01x03 - But I Don't Like Him

[bunniefuu]

[film projector whirs]

[whistling music plays]

[dramatic music plays]

[Drew] Think of your favorite film.

Whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

Just think of the title.

For me, it's Lawrence of Arabia.

I love getting lost in it.

It's the biggest movie, and I love

seeing it on the biggest screen.

Forget virtual reality.

That's the hit that I'm chasing

every single time I'm in the theater.

[sweeping music plays]

My favorite film has changed

over the years.

I get excited about new things,

and sometimes old discoveries

grow over time.

It always comes back to Lawrence, though.

And part of the reason why is

the lead character, T.E. Lawrence.

He was a real person, of course,

but in the hands of director David Lean

and screenwriter Robert Bolt, he's also

a much-larger-than-life film character,

played by Peter O'Toole

to such remarkable effect

that the first-time film star

got nominated for Best Actor.

I know I'm not ordinary.

- That's not what I'm saying.

- All right.

I'm extraordinary.

What of it?

[Drew] The T.E. Lawrence in the film

is a man of vision.

He finds himself

at a crucial time and place in history,

both smart enough

and stupid enough to believe

that he can change that time and place.

That combination

is what it takes sometimes.

And sure enough, he does change history.

And in turn, history changes him

and not necessarily for the better.

There is darkness in the character

and monstrous weakness at times.

He's painfully human, and that is part

of what I find so compelling about him.

I k*lled two people.

One was a boy.

I led him into a quicksand.

The other was a man.

I had to execute him with my p*stol.

There was something about it

I didn't like.

[man] Well, naturally.

No. Something else.

I enjoyed it.

[Drew] I think T.E. Lawrence

is one of the most interesting,

complicated, frustrating,

and recognizably flawed characters

I've ever seen in a film.

But I don't like him.

No prisoners! No prisoners!

[men shouting]

[Drew] I admire him. I think

he was great by many metrics,

but I wrestle with the idea

that I like him in any conventional sense,

and that's part of what

keeps me coming back.

It's one of the most slippery ingredients

in filmmaking.

How do you define likability?

How do you quantify it in a way

that you can reliably reproduce?

And so what? If I don't like T.E. Lawrence

as a character, does that even matter?

We're going to argue

that drama has very little to do

with what we like

or what makes us comfortable,

and that's part of the purpose of drama.

Storytelling cannot start

at "happily ever after."

And art is not just hanging out

with your friends on the couch.

Art's where we confront the things

that terrify or upset or traumatize us.

It's not just okay to tell stories

about characters we don't like.

It's crucial.

- [sergeant] What's your name, fat-body?

- [private] Leonard Lawrence, sir.

Lawrence? Lawrence what? Of Arabia?

Sir, no, sir!

I don't like the name Lawrence.

Only f*ggots and sailors

are called Lawrence.

I don't like your kind of people.

Like you?

Who the hell said I got to like you?

[man 1] Right now,

your likability is at 26%.

Clothes, hair, speaking style, likability

Likability.

[man 2] God, you are a piece of work.

f*ck you!

[laughs]

You're a funny guy.

I'm funny how? I mean, funny

like I'm clown? I amuse you?

[man 3] I don't like your jerk-off name.

I don't like your jerk-off face.

I don't like your jerk-off behavior.

And I don't like you, jerk-off.

I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.

Ow!

[Drew] As a critic,

I am constantly challenging myself

about why I love the things I do,

why I'm drawn to the films

I find most compelling.

There are times I am unsettled

by the feelings I have

about characters in movies.

And I love trying to unpack why that is.

I wanna be challenged by characters.

I want to feel strongly about them.

But I don't have

an overall need to like all of them.

Art is not an endorsement.

It's an exploration.

Some of the best art,

even in mainstream pop culture,

takes us to some very dark places.

I'm finished.

[Drew] One of the very first monsters

I ever found myself drawn to

while I sat there in the dark

was Michael Corleone.

