Noel Takeover Edition: John Cameron Mitchell on Nashville

beginning of a Friday Interview episode. UM. But Chuck and I had the wonderful privilege of being able to sit down with John Cameron Mitchell UM from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the creator and star of the Broadway show, very very influential film and director of things like short Bus and UM the incredible audio podcast Psychedelic Adventure UM Anthem Homunculous, which you can get on the Luminary Network. But Chuck had a family situation come up, and so

I ended up bufflying solo with Chuck's blessing. So UM. I met John last year through some podcast activities and UM.

Hedwig was always a really really important movie for me when I was younger on college, and I watched it many many times, and so to get to meet him and not only meet kind of one of my film heroes, but also have him be just the most lovely, down to earth sweet man I've ever met in my entire life, and essentially we kind of became pals and he sat down with me and we talked about his movie Crush Nashville, the Robert Altman epic kind of slice of life film

that I had never seen, had really only seen Um A Prairie Home Companion and Mash. So it as kind of as we talked about in the interview at the beginning and the end of Altman's career, but hugely influential filmmaker. Informed looked like Paul Thomas Anderson in this very naturalistic style of filmmaking. And we get into all that in the interview. So I won't bore you here at the top.

Let's get into it. I mean, I grew up with you know, super sci fi fantasy comic kid in the seventies, and uh, you know, I was sort of an advanced student in in Junction City, Kansas, where my podcast Anthem takes place. Uh. The nun didn't know what to do with me because I was too advanced in my studies, so she just put me. I was. I had a class alone with the meanest nun in school. Wow. She let me read whatever I want and then report on it. So I just read like Robert Heinlein and Dune and

Andre Norton and wrote articles, aren't. She just like, there's no real literary value here. There's you know, there's interesting descriptive language, but these these types of books don't have literary value. And I was like, I was, you know, fourteen. I was like, they don't you know what was her concept of literary value? But people wanted me to win. She was so mean. She wanted me to win a competition,

English competition, which which was basically all multiple choice. So if you had you would you know, Silas Marner, all the classics. You know, who's the protagonists of Silas Marner, who wrote you know, little women who wrote you know, as I lay dying. So but I never had to read the book. Yeah, I got burst in Kansas in in these you know, like knowing that the titles and the protagonists and the the writers, but never read one

of those books. And she was like, yes, she was a very competitive nune who was like, we've destroyed the competition and never read a book. Now there's a character in your podcast that you're talking about anthem homunculous. That's a nun who I believe is your aunt and I have based on my aunt Terry, who is the coolest relative and aunt and none, uh who is like super liberal and you know, environmentalist and not a heroin atic though like heroin atic. She was a little embarrassed by that.

But I'm going to see you next week when I sing Brian Weller in my song I See What I Am, which was pag Lapone's big song with the Jazz Orchestra. Reilly considered went to Mark Salas, Oh my gosh, that's that's a big deal. Next week, you say, well, it's the last two days of January, first day of February. Okay, I'm I'm in town next week. Maybe I can make that happen. I would love that. Um. Just backing up to Anthem and you know, you say it's set in

your hometown of Junction City, ancient city. What was that like like? And you know, I know what it was like as it was portrayed in the podcast. What was that like for you? Aside from these solo classes with Sister and Um or Sister Frederick, now she was the headmistress. They had to take those male names. Um, there was a sense of you know, it was the seventies, so you didn't really know what was happening outside the world, and you know, punk was exploding elsewhere and we didn't

know what that was. And the cars were you know, seemed the punkiest thing we had ever heard of. We get stone that was on the radio. Right, cars were in the radio, and uh, they were new right, they were the first new wave sort of hits, I guess in the US. Um So we get stoned and listened to moving in stereo at Milford Lake. Uh, and didn't know that there was a town under the lake because they had flooded, you know, when they fled the town to make a reservoir. And that became an image in

our podcast. And so it was going back there and and remembering the weirdness of this small, high crime town next to an army base Fort Riley, which meant it was very racially mixed, which made it more fun. But it was still Kansas and it was so it was still kind of conservative. And you know my school St. Pius I, it was like fifteen graduating students, and you know, I went to the reunion the reunions, the most conservative saying I'm sorry that was that was St. Sainty's. St. Xavier. St.

