1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,780
Okay, time to spend some time with Jay Widener, filmmaker, writer, all-mound.

2
00:00:11,140 --> 00:00:16,460
He's one of the few people on the planet who actually understands the mind, or much of it,

3
00:00:16,860 --> 00:00:20,820
at least the records we have of it, through his films of Stanley Kubrick.

4
00:00:21,240 --> 00:00:28,120
Jay's work on trying to make Stanley Kubrick accessible is unparalleled, and other things as well.

5
00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:33,380
He's got a new film out as well. I guess it's, when's the release date on Shasta?

6
00:00:34,520 --> 00:00:39,240
Probably, it looks like late October, sometime in the fall.

7
00:00:41,340 --> 00:00:50,500
Everything takes a lot longer than you think it does, but I have been exploring new distribution models,

8
00:00:50,500 --> 00:00:59,900
and I think I can say that for chumps like me, who will never be accepted by the studio system...

9
00:00:59,900 --> 00:01:01,640
Gosh, I wonder why not.

10
00:01:02,220 --> 00:01:07,520
The future looks good, because I don't need their systems anymore.

11
00:01:07,760 --> 00:01:15,440
Well, that's been just an absolute chokehold on the industry for the better part of a century now,

12
00:01:15,780 --> 00:01:17,120
the distribution of films.

13
00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:25,440
That's right, and it's pretty much, for the creative business person who really understands how to dance around the big dudes,

14
00:01:25,580 --> 00:01:31,260
it's actually a very exciting time, because you can keep all the money that you get,

15
00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:33,200
because you're in control of the situation.

16
00:01:33,960 --> 00:01:41,900
And you may not make as much as the big films, but you make more than you would as an independent filmmaker.

17
00:01:41,900 --> 00:01:52,080
And that's really the key to success right now, because money is to film what paint is to art.

18
00:01:52,700 --> 00:01:53,920
Isn't that the truth?

19
00:01:54,180 --> 00:01:54,480
Yeah.

20
00:01:54,480 --> 00:01:56,680
And we've seen some pretty gross art lately.

21
00:01:57,640 --> 00:01:58,240
Wow.

22
00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:02,460
Well, there's actually, I highly recommend a film that's out right now.

23
00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:04,920
It's The Dark Knight Rises.

24
00:02:04,920 --> 00:02:11,260
It's actually a very good film, and it's all about what's going on in America right now,

25
00:02:11,380 --> 00:02:19,600
between as the economy falls apart and the scrutiny on the 1% gets more and more intense.

26
00:02:20,140 --> 00:02:28,560
And Christopher Nolan masterfully wins this very, very up-to-date story into his Batman theme.

27
00:02:28,560 --> 00:02:38,220
It's actually the best of the three films, I think, and Hans Zimmer's score to that film is second to none.

28
00:02:38,700 --> 00:02:41,440
Probably the best score I've heard in a long time.

29
00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:42,160
Really?

30
00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:45,540
Yeah, it's actually a very interesting film.

31
00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:57,280
It's all about how a secret society does not like the order and the calm that Gotham City is living under.

32
00:02:57,280 --> 00:03:08,020
And so they send in the most psychopathic, murderous guy they can, the secret society, to basically occupy Gotham.

33
00:03:08,440 --> 00:03:12,720
Only he occupies it by letting all the prisoners out of the prison.

34
00:03:13,640 --> 00:03:22,740
And this gang of criminals run by a secret society begins to take over Gotham with the federal government's consent.

35
00:03:22,740 --> 00:03:28,500
And they're terrorists, and they kill people, and it's very, very interesting.

36
00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:33,140
And there's Robespierre, there's a scene with Robespierre-like trials where rich people are taken.

37
00:03:33,140 --> 00:03:39,640
And, you know, there are kangaroo trials where they're really not even there to decide their guilt or innocence.

38
00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:43,220
They're there to decide which way they're going to die.

39
00:03:43,220 --> 00:03:46,460
And it's, you know, one rich person after another.

40
00:03:46,980 --> 00:03:57,700
And it's a very, very interesting film because Christopher Nolan is a, Christopher Nolan is a, you know, he's Irish-English and he's American.

41
00:03:57,840 --> 00:04:01,200
He's a dual citizen, has been that way for his whole life.

42
00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:22,460
And I think you can say, I can say that this is really his homage or his, his, his, to America, his sad, sad song to what America has become and what America is about to go through, which is a very frightening thing as portrayed in the movie.

43
00:04:22,460 --> 00:04:28,000
And I believe, actually, he's very close to the mark as to what is about to happen.