Don't be afraid, Carlo. Come on,

you think I'd make my sister a widow?

[Drew] As an adult,

I don't like Michael Corleone.

But I understand

why I felt myself drawn to him.

He might be one of the richest characters

in American film.

The first two Godfather films,

which have to be considered

foundational, classic cinema,

tell the story

of how a good man slowly compromises

everything that matters

to him for his family

in order to become

a powerful m*rder*r and thief.

[g*n fires]

[chokes]

It's the death of decency.

By the end of the second film,

he's as dark and ruined a figure

as I can imagine.

He ends up unlikable to an extreme,

but I understand every step he takes

on that long slide into oblivion.

Do you expect me to let you

take my children from me?

Don't you know me?

Don't you know

that that's an impossibility,

that that could never happen?

That I'd use all my power to keep

something like that from happening?

[Drew] Michael begins the film

as the Corleone who got out.

He's the immigrant's

American dream incarnate.

The child who's more successful,

more integrated, more American.

That's my family, Kay. It's not me.

You don't come to Las Vegas and talk

to a man like Moe Green like that!

[Michael] Fredo, you're my older brother,

and I love you.

[g*n fires]

But don't ever take sides

with anyone against the family again.

[Drew] By the end of the film,

Michael's fall seems complete,

culminating in one

of the most emotionally brutal

but simple images possible,

to close the door on everything

that made him decent.

It's the second film

where Coppola and his collaborators

tested the boundaries

of what we'll accept from a lead.

I'll talk to Fredo.

[Drew] John Cazale's Fredo is a rat,

a piece of garbage who betrays his family,

but he's also driven

by a twisted desire to be accepted

and loved in the same ways

as his brothers.

I'm your older brother, Mike,

and I was stepped over!

- [Michael] That's the way Pop wanted it.

- It ain't the way Iwanted it!

I can handle things! I'm smart!

Not like everybody says, like dumb!

I'm smart, and I want respect!

[Drew] Michael's fury at being betrayed

by Fredo is understandable,

especially in a film

that is as focused on the idea

of family as the center of the world

and honor as the thing

that drives every choice.

By the time Michael gives Fredo

the literal kiss of death

in the film's most powerful moment,

neither one of the characters is defined

in any way by whether we like them.

I know it was you, Fredo.

You broke my heart.

You broke my heart.

Take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat,

or I'll give it to you through the door.

Listen, handsome. Open up.

Well, he's getting too big.

Yeah, well, he won't get any bigger.

Yeah, this is what I get

for liking a guy too much.

You found someone you like better.

You might as well come down, Jarrett.

There's no one left but you.

Here's my answer, you dirty

[g*ns firing]

Get out of my way, Johnny. I'm gonna spit.

[Drew] America has always been

positively dizzy for criminals on film.

From our earliest films to the silent era

and straight in to the first blast

of studio talkies,

gangsters were big business.

I ain't so tough.

[Drew] When the Depression hit,

there was a Robin Hood romanticism

to them on screen,

and America seemed obsessed

with real criminals in the streets,

with the press often treating them

like rock stars.

Makes sense that a generation later,

they would make

genuinely rebellious movies

about those same criminals.

Hey, boy, what you doing

with my mama's car?

[Drew] By the time we got

into the newly explicit visual language

of Bonnie and Clyde,

it may have felt brand-new,

but it was part of a cycle

where we grapple

with our love of transgression

by destroying the characters we love

precisely because they transgress

in ways we can't.

[man]Hold it, hold it!

Hey.

- [g*ns firing]

- [screams]

[g*ns continue firing]

[g*nf*re stops]

[Drew] Bonnie and Clyde was

a point on a larger continuum,

a sort of perpetually doomed collision

between lovers on a one-way ride to hell.

These characters may seem like they love

each other or they're driven by desire,

but the truth is

that death is what really drives them.

So you go on home,

and you sit in your room,

and you think, "Now, when and how

am I ever gonna get away from this?"

