Good a.
Peter Helly here, Welcome to you Ain't Seen Nothing Yet The movie podcast, where I chat to a movie lover about a classic or beloved movie they haven't quite got around to watching until now. And today's guest singer songwriter Ben Lee.
Every Day's from the Devil of the pale light.
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world.
She walks into mines, put me happening right, you' nothing?
Ben Lee is all heart and all soul.
Bursting onto the Aussie music scene as a teenager, Ben was signed to indie labels by Sonic Youths, Thirst and More and then Mike d from the Beastie Boys. Ben was clearly a teenage prodigy who has grown and one audiences all around the world with his heart on his sleeve, bangers such as Cigarette Can Kill You, Gamble Everything for Love, Catch My Disease, and his new banger like This or Like That. And let it be known also that Ben was telling Australia that we are all in this together
before there was a bloody pandemic. Ben has never been afraid to speak his mind. Now, when you say that of someone you often think of rebel rouse as agitators, right wing commentators, but not Ben. He doesn't say things just to get under people's skin. Ben comes from a place of honesty and kindness. Ben is a rare beast who never seems defined by one thing. Undoubtedly it's his passion for music that drives him, but he's also active. Check out The Rage in Placid Lake with Rose Burn,
Gary McDonald and Miranda Richardson. He's been a death doller and has recently appeared on Australia as the mass singer. Ben has always worn his heart on his sleeve. He's passionate, he's talented, and I'm bloody stoke to be hanging with him today.
Hey, I'm Ben Lee. My three favorite films are Simple Men by Hal Hartley. I'm not going to fall in love with her. That'll show The King of Comedy by Scorsese. You've got to start at the bottom. I know that's where I am.
At the bottom.
That's a perfect place to start. And the movie Only So this year got about endlessness. I was the fantastis, but until recently, until a few days ago, I'd never seen the movie The Club.
Well, you work to work a living, not on weekends comes the time.
You can do whatever turns you want.
Help can clear your mind?
Me a lake football? Yes, I like football too.
And politics is a dirty game, and so is it, turns out Australian rules football. According to Bruce Beresford's nineteen eighty Ossie classic The Club, It's at times absurd but a reasonably touching look at Australia's native game, based on legendary Ossie player right David Williams in stage play and the dept of the film from a script by Matt Carroll. The Club season team that may or may not be Collingwood. It is in a form slump on and off the field.
Club legends go toe to toe in the boardroom as their season gets bleaker and bleaker, not helped by their hot shot recruit from Tasmania, Jeff Haywood played by the not Prome Minister John Howard, is taking scant interest in chasing a pig skin around a noble In fact, he's more interested in spoking us.
Than laying a tackle.
But if they can just get Jeff to buy in, then maybe, just maybe, this season isn't dead just yet, Even if the bodies in the boardroom are beginning to pile up, Ben Lee, whenever you have performed, has a seagull ever attracted your gaze quite like it did Jeff Haywood's No.
He but that was also the weed, wasn't it Like there was you know, it wasn't just your glory of the seagull? Yeah, I mean everyone, and then you do. I think also with performance, the more comfortable you get in it, like if you've been on tour a long time, or if you're in a play I guess, and you do the same thing every time. One of the joys of it is that your mind can drift and your body can still perform the automatic movements, and I actually find some comfort in that that the mind can go
into weird places. But I imagine in sports where you're not really doing the exact same thing every time, like you have to be alert in a way. Getting obsessed with seagulls, might you know ruin your performance or something?
Absolutely. I first of all, thanks so much for doing the podcast. It does involve some homework. You did nominate, as most people do. When I asked in the nominate the film that I asked you to nominate. A couple of films in case we'd already covered one or that, you know, for various reasons.
And there were three films.
I think it was eight and a half Eleen he's eight and a half, Animal Kingdom and the Club, and I said, let's do it, let's do a nassy film. And you chose the Club. Why out of all the films that you haven't seen, did the Club kind of you know, reach out to you?
I think, I mean Animal Kingdom like comes from a world that I very much know. Like it's sort of my generation of Australian filmmaking, so it's a little bit less mysterious as much as the you know, it's great to enjoy the craftsmanship of your generation and stuff. It's a bit like I get it, you know, I get where it comes from. Yeah, these people eight and a half I've never seen, but I love I just know I'm going to love it when I do see it.
I love everything that's been influenced by it. I love surrealism and I love trippy felliniesque dream scapes and that whole thing. The Club is about something that is both I'm resistant to, which is like marcho Australian sports culture, and also it's like it's more connected to in a sense what I like forces that were probably influential growing
up to me. And like, you know, I was born in seventy eight, so the eighties in Australia, that type of culture around sports and guys, you know, blokes, and
what the values were on politics and all that. It was very like, yeah, I'm resistant to it, and I was curious to see, like if I could learn anything and maybe to understand about myself more and how I've because like I think for a lot of like artistic males of my age, redefining masculinity and what that looks like as an Australian guy has been a huge priority
for us. So it's kind of sometimes good to get into the depths and go, well, what was it traditionally and what can we learn from it, and what earlier critiques of it existed that might still be relevant or might be outdated, and kind of looking at all of.
That absolutely, and there is so much to jump into about the club. And I do want to talk about your three favorite films. And I think this is the first time this has come up. There's occasionally there's been I think one where I haven't seen one of my guest three favorite films. I haven't seen two of these films, which let's begin with a Simple Men. I've not seen Simple Men. Tell us about that.
