WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.585 It's wonderful 00:00:00.585 --> 00:00:01.450 when you get to have the 00:00:01.450 --> 00:00:03.330 privilege of experiencing art 00:00:03.330 --> 00:00:06.260 that is so unapologetically itself! 00:00:06.336 --> 00:00:08.206 And wonderful to watch the dawning of 00:00:08.206 --> 00:00:10.906 a new, powerful, wholly original voice 00:00:10.908 --> 00:00:12.708 in American filmmaking. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:12.899 --> 00:00:14.939 If you wanna have that kind of experience today, 00:00:14.939 --> 00:00:18.146 you should go out and buy a ticket for Sorry to Bother You. 00:00:18.238 --> 00:00:23.213 There's a precarity inherent to filmmaking, especially when we're talking about more 00:00:23.213 --> 00:00:28.333 experimental or unconventional filmmaking, where there's so many elements that have to align 00:00:28.333 --> 00:00:30.825 for a movie to be this good, and work this well, 00:00:30.825 --> 00:00:34.465 while also retaining so much honesty and so much weirdness. 00:00:34.603 --> 00:00:38.895 A lot of films with this strong of an ideological push and with this sort of message 00:00:38.895 --> 00:00:42.775 try to coast on it and go for easy jokes, or an easy stock narrative; 00:00:42.910 --> 00:00:45.990 or refuse to indict anyone except for a central villain. 00:00:46.151 --> 00:00:49.671 This film does not take any of those well-worn paths. 00:00:49.784 --> 00:00:52.515 Like, don't read about this movie's plot. 00:00:52.515 --> 00:00:55.135 A black man goes to work for a telemarketing company. 00:00:55.310 --> 00:00:57.430 " - You were a telemarketer years ago; - Oh, yeah. 00:00:57.430 --> 00:00:59.360 - what did you draw from that, I'd like to hear the - Oh, yeah. 00:00:59.360 --> 00:01:01.650 - pitch you give as a telemarketer. - Well I sat in my cubicle and 00:01:01.650 --> 00:01:03.720 vowed revenge, and so, this is part of it." 00:01:03.907 --> 00:01:06.917 "I like to tell stories about... 00:01:07.644 --> 00:01:11.024 folks in jobs that we take for granted. 00:01:11.554 --> 00:01:18.534 And about how those worlds have the same amount of drama 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:22.139 and the same amount of adventure 00:01:23.250 --> 00:01:27.740 as other worlds that we glamourize in film." 00:01:27.900 --> 00:01:31.850 And feels pressured to affect a "white voice" in order to succeed there. 00:01:31.934 --> 00:01:35.254 "There is no white voice. All of this stuff that we're doing 00:01:35.254 --> 00:01:40.734 is a performance of some sort. And the mythical idea of the white voice 00:01:40.734 --> 00:01:45.031 is this one where there are no problems – where you got your bills paid, 00:01:45.031 --> 00:01:49.358 you never get fired you just get laid off. And that's like 00:01:49.358 --> 00:01:54.940 the performance of whiteness for some folks is like < 00:01:54.940 --> 00:01:56.410 I'm middle class.>> - (chuckles) yeah. 00:01:56.528 --> 00:02:03.868 That sort of a thing that is almost the opposite of the racist tropes of black folks 00:02:03.868 --> 00:02:09.993 which are that we're savage and all our problems – our poverty 00:02:09.993 --> 00:02:14.519 comes from bad choices that we make. So the opposite of that 00:02:14.519 --> 00:02:16.629 - is this mythical white voice we - Right. 00:02:16.629 --> 00:02:20.889 sometimes have to put on, in order to survive." 00:02:21.043 --> 00:02:23.533 That's the basic premise. That's all you need to know. 00:02:23.676 --> 00:02:28.238 This movie is wild and my experience would have been diminished 00:02:28.238 --> 00:02:31.296 if I'd had more than the memory of seeing a trailer months back, 00:02:31.296 --> 00:02:33.696 or the encouragement of a bunch of people I know, who loved it, 00:02:33.699 --> 00:02:35.509 in my head when I watched it. 00:02:35.683 --> 00:02:39.754 "I don't wanna tell you too much about the film, because 00:02:39.754 --> 00:02:43.574 a lot of it are things that will take people by surprise. 