Pius was in Albuquerque. Verry went but he was a super conservative pope. Um, but say next was more easy going, and but it was always really it had this because of the army. Thing was like super racially mixed and there was all kinds of music was valid and people didn't separate themselves as much. So I went to my

high school reunion only oncet anniversary. So I recommend if you're gonna, if you hate the idea of a reunion, go after your fifty because everyone's evened out, no one's You're not competitive anymore because you're alive, right, You're just like the great Ugiliser's time, And uh, it was beautiful and I was just remembering, you know, and like looking at the trailer park where Hedvig would have lived and

an anthem. The character lives in the head Vig's trailer though has never met her, so it's all the same universe. And Brian Weller and I wrote the first draft in Lawrence, Kansas, which was in William Burrow's house. Um, because I knocked on the door on that first trip and the caretaker, Tom King was like, what it's like, I'm writing a musical that might takes place on this porch. He's like, alright, another one on it. Yeah, here's the bullet holes that

Bills shot off from his bath into the roof. And it was like, wow, we in Burrows tiny house, big yard, and we uh we wrote there for about a month. James guire Holds, his partner invited us. And so the insanity of of Burrows, which really predicted the insanity of today. You know, if ever there was a Trump character, that ever there was a Burrows character, it would be Trump right,

just beyond belief, right, absolutely proto fascist. You know, Burrows was right and cartoonish, even cartoonish, but you know, truly beyond belief and um so it was a perfect place to to set it and to start it. Uh. And we kind of did a road trip writing, writing a tour of it, and Burrows features relative of ly prominently into the show itself. There's a fantastic sound alike or a voice performance that really hits Burrows on the on

the notes. Ben Foster, who actually played him in Killer Darlings the movie and it, wants to make a film that he's directing himself as Burrows in the prime years in Mexico and you know when he shot as a wife chair accident and that's I mean, that was one of my I love the whole thing and just uh I I got I got the particularly fun section. It's very fun. But I got the privilege to as actually sit and experience this podcast in one sitting um in New York and as at the the I f C

Center where you did a listening party. That was the first for me for a listening party of an entire narrative podcast series. And that's really the way to experience a show like that, something that dense so you can really focus the sound. The five point one to a mix. We had some abstract visuals creative fourth that I think really worked, distributed CBD gummies and soft blankets and uh lavender face mists. So the whole thing was just the close sprit seen them in your face with her little

dog peepee. Did I make that up? Pippie Peppy Pip Pip. Yes, Okay, Brian Weller's in the room, say hi, hello, my brilliant composer. Brilliant composer. Um, we're doing more of these marathons. I did learn in Austin. Yeah, anyone that has a chance that if the one of these comes through your town, check it out. And if not, get your Luminary subscription and check it out. It's a really, really wonderful show.

Um So big Time influenced by your early days growing up in a small town and kind of how that informed the rest of your career. I really think it's interesting you think of a place like a small town in Kansas. You don't think it was being particularly progressive. But I love this idea of you kind of making your own culture and having access to things. But obviously there's no Internet, You're not able to find the latest thing. You kind of get it in little dribs and drabs. Right,

So what was that like? And what when did you kind of break through beyond just the cars on the radio? And were there zines? Like? What was it that? Well? I was still you know, a good bull Catholic boy son of a general um queer you know, haning't hadn't quite dealt with it, But no, I would. I think being queer saved me from an examined life. I'd probably be more like the character you know in Anthem, you know, a librarian, still creative, but just maybe not taking any

as many risks. Uh So, I really put down being queer to to to uh, forcing me to examine everything that I've been taught. If certain things I was taught we're clearly wrong, um, then others must have been wrong too. So that's it's like when you find out Santa Claus isn't the real is that? Does that mean Jesus isn't real too? Or there is no God? Make Here's a funny story of a friend of mine was his parents were kind of hippies and they sort of did as

Santa things, Sure Santa. He was six and they were like, yes, Santa, but they were very casual about it, and they keep forgetting the plot and they kind of let it slip, you know, when he was six that you know, they're like right soon and he's like he he was like what, there's no Santa. And they were like, oh, well no, but that the spirit of gibbing. And he's like he was furious at six, and he went up to his room and he didn't speak to them for two days.

And then he came back from school and they're like hi, and he goes, hi, because how was today? Fine? I have a new friend, Nathan. Oh great, that's great. I'm going up to my room. So every day they had to like get you know, apologized for the Santa next day, you're a little light today where we was playing with Nathan. Oh, Nathan to your new friend, we love to meet him. Yeah, I went up to the next day. Um, I'm going to stay asleep over with Nathan tonight. You are not.

We need to meet Nathan and and his parents and and he goes there is no Nathan, only Zool and they were just wow, wow, he set the whole thing. There is no Nathan. How does it feel? That is an extreme reaction to not finding finding out that Santa Claus in the real I actually had a really great conversation with your friend Julian Costa you introduced me to. We're actually sitting here in Athens, Georgia right now by

the way, Um Julian of Neutral Milk Hotel. You've got a lot of Athens connections, as as do I. But Um Julian really really loves the idea of Santa Clauses.