44
00:04:28,620 --> 00:04:32,080
And he's actually warning us in the movie about all of this.

45
00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:38,720
And, and it's, it's actually, I use, I don't want to praise it too much because it's still just a superhero film.

46
00:04:38,840 --> 00:04:42,640
But at the same time, Christopher Nolan is a very deep filmmaker.

47
00:04:42,840 --> 00:04:49,660
Inception was one of the most incredibly complicated screenplays I've ever, I've ever seen on, on screen, on the screen.

48
00:04:49,660 --> 00:04:53,680
And, and Memento also was an incredibly intelligent film.

49
00:04:54,320 --> 00:05:01,320
And so he's applied his intelligence and his craft to, to the superhero genre.

50
00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:07,360
And he actually pulled off a thinking man's film about what we're going through.

51
00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:17,660
It's really amazing about the film is he actually plays the entire, beautifully, actually a little boy, acapella, sings the Star Spangled Banner.

52
00:05:17,660 --> 00:05:19,280
And it's actually almost heartbreaking.

53
00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:30,180
He sings the entire first verse and he plays the whole thing, which is like strange with, with tattered flags, you know, flying in, off of buildings, American flags.

54
00:05:30,540 --> 00:05:37,860
You know, the whole thing is completely symbolic of like a super nine, nine 11, you know, super false flag.

55
00:05:37,860 --> 00:05:38,220
Wow.

56
00:05:38,700 --> 00:05:38,940
Yeah.

57
00:05:39,100 --> 00:05:43,640
So it's not just a, it's not just a violence and gore fest, although there's, I've heard.

58
00:05:43,640 --> 00:05:48,880
No, actually, I think, I think it's the least violent of the three, but of course it's still very violent.

59
00:05:49,080 --> 00:05:52,500
But, um, you know, it's, I think it's the least violent of the three.

60
00:05:52,500 --> 00:06:03,480
What does that tell us about the, the tool of desensitization, the overexposure, the constant exposure, continual exposure to death and violence?

61
00:06:03,920 --> 00:06:14,880
Of course, people, people don't know the difference now between video game death and violence, movie screen death and violence, nightly news scenes of, of Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, death and violence.

62
00:06:15,140 --> 00:06:15,940
It's all the same.

63
00:06:15,940 --> 00:06:29,240
Yeah, it's blending together and it's also blending into a dreamlike, a dreamlike thing where the killers, uh, seem to move in a trance and don't know who they are and what's going on.

64
00:06:29,300 --> 00:06:45,720
And then you start, what's kind of been great about the recent killings in, in, in Wisconsin, nothing great about it, but what's been great about the coverage and the alternative process, how quickly, you know, the rocks have been uncovered, uh, catching the scurrying insects before they disappear.

65
00:06:45,720 --> 00:06:47,180
Into the darkness kind of turn into the darkness kind of thing.

66
00:06:47,180 --> 00:07:03,800
And especially the Colorado Batman shootings, um, which occurred, um, exactly 13 day, uh, 13 years to the, uh, um, day of the release of Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrick, which is not an accident.

67
00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:17,880
I think Christopher Nolan is well aware of what I'm doing and, um, is well aware that, uh, for a filmmaker, greatness lies in making films with, with, with things inside them, a la Stanley Kubrick.

68
00:07:17,880 --> 00:07:37,220
And in fact, it's interesting because I received an email about two months before Dark Knight Rises came out, uh, telling me that Christopher Nolan was a fan of my work and was a huge fan of Kubrick and that he was working as in post on the film.

69
00:07:37,220 --> 00:07:44,720
And he'd seen it like 30 times because he was working on post and that he, Christopher Nolan had buried a lot of subliminal stuff in there.

70
00:07:45,540 --> 00:07:48,600
And of course, in the post-production process, he embedded.

71
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:49,040
Yeah.

72
00:07:49,180 --> 00:07:52,100
It was an anonymous email, which is very interesting.

73
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:53,000
That is.

74
00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:53,720
Yeah.

75
00:07:53,880 --> 00:07:54,200
It's quite a.

76
00:07:54,300 --> 00:07:57,220
Especially in light of what happened on July 20th.

77
00:07:57,280 --> 00:07:57,460
Yeah.

78
00:07:57,600 --> 00:07:57,820
Yeah.

79
00:07:57,820 --> 00:08:00,680
Well, first of all, congratulations on, on the compliment.

80
00:08:00,680 --> 00:08:05,100
But he's obviously got your, your, your Kubrick disc and he's looked at it and studied it.

81
00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:07,820
Uh, that's, that's, uh, very interesting.