Well, how Hartley was like the you know, late eighties into the nineties kind of like indie rock filmmaker, Like he was making films from the same place that like to me, like you know, maybe like Sonic Youth were making music or it was this very like it was it was all there was almost like an anti performance, anti cinematic thing going on in it, but it was very dialogue based. God, it's so hard to describe. And it's also it was so influential on me as a teenager.
The way I thought about it's hard to just gob his movies, Like they're not naturalistic at all, but they're almost a type of like American suburban surrealism that is just really spoke to me. Yeah. Yeah, So I don't know, I don't know what you got to see it?
So who's in that? Who's in Simple Man?
Uh?
Martin Donovan was like probably one of the most famous actors, but not super famous, but he was known for being in several how Hartley film.
Yes, he was wasn't he I recognized how because I'm trying to think of how Hartley's other films, because I went through I'm a really good friend of mine, just loved Hell Hartley growing up, and you know, and she was very also very alternative, like Hell Hartley is fair, you know.
I like she introduced me to do a lot of these people. But I'm just trying to remember, of course Hell Hartley's other.
Well, there was a trilogy, There was Simple Man, Trust and The Unbelievable Truth. Those three all sort of operated in the same universe, and then you know, he went on and did a bunch of other stuff. He's just someone who really had his own rhythm. And I really like that in artists, like people that exist sort of in their own universe and just make continue to layer on it and construct. Yeah, a whole way of looking
at the world. And also I kind of like that it's sort of like bad some of it, like bad acting or what we might call bad acting. But you also realize that we've kind of been indoctrinated post Marlon Brando in thinking that naturalism is the only style of acting. And I actually think that's why Johnny Depp is kind of interesting he's not my favorite actor at all, like in terms of how he speaks to me. But he was interested in non naturalistic acting and more type of
presentational like Greek tragedy type thing. And and I think there are all these other ways of telling stories that aren't just sort of this Brando esque let me take you into like the depths of my pain and really demonstrate my suffering. It's like, there's just other ways of telling stories with cinema. And I found how hotly just it's interesting that he wasn't tempted by naturalism in the same way that most filmmakers have been in the last century.
Yeah, it's really interesting when we look at film. People who are just watching films are thinking about the acting style. When they're watching it, they either make their choice that it's a good performance or a bad performance. But you're right, there is naturalistic acting. There is you know, there's Aaron
Sorkin acting. You know, they're they're they're even the club isbviously it's set on a stage play and it kind of feels a bit like you know that it is a play in and that how acting has evolved so much over the years. I actually watched this is this is moving on to a degree. But I watched Squid Game. I'm not sure if you've seen a good.
No, but I've been obviously seeing the memes. Y.
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
And I'm this kind of you know, Korean cinema and TV is having and deservedly its moment in the sun, at the moment, you know, post Parasites win a couple of years ago. But and I just put out a tweet saying, wow, squid Games made and bold choices and everyone, so what else?
What other Korean cinema can I dive into?
And people are throwing stuff in Then there's one person who said I couldn't.
I couldn't watch Squid Game. The acting was horrible.
And I replied, I said, by any chance, did you watch it in Korean or did you watch it with the American overdub?
And I said the American overduble.
I said, well, that's that's that's not that wasn't There is a performance going on, but it's not the performance given by the actors. It's that's a performance given by somebody in the voice over booth in Los Angeles.
You know.
But if you watch actually the the Korean performances, you know, as intended it's extraordinary performances.
So yeah, well.
That's another Yeah, that's another aspect, like the cultural expectations, and like there's a whole history of like different ways of cultures relating to theater, like using masks and using shadows and using like like. But we tend to be very binary in the way we seek culture. I think in the West, and there's like good acting and bad acting, as good music and bad music, as opposed to oh
that made me feel something, yeah, and that didn't. And I tend to prefer looking at work in that way like like wow, that made me a little uncomfortable and I felt something unusual, And that is a totally valid audience experience.
In my book, Absolutely, I have seen The King of Comedy, Mountain Scorsese, Robert de Niro, extraordinary, this extraordinary film. It's it's one of those you know, it's a Scorsese film that can can be forgotten about in some in some circles, amongst the Taxi Driver and and and and others. So why does King of Comedy kind of jump out from all the other scorse films.
Well, it's interesting because with Scorsese and with Woody Allen. My favorite works. Each of them are works that they essentially turned their backs on and considered failures. Like I like Interiors, That's probably my favorite Woody Allen movie. And I like King of Comedy. And it's funny that, like the point where they feel they missed the mark, some of these sort of cinematic masters, like you know, take the other issues out of it, but just being you know,
great filmmakers. To me, it's just weird that like where they would think they missed the market. Like Scorsese was very he doesn't talk about that film a lot. I think he considers that sort of a departure from his uber and to me, it's like, it's, oh man, I mean, there's so much about that movie. Jerry Lewis is a revelation in that movie, I mean it is. It is
an exercise in intense discomfort. I remember once I did a gig with Paul L. F. Tompkins, the comedian in la and he he was slinging some merch afterwards, you know, in the outside the gig, and he said to the audience, if you'd like to come and say hi to me after the show and share a brief yet intensely awkward exchange. I'll be standing by the and that what happens between a performer and the audience a brief, yet intensely awkward exchange.
