on our best impressions of Bruce Greenwood’s Stephen Meek as Wallace from Wallace and Gromit. (?????)
Get lost at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Links:
Kelly Reichardt on WTF with Marc Maron
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:04:42 Plot Summary
00:05:54 General reactions
00:09:22 Eli loves the ending
00:13:24 The film as a Western
00:15:53 Production context
00:18:20 How she got that ending
00:22:10 The Western is distinctly American
00:24:20 American mythology
00:28:21 As "feminist" Western
00:30:59 Stephen Meek
00:33:15 Not your typical Western
00:37:39 Chaos and destruction
00:39:41 Actors
00:40:36 Mishandling of Reichardt's releases
00:45:25 Cinematography
00:50:47 Why 4:3
00:56:33 What's in store for Reichardt
01:00:02 Outro
Wilson comes on the podcast to talk about all the films he saw at the 49th edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Come listen to us talk about the newest films from around the world, including Wang Bing’s Youth Trilogy, Lav Diaz’s Phantosmia, Andrea Arnold’s Bird, and many more.
Join our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:03:17 Festival as a whole
00:08:44 Baby
00:10:25 Youth Trilogy
00:15:47 Bel Ami
00:17:50 Drug War
00:20:09 Bird
00:21:54 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
00:24:46 Man’s Castle
00:27:58 Việt and Nam
00:31:24 Yalla Parkour
00:36:09 Harvest
00:38:55 Never Too Late
00:40:04 Fire of Wind
00:42:15 To Kill a Mongolian Horse
00:44:10 Santosh
00:45:41 I’m Still Here
00:49:21 Bona
00:53:08 Dreams (Sex Love)
00:56:40 Misericordia
00:58:38 The Botanist
01:00:17 Seeds
01:02:05 Blue Sun Palace
01:04:58 On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
01:06:22 Separated
01:09:04 Phantosmia
01:13:15 Outro
Released as an exclusive Patreon post at the end of 2024, we’re now releasing this video podcast to publicly to commemorate ONE HUNDRED EPISODES! What a milestone. See you at 1000!
The summer of 2024 saw Ben, Wilson, and Eli all together in the same place for the first time in six years! To mark the momentous reunion, we recorded a special video episode. It's time to go all the way back to the start by revisiting the work of the podcast's first director, Hirokazu Kore-eda, with 2008's Still Walking. Learn about our history together, hear our musings on the complications of family, and watch as Wilson gets six pounds of blueberries.
Links
Ben’s video essay on Still Walking
We’re still walking over at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps
00:00:00 Intro
00:05:50 Plot summary
00:07:25 General thoughts
00:14:10 Gifting interlude
00:24:53 Still Walking continued
00:27:43 Story and characters
00:37:01 Deliberate cinematography, use of space
00:42:36 Food
00:47:43 Non-judgmental filmmaking
00:50:23 Melodrama?
00:52:22 Yoshio scene
00:54:15 Atsushi
01:01:06 Blue Light Yokohama
01:04:35 Tokyo Sonata comparisons
01:06:10 Stealthy emotional narratives
01:12:02 What does Kore-eda not show us?
01:16:58 Best food, best outfit
01:19:57 Closing thoughts
01:25:29 Longest outro ever
We’re back in West Wallaby Street to discuss the latest adventure in the Wallace and Gromit universe: Vengeance Most Fowl, directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham! This time around, Wilson finally feels seen as the film tackles the inequality in the Wallace and Gromit relationship head-on. Ben argues that the film functions as a surprisingly relevant anti-AI fable and Eli explains a joke that has been decades in the making.
CHICKEN run to our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:03:05 General reactions
00:11:34 The Wallace and Gromit relationship
00:12:53 Favorite joke
00:14:47 Themes of the film
00:19:08 Feathers McGraw
00:20:21 Technology and CGI use
00:23:00 Visual gags vs word play
00:24:58 Future prospects
00:27:04 Genres
00:29:18 Favorite sequences
00:32:00 The pace of humor
00:35:19 Young and old audiences
00:38:48 Dog talk
00:39:49 Outro
Director Andrew Ahn is back for a three-peat with his new film The Wedding Banquet, a re-imagining of Ang Lee’s 1993 classic.
We chat with Ahn about his updates to the original to capture the new nuances of queer lives today, get behind the scenes tidbits of his time working with his incredible AAvengers cast, and see how the original and his remake have shaped him on a personal level.
The Wedding Banquet is currently premiering in the United States, get tickets in the cinema!
Get married at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:13 Film Synopsis
00:03:00 General Reactions (spoiler-free)
00:05:42 Spoiler warning (for both films)
00:06:21 Interview begins
00:12:45 Reimagining The Wedding Banquet
00:13:38 Ahn's first encounter with the original
00:15:19 Adapting with James Schamus
00:17:14 Ahn's updates to the original
00:23:05 Stylistic shifts
00:26:13 New concerns for an evolving queer audience
00:27:48 The films’ endings
00:33:07 New families
00:34:06 The original being more subversive
00:36:00 Watching Ahn's version before Ang's
00:36:54 Connection between Ahn's features
00:38:40 Giving actors their due
00:41:29 Casting the ensemble
00:46:32 Good acting vs most acting
00:48:54 Directing a scene
00:52:01 Editing
00:53:41 Modern gay rom coms
00:55:28 Landscape and location
00:58:44 Coincidences
01:01:49 Has Ang Lee seen the remake?
