Evan: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,

Evan: back again with another film discussion from the left.

Evan: This week on the show, we will be discussing Ken Loach's 2006 film,

Evan: The Wind That Shakes the Barley, starring Cillian Murphy, Liam Cunningham,

Evan: Patrick Delaney, and Orla Fitzgerald.

Evan: For those of you who don't know, it follows a group of Irishmen during the Irish

Evan: Civil War, approximately 1920 to 1922.

Evan: Given what we are witnessing now in Gaza in the last 600 days.

Evan: It's all the more relevant. And for those who may also not know,

Evan: its director, Ken Loach, has been an outspoken proponent of the BDS movement for the past 15 years.

Evan: With me to discuss, I have hosts Justin and Jeremy of Prolspod.

Evan: Thank you both for being here today.

Jeremy: Thank you.

Justin: Thanks for having us. And sorry that it took us a whole ass year to get on your podcast.

Evan: But yes, no, I'm glad to finally have you on to do this.

Evan: And I guess before we talk about the film, You had chosen this film.

Evan: It wasn't even on my film list that I usually send out to guests.

Evan: So I guess what made you choose it?

Evan: I mentioned kind of its relevance, so I don't know if that played into it.

Justin: I want to say that I had nothing to do with this choice. I don't know why Jeremy

Justin: would do this to us, but here we are.

Jeremy: So I had never seen this movie before about two or three months ago,

Jeremy: And someone posted a screenshot of the conversation that happens between Damien,

Jeremy: sort of the point of view character, main character of the film, talking to Dan,

Jeremy: played by Liam Cunningham, who would later more famously probably be known as

Jeremy: Sir Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones.

Jeremy: And they're having a conversation about...

Justin: I didn't recognize him with all the hair. Yeah.

Jeremy: Having a conversation about earlier rebellions, specifically the Dublin lockout,

Jeremy: which took place between 1912 and 1913, I think.

Jeremy: And they specifically reference the speech that Connolly gives where he says,

Jeremy: you need to raise a red flag above the castle in Dublin or else England will

Jeremy: still own you through its landlords, its capitalists and its commercial institutions.

Justin: And close you know yeah true he actually says something yeah he says something

Justin: along the lines of you must establish a socialist yes uh nation or um or it

Justin: doesn't matter if you'll you raise a red flag um the green flag over yeah that's

Justin: what yeah that's right yeah whatever yeah.

Jeremy: Uh, so anyway, I was like, I was like, wow, I, I have never seen this movie.

Jeremy: Uh, I should probably watch it. And it is very bleak, very depressing.

Jeremy: Um, but it is, it is deeply anti-imperialist, uh, anti-British,

Jeremy: which we are all, all for here at Pearl's Pod.

Jeremy: So yeah, that's the main reason that I chose it.

Justin: Don't, don't let the manners fool you. The Brits fucking suck.

Evan: Yes. And that's like, that will take us like in a good spot at the beginning of the, of the film.

Evan: And we, we don't necessarily have to, I can cut this if you don't want to do

Evan: this, but sometimes I do like a little kind of like a icebreaker before we go into it.

Evan: And I usually ask the, my standard question is usually like,

Evan: if there is an actor living or dead, who you'd want to, you know,

Evan: break bread with, have a drink with, you know, who might it be?

Evan: You know, I don't know if you had any, any, anyone jump to mind.

Jeremy: And I think, I don't know how I would have answered this question before,

Jeremy: but at the moment, and he is currently living, but by the time this is released,

Jeremy: it is possible he will be dead.

Jeremy: Liam Cunningham, this morning boarded a boat which is leaving Italy,

Jeremy: headed for Gaza to bring relief to the Palestinian people.

Jeremy: And Israel has threatened to destroy these boats if they were to make it through the blockade.

Jeremy: So we will see whether that happens, but I would love to sort of sit down and

Jeremy: have a conversation with him.

Jeremy: I kind of looked up some of his history before He was born in a working-class

Jeremy: neighborhood in the west suburbs of Dublin.

Jeremy: He dropped out of school when he was 15 years old to become an electrician.