The King of Comedy is, let's expand that into a movie intense the intensely awkward exchange between performer and audience member to the point of violence and delusion. And you know, it's just it's just incredible. I think if you're someone who's been interested in fame and ambition and show business and how to cultivate a feeling of connection with the audience and what the dangers are of that, the King of Comedy just really speaks to that.
It's interesting.
We all think of Jerry Lewis and you know, Dean Martin and the comedies that he made, but his performance when he actually kind of probably as he got older, certainly as he got older, he gave some quite brilliant performances that weren't focusing on comedy. There's another movie he made called Funny Bones. I'm not sure if you've ever seen that, with Oliver Platt, and he's he plays a famous comedian and his son, Oliver Pratt is trying to following his footsteps, and there's a scene of this never
and he's not he's not doing particularly well. And there's a scene that just it just breaks my heart every time I watch it. And it's it's Jerry Lewis saying to his to Oliver saying, son, you know this, This breaks my heart to tell you this, but you just don't have funny bones, you know. And it's just it's one of the most heartbreaking scenes I think I've ever I've ever witnessed, having your dad, who you're trying to, you know, follow in his footsteps that you you know,
you shouldn't. You should he shouldn't be following me.
You're not.
You're kind of not worthy of the you know, of the pursuit is And it's yeah, he's if you're looking at another Jerry Lewis film where he's not, you know, the Jerry Lewis that we all know, funny Bones is worth checking out.
Yeah, what about the whole is just remembering that whole you know about the day the clown cried Oh yes, yeah, that there never came out.
Yeah, I've seen it came That's why it's.
It was a Jerry Lewis movie. I guess it was about I'm just looking it up. It was a Swedish French drama.
Espasically is beautiful as a similar premise, wasn't it?
Yes, it was set it was a circus clown imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, and apparently it was just this tragic comedy that was deemed just sort of a disaster. But I guess I'd love to I should read a biography of Jerry Lewis or something, because there was clearly something going on with him that he was able to embody these sort of incredibly dark comic characters, kind of like I think Adam Sandler has a bit of that too.
There's like the clown level and then there's this other heartbreaking level going on underneath and almost.
Like Adam Sandler, yes, and there's you know, you saw a bit of.
It in Adam Sandler's last comedy special, which I thought was just amazing, the one where he did the song about Chris Farley and everything, and like he he leaned into that there was this survivor in him that had been beaten up and had kind of like you know, it was like this like yeah, just this like beautiful, like bitter sweet side of Adam Sandler that he was like finally like showing it, and I think as a fan, you just felt like, yes, this is the sweet spot.
And I think just some some comedians get so boxed in by being funny. I mean I've because I do a lot of stuff with you know, on the fringes of the comedy world and with funny people and stuff. I get asked a lot about the ways music and comedy connect, and I always feel that musicians have We're very lucky in that we can incorporate comedy, but when not,
we don't have the pressure to always be funny. Like a musician can tell a story on stage and get laughs and everything, and then go into just a heartfelt song and the audience can modulate with them, whereas for comedians, the pressure for everything, every tweet, every line to just leave the audience on the floor in stitches. I think that is almost like can give you an identity crisis because it's an absurd pressure for a human being to be under.
I'm glad you recognize that because I've been in audiences where you know, the singer has got a huge laugh between because he's shed a bit of banter with the bass player about a fucking g cord or something that I don't understand it. But there's thirty percent of the audience that are pissing themselves laughing and then and their heroes all of a sudden. I mean the other place that that happens is tennis players. Whenever you know a
tennis player. You know, all Pat Rafter had to do was toss the ball in the air and then apologize for you know, not going through with a serve, and you know, Flushing Meadow would be enab It's.
Stitches, totally, totally. It's it's a fascinating the way I think, I think the way humor can both be used but can also like affect people, you know, like it obviously it can take an audience on a journey, but it's I guess this specific thing about what it does to the psyche of a person who is naturally funny but
is also forced to be funny all the time. I think you get characters like these like Jerry Lewis, like where the rage that's seething just under theace, and that the rage of the audience and the condescension is like it's barely repressed.
I mean, I mean the other I guess with the musicians. Musicians can show not only can they you know, they can tell a whimsical story and then go into a hot belt, so so they're actually showing the light and shade of them. And they can even do that within one song, or you know, they can get one song could you know, a bit whimsy and then the next song could actually be you know, something completely different and darker.
Where if you're a comedian generally and it is changing a bit, we've seen, you know, you know, Hannah Gadsby had to you know, turn the comedy world upside down a little bit with then a few years ago, but mostly you know, we are there the tell jokes over an hour and you do get to share a lot of who you are, but your job is to make people laugh, you know, you know, like as soon as you start going into any kind of self pity is not the right term, but you know vulnerability, yes, self
evolved where vulnerability this tips over to something else, it becomes that's not what they've.
Paid for, not at all totally.
The other actors, of course, who have gone from you know being you know, seen this comedic even pre dating Sandaler's kind of transformation in part is, of course Robin Williams with Dead Poets Three, Peter Weir and yeah, and then Jim Carrey also Peter Wee with The Truman Show.
Yeah, I mean, all sort of tragic figures. And I think that's the way that you know, there's a reason why the Fater there are those two faces, because like there is this connection between what we laugh at and what terrifies us or what breaks our hearts. And it's like, you know, as a Jewish person, our entire culture is steeped in using humor as a defense against persecution. I mean we've basically just survived as a people by laughing.