00:02:44.081 --> 00:02:48.871 I would rather them only knowing that and going in." 00:02:48.944 --> 00:02:51.911 Know that Sorry to Bother You does have the skeleton of the movie you have 00:02:51.911 --> 00:02:55.231 in your head when I talk about telemarketing and code switching, 00:02:55.231 --> 00:02:58.860 but it's expressed in such a fun, creative, explosive way 00:02:58.860 --> 00:03:03.030 that also doesn't hold back at all politically, or in how dark the film's sense of humour gets, 00:03:03.030 --> 00:03:04.873 or how strange the plot gets. 00:03:05.048 --> 00:03:10.138 I don't know when the last time I left a theater, this energized and high on the experience, was. 00:03:10.332 --> 00:03:13.403 I felt a lot with Hereditary, but that was a downer and, 00:03:13.403 --> 00:03:16.896 while it was perfectly made, it didn't have the wild experiments 00:03:16.896 --> 00:03:20.836 with film form this movie has. Or the ingenuity, or creativity. 00:03:20.930 --> 00:03:24.250 Sorry to Bother You is also fiercely unapologetically leftist. 00:03:24.483 --> 00:03:27.910 "How does Sorry to Bother You fit into that picture of organizing. 00:03:27.910 --> 00:03:32.086 I mean, it must be very interesting for you as a well-known, anticapitalist 00:03:32.086 --> 00:03:34.856 - artist and organizer, to na- - Communist. 00:03:34.856 --> 00:03:38.997 - ..., communist-marxist, to- - I don't know, Marx didn't he say 00:03:38.997 --> 00:03:40.679 - ..., communist-marxist, to- - something like <>? 00:03:40.679 --> 00:03:41.806 - (snickers) - something like <>? 00:03:41.806 --> 00:03:42.406 - (snickers) - Yeah, so... 00:03:42.566 --> 00:03:43.211 It's so brutal 00:03:43.211 --> 00:03:44.301 and unusual 00:03:44.315 --> 00:03:47.094 in its satire. Especially satire of racism 00:03:47.094 --> 00:03:50.131 and of class exploitation in a way that I don't know if I've ever 00:03:50.131 --> 00:03:51.571 seen in a film before. 00:03:51.973 --> 00:03:55.345 If you care about daring experiments in film form; if you care about art 00:03:55.345 --> 00:03:58.715 that examines racial oppression; if you care about capitalist exploitation; 00:03:58.715 --> 00:04:01.475 if you want to laugh a whole lot and if you want to see a movie that somehow 00:04:01.475 --> 00:04:06.805 handles very current, very serious topics yet doesn't go for cliches or for 00:04:06.805 --> 00:04:11.969 dour humourlessness and leaves room for surreal experimentation and brilliant slapstick, 00:04:11.969 --> 00:04:13.966 then you should go check this out. 00:04:14.125 --> 00:04:18.885 "The background, the life that I've lead outside of art 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:26.730 has not really been allowed to be a big influence on film in the last, 00:04:27.012 --> 00:04:32.445 you know, bunch of decades, so I've felt that telling a story that, 00:04:32.445 --> 00:04:40.075 infused some of those ideas of struggle and movement-building 00:04:41.274 --> 00:04:46.521 into a film would be great and I've got a strange sense of humour 00:04:46.521 --> 00:04:49.901 and I like to force people to listen to me." 00:04:50.142 --> 00:04:53.351 "And it's funny because movies don't usually deal with that, 00:04:53.351 --> 00:04:56.246 even though its something that... They don't usually deal with the stuggle 00:04:56.246 --> 00:05:00.717 that's happening; rebellion is edited out of the worlds that we create with our movies, 00:05:00.717 --> 00:05:05.037 Unless it's like 300 years from now in some world we can't relate to. 00:05:05.037 --> 00:05:10.066 But what's happening now is the product of us ignoring what's been going on for 00:05:10.066 --> 00:05:16.306 a long time and that's us living in this system – it comes from the economic system that we're under. 00:05:16.306 --> 00:05:22.883 And this film does deal with race, but it deals with race as it intersects 00:05:22.883 --> 00:05:25.528 with the economic system we're in." 00:05:25.743 --> 00:05:29.071 Very very slight spoilers here, but the key complaint I've had with 00:05:29.071 --> 00:05:34.801 Sorry to Bother You was that the "white voice" ADR at times could have been done better. 00:05:34.993 --> 00:05:38.413 I know it's called attention to in the film and obviously a lot of the film's humour 00:05:38.413 --> 00:05:41.801 is derived from the incongruity of the white voice and the character's 00:05:41.801 --> 00:05:44.931 actual normal speaking voice, but there are a couple of moments where 00:05:44.931 --> 00:05:48.955 the way the actor's head was positioned, or their body language, or whatever 00:05:48.955 --> 00:05:51.905 didn't match the ADR well, to the extend that it was kinda distracting. 