It's a big thing for him. There's some Santa stuff here from uh where a Robbie Cocharo's house in Julian's band, the music tapes and orbiting him in circus, his podcast and I asked, Julian, you don't think it's the great betrayal when you find out that when you're when you find out your parents have been lying to you and that Santa is not real, and he goes, no, Santa is real. Santa is a spirit, you know, it isn't just because he's not a person that comes down to

chimney doesn't mean he's not real. And he loves this idea of the spirit of Christmas, of giving and kindness and charity and all that. And it really like made me take a step back and kind of ditch that cynical view. Um, because there's a there's a sculpture up there of Santa with the halo and wings. Ye, he was a saint exactly. Yeah. So, um, I think that's a really interesting the two diametrically opposing stories about finding

out that Santa is not real. But I'm a I'm a dad and my kids eleven and she took it just fine. She kind of you know, I was worried that it was she was gonna go down that rabbit hole of will of Santa is not really you lying to me about literally everything. Um. We've moved past that. Um. So I like the idea of Anthem and head Vig

having this kind of shared universe. You don't really lean into that too hard in this in the podcast, but tell me a little bit about the genesis of of the head Vig character and the whole way that came

about for you, head Vig. Uh Well, head Vig was based on a babysitter for our family who was, uh, I realized later was a prostitute on the side, and me and my friend Brenda would go to her trailer park and sing songs for her, and she had a lot of dates, um, and never knew what they were going to look like before they came over, and she we were she was like, we were like, she's so popular and she's not even that good looking, and she's just so And if they came up the driveway we had,

we had to go at the back, but sometimes if she didn't like the look of them, she'd go out the back too with us. So she kind of was the initial visual and kind of you know, tone for

the character um. And then we Stephen Trausk and I added a lot more you know to her, and we were we were both he was working and I was hanging out at a drag rock and roll drag club called Squeeze Box in the nineties at don Hills, and it was so it was the queer club I was wanted because it was just so punk and fun and and he said we should develop the musical we were writing.

We should start with this female character who was a smaller character in the piece, Helga, who became head big, and I just thought about her more and more, and then the idea of the forced sex change and the Berlin stuff. My dad lived in Berlin for a while as a military commander, so all this stuff came together. And watching the amazing performers, you know, uh, Gene County and Mistress for Micah and Laverne Cox and these people who were performing there, these trans and drag performers who

just blew me away. They were so punk and didn't even know it, you know. And uh, our first gig was was so exciting, and our first song was the Origin of Love that he wrote my favorite and um, it was the birth of it. And we try to keep it out of theaters for a while to keep it from getting toned down, you know, by a theater,

and keep it in the clubs. So you did it as a band almost first we did it as gig fake you know gigs for fake band um and and we didn't have all the narrative pieces yet it did even the first even the first gig had a narrative story and I ripped the drag off at the end like I do in the show. And but we covered uh. We used cover songs for the songs we didn't have.

So the song about the operation, we used Yoko Owner's Death of Samantha and for the another song we used oh well Fleetwood Mac was our opening song, boys keep Swinging half breed um, so it was like we rewrote the lyrics reckless Eric ho. Whole wide World was sort of about trying to, you know, get out of Berlin. Did you find that you ended up taking cues from some of those dialistically for the songs that you were Yeah, yeah, Like this is a song we have called Exquisitive Corpse,

which is a real pair ubu like songs. So we used to do nine alignment packed uh had Vig had a Serbian boyfriend who was a DJ and she could pick up a show on her braces, So we had weird pair ubu TEP songs and you know, she was from East Berlin and wanted to be non alignment packed. You know, that was a song and so we all the people that we were learning from informed the music

and the story. And that's why it's quite eclectic style wise. Um. I mean it's all kind of has that seventies you know, crunchy feeling, but there's country, there's you know, there's ballast. Character has that chameleonic quality as well, like the Looks and Anthem really followed on from that. It perhaps has a similar tone. You know, someone's talking to an audience, telling stories through songs humor. You know, there's a similar

tone to Head Big. Uh. We wrote Anthem originally as a head Big sequel, but that was too much and uh, and it became more autobiographical. What would I be like if I never left Junction City? Um, and and and hold up in there and and got sick and had to crowdfund my my treatment. So you know, we're still doing more of these, uh, these marathons. We've got some coming up in Portland's l A and uh, San Francist go yeah yeah. Well again, if if one comes through

your town, I highly recommend checking it out. I'd love to pivot to to Nashville. Um, I had never seen this particular Altman movie, and I'm not really a student of Altman. I've I've honestly only seen mash and a

Prairie Home Companion, which is kind of embarrassing. That's like the beginning of the end, it is, right, And the funny thing is Nashville and Prairie Home Companion actually have a little bit in common in some ways, only because Prairie Home takes place behind the scenes in this big theater show and you kind of see all the lives of the different characters, the singers in their dressing rooms and all of that, and then everyone comes together in

the end for the big show. Right, That's sort of what Nashville is, and there's all of these disparate characters in the city of Nashville going through their lives. I read Ebert wrote of it that you sort of were just plopped into this world where people don't make entrances as much as they just kind of exist. And that's what I think was so special about it. I almost I walked. I watched it with my girlfriend and I walked away from it. We were both kind of like,

what is this movie about. And that's sort of the point. It's it's not. I mean, we could get into what it's about, but for me, I think that's exactly. It's open end that you can absolutely project yourself onto it. But um, it really is just like a slice of life. Is such a cliche thing to say, but that's really what it feels like. It feels like you're living with these real people, these real characters. UM. And I just