And you know, Jews are good at it. Like you look at like how ancient the story of anti Semitism is. It's like it is. It is one of the great truths about civilization is where you find people, you know, meetingeople that are different to them, you'll find anti Semitism. It's like as long as there was like you know, people traveling around me. But similarly with the way we joke to get through it. And I think these I don't know, this connection to the way laughter. Both releases
trauma also or helps process trauma. I just find it very I don't know, I find it very real. I mean all in all, I guess humor also like talking about something like King of Comedy or an Adam Sandler film, or we're also essentially talking about non naturalism life. Real life is not as funny as comedy is. You know, you don't get to laugh that much. And I do feel that the gritty obsession with representing real life on screen or in song or in writing, it's just not my cup of tea.
I want.
I want something exaggerated, symbolic, bigger, weirder. I want to see like I always love that Oscar wild quote, give a man a mask, He'll show you the truth. I want to learn the truth about something by seeing something
that's not exactly real. You know, it's like you touch something more profoundly human by suspending your disbelief and going into a kind of more yeah, just a more surreal im And that kind of brink comes to the third film, which I don't know if you've seen about Endlessness I mentioned. I just saw it this year when lockdown has ended and movies were open. Me and my wife were just like, oh, let's go to the movies. So we were like, let's
see what's on it. Me and my daughter was back in school and we were like, let's see what's on at the Dandy in Newtown and there was this movie got about Endlessness, and I looked it up and it was just like, I loved this movie and I went to see it, and it was one of my favorite
cinematic experiences in a long time. It was all these really long, slow, quiet scenes on sets, clearly on sets, but like beautifully built sets, but with no chaos, like a doctor's office or a bridge, and people taking really long pauses, absurdly long in terms of just sitting in the discomfort of these bizarre moments. And it was called about Endlessness, and it was an exploration of eternity in regular moments. And I just was I was just in
love with it. I was in love with it. It was a gorgeous, gorgeous film.
Yeah, And what part of the world was that from.
I think I was Swedish. I think it was Swedish. And apparently the filmmaker, I haven't seen all these other films. Apparently everything he's done is just brilliant. But it was really Yeah, it took my breath away.
How good was it to be back in the cinema?
Oh man, it's that eleven am movie. That's the whole thing for me. Like, I don't want to watch movies at nighttime. I just get sleepy. I like to socialize at nighttime, but the last thing I want to do is sit down and watch a two hour slow movie about eternity, you know, in my bed. So it's like, you know, little waken Bag, the you know popcorn. You're at the movies eleven am in the mid morning. You're just like going on a glorious trip. It was just beautiful.
There's probably there's maybe four or five other people in the cinema.
Is it is the best thing about the best working in the arts is that you can actually see mid morning movies. It is makes it all worthwhile, exactly. Hey, let's move on to talk about the film that we are here to talk about, The Club nineteen eighty, based on David Williamson's play Bruce Perris for directing, did you watch it with when you and your email when we chattle about this, you said that your wife might even check it out. Ione Sky. For those who don't know
wonderful actress. Did you watch it with you in the end?
Yeah, she watched it, you know, definitely made it through the first forty five minutes, it got a little like, I can't say she didn't intentionally skip it, It just got a little bit deprioritized with the other activities going on around the house, where I was like, I have to watch it. I'm doing peas podcasts. But no, we had a lot of interesting conversations about it actually, because it's a what's fascinating about it is it's a critique. You know, it's a critique of a certain type of culture,
but it's an outdated critique too. And one of the things that I talked to my nineteen year old stepdaughter about too is like, you know, she's very woke, Like she's very like she is part of the movement to rethink the way we think about gender, roles and race and all of that stuff, which is right and nineteen year olds, But when you're nineteen and you're having these awakenings, it's very hard to imagine that the awakenings will continue
for future generations and your critiques will become outdated. Yes, And one of the things about watching this movie was that it had a lot to say about kind of you know, sort of critically say about male club culture. But it also was very much a victim of like fetishizing that culture too. It was not able to maintain adequate distance from its subject matter to truly critique it.
It was also madly in love with it, and it was it was in love with the fellas all getting together and smacking each other's butts and the change rooms, and like it was interesting, Like we're that movie made today, I think it would actually be a darker appraisal of locker room culture. I think there was still a sense that as as dark as it got, it was like that you know, boys or me boys, there was still a bit of that going on, which is like you know, from a different time.
Yeah, And I wonder if it was made today. I think perhaps if they lost the idea that it was still about winning a Grand final, it feels like you don't need you can understand why, you know, you want you want it, you know, maybe you want hope at the end, or you want it, you know, a big ending, but there's no real reason why that team had to win the Grand Final to say what they were trying to say about about the sport and about you know, boardrooms and disloyalty and.
Ego and and ambition.
I just feel one it was it was kind of clumsily done, this idea that they were on the bottom of the ladder at a certain point of the season, and then without seeing any even in the montage, without seeing any of the of the winning, all of a sudden they're in the Grand Final, and then they win the Grand Final.
It felt a bit clumsy.
It was a play.