Jeremy: He worked as an electrician for several years. He went to Zimbabwe,

Jeremy: I think, to do electrician work on a safari and to teach Zimbabwean electricians, basically,

Jeremy: how to properly maintain this equipment before returning.

Jeremy: He got sort of tired of this and decided one day to become an actor which is

Jeremy: a weird trajectory and it's very uncommon for a working class person to achieve

Jeremy: the sort of success that he has he.

Justin: Said he saw an ad for like an acting school and he was like hmm.

Jeremy: Yeah i'll give that a shot yeah but i would love to sit down and talk to that

Jeremy: guy right now i hopefully he lives hopefully they do break the blockade and

Jeremy: get that food in as you know children are fucking dying right now yes.

Justin: Day 600 Just like every time I hear the number, I just want to burn everything.

Justin: Okay, well, mine is not as, won't win me as many socialist points,

Justin: but it's a toss-up between Pedro Pascal and Octavia Spencer.

Justin: They just seem like the chillest motherfuckers in Hollywood.

Jeremy: Yeah, also, well, you could get some points for Pedro Pascal.

Jeremy: His uncle, wasn't his uncle like fucking Salvador Allende or some shit like that?

Evan: Or related to that in some way. he is related.

Jeremy: In some way to salvador allende and he has spoken in support of the uh yeah.

Justin: Yeah he he has signed stuff and support yeah yeah but.

Jeremy: Yeah not but there's a difference.

Evan: I'd be willing to bet that he's probably more radical than he's able to sure

Evan: say you know as yeah a lot of to maintain his.

Justin: Position i'm assuming just his um just based on his relationship with uh what's

Justin: their name the actor on um.

Evan: Oh last of us yeah.

Justin: But anyway they're super like young and and kind of radical so i'm assuming

Justin: that there's some kind of common connection there too because they have a really great relationship.

Evan: Yeah but anyway it just seems.

Justin: Like some like really fun like i don't know it'd be really fun.

Evan: I think for me only because it's because i'm a huge fan of the andor show and,

Evan: the learning about the first season of

Evan: andor the the creator and director tony gilroy

Evan: has basically said all i think he

Evan: also is more radical than he's probably able to given

Evan: the fact that he just was able to pull off a show that i it's

Evan: hard to believe exists like under the disney banner and

Evan: so he said the first season was almost a direct not

Evan: direct but like loosely based on like the lies of lenin and

Evan: stalin and the you know heist that the soviets did pre you know revolution so

Evan: i would say it'd be interesting to hear what tony gilroy has to say in private

Evan: not uh yeah yeah the things he would he explaining yourself so yeah i think

Evan: he thinks but he can't say out loud so that would be maybe a cheap one but it

Evan: would be a i think that'd be a fun one but,

Evan: yeah i think these are all uh all people i think would have some interesting

Evan: things to say liam Cunningham, I think, might be the winner of this.

Evan: I think you stole the show.

Jeremy: I got the most socialist points.

Evan: That's okay. But yes. And it's funny.

Justin: I also- Boston's getting canceled for picking Hollywood- Hollywood elites. Like stars, yeah.

Evan: Yeah. Well, so I alluded to the fact that the beginning of this film is very

Evan: much a clear depiction of the British being colonizers as they have been for centuries.

Evan: And so the the kind of the opening of this film takes place in 1920 and it's

Evan: damien donovan play played by cillian murphy and uh i don't think murphy just

Evan: is it killing murphy fuck it is you're right you're right it's killing murphy

Evan: i i am notoriously irish are the only.

Justin: White people that you can be racist against so i think that it's important that we differentiate.

Evan: No, I have a terrible track record of mispronouncing everything.

Evan: So it's a, it's a, I always have.

Jeremy: That's a, that's a Pearl's pod tradition. Yeah. You know, lots of Slavic names,

Jeremy: lots of, lots of Chinese, Vietnamese names that we consistently mispronounce. I'm sure.

Evan: Yeah. I was going to say you dug yourself a hole with like doing the entire

Evan: list of Stalin and having just all of these names that are just so hard to pronounce.

Justin: Or the Ukraine episodes.