I just was fascinated by it. This this massive ensemble cast um screen exactly, and like I think there's something like five speaking roles, but there's no star, there's no perspective character that is taking you on this journey. It's all of these things that didn't come together at the end for this big benefit concert at the end at

the Parthenon right in Nashville. Um. This is what Ebert wrote about about this film, Robert Altman's Nashville, which was the best American movie since Bonnie and Clyde's in the relationships of nearly two dozen characters, a microcosm of who we were and what we were up to in the

nineteen seventies. It's a film about the losers and the Winners, the Drifters and the Stars in Nashville, and the most complete expression yet of not only the genius but also the humanity of Altman, who sees people with his camera in such a way as to enlarge our own experience. That's like vintage Ebert from when it came out. Um, So why why Nashville? I saw it first in college in the early eighties at the giant Varsity Movie Palace and Evis in Illinois, and it. You know, there were

certain films that that just intoxicated me. Um. That was the one that I remember the most. I just came It's long, you feel like you've lived it, you come out of it feeling kind of stoned. Um. It's incredibly funny and incredibly moving at the same time. And that's a nexus that I love to work in. Is that place? Am I gonna laugh for? I'm gonna cry? Um? And just the the audacity of you know, taking your time. I mean, even you know today, it's even more shocking

to actually take your time. There's no frenetic editing in this You live you A lot of scenes are in one shot that zoom slowly. There's a classic Altman thing to do. Is to zoom very slowly and focus another.

He uh pioneered multitrack recording, so he would have you know, body mics on dozens of people in one scene, and the actors never knew the camera was on them because the camera was so far away doing these long zooms on long lenses, so you've got a real sense of reality when he would tell people who was being shot,

so they all were on it. They were all acting fully and improvising a lot with a very strong central script by Joan Sewksbury, who I even wrote a fan letter two back in the eighties when I was starting out, I centered my first script and and a cassette tape of the soundtrack of the song, which is amazing and it's a character in and of itself. The songs my script was because it had a feeling of Nashville and

ah it was pre existing songs. But I she wrote back, I'm not gonna have time to read your script, but I'd like to keep the cassette to listen to. And I was at least she wrote back, that's pretty rare. Almost met her in recently New York. I was gonna, like, I want my setback, which um and so when I saw it, I was sitting alone and I just was drunk, you know, being an act studying acting in Northwestern it was just he's such Altman is such a lover of

actors and demands them to be partners. Other directors, Cubrick and other geniuses used them as puppets, brilliant puppets. But it was all about Cubrick. Altman, I think had this theatrical feeling of like, we're all doing this together. And he he famously had, uh, the actors at the end of the day, the shooting day, watched the dailies from the day before and have drinks and get stoned and whatever.

It was mates for a long day because you're shooting for twelve hours and then you're looking at the dailies and it was like this party. You know. All the actors who worked with them said it was just like

being in a party. And the movie executives hated him because he was so you know, like fuck you, I'm doing it my way, like Cassavetti's well, he darned his stripes at this point with the hit, right like with Mash which was a weird, you know film that it only happened because they were doing something else and they let him do it without checking in on it. So

when it came they forgot. Yeah, when it came to them, they're like, what the hell is this because it was really very loose, you know, it was closer to Easy Rider than anything else, and uh, it was a surprise hit,

you know, it caught. He was an older generation, you know, more from the beatnick era, Uh, of the hippies, you know, which he wasn't, but he got with them, you know, like he they loved him because he was a true man of the people and a true anti authoritarian and u you know, even the weird kind of gaze thing in because remember they sort of pretend or they tell one of the characters that he's he's gay, so funk with him, and then they have like this this sort

of living funeral fright, and it's like a very strange he's going to kill himself for being gay, but it's sort of a joke. It's weird to like, I meven the theme suicide is painless. That was the song, right, but what a strange I know. And it was a Korean War but obviously about Vietnam, so Nashville to me, was his chef dev you know, that was his great He made some great films, but to me, that's his best. And the actors. He could also take any actor. Excuse

he could take any actor. It wasn't even an actor, you know, like uh, Lily Tomlin had was just more of a sketch comedian and he gave her this role that was quite low key, and she was brilliant. You know. It was a nominated for an Oscar and maybe one. And Keith Karadene, who was like the you know, the l a kind of folky, yeah, the cool, cool guy who was somewhat country but really more like the Eagles

or something. And he's fucking everybody inside. And an amazing scene where he sings I'm easy to all these women who think he's singing to them directly, and then you find out it's Lily Tomlin and and Ned Beatty and it's just and this stripper Gwen Wells. Heartbreaking scene of these people trying to make it and let's let's let's go into that a little bit. I mean, to me, this is post Watergate. There's a political vibe. K. Yeah,