Dave Wimson wrote a play. Frank Wilson, who played Jock, was also in it. I think maybe Allen Castle who played Jerry, we're both in. Bruce beris Ford adapted two of Dave Williamson's play. Don's Party was also David Williamson play, which also had Grahame Kennedy innit. And then this one and he makes this between Breaker Morant, which is one of the all time great thestrained films, and Puberty Blues, another all time greatest trained film.
So but yeah, one thing about that was that was a real like yeah, that was like a real Hollywood kind of like yes. And it was a weird revelation that they had all these issues is and then Jack Thompson goes, you know what, I figured it out. We have to win, And I was like, oh, really, this is the first moment that the coach is like, you know what if we actually played to win this game,
it could resolve some of the issues. Yeah. That that felt sort of like just like, oh, yeah, give them a happy ending at the end of a type thing.
Yeah, because in the end, what is that film saying about all the bloodshed that's kind of gone on and the backstabbing that's gone on behind that, that that gets rewarded.
I'm going to tell you something, in the strictest confidence, you can't afford to be generous to take because you're not going to be around him much longer.
What you done can't tell you anything except it's dynamite.
Well what happens. Yeah, I imagine Laurie keeps his job going into the next year, because I imagine I all keep their jobs. I guess because they're you know, they just want a premiership. And generally when the team achieves that kind of success across any kind of sport, there's not a whole bunch of change, you know, at board level.
Did you get any sense like I it's Hayward, right, Hayward was the younger.
Yes, Jeff Hayward.
Yeah, Jeff Hayward. What was his motivation?
Like?
What was going I didn't feel that I understood in any depth. Firstly, I haven't seen a movie with this few women in it with speaking roles in years. I was like, I was like, we got halfway through the movie before a woman added a line, which is obviously the culture at the time, and that was, you know, yes, but so his girlfriend, you know, she she gives him wed and then she criticizes him for smoke. But what was what was going on with him? He resented that
he had talent or I just didn't really get it. Yeah, I didn't get that part of.
Yeah, we don't.
We don't really get to know him a whole deal, and even to a point where he says to Jack Thompson's character Laurie, the football shits him, you know, and he kind of resents this idea that he's running around chasing a pig skin.
All right, if you really want to know what's going on is that I'm sick to death of football.
I couldn't care.
Less well, I never play another game in my life.
It's a lot of matcho competitive bullshit. Football shits me.
Well, then he says, you're not coaching well either, and then all of a sudden, Laurie says, well what do you mean? He goes, well, you should you know Danny was getting killed. You know, I should play center. And it's like he kind of changes on a he flips on a dime. Really the idea of like like really resenting footy to kind of pitching that he should be the one leading the team in a way.
And I just.
The most insight with what he got into the Danny was when he told the fake story about sleeping with his legless sister.
We got it. That was so weird.
That was weird. I was like, did I choose to watch eight and a half?
It was?
And it was you know, I thought it was. I really enjoyed.
I mean I did enjoy the fun of that scene and Jock. I think the performances are really good in this. I think Frank Wilson as Jock gives a really really great performance. I feel like we sadly he's not long with us, but in fact, quite a lot of this cast are no longer with us. But he he was he was a standout as far as a performance goes in a film with I think really strong performances. I think Graham Kennedy's you know the King of Australian TV is really good in this.
They say he was a great player, Oh yes, and makes great scones. It doesn't mean she's a runner cake factory.
As is Alan Castle and Jack Jack Thompson's good. But I mean the whole the whole movie is an argument. Like it's it's argument after argument after argument. Every scene it's almost literally every scene is an argument.
Do you know what's funny? What reminded me was something reminded me of was I was doing a video clip once with you know, Rada Mitchell, the actress.
Oh yeah, yes, video with her, and we was.
In a music video and we had some interaction or whatever, and then in the background there was a telly on and I don't remember what was playing, but it was something like AMAgeddon or like it was like a political disaster movie of some kind, and all we saw were these shots of men talking to each other and and she was like, oh, this is such a guys movie.
And I was like why She was like, because it's just guys going like and I was like, oh my god, wow, I hadn't even thought about that in terms of like even the way the camera's moving, it's fully just there to platform one man saying something to another man. Like the camera is not framing it in any kind of poetic way. It's giving complete weight to just the intellectual content of what the actor has to say at that
moment and what I was. That's one of things that why I think the movie sort of actually kind of fails in its critique of kind of patriarchal culture in that the storytelling is incredibly patriarchal. It's linear, it's dialogue and logic based. There's not much room for like emotion
or poetry, Like there's very little. There are very few moments of with the exception of the like when the seagulls flew up and he, you know, he's obviously Heyward's having a sort of like opening to his unconscious or something which might be a more sort of feminine idea or something. The rest of it is really just like it's it's it's funny because I think this is like in the conversations that have come up around sort of
white privilege in the last few years and stuff. I think one of the things that we're being forced to look at is is the nature of the way we're discussing it simply furthering the issues that we're trying to dismantle.
Yeah, do you know what I mean?
Like, like, is white guys being intense with each other exploring this thing talking about It's like podcasts, Like it's four white guys sitting around talking about it. Like okay, so yeah they're talking about race. So yeah, they're talking about you know, gender or something. But at the end of the day, it's just platforming the exact voices that
are sort of the problem in the situation. And it was one of those things where I thought, like, this movie isn't doing the dismantling artistically that it should be doing of the subject matter.
Yeah, as a comic, and I'm not saying this is not at all saying woe is me at all, but you kind of going, what does the audience now expect of me?