00:05:52.096 --> 00:05:55.416 And I know it's not supposed to match 100% and I'm sure they were fighting a bunch of 00:05:55.416 --> 00:05:59.215 technical limitations and, again, I know a character says another sounds 00:05:59.215 --> 00:06:02.725 overdubbed as a metajoke, but with so much attention to detail 00:06:02.726 --> 00:06:06.177 and so much work put into this film, I wish there had been a little more time 00:06:06.177 --> 00:06:07.917 spent on this specifically. 00:06:08.051 --> 00:06:12.568 That's a small technical complaint though, in the face of a film that's fun and 00:06:12.568 --> 00:06:15.708 biting, and daring. and with a first-time feature director, 00:06:15.708 --> 00:06:18.329 and on a budget of only about 3 million dollars. 00:06:18.499 --> 00:06:19.957 "I started out in film school, 00:06:19.957 --> 00:06:21.193 before I did music, 00:06:21.565 --> 00:06:27.284 and having so many strange ideas that I though would be hard to get funded. 00:06:27.614 --> 00:06:34.242 I actually finished writing it in 2012. Then, I did an album inbetween that 00:06:34.242 --> 00:06:35.747 so I set it down. 00:06:36.494 --> 00:06:42.079 December 2014 - I ran into Dave Eggers from McSweeney's and 00:06:42.598 --> 00:06:47.103 I let him read the script and he published it as its own paperback book. 00:06:47.601 --> 00:06:50.324 So, since then I've been trying to get the movie made." 00:06:50.628 --> 00:06:54.614 It's really incredible what writer-director Boots Riley accomplished here. 00:06:54.823 --> 00:07:00.781 "I'm ambitious in the sense that I want to make great film, 00:07:00.781 --> 00:07:04.346 so I have some fear that it's just a film. 00:07:04.737 --> 00:07:09.740 Had I known how much work this movie would have been, 00:07:09.740 --> 00:07:11.506 I would have written a movie about two people 00:07:11.506 --> 00:07:14.249 sitting on a couch and breaking up. You know?" 00:07:14.461 --> 00:07:17.504 I was cackling at a lot of the jokes and references 00:07:17.738 --> 00:07:20.339 and I felt so invigorated by the ingenuity on display. 00:07:20.603 --> 00:07:23.579 Without any details, there's a scene where a character moves 00:07:23.579 --> 00:07:27.559 from one living situation to another. And the way that the move is communicated 00:07:27.559 --> 00:07:30.014 kind of stunned me in its creativity. 00:07:30.014 --> 00:07:33.554 Not to mention a ton of other small moments told in fun and creative ways. 00:07:33.765 --> 00:07:35.795 It's such a unique aesthetic experience; 00:07:35.927 --> 00:07:40.107 It's a challenging and engaging experience formally and intellectually. 00:07:40.173 --> 00:07:43.963 And it's weird, and gross, and brutal, and funny. 00:07:44.175 --> 00:07:46.965 "What do you think people are gonna walk away from this movie with? 00:07:47.072 --> 00:07:49.519 - They're gonna walk away with about 18 less dollars. - 00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:51.769 - They're gonna walk away with about 18 less dollars. - I was just thinking that (laughs). 00:07:52.051 --> 00:07:56.051 But you will have thoroughly enjoyed yourself and, perhaps, if you're the thinking type, 00:07:56.051 --> 00:07:59.131 you may reflect, but it's not required." 00:07:59.315 --> 00:08:01.415 " - I mean, I think there's an optimism - Yup. 00:08:01.527 --> 00:08:03.787 that comes throught this movie: 00:08:03.925 --> 00:08:06.975 - that, even though the world is messed up, - Yup. 00:08:07.116 --> 00:08:12.546 that there is a way to change it. There's an analysis that shows that 00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:16.575 the people can do things like withold their labour 00:08:16.877 --> 00:08:23.378 and, you know, take hold of things and there's an optimism that comes from that." 00:08:23.674 --> 00:08:27.302 If you in any way tend to enjoy the works that I tend to enjoy 00:08:27.621 --> 00:08:29.285 or if you just generally want something new 00:08:29.285 --> 00:08:31.425 and something different and something leftist 00:08:31.732 --> 00:08:33.822 definitely go check it out. 00:08:36.250 --> 00:08:37.516 Thank you for watching! 00:08:37.516 --> 00:08:39.545 If you enjoyed this video, please consider supporting me 00:08:39.545 --> 00:08:42.805 on Patreon, or Ko-fi, so I can keep making videos like this one. 00:08:43.155 --> 00:08:44.375 Thanks!