01:03:19 Eat Drink Man Woman Sidebar
01:05:36 Cinematography
01:08:34 Favorite moment on set
01:11:23 Artmaking as personal diary
01:15:36 The artwork in the film
01:16:19 Directing Youn Yuh-jung
01:18:09 Good filmmaking
01:19:58 Wrap-up
We can’t believe it’s finally here! After much anticipation, we finally have creepers on screen, A Minecraft Movie, starring Jason Mamoa and Jack Black is easily the movie blockbuster release of the year— wait wait wait
Sorry, this is actually about the Robert Pattinson starring movie in which he plays the dual roles of Bruce Wayne / The Batman— wait wait wait
Sorry, this episode is about the other big Robert Pattinson blockbuster Mickey 17.
We return for another hit of the Bong (Joon Ho) but some of us are not vibing! Ben and Eli take turns using the film, the script, the cinematography, and the direction as punching bags. Wilson is left to fight for his life (and the lives of Mickey 1-18). Who will come out on top? Is this movie worth watching? Listen to find out.
Creep up on our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Links:
Deep Cut 012. Bong Joon-ho: Parasite & Mother
GQ: Robert Pattinson and Bong Joon Ho on Mickey 17
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(03:10) General Reactions
(10:50) Plot Summary
(11:40) Spoilers from here / Bong Career Moves
(14:10) Theme / Reflecting Current Moment
(19:40) Movie Enjoyability VS Thematic Coherence
(22:55) Performances
(25:30) Voiceover / First Act Problems
(27:50) Narrative Drive / Goals / Stakes
(33:29) Bong Humor
(34:45) Bong Sci-Fi
(36:35) Cinematography
(39:29) International Cast
(42:38) Voiceover
(44:32) Wilson's Enjoyments
(47:30) Outro
Do you know how much of A Real Pain it is to keep the years straight with us straddling three different global release windows? We do!
We got Caught by the Tides and are a little late with this one but nevertheless, join our Conclave for the fifth (!) time as we huddle around the Ghostlight to talk about the films of the last year! We cover award-winning films (Anora, The Brutalist, No Other Land), notable blockbusters (Dune: Part Two, Wicked), blitz through some honorable Challengers to our top picks, and then Look Back on our personal top fives.
You know podcast favorite Luca Guadagnino is going to feature in Wilson’s favorite films… but how Queer will it be??
If you’re A Different Man, you’ll have different faves, so enter our Red Rooms and tell us your favorite 2024 films on our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Links:
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:21) 2024 in general
(00:17:06) Obligatory mentions
(00:17:28) Anora (dir. Sean Baker)
(00:22:55) Conclave (dir. Edward Berger)
(00:25:14) The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet)
(00:33:53) Nickel Boys (dir. Ramell Ross)
(00:36:53) Hit Man (dir. Richard Linklater)
(00:39:45) All We Imagine as Light (dir. Payal Kapadia)
(00:43:02) Flow (dir. Gints Zilbalodis)
(00:46:14) Emilia Perez (dir. Jacques Audiard)
(00:50:29) Sing Sing (dir. Greg Kwedar)
(00:52:01) The Substance (dir. Coralie Fargeat)
(00:55:26) Wicked (dir. Jon M. Chu)
(00:59:09) Deep Cut Coverage of 2024
(00:59:20) All Shall Be Well (dir. Ray Yeung)
(01:00:19) The People's Joker (dir. Vera Drew)
(01:02:37) Happyend (dir. Neo Sora)
(01:05:13) Deep Cut Upkeeps of 2024
(01:08:55) Honorable mentions
(01:08:57) Megalopolis (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
(01:12:43) Trap (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
(01:14:13) An Unfinished Film (dir. Lou Ye)
(01:14:26) The Monk and the Gun (dir. Pawo Choyning Dorji)
(01:16:02) Hard Truths (dir. Mike Leigh)
(01:17:41) Not Friends (dir. Atta Hemwadee)
(01:19:08) Fly Me to the Moon (dir. Sasha Chuk)
(01:20:38) Black Box Diaries (dir. Shiori Ito)
(01:24:06) A Traveler's Needs / By the Stream (dir. Hong Sang-soo)
(01:25:56) Look Back (dir. Kiyotaka Oshiyama)
(01:27:34) The Room Next Door (dir. Pedro Almodovar)
(01:30:10) Didi (dir. Sean Wang)
(01:31:22) Last Summer (dir. Catherine Breillat)
(01:32:33) Hundreds of Beavers (dir. Mike Cheslik)
(01:33:43) The Diarrhea Brothers Save the Day (dir. Joel Haver)
(01:35:09) Rap World (dir. Conner O'Malley)
(01:37:11) Janet Planet (dir. Annie Baker)
(01:38:43) Ben’s #5
(01:41:06) SKIP ELI'S BIT!!