What do they want to do? They want me to talk about and help and how I can you know, or.
I'm going to becoming about escapism and other people this and comment on this cultural revolution that is going on that. I'm you know, I'm supportive of you know, there's some really great things, you know, there's some great progress being made being am I am I getting the way by putting my hand up and devoting a show based on it.
I don't know what the what the answer is.
Yeah, look, I don't think there is an answer. But in a movie like this that its pretense is that it's going to offer some kind of cultural or criticism of the atmosphere within a male dominated sports organization, Yeah, which is what it is. Like, it's about, this is about It's funny in my mind, I keep calling the
movie the Boys, but it's called the Club. But it's like it called the Boys because it's about the old boys and the new boys and how the boys on interact, and it's got it's got a really I think it's
for its time. Also even what was it, early eighties, eighty one or something eighty Yeah, it's like that was a pretty radical stance to even look at that and go okay, because there's issues about like domestic violence and sexual assault and all these things get touched on him ways that would be handled much more sensitively today, like some of the you know, some of the things you're a bit like, oh, yes, you're dealing with that. Ooh, that's how you're dealing with and.
Yeah that you know, I was only a tiny bit relieved to be honest that there was there was some ramifications for like they weren't just where. I think the first time we hear something about you like domestic violence was Jock says something like, you know, he gave his wife dulcy one yeah, because he he said he.
Was she was beaten that day.
And I was like, Jesus fuck, I don't remember that, which is actually quite interesting for me to watch watch this movie that I watched many times as a kid, you know, on VHS, and I really loved it. But I kind of lean into the idea of like some of the actual footballers that you see are the people that I go and watch, you know, each Saturday at that ground.
You know, Like, so I had this, I was in for it, and we're tho.
Famous footballers in the team. I didn't.
Yeah, a lot of the guys who made up that you know, made up the team were actual actual footballers, you know. So you know, Tank o'donahue was a famous footballer called Renne kink who, funnily enough, when this is back in the day when they weren't professional. And that's one of the things that the movie is also about, this moving on from basically being an amateur sports as more money starts coming into that sport. Jeff Hay would have been given an extra ten thousand dollars and that
was sudden that happened, Like you had. There's a guy called Keith greg who played for North Melbourne. Wonderful player, but one two brand low metals, which is that you know, the the yeah, the Oscar of the of or the Grammy of a football VFL and he was making thirty dollars a week in the mid seventies and he was deemed to be the best player in the league over two years. But then there was cash deals being made
to bring people in to that club. Between nineteen seventy two and nineteen eighty the income of the money spent in VFL football went up two thousand percent. I do recognize, and I think that that was that was all playing a part in this film as well, which which I quite liked. I quite liked that idea, and you know, and the I like that Ted, you know, becomes a victim of a culture that he encourages, lack of loyalty.
I mean, he's trying to get rid of Lorry the whole time, and it's that lack of loyalty that he's encouraged that his downfall in the end. But to get get back to the point, I guess I was making it's important point.
I don't want to leave it loose.
When Jock says that about hitting his partner his wife, when I saw it, I was like, that's that is I do not remember that.
And I was like God.
And then and then we had the stripper at the club function, which I'm pretty sure doesn't happen these days, and then we learn about the assault that that again Ted has slapped her.
I was like Jesus. And then and I say, I was only, you know.
A little bit relieved that at least these things weren't just throwaway comments. My fear when Jock said that the beginning with it was almost a throwaway comment, like it was supposed to be a joke.
And I was like, Okay, this is not good.
And then I guess when it kind of became like I think it was there to show Jock's hypocrisy that he had done indulged in this behavior. Yet he's actually used this the information about Ted to knife Ted to get rid of him as a power play. So I was somewhat relieved that they weren't just throwaway if you like it straight up.
Yeah and yeah, And I think it's like it's heart is in the right place that movie. But that's why I was from the beginning, like I think it's most interesting in the sense of the way cultural criticism evolves because it's like reading parenting books from twenty years ago that you're like, we know a little more now about child psychology, you know, and you can see that like these conversations about like what's wrong with our institutions and what you know, what are they doing to our kids,
whether it's putting our kids in schools or football clubs, or are they being exploited? Are they being taken care of? Like this is an ongoing conversation, and it's just like super interesting to look at what was the cutting edge of cultural criticism in a really important area forty years ago. Now it's forty years ago, and how certain true remain, like the idea that these kids are essentially being exploited
for the financial benefit of the club. Like that comes up really early that Heyward's like, yeah, it's a big check, but I don't get most of it. Most of it goes to the club. And you get that sense in you know, same in America and here and these players being traded and it's it's really great for the clubs. And how much do the kids actually get out of it. Some of that stuff is still spot on, and some of it we expect more. We expect more now, you know, like I think we I think nowadays like a club
like that, Like it was interesting. I was talking to Russell Crowe about this about what with Souths about with the football club and how he's like realizing like, oh, it's really on the club to do more education with the players about how to treat women, yeah, and how to like not make mistakes with money and not. Like you've got these kids in like a really vulnerable time of their life and they're basically submitting themselves to this industry that they get parented by, you know, and just
some of it. I think our ideas evolve about how these institutions should be looking after the people involved.