Jeremy: Oh, yes.

Evan: That too. Yeah. Those names, I don't envy the saying of those.

Evan: But yeah, so Cillian Murphy is sort of the lead in this film,

Evan: played his character as Damian O'Donovan.

Evan: And he's kind of at a crossroads of deciding whether he wants to go to London

Evan: to be a doctor, which he's been training for his whole life,

Evan: or staying with his brother Teddy to be a member of the Irish Republican Army

Evan: and fight the British to expel them from their lands.

Evan: And the sort of very initial opening scene after they're kind of playing some,

Evan: what is it? Is it hurling?

Jeremy: Hurling, yeah. So that's a, it's, I think the opening scene is actually to some

Jeremy: degree meaningful because it is, that is a, an ancient sport that's been played

Jeremy: in Ireland for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.

Jeremy: And it is them sort of, they have their disagreements, they have their fight

Jeremy: that they have amongst themselves, but they regulate themselves.

Jeremy: They have control over their own sort of destiny on the field there.

Jeremy: And then the British are introduced in the next scene. And I think-

Justin: It's literally in reaction to the game.

Jeremy: Yes, yeah. In reaction to them gathering for the game, the British show up.

Evan: I'm not endearing myself to my Irish listeners right now with my lack of knowledge.

Evan: You can tell my background is not of Irish descent.

Evan: But yeah, so that actually adds even more weight to the fact that the British

Evan: come in and essentially just forcibly having people take off their clothes, say their name.

Evan: And when one of their friends refuses to say his name in English,

Evan: as opposed to in Irish, he is tortured and shot and killed basically in front of his own mother.

Evan: And I think it's, as you said, the movie is kind of depressing for the most part.

Justin: From start to finish.

Evan: From literally from start to finish.

Justin: There's like 10 seconds of joy.

Jeremy: This is like, it's a wonderful life levels of depressing.

Justin: Yes.

Evan: I mean, it really is. And you have this moment where you can kind of see the

Evan: faces of, you know, Cillian Murphy and his friends and his comrades watching

Evan: this happen and being able to do nothing about it.

Evan: And you, even though the IRA had already been active before this,

Evan: you can see how the Cillian hasn't decided to stay yet.

Evan: He goes on a, he's about to go on a train where he meets Dan for the very first

Evan: time played by Liam Cunningham. And I think all of these little tiny moments

Evan: in his life just kind of like it like it like flips a switch in his head where

Evan: he can't leave behind, you know.

Justin: Yeah, he keeps ratcheting. There are moments in his life where he keeps ratcheting

Justin: up his revolutionary fervor, basically, and he can't go back.

Justin: Every time he takes a tick, he like moves further.

Jeremy: And it's so the the train scene is really notable because it it it references

Jeremy: the large because this is a fairly small film in terms of the scale of the conflict.

Justin: Because there's only three sets.

Jeremy: Yeah, it all takes place in County Cork, sort of in the southwest of Ireland.

Jeremy: It felt weird to me that they didn't use more of County Cork in this movie.

Jeremy: Maybe it was just for budgetary reasons, but like County Cork is gorgeous.

Jeremy: I mean, some of the most incredible, dramatic sort of coastal formations,

Jeremy: they didn't go into any of that.

Jeremy: And I don't know if that was, again, like a budgetary thing, but...

Jeremy: But anyway, the the train situation there, it sort of references the larger

Jeremy: conflict because the the the inciting incident is a group of auxiliary soldiers.

Jeremy: These these the Tans, they call them the black and Tans.

Jeremy: They get they're trying to board the train and the porter is like,

Jeremy: you can't get on the train.

Jeremy: You're not allowed to be on the train. you know and he's like

Jeremy: calling out to the driver who is uh he's he's dan

Jeremy: the uh liam liam cunningham's character and

Jeremy: liam cunningham's character comes over and he's like the union has

Jeremy: said we will not transport any soldiers any

Jeremy: weapons uh any armaments on the

Jeremy: trains you cannot board the train and sort of they they beat the shit out of

Jeremy: him and imprisonment they're like fuck you yeah um but that's that is important

Jeremy: because that was part of that was part of the strategy of the Irish people to

Jeremy: keep the British army to the roads.