(01:42:19) Wilson's #5
(01:46:33) Eli's #5
(01:50:14) Ben's #4
(01:52:54) Wilson's #4
(02:00:50) Eli's #4
(02:01:47) Ben's #3
(02:03:16) Wilson's #3
(02:08:22) Eli's #3
(02:12:30) Ben and Wilson's #2
(02:23:46) Eli's #2
(02:27:19) Ben's #1
(02:31:50) Wilson's #1
(02:38:39) Eli and ???'s #1
(02:43:34) Upcoming from Deep Cut
(02:46:32) Outro
We’ve finally done it: all seven Edward Yang films discussed on Deep Cut. The only podcast to give Edward Yang the time and space he deserves as one of the all time greatest directors (and Wilson’s favorite director)!
We end our coverage on Yang with what is considered to be his magnum opus, 1991’s A Brighter Summer Day, an intimate epic of teenage angst, romance, and rebellion that also captures Taiwan in a specific era of political and social turbulence with incredible detail. Together, we discuss ABSD’s unique visual palette compared to Yang’s other non-period work, and go in depth into its thematic concerns regarding Taiwan on a scale both personal and national. Wilson highlights the virtuosic blocking in large crowd scenes, Eli makes a case for proper education as the salve for social ills, and Ben asks, can a film be “too perfect”?
Are you lonesome? Join our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Links:
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(17:57) Synopsis and background
(25:16) Directorial style
(32:09) Subjectivity and Chang Chen’s performance
(39:14) Misogyny and control
(47:07) Ming’s characterization
(52:48) Historical context
(55:35) Tribalism and nihilism
(59:53) “Novelistic”
(01:04:57) Si’r as spectator
(01:07:39) What is the movie about?
(01:13:26) Education
(01:18:54) Individual vs societal responsibility
(01:23:09) Gang violence
(01:30:41) Blocking
(01:34:56) The film studio
(01:42:39) The Little Park Boys
(01:48:07) Favorite moments
(01:52:14) “Perfect” films
(01:55:11) Scale
(01:58:10) Yang series wrap-up
We’re thrilled to be joined by Natalie Ng, a huge Edward Yang fan and friend of the podcast, to dive into Yang’s feature debut, That Day, On The Beach! Natalie, who works at the Asian Film Archive, tells us about AFA’s recent Edward Yang retrospective (complete with a physical exhibition) and shares her deep love for Yang’s work.
Together, we explore the film’s place in Yang’s filmography, its inventive narrative structure, and how it set the stage for his later masterpieces. Natalie highlights the agency of female characters in the film, while Ben argues that De-wei should have been hotter. Wilson leads us in discussing Christopher Doyle’s first feature work as a cinematographer and the stylistic choices of the film, and we very importantly discuss Sylvia Chang’s iconic perm, and whether girlbossing is an ideal ending for Yang’s female characters.
Links:
That Day, On Our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(11:17) General Reactions
(25:18) Natalie’s personal reaction to the film
(29:47) Melodrama and female agency
(34:35) Edward Yang’s “Women without men” + Digression into other Yang films
(41:49) Ending of That Day
(45:47) Qing-qing and Jia-sen’s roles in the story
(50:52) Jia-li’s love interests
(54:40) Tone and filmic style
(01:02:55) Other films That Day relates to
(01:07:15) Babies
(01:10:32) The Perm and costumes
(01:15:04) Yang’s early fascination with women’s stories
(01:21:36) Wrap-up
We prepare for Edward Yang’s game of Mahjong and all we’re looking for is a fourth player (you!). The last of his works to get restored, and possibly his most cynical film, we find much to discuss with A Confucian Confusion’s evil twin in Yang’s filmography. Ben explores Yang’s depiction of sexual relationships, Eli expounds on Yang’s fascination with intergenerational misunderstandings, Wilson compares its heightened depiction of violence, and finally we answer the question… why’s it called Mahjong?
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:29) General Reactions
(08:35) Plot Summary; why’s it called mahjong?
(12:10) Transactional relationships, East and West
(16:07) Sex work
(24:00) Narrative and thematic construction
(31:30) Intergenerational misunderstanding
(36:48) Violence
(41:55) Romance and ending
(54:45) Outro
Girl, so Confucian. We sit down to unpack Edward Yang’s dark horse masterpiece, 1994’s A Confucian Confusion. Eli talks about his first time watching this zany comedy and how it reminded him of a lot of college friend groups. Wilson explains why he thinks this is Yang’s true deep cut film, and doubles down on the film’s belief on ‘emotional work’. Ben discusses how Yang injects A Confucian Confusion with an easy relatability and argues that this is a great starting point to Yang’s filmography. Is this a comedy of errors, a biting critique of modern society, or both? Join us as we unravel the layers of Yang’s underappreciated classic.
Feel your way into our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(04:43) General reactions
(11:57) Plot summary and context
(15:51) Character discussion
(30:30) Themes discussion: capitalism and emotion
(43:00) Behind the scenes documentary with Hou
(48:33) More character discussion
(55:00) Ending of the film
(58:50) Yang’s career