I think that's right. But but but there's this character who sort of looms large over the whole thing, this faceless presidential primary candidates never ross perote exactly. And what's what's the name of the character? U H, Philip Walker, I believe and maybe so yeah, I don't know that. But all all you ever you hear from this character because his um campaign bus has these megaphones. You just here in pontificating. Whether it's him and live or it's recordings,

you don't know, it doesn't really matter. But it's all about how politicians are corrupt. Um. They're all lawyers, they're all a bunch of crooks, you know, all of that stuff. So there's that vibe, and then you're in Nashville, but it's very clear there's hippies in it. Jeff Goldblum plays

this amazing. I refer to him as the magical Hippy because he doesn't speak, and he does this magic trick at the beginning where he like pours salt into his hand and then like pulls it out of the air and right, super skinny hippie kind of groupie character who's going who's only in town to see her dying aunt, but never manages to make it to see her in the high She selfish creature and she keeps getting distracted by celebrity and chasing guys. And her uncle is played

by Keenan Wyn. Is it I think? So? Who's touching? You know? His his wife has just died and he's in the hospital and he's trying to reach out to people nearby. It's a beautifully interwoven story. Someone feels like kind of like a tapestry or a or the loom that makes the tapestry because you see the characters one ending in and out of each other, bumping into each other.

You know. There's the African American country singer based on Charlie Pride, you know, Henry Gibson, Uh, who I love by He means maybe like this horrible you know, old school kind of racist, you know, power broker. He's kind of the old guard though. He's the first guy you see in the movie where they're making this bicentennial song in the studio um live to tape, which is super cool because you see the background singers in one booth in the band and he yells at the hippie piano

player get a haircut. You don't belong in Nashville. So he's kind of the old guard. Then you've got Keith Carratty and who's sort of this like more hippie type folk singer. He's kind of the new guard. And there's this interesting clash, Like Nashville is this microcosm of what's going on with that clash between old and new. And I think a big part of it too is sort of the banality of evil in the entertainment industry, where people are sort of treated like ponds. Even what is it,

Barbara Um, the kind of ailing country singer Ronnie Blakely. Yes, what's her character's name, It's Barbara. She's amazed, she's incredible, but like from the moment you see her, you know she's not well, and yet she's like kind of propped up and pushed out on stage and you know, you

barely even get to hear her sing. And there's a part where she is performing and it's clearly, you know, having some kind of episode and she's like talking about her grandma and all this stuff, and her manager or whatever kind of pulls her off and she's like, no, I'm not not done, you know, but it's very clear that she's become a liability. You know the club I

did head to begin this drag. Queeniam Sherry Vine, who I love, did a recreation of that scene where Barbara Jeane is starting a song and then like digressing and like, you know, I used to live on a farm and

the chickens. I'm just kind of going insane. I mean, the song starts and then stops and starts, but she's doing like hearts, you know, crazy on You I think was the song she did, but you know, only a couple of us recognize what she was actually doing from But then she has this nemesis who's like the more gussied up version of her, kind of Karen Black more than willing to swoop in and capitalize on her, you know, not doing very well. Connie Connie White played by Karen Black.

And the other great thing is that Altman asked each actor to write their own songs, So Karen Black wrote her own song, you know like a rolling Stone, and Uh Ronnie Blakely, who was a country singer from Montana, I think or Idaho. Uh hadn't really acted and she's brilliant again. Nominated for an Oscar. She has an incredible breakdown scenes. Alan Garfield has horrible, her horrible manager you know again prop and her up. She's sort of a

Lauretto Land type but falling apart. Um. My favorite song is probably Dues, one of her song but he Carroteen wrote I'm Easy, which one an Oscar. You know, everyone wrote their own songs which you can feel it and sang them all live, which is also very new and rare. Yeah, for sure, that Keith Carroting song. Winning that Oscar got him a record deal, and then he went on and

made a couple of records for Asylum. But he it wasn't just a flash in the pan kind of like you know, Vanity Project, like he obviously had some chops. Is a good singer, good songwriter. Um, I have that record and it's it's quite good. Um. You mentioned the scene with the stripper, who I actually didn't realize was a stripper until a little later in the movie. I just thought she was kind of a wanna be because

she's a pretty bad singer. She wasn't want to because they forced her to strip member, for sure, But I realized there's a conversation she has at the end where I almost feel like she's meant to be a sex worker. Because she's talking to a guy who seems like he's maybe her pimp, and he's saying, honey, you're a bad singer, like let it go, give it up, you know, and she just is so plucky and like full of confidence

that she doesn't see it. But that scene, to um, the way women are treated in this film is seems very intentional on Almond's part to be like they're if they can't sing or they're not sexualized, then they're like marginalized. And even Lily Tomlin's character, who's kind of I would say, the moral center of the film because she has deaf

deaf children and she's obviously a really devout mother. She is a gospel singer, so I think that's not unintentional, right, but she really sells it, you know, and gives it at all. And um, there's that scene when Keith Carrotyan sings I'm Easy and they kind of lock eyes, and