Yeah, well, yeah, you went back in nineteen eighty you had guys who'd go to training and then go back to work after they finished training and then play on the weekends. Now you have there's so much money in AFL football that you have kids drafted at eighteen out of school paid.
Really decent money.
A first year player is probably I think over I think it might be over maybe around one hundred thousand. It might be less, it might be something sixty you know, and one hundred thousand, but you know, an eighteen year old making sixty thousand dollars in the first year, knowing that it'll go up over the years.
It's a lot of money.
And combined with spare time, you know, like they are at the club training and it's you know, but they have they have a lot.
Of spare time to spend that money.
Or to be hanging out with you know, other their new friends who all have spent the same almost on the same schedule, with a lot of money as well. So it's absolutely imperative that the clubs educate and I think that you know, they are getting better. I mean, Colin has been through a tumultuous you know, a couple of years, and there's always kind of been a bit of a lightning rod for these kinds of issues. And you know, I think there's there seems to be a
real commitment to address education. And you know, I mean you could argue now that AFL footballers and probably you know less across NRL. But you know what Russell's saying, I think rings true that you could argue that these young men receive more education about these kinds of issues than most young men in other workplaces.
Yeah. Well, it's like, I don't know, I always thought entertainment. It's like, you know, there should be particularly with money. It's like, you know, you have people, say twenty one, twenty two and they have a song comes out, it makes them some money. And there's something about the human mind, and this is why I relate to athletes, like the human mind has this intense impre It's like non practical in that it just assumes that whatever's happening right now
will continue. So if it's depressed, it goes I'm going to be depressed forever. That's why young people depression is so hard because they can't foresee breaking out of it. And if they're making money, they're like, wow, I'm going to make money. Forever, and the choices that you make in those little windows which Heyward has this window, he like gets a check, you know, and it's interesting that he never cashed it, that it was still there. I don't know if that was some shame that he had
about getting quote unquote overpaid. That didn't exactly ring true to me, that he wouldn't have because you know, but these are brief windows in our kinds of industries where you can get like a really good bit of momentum and the next one maybe a decade later, or I may never come again. And I always really feel for young people having to suddenly be thrust into the degree of financial responsibility required in order to like not go broke right away. Basically it's a lot of pressure.
I mean, you have always seen to You've always kept your head together, you know, and you were, you know, a teenage prodigy.
You know, you're very young. I talked about eighteen year old getting drafted.
You.
I think you were fifteen when you kind of exploded and you were signed. I think it was the first and more by signing youth and Mike Deef and the Beastie Boys are signing your labels. How did you how did you keep your head together through those? And were they periods where you kind of you did let it get away from you? Because I look back when I started my comedy career, and even to be honest, I remember the first person I got recognized.
This is before I was on TV.
I got recognized down the shops and I was like, God, I guess I'm famous now. That person just have to be at the gig at Sant Kilda three weeks earlier and just recognized me and they said that they saw me, you know, And but yeah, how did you handle you?
Did you have mentors?
Yeah?
I mean one look I had. I had a Russian immigrant grandmother who was like Ben Jammy and as soon as you'll make some money, you're buy an appartiment. So like I had that kind of training, you know that was like just park some money in an apartment, you know, because you never know.
But I think.
More than that, I grew up with an understanding that
long term. I don't want to call it success because I know that that word is complicated, but almost like ability is created through like I always loved the movie Shortcuts, Robert on the movie Right and the stories the Raymond Carver stories that it was based on, because they were all about people that built artificial constructs that denoted security to them and then chaos would enter, right And so there was like the famous story about the guys who
went fishing and they found the body. Do you remember that? In shortcuts? And they knew, oh, the body's been there a while. Let's just keep fishing and we'll report it when we go back there. And the wife is heartbroken. She's like, you wait, you kept fishing. And it was about how the way tragedy enters our lives in unexpected ways. And that's a long way of explaining that. My sense was always that your best bet at happiness or stability was accepting chaos and madness and in appropriate doses so
almost like homeopathic, you know. So like I remember like and Cotney Taylor from the Dandy Warholes understood that he said that his band was they were on their way to becoming the coolest band on the planet, the Dandy Walls. This was like ninety two whatever, and he was like, huh, I have to build in a floor because it's all going too well. And if I give myself to this, the hedonism and the success and everything being handed to me,
it's going to implode. So he got a girlfriend and he stayed with her completely monogamously through that entire run, and he never gave in too like the sexual temptations. And he said, for him, he thinks that was the way of building the things securely. It's almost like building a high rise tower that can move in the wind. Wow. You know. So I've always been interested in how you allow chaos and destruction and the falling apartners into the thing that you're building in the long term.
Yeah, that is that is that is that is brilliant and yeah, but you have always and I said in the in the in the intro, that you know, you are always somebody who is happy to speak your mind. And when you say that, if you say that about somebody, you immediately think, oh, there are they are a bit of a rebel rouser, you know. But you you, you are always somebody who has spruit positivity and you wear your hard and your sleeve, but not in that kind of saccharin way at all. Like it's kind of like
it's really refreshing. There's so much noise, Like there's so much noise that we need to turn off, you know, and you have always been this beacon of positivity, and I'm sure there are times when you have not felt like being like that when you were fifteen, were you like that or just something you ever?