Jeremy: They had to use their own transportation. They were not going to be allowed to use Ireland's rails.

Jeremy: And it was the unions that did that. And I think that's important to note.

Justin: Oh, yeah.

Evan: Yeah. I think I was looking into it further. There was even there was a number of other union.

Evan: And I think it was it wasn't only like the train transit or whatever the union

Evan: was as part of the blocking it.

Evan: There's other labor unions that were preventing British people or British who

Evan: would come to their land, as it would be, from being...

Evan: Forcing them not just to use their own roads and their own materials but just

Evan: also waste money because i think that the british are this is costing them a

Evan: lot of money to bring armaments and all of these things so anything they could do to weaken them yeah.

Justin: That's i think that that was the point i mean they knew they were never going

Justin: to beat britain militarily right they just had to create a cost that was high

Justin: enough that they would be like all right fuck it.

Jeremy: We can't do this anymore yeah it's.

Justin: Too expensive.

Evan: Yeah exactly and yeah the the like as you

Evan: said with the there only being a

Evan: few different you know uh locations where they film

Evan: like a couple different houses and a couple different areas i

Evan: think i read that the film only cost eight million dollars the budget and this

Evan: was in 2006 so you can think of it as a that's a tiny budget for this film i

Evan: mean i don't think any of ken loach's films probably broke 10 million dollars

Evan: as far as the budget was concerned but my guess is for that well.

Justin: If you look at the credits yeah if you if you look at the credits um a large

Justin: like probably half i don't want to say a large majority but probably half of

Justin: the um actors were volunteers yep yeah clearly he has like principles,

Justin: yeah he uh you know he's not interested in breaking into hollywood right he's

Justin: interested in telling stories.

Evan: Yes and i think that's i mean i i briefly mentioned in like the intro there

Evan: kind of what Ken Loach's sort of personal history and his, you know, his politics.

Evan: And for the most part, if you like, if you read just the opening, you know,

Evan: description on just Wikipedia, it's very clear that his films and all of his

Evan: messages is based on his socialist views and very unlikely that someone of that

Evan: political perspective is going to get a big studio to even make his film,

Evan: even if he wanted to so i think it's it's uh you know,

Evan: He was a fan of, of course, Jeremy Corbyn, and I mentioned that he was part

Evan: of the campaign for the boycott of Israel, and he's spoken heavily about the

Evan: treatment of Palestinians.

Evan: And we're talking about the Palestinians in Gaza in 2008 or 2009,

Evan: so we're not even talking about the current moment, which is the insane escalation

Evan: of, what, 600-plus days of genocide.

Jeremy: He is, regrettably, it seems, a Trotskyist, but we will forget him.

Justin: No! we will forgive him for.

Jeremy: His uh his anti-imperialism and his uh his willingness to engage on this level.

Justin: Yeah so before we dive any deeper i would like to say that number one this movie would be,

Justin: unwatchable without subtitles if you're not irish it's

Justin: like fuck and number two uh it sounds like it was recorded like on a yeti microphone

Justin: in the middle of a room like you get there's so much like people's shoes on

Justin: the ground are louder than the voices sometimes and i mean it's crazy it's very naturalistic.

Jeremy: And it's like.

Justin: Yes it lends itself to that like brutal kind of but yeah i mean if you if you

Justin: don't have subtitles you're gonna miss like half the movie yeah.

Evan: And almost i don't want to say it like feels like a documentary but in some ways like.

Justin: There's scenes where it does feel.

Evan: Like that where you just kind of like watching the interaction that happens in like a very real.

Justin: Way but.

Jeremy: Not a modern documentary a.

Justin: Documentary from.

Jeremy: Like the 1970s where there's just a camera in the room watching people talk and they just move.

Justin: The camera.

Jeremy: Back and forth between the the speakers that is very much how a lot of those scenes felt.

Justin: Yeah there there's yeah there's sound there are scenes where you where nothing

Justin: really matters like what people are saying none of it matters where they're

Justin: just shouting at each other and it's a cacophony of like sound, you know?