And now you know.

[Drew] And some of our greatest cinema

challenges the things we like or love,

daring us to really confront

our own hearts

in the safety of that darkened theater.

With The Godfather, Coppola was interested

in looking at the real moral cost

of that powerful fantasy,

and he attached a price tag

to a life of crime

that seemed too high to pay.

The last thing he cared about

was making you like Michael,

and it's the last thing

Michael cares about as well.

[breathing heavily]

[no audible dialogue]

Maybe the greatest thing

about the wave of filmmaking

that hit the American mainstream

like a tidal wave in the late 1960s

and early 1970s was the way

filmmakers seemed determined to bring us

a brand-new kind of protagonist,

as they explored

the ugliest corners of human nature.

I gave you the prize years ago, Martha.

There isn't an abomination award going

that you haven't won.

I swear, if you existed, I'd divorce you.

[Drew] Is there anyone alive who watched

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

and thought, "Wow, I would really like

to have them over for dinner."

You still look like you have

a pretty good body now too. Is that right?

Martha, decency forbid

Shut up.

Yes, he has a very firm body.

Have you?

[Drew] The movie's wildly entertaining,

and with films like that,

it often leads audiences

to wonder if there's something wrong

with the filmmaker or, even worse,

wrong with them.

How can you watch a film

about someone so awful,

so morally bankrupt

and have such a good time?

Be careful, Martha.

I'll rip you to pieces.

You are not man enough.

You haven't the guts!

[Drew] It's because filmmakers can put us

in the skin of people

who do terrible things,

and they can make us feel like

we might cross those same lines.

They can even give us permission to do so

with that safe remove

of "it's just a movie."

Are you behind on your credit card bills?

Good! Pick up the phone and start dialing.

I want you to deal with

your problems by becoming rich!

[all] Yeah!

[Drew] If there's

any major American filmmaker

whose body of work

challenges the entire idea

that we have to like our lead characters,

it's Martin Scorsese.

He has built his long and storied career

on films about people who are driven

by passions that consume them.

And he's never seemed terribly concerned

with whether or not we like

his lead characters.

- You botherin' me about a steak, huh?

- [woman] That's great!

You botherin' me about a steak?

[Drew] In 1980's Raging Bull,

Jake LaMotta, played by Robert De Niro,

is barely functional as a person.

And part of what compels us to watch

is the magic trick

of his physical transformation

between the first half of the film

and the second.

[Jake] I coulda had class.

I coulda been a contender.

I coulda been somebody

instead of a bum, which is what I am.

[announcer] LaMotta drives

both hands to the head.

[Drew] LaMotta is only alive

when he is hurting other people.

He has a raw, brute gift for it.

And he's rewarded for it.

[Jake] You f*ck my wife?

How could you ask me a question like that?

Why don't you tell me, huh?

Did you f*ck my brother? Huh?

- Get off me, you fat pig!

- Did you?

[Drew] There's no kindness in him,

and I'm not sure the film

makes the case for him

as anything but a beast,

flailing in the dark.

[screaming]

Oh, you motherfuck

[screaming]

[cries]

[Drew] There is beauty in Scorsese's film,

and there's

even dark, horrible humor to it,

but there's nothing

that even remotely indicates

we're supposed to like Jake LaMotta.

I've done a lot of bad things, Joey.

Maybe it's coming back to me.

[knock on door]

[man] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Let me introduce myself.

My name is Rupert Pupkin.

Now, I know the name

doesn't mean very much to you,

but it means an awful lot to me.

That's "Rupert Pupkin."

Pupkin. P-U-P-K-I-N.

People often misspell it

and mispronounce it.

- [man] What is your real name?

- That's my real name. Rupert Pupkin.

[Drew] Their next collaboration,

King of Comedy, was a movie

that predicted the way celebrity culture

in America would metastasize.

Let's do something crazy tonight.

I wanna be crazy! I wanna be nuts!