82
00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:09,160
Is it relatively young man?

83
00:08:09,740 --> 00:08:10,900
He's about 45.

84
00:08:11,240 --> 00:08:11,440
Yeah.

85
00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:12,940
So he's going to be around for a while.

86
00:08:13,220 --> 00:08:13,400
Yeah.

87
00:08:13,400 --> 00:08:13,780
Yeah.

88
00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:14,120
Yeah.

89
00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:21,280
Very, very, very, uh, you know, he is, he's probably the greatest, uh, living filmmaker right now.

90
00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:25,900
I would say as far as his craft, his ability to tell the story and his writing.

91
00:08:26,760 --> 00:08:27,480
Very good.

92
00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:27,960
All right.

93
00:08:27,960 --> 00:08:29,080
So what happened in Aurora?

94
00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:39,500
Well, I mean, I don't know what happened, but I mean, I, I, I, I, when this guy, no one

95
00:08:39,500 --> 00:08:45,060
can actually ever say that this guy was shooting anyone, actually identify him because he was

96
00:08:45,060 --> 00:08:46,080
covered head to toe.

97
00:08:46,180 --> 00:08:46,420
Right.

98
00:08:47,680 --> 00:08:49,040
And he even had a neck guard.

99
00:08:49,360 --> 00:08:56,300
So no one could actually say there's a first story in, uh, that came in from the cops was

100
00:08:56,300 --> 00:09:02,640
that they saw him at the back of the theater and thought he was a SWAT team member.

101
00:09:03,360 --> 00:09:09,140
And that there was one of the cops noticed that his belt or something on him was not on

102
00:09:09,140 --> 00:09:10,140
right.

103
00:09:10,140 --> 00:09:13,160
And that's when they, you know, pulled the thing off and discovered this guy.

104
00:09:13,660 --> 00:09:14,860
And they said, who are you?

105
00:09:14,900 --> 00:09:15,700
And he said, I'm the Joker.

106
00:09:15,980 --> 00:09:24,020
Then a second story develops that they found him in his car, um, acting strangely in the

107
00:09:24,020 --> 00:09:24,720
parking lot.

108
00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:33,100
And, um, then we find out that one of the people in the audience says that someone received

109
00:09:33,100 --> 00:09:38,140
a phone call, went up to the exit door, looked like they jimmied it or did something to it.

110
00:09:38,140 --> 00:09:43,940
And then a couple of minutes later, Mr. Holmes came in through that door, fully armed or a

111
00:09:43,940 --> 00:09:46,160
guy, a man came through that door.

112
00:09:46,220 --> 00:09:47,900
We should say, cause no one can actually say.

113
00:09:48,340 --> 00:09:53,480
And so, uh, the thing is, is what, what, what is going on here?

114
00:09:53,620 --> 00:09:54,020
You know?

115
00:09:54,020 --> 00:09:58,880
And, and the answer is, is that, you know, of course it's the usual psyops for, um, gun

116
00:09:58,880 --> 00:09:59,320
control.

117
00:09:59,320 --> 00:10:02,540
I would imagine that that's a big, huge thing on their agenda.

118
00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:03,000
Sure.

119
00:10:03,500 --> 00:10:04,660
But there's a lot more.

120
00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:12,680
And I think a lot of it, I think some of it may have to do with a, um, you know, there

121
00:10:12,680 --> 00:10:15,780
was a multi-purpose to the plan for this guy.

122
00:10:15,780 --> 00:10:20,760
Uh, and there's a lot of million questions about what happened that night and previously,

123
00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:29,300
but the upshot is, is that they were trying to, I believe, send a message.

124
00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:33,520
And one of the reasons that they're trying to send a message to guys like Christopher

125
00:10:33,520 --> 00:10:39,160
Nolan, that, uh, you're not to mess around with, with, uh, put subliminal shit movies

126
00:10:39,160 --> 00:10:40,120
or anything like that.

127
00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:41,700
That's what I think.

128
00:10:42,300 --> 00:10:46,560
Well, uh, in this day and age, most everything is on, on the table.

129
00:10:46,720 --> 00:10:47,520
You just don't know.

130
00:10:47,900 --> 00:10:48,120
Yeah.

131
00:10:48,180 --> 00:10:52,420
All the possibilities are there and things that we can't even imagine are there.

132
00:10:52,500 --> 00:10:54,560
That's the part that bothers me the most.

133
00:10:54,560 --> 00:10:59,300
And you and I, and any of our listeners, you know, are aware that we don't know.

134
00:10:59,320 --> 00:11:01,320
We'll see you next day.