I'm like, why is she so into this guy? He's kind of the heel, like he's a womanizer and he's sleeping with people and then calling up the next woman that he's gonna sleep with, you know, from the room, and then oh my god, she went to bed with them. I didn't understand that seemed like it. It was meant to imply that everyone's no one's beyond corruption, you know. In this uh, in this world, it's a beautiful it's

a beautiful world. And he has his work, his repertory company of actors that you see in many of his film Frederick Forrest and Ned Beatty and even Julie Christie shows up and and Elliott Gould herself. Yeah, it's hilarious scene where he shows up and Geraldine Chaplin, Uh, Charlie Chaplin's daughter, who was also a kind of a narrator. She's like a BBC you know, I love her, ridiculous BBC journalists. Just see where she's walking through like a scrapyard and saying the rest on the cars look like

dried blood. It's over the top. It's it's it's so juicy and delicious. Um. It must have been a blast to shoot and it it has a kind of when you you talked about what is it about? I mean to me, it all comes down to that last scene when Barbara Jeane is doing the fundraiser and uh a, you know a character that has been sort of shadowy. Um, the guitar case. Yeah. Uh, it turns out to be a killer, you know, and a stalker and and she is assassinated. You know, it's not a spoiler. I mean

it's very much leading up to this. And then the plucky I want to be played by Barbara Harris, not the different one who kind of you see, trying to get backstage and she's held up. And Barbara Harris was a great, you know, seventies star who just recently died. Um plays a menially minibally talented, you know, country singer and she, you know, as Barbara Jeane goes down, they're like, keep the music going to, you know, so there's no panic.

And she grabs the mic and sings the song, which is the center of metaphorically the whole piece, which is you know, the courses. You may say that I ain't free, but it don't worry me, and that is America. You know. We scream about this freedom and it changes meaning. You know, conservatives will say you're not free unless your health care

is taken away from you. You know, are you you know the definition of freedom is so malleable in our country that you know, plutocrats use it to keep people under you know, it's like, you're not free if you actually get anything. Uh, if you get free education, you're not free. And you know it's like, but we also were based on a kind of freedom. So other things

came out of America. There are we're very useful to the world, you know, ideas of of female emancipation and queer rights and and you know, finding civil rights came out of this crazy stew you know, a country founded by capitalist can keys to doors and religious fanatics, you know, who pushed the native people out, crushed it, broaden slaves, and then weirdly created a place that was a beacon for other countries of self determination. You know, it's a

weird kind of contradiction. Yeah, we're a strange country. And I feel that that film captures so much of it, but effortlessly, it doesn't. It's not cloying in any kind of that, you know, it's you have to kind of bring that to it yourself. And I I knew there was something to it, and I read a little more about it and realized I was on the right track. And but it's more of a feeling than some sort of lesson. Yeah, that's what I think is so special.

It's like it's really you feel like you've lived it rather than told anything, you know, a subtle moment of you know, the Black Country singer based on Charlie Pride at the Old Operation. Yeah, and then he said the racetrack or something, and Henry Gibson was like, oh, I

had great to see you. And then under his breath he goes, you know, you're lucky to be alive here, you know, and it's like it's just like that other you know, the darkness under the southern the southern end of the r under the hospitality, and but also very loving. Of course, Nashville itself hated the movie once again. Of course they were just like, oh, dare you you know, out satirize us? You know, you damn California people. That's the thing that it doesn't even strike me as satirical.

It strikes me as very real and it feels very tender. You know. I don't think of it as making fun of these people. You know. It's definitely has satirical elements and crazy, you know, madness about it, but you love everybody, you know in one way or another. Yeah, it's interesting to the kind of want to be that that sings

that that last song. I found her delivery to almost have this unhinged kind of more punk rock modern quality, when a lot of the vocals had been very old school and smooth and like that kind of real traditional country and Western style. She almost brought more of like a belty, kind of like rawness to it. And I thought was on purpose, I really didn't think, because it was like this is the future, you know. I don't know.