[Rupert] A lot of you

are probably wondering

why Jerry isn't with us tonight.

Well, I'll tell you.

The fact is, he's tied up.

And I'm the one who tied him.

[Drew] It was clear that Scorsese cared

as little about whether we liked Rupert

as he cared about whether we liked

the victim of his attentions.

I had this conversation in my head.

This is beautiful.

- Did it always turn out this way?

- Yeah, it did. And

[Drew] Jerry Lewis played a character

that took the most acidic rumors

about Johnny Carson,

ran them through the ugly truth

about Jerry Lewis,

and came up with something

so intensely unlikable

that it almost feels like a dare.

You gonna open the g*dd*mn door?

Mr. Langford.

- Standing out there eight minutes.

- Sorry, sir.

- I told you to call to get rid of you!

- Yeah, all right, I made a mistake.

So did Hitler!

So what's got into you?

I'm breakin' your ba*ls a little bit.

Now go home

and get your f*cking shine box.

- [glass shatters]

- Motherfuckin' mutt!

You you f*ck' piece of sh*t!

[man] Get the door.

[Drew] One of the biggest movies

in Scorsese's career

came in the early '90s with Goodfellas.

Based on the true story of Henry Hill,

a lifelong mobster

who rolled over on his fellow criminals

when he was finally caught,

it is a powerfully made movie, seductive,

and there is a charisma to the way

he presents this world

of scumbags and murderers.

[Henry] For us,

to live any other way was nuts.

If we wanted something, we just took it.

If anyone complained twice,

they got hit so bad, believe me,

they never complained again.

[Drew] Even as we watch these

career pieces of sh*t eat one another

Oh no

[Drew]Scorsese makes us feel

the same pull that Henry Hill felt,

the same pull

that so many other filmmakers

have indulged.

Scorsese knows that he doesn't have

anything to worry about

in terms of whether we like

his characters in Goodfellas,

because he knows we'll be riveted

by the vicarious details of this life

that we'll never experience for ourselves.

- It's gonna be a good summer.

- [all laugh]

[Drew] If there's any film of Scorsese's

that best exemplifies

how little it matters

that we like the lead in a film,

it is his early masterpiece Taxi Driver,

a piercing study of what leads

a lonely man on the margins of society

to commit an act of overheated violence.

[man] All the animals come out at night.

wh*res, skunk pussies, buggers,

queens, fairies, dopers, junkies.

Sick, venal.

Someday a real rain'll come

and wash all the scum off the streets.

[Drew] Travis Bickle is so socially bent

that his idea of a first date

with campaign worker Betsy,

played by Cybill Shepherd,

is to take her to a porn theater

in Times Square.

You gotta be kidding.

What?

This is a dirty movie.

[Drew] He starts the film damaged,

and little by little,

we watch as his tenuous relationship

with reality slips away.

He becomes focused

on a teenage prost*tute next,

but she's uninterested in being saved,

and nothing she says or does

makes any sense to him.

[Travis] I'm square?

You're the one that's square, man.

I don't go screw and f*ck with a bunch

of K*llers and junkies the way you do.

You call that being hip?

What world you from?

[Drew] Bickle retreats into a fantasy

in which he sees a way to become

powerful through violence.

Whether focused on the political candidate

of the woman he wants

or on the pimp of the girl

he wants to save,

the violence is simply a way

of giving Travis a voice in the world,

a chance for him to write his name

large enough for everyone to finally see.

[Travis] Listen, you f*ck,

you screwheads,

here is a man who would not take it

anymore, who would not let

Listen, you f*ck, you screwheads,

here is a man

who would not take it anymore,

a man who stood up against the scum,

the c**ts, the dogs, the filth, the sh*t.

Here is someone who stood up.

[Drew] There's nothing

about Travis that I like

and nothing I feel like I'm supposed

to like, but I do feel for him,

because Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader

dare to slip so fully into his skin.