Look, I have an innately positive temperament. But I also see it as logical. Yeah, I see it as like I'm a very logical person in my way. It's like, I think positivity is your best bet to finding a solution, Like it's the mindset that is most likely to bring the desired outcome. So I just look at it like, yeah, I have a gift of being like a pretty upbeat person. That's just like, you know, whatever what you come with. But then I realized that, like, huh, this actually is
the best tool. It's the best tool for resilience. It's like Jewish people laughing, Like, ultimately it is the thing that's going to help you get through.
Is so good.
My congratulations on everything. Thank you so much for doing the podcast. I know it comes with homework, and you nailed it. It's been fascinating to chat to you about it, and it's great to catch up.
I love it, man. Thank you for having me and thanks for giving me the opportunity to see The Club. I would have never seen it otherwise. The makers of Breaker Marine now bring you a story of games people play.
That's true, isn't it.
Jerry No going Away?
That was Ben Lee. What a fascinating go What a lovely guy and just a passionate guy. So smart. Yeah.
I knew Ben wasn't going to come out and say, oh my god, this is my favorite new film, but it was really interesting to hear his his takes on Bruce Beresford's The Club. I mean, there's still so much to enjoy about that film. It's a film of its age, no doubt about that. Derrick Myers at Castaways Studios, he's the man who puts all this together. If you want to get your podcast going, contact Castaways Studios dot com
dot au. That's Cassaway Studios dot com dot au. And there it will help you help get your started like he did me a couple of years ago. Now and now we're like almost eighty episodes. Yeah, we'll have one hundred episodes before we know it. Well, that's going to be a celebration.
Derek, how are you super fantastic? That's the way mate, you're getting Brack for Collingwood. You're a saints man.
Don't just not burry for colling I really don't burry form half my family do my wife's family.
It's traumatic. There's a great movie called A twenty ten grandfa on a replant. Check it out. Sorry, what a prick sixty.
Both nail bodis eerily similar. Finish you know, well the draw was eerily similar Finish to the Thankfully with one point of different things go along swimmingly. We've got a big episode coming up next week. But I love this speak pipe that's going off. We're getting more messages on the speak pipe.
Yeah, we've got a great one. I'll just tell you what speak pipe his people, Please it's you'll see a link in the show notes, or or you might go to it and be speakpipe dot, calm forward, slash y hasn't he? You can just jump on and leave us a message of a verbal message that we can use in the show. And we'll demonstrate with this very good run.
From ben Hi Pete Love the episode with Eddie Bannon. Love actually is my girlfriend's favorite film. But I've sent you a link so she can receive some constructive criticism and a very good review from both of you, honest and fair, hoping we're still together after she's listened to it.
Oh, Ben, you're oh, you're in for I hope it wasn't her birthday or anything, or oh my god, what are you doing?
I mean, I want to be very clear about this podcast.
I never want this, at any episode of this podcast to ruin anyone's favorite film or favorite films like this is just us processing a film that, certainly my guest is only just watched, sometimes the night before, sometimes the morning of. Eddie obviously had very much processed.
Love.
Actually, I'm not trying to talk anyone down, including myself. When Love actually comes on around christ this time, I'm not going to switch to the channel. I'm going to keep watching it. I just know that there are things that are a bit flimsy about it, but there are things that I love it. Emma Thompson's performance is amazing. But what are you doing, mate? You're glutton for punishment. Feel free to let us know whenever your girlfriend does.
Listen to that episode.
She might turn it off after a few minutes when she gets the vibe of our conversation, but please let us know what she did think of it. I had somebody, Mimi from work, who's a big fan of the podcast. Today, Mim, she said Love actually was on her favorite films and she she listened to that podcast and she was like, oh my god, this is all actually correct, this is true.
But she still loves the film. You know, I don't think we've totally ruined it for her.
But like I said, never the purpose of any episode. It's just it's just this opinions and we all need to understand and be okay with differing opinions.
Good luck.
I'm backing him.
Sorry, I'm backing him. It's worth getting her on. Get her on to Elf instead.
Elf is a great Christmas movie. There's no doubt about that.
No, you're brave man, Your brave man, Ben, Brave Ben, Big Ben. If your girlfriend does listen to it, please let us know. Send us another speak pipe if I get her to send us a speak pipe, love to know her feedback, whatever it may be, whatever it may be, Fingers crossed.
Okay, Ben.
Next week on the show, comedian podcaster Cameron James. I have said that I wanted introduce new people to you. I haven't spent a lot of time with Cam. I've admired him from Afar. He does great work with recent former Yasny guest Alexi Toleopolis, who did Rocky Horror Picture Show, and they do podcasts together, such as Finding Drago, which became a massive hit, and Finding Desperado. They've got a
new one coming out of Finding You. We'll talk to him about that, But more importantly, we're going to cover a film that I absolutely love. There'll be some intention leading up to it, because I really hope he loves this movie. It is the Ron Howard directed nineteen eighty nine classic Staran Steve Martin, Diane Weeze, Keanu Reeves, a young Young Sorry, Joaquin Phoenix, Martha Plympton, Jason Robards, Rick Moranis. It's an amazing film, Parenthood. How could he not love it?
I hope he does. If you haven't seen it, please watch Parenthood. It's an awesome film, funny but also got this melancholy in it. I'm getting too far ahead of myself.
Just watch it.
You'll thank me later next week on You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, Cameron James watches Parenthood for the first time until then see Soon, And so we leave old Pete Steve Manzal and to our friends of the radio audience, we've been a pleasant good night