She was an opportunist. Obviously, she was a you know, a Broadway singer herself, but there is something very weird about that the way she sings it, and it's and then it just yeah, yeah, it's incredible. The soundtrack is, like you said, is an amazing thing in and of itself because so much of it is sung live, and somehow it was a hit. Pauline Kale, you know, kind

of saved it. You know. She was so influential, and the studio, I believe, was going wanted to cut the hell out of it because it's three hours long, and uh Altman slipped her or screened her his cut, so she reviewed it before it came out and in effect stopped the studio from cutting it. Interesting. She was that influenced imagine like giving it to a critic before it come I mean the sun. I was furious, but it made it a huge hit. Too. Smart on Altman's part,

he kind of knew what he had. Yeah, My favorite filmmakers of the seventies were Altman, Cassavetti's hal Ashby, and Kubrick. And they all drove everybody crazy, you know, in the business. But of course the actors and his collaborators loved them. I don't know if people loved Kubrick. Act Chilly Devol had problems with him. Well, he does infamously made people do whereas all of men they're talking about it's a party because it all feels very true to life, and

there weren't that man takes right. Yeah, I think you're right. Kubrick was. But he he drove, you know, the powers of be crazy. Of course. But and they often wrote, you know, they often made very it is idios and cratic films that were long and you know, didn't fit into the realm of you know, marketing. And but you know, among my top films, they came from that era, you know. And there was a woman under the influence was Catcha. Vetti's great film, um being there, you know, his favorite.

I know that was going to be one of your picks. We actually somebody else just did that one? Did they such an under sung film? Um? Of course he did Harold Maud and Champoo two and Last Detail, which I love. Um In Kubrick's you know, wonderful, you know, very strange, amoral panopally of of films. I think maybe Dr Strangelove is my favorite. UM. I love Lolita too. That doesn't

get a lot of love, but I think that's great. Um. And Cassavetti's who went his own way and inspired all of them, you know, because he got started in the fifties, is some people to describe him as, you know, the beginning of independent filmmaking in this country. He was inspired by the New Wave and Shadows and Faces and uh, eventually his great films, Women and the Influence and Opening Night we're ones that I keep coming back to. So

how the hell did he do that? You know? And a lot of it has to do with working with the same people, you know, keeping you know, keeping people off balance, but in a safe way, you know, to get some the most surprising performances. And have you seen Uncut Gems. Yet yes, they the Softie Brothers have a similar thing where they kind of just let their actors go. They don't they read son interview or heard an interview on a podcast where they say they don't yell cut

an action. They just kind of set the pieces in motion and then let him go. And the actor is

no win to start. And there's so much, again like with Altman, stuff going on on top of itself, like in the Gem Shop, where there's so much real hubbub and excitement and people talking over each other, And that to me really reminded me of of the al Man And I clearly Altman was a huge influence on Paul Thomas Anderson and Magnolia, And when Altman was ailing, Paul helped direct his last helped direct a little bit on

Perierus remember that. But I love I love Paul's work too, and the way he works with actors, and so I learned from all of them. When I was making my films, you know, I was, you know, I at the Sundance Lab. I broke down that scene with Lily tomin and and I'm Easy that song, broke it down into story boards. Um, that was part of you know, training to to direct heed vic um. Breaking down a scene that that you love and seeing how how the pieces work is a

really great exercise. And the way they both worked worked with actors. I did uh work my own version of a mixture of improv paraphrasing and a set verbatim script which I used most in my film. Short Bus has a lot of non actors as well, right or or less experienced actors, and you know, Shortbus has a bit

of a Nashville feeling. You know, there's a must you know, multiple protagonists and who bump into each other and and all periodically an event brings them together, you know, and now shield the two there's three events where all the characters are in the same space with whether they know each other or not. The beginning when they're all arriving

in the air in the airport. There's the traffic jam from the airport, which is a hilarious situation where they're all stuck in a you know, in a crash on an interstate and they all just start making music and drinking and whatever. And then the end, which is the big benefit concert when they all converge. So with short As, I did the same you know, there's a salon where they all come there's the blackout New York City blackout,

when they all come back together at the end. Um. So these acts of God or Goddess, you know, forces them all to come together and find what they have in common. Um. So those those films were very herald Maud as well. Um, we're very influential on on my three films Head Big, short Us and How to talk to girls at parties. Um. Rabbit Hole was a more traditional thing. But even the way I work with the

actors uh was similar. You know. With my films, I would write the scenes very clearly, but with short Us, I'd say, you can never learn your lines. I'll fire you if you learn your lines. So if there were ten lines in a scene and after the fifth line, someone pours a glass of water, they still had to do ten lines. But every take we did, they had to do those lines differently. They had to paraphrase them.

You know, with less experienced actors, the danger is always that they they lose it after a take or two because they're trying to recreate something. But if they can do it differently every time, there's always a flow. They still for editing stake have to after that fifth line pour the water or leave at the certain points. So that helps the editing. But um, and often we'd use two cameras and so I learned a lot of that from from Altman. Well, John, I could talk movies with

you for for hours. But Alas, I think we should wrap this up. But we've been doing a thing. Actually I think Chuck stopped doing it, but I'm gonna do it with you. To wrap this one up, we ask our guests what their movie going rituals are. I know you're a movie fanatic, do you what's your theater in New York? Well, we have a lot of great theaters in New York, which is you know Within, you know, Spinning Distances, Film Form, the Quad, the Metrograph, you know,

even Lincoln Center. There's just i f C Center. There's just a million, um and some things you do need to see in a theater. I watch a lot at home in my day and TV and you know, good sound system, so um, will you know I love movie nights too, and those are always fun to get the cookier ones like that. Recently we watched a crazy film called Slither. You heard of that horror sci fi thing.