The film builds to what any other movie

would offer up as a heroic ending,

when all we're really watching

is a crazy loner murdering a pimp

because of some strange,

possessive fantasy he had

about an underage sex worker.

Get the f*ck outta here, man.

Get outta here.

Suck on this.

- Ooh, ooh!

- Hey!

[screaming]

[woman screams]

[man groaning]

[screams] Don't sh**t him!

[g*n fires]

[Drew] He's a violent man

in a seedy world,

and the only reason he ends

the film driving his cab again

is because he k*lled the right person.

It's a hell of a message at what felt

like a culturally volatile moment.

Clearly there is hunger

from some audiences

for stories about characters

who are inspirational or aspirational,

and fiction can easily become a way

to try on a life you wish you could live

or one you wish you were strong enough

or good enough to live.

But we're often drawn to stories

of darkness or dysfunction

precisely because we want

to understand these people

who seem so broken or wrong to us.

The real question we're asking is this,

should you try to make

every character likable?

Would it fix every film to do so?

You may think we're exaggerating,

but look at what happens

when you flatten out

an interesting character

because you're afraid

he's not likable enough.

Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities

was a scathing satire.

And in the novel, Sherman McCoy is

a self-anointed master of the universe,

a Wall Street banker who's supposed to be

emblematic of an entire class of Americans

who Wolfe observed.

The moneyed, upper-class assholes

who pass money and influence down

from generation to generation.

Let's not lose our composure

over a few hundred million dollars.

- Back up.

- [woman] I am!

[Drew] Sherman McCoy is in a car

with his mistress when they panic

and run over a young Black man,

k*lling him with their car.

It's a pretty insurmountable obstacle

when it comes to liking someone or not.

How? They don't have the full number.

They don't have a witness.

[Drew] The movie committed

many of the worst sins of adaptation.

Dropping subplots, botching tone,

playing satire straight by mistake.

But by far, the biggest misstep came

at the casting stage.

It seems insane to cast Tom Hanks

as a blond, Waspy, old-money monster,

but there was a reason

the studio insisted.

In a film that is about such awful people,

casting Hanks lets you play

both sides against the middle.

I have protected you, Maria.

I have been a gentleman about this.

I have done my best to keep your name

out of the papers. You have to help me.

[Drew] Bruce Willis plays the narrator

of the book and the movie,

and his identity as a British expat

living off the teat of America,

even as he sent home reports

on how horrible it was,

seemed annihilated

by that casting decision.

Director Brian De Palma seemed determined

to find ways to make these characters

unlikable by design, palatable by casting.

And in the end,

even Hanks couldn't pull it off.

- [reporter] Answer the question!

- I'm going to jail, aren't I?

[Drew] When we're sitting in the dark,

wide-open to these characters,

we don't ultimately care about "likable."

We just wanna be interested,

and we want something that feels honest,

something we recognize as real.

I've gotten into the habit of taking

a new person to see Lawrence

every time it plays

in 70 millimeter in Los Angeles,

which is once or twice a year

without fail.

Due west.

[Drew] Even so, it took a long time for me

to realize that the film is ultimately

about the importance of letting go

of the idea of being liked.

Lawrence needs approval.

He needs to be right.

He needs to be liked.

But he sees that he's in a position to do

something no one else has ever done,

and he sees it as a call to greatness.

In recognizing the importance

of his own actions, he also recognizes

that he can't worry

about what anyone thinks.

He has to harden himself to scorn

and hatred if he's going to be great.

Lawrence knows that he could be loved.

But he knows that there's more

he can do if he's willing to be hated.

T.E. Lawrence only truly becomes

Lawrence of Arabia

when he abandons all concern

with being liked.

Well, what's the trick, then?

The trick, William Potter,

is not minding that it hurts.

[Drew] In the end,

empathy trumps sympathy.

One is earned,

and the other can be manipulated.

If you give your time to a movie,

you have the right to expect

that you will feel something

for the lead character, certainly.

Just remember,

it's okay if you don't like him.

Really.

[mystical music plays]