James Cohn, Sally Kellerman. It was like a strange little road comedy from the seventies is another one ever more recently, and there's also just another film. Um but it's a weird odd but it's just so fun And some things you just need to see in the screen because they require that. Nashville is one, I think because it's such wide frames. You it's great. You want to see it

on a big giant screen. UM Metrograph is a place that I've been really wanting to Brian and I actually tried to go, UM but I forget in New York for the you know kind of limited run stuff like that, it sells out. It's a yeah, it's a small dude. I saw, you know, one of the after Nashville, he did try to do similar films with multiple casts shortcuts is great. A Wedding is another one that people don't

think about much that I really like. It doesn't quite have the depth of Nashville, but it's incredible, you know, similar to comic madness in a Crazy Wedding. Um. Carol Burnett is great, and this is my favorite line from that is she's like having an illicit affair at the wedding and and you know the other married persons like Carol or whatever name is, Carol, will you? Will you, you know, have an affair with me? You know? Will you?

Actually she's like trying not to throw up and it's all very new for her, and he goes, Carol, what's your answer right now? Your mouth is the most important opening in your body for me? Like that line. Um. Also Health, which is a disaster. That's his worst film, which is that a health food convention? Take cabots in it? I think is a fun disaster. It's just not funny. But I saw a print of it. Who did Ronald Reagan hated Health? Um? You know he also said ketchup

was a vegetable for school lunches. I think our current president might think that as well. Um. But I did see a metrograph of a print of Health, which is very hard to find, and it was like, it's kind of cool prints. You know, they start to go they get to go bad, and they become pink. That's when you know it's an old print. Its like it's very thin and everything's painting. So but it's kind of cool.

I saw a print of Bad Lieutenants with Harvey Kitel at the Nighthawk uh in Brooklyn, which I really like a lot. And that movie is, you know, from the nineties, but you know the quality of what New York looked like in the nineties first of all. Plus the wear on the print made it look like it was shot in the seventies. The whole vibe of it was seventiesive madman. Where do you like to sit in the theater? What's your given? Your druthers? Are you up? It's a forn film.

I'll actually go very close because I hate I like to slump down when I'm watching and then the subtitles of this Somebody's Head there. You know. Film form has these really long theaters, which I don't like the length of them, but I'll have to still have to go out really close. The screen is small there, so if you go up close, it feels like you're the zig

felt um, you know. If it's a bigger place with a nice rake to the seating, I'll just sit, you know, in that first row with an you know, a lateral aisle, so you have anyone in front of I just don't like anyone in front of me, and I like to put my feet up to Are you a snacker? No, because I don't like the crunching and the my own what I've brought my own fiber pills or something, but decided popcorn was the thing in a theater. It's the loudest food. Not only that food, John, because it gets

stuck in your teeth in the worst possible way. It's not even that satisfying. I don't know whose idea that was. I think it was a byproduct of like the corn industry, like we need to figure out a new way to sell this stuff. You know, well it's you know, it's the anti carb time and you know it's a lot

of fiber. Please please that Someone in the theater who worked there in Portland he told me, and I agree that if the screen of whatever theater you're in were to fall towards the audience, you would want to be in the road that is right like one behind where the top of it would be. That's the perfect place to say. That would be the best vantage point of view this disaster, is what you're saying. Oh oh, I see, but still you know, would also you would just miss

the disastrous falling of the screen. Yeah, there was I think at Sunday festival that happened, screen fell fell Over. I do remember maybe the oldest person in this room. I do remember when Earthquake came out, starring Sir Charlton Heston. Of course they had these sents around vibrate for a terrible film, John Cameron Mitchell, any closing thoughts on Nashville snacks, movie theater, disasters, or anything else. Look at Charlton Heston again,

we all know he was an idiot. He was great in bowling for Columbine, but he had an authority, didn't he s um oh, absolutely had a gravity. He had a very classic gravitas to him. It was and he was and he had a lot of lower teeth acting, and you know, people forget that. In The Omega Man he played the last asshole on Earth. So let that be the last film you want. John, Thank you so much for being a movie crush. What was a pleasure? What a guy, John Cameron Mitchell one of my favorite

human beings in the whole wide world. It's been an absolute pleasure getting to know him and working together and sitting down with him for this conversation was probably one of the coolest things I've ever gotten the chance to do. So I really hope you enjoyed it. Uh, Chuck will be back for future interview episodes, and of course you can tune in to hear me and Chuck um talk movies on the mini Crush episodes. But UM, hope you enjoyed this one. Thanks for giving me a shot Chuck

to be in the big chair. It was it was a thrill. Um. We'll see you next time, folks on the next movie Crash. Google Crushes produced editment and engineered by Ramsey unt here in our home studio at Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.