Jeremy: Yeah. But they, yeah, it's very naturalistic. Like a lot of, like they don't,

Jeremy: they don't do, they don't seem to stop and do takes for perfection.

Jeremy: If somebody stutters over their words, they leave it in.

Justin: That's what I was going to say. Cunningham flubs his lines like at least five or six times.

Jeremy: So does Murphy.

Justin: And he just, yeah. And they just roll with it. They don't, they don't try to like cut it back.

Justin: But it feels like, I mean, if you're actually in the moment,

Justin: it's not like you, you never stutter or mess up what you're going to say, you know?

Jeremy: Exactly. Yeah.

Evan: I think they filmed it over a pretty short period of time.

Evan: I couldn't find the exact length of time it

Evan: took to film it but but it wouldn't surprise me so yeah i would

Evan: bet that they didn't have the time or money to do

Evan: lots of takes and have lots of fancy equipment it just kind

Evan: of did like i i think i was saying before you

Evan: joined um i was telling jeremy that i haven't seen

Evan: that many of his films i think only one other one actually and i just must i

Evan: think this is his sort of his style within a lot of his films of just kind of

Evan: like a raw sense of it you know like it's it's low budget but like in a way

Evan: that doesn't make you think like oh this is this is shitty this is actually

Evan: sure it like looks good yeah despite it yeah.

Justin: I mean honestly i'm like i mean i know it's it was an independent film but i'm

Justin: just surprised i've never heard of it before i.

Jeremy: I mean i'd heard of it i just had never seen it uh like i said.

Justin: Until about i mean i might have heard of it and then just the name turned me

Justin: off right it's it sounds like a like a uh you know movie about you know three

Justin: daughters in like a plantation or something you know what i mean.

Evan: Sure sure but it's funny you mentioned the the

Evan: subtitle thing i initially turned on the film without them and i'm like oh man

Evan: they were kind of just shouting while they're playing i have no idea what's

Evan: what they're being what they're saying at all and had to uh had to make sure

Evan: i had the subtitles in there and again showing my very you know non-irish blood

Evan: here trying to trying to watch this well.

Justin: I actually i saw this um sorry i'm getting off the reels here but um i saw this

Justin: video um where they talked about subtitles um 50 of people without any hearing

Justin: issues use subtitles nowadays so um yeah i thought it was interesting.

Evan: And that and then again to continue that thought just it's a lot of the even

Evan: like new films with high budgets don't spend as much money on like the sound

Evan: mixing after they've actually filmed it they just like rush it to theater or

Evan: streaming or whatever and so

Evan: yeah the volume sometimes is too low to even like hear it perfectly yeah.

Justin: Well that's what i was gonna say a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have

Justin: moved away from film um film acting being like stage acting uh and to where

Justin: it's more like real life so people are whispering and people are you know talking

Justin: like with a morbid accent you know like not trying to talk clearly right they're

Justin: they're mumbling and all that kind of stuff so it makes total sense.

Evan: Yeah no that's,

Evan: That's true. And one of the other things, again, going back to the British thing

Evan: that I noted is, I think right after Damien decides to stay following the incident

Evan: in the train, which you were talking about,

Evan: is he, I think they then have a conversation of how many British soldiers are

Evan: in Ireland at this point. I think he says 10,000.

Jeremy: 10,000.

Evan: And I was thinking about not just that number of soldiers, but just the concept

Evan: at this point that while we haven't hit World War II,

Evan: where you could maybe argue is like the real post-World War II is really the

Evan: downfall of the ending of the British Empire as like, as we know it,

Evan: this point, I feel like they're kind of like hanging on to the,

Evan: you know, their name as the British Empire, trying to keep what they can keep

Evan: Ireland, keep these, you know, these small territories.

Evan: And it's just kind of like a, maybe it's just the way they're depicted in this film.

Evan: It's like, they really have kind of a, they're kind of a half-assing it.

Evan: And maybe that's just the way that they depict it in this. Or again, I don't know the.

Justin: Well, they probably took a, I mean, they just come out of World War I.

Justin: So they're probably reeling for it as far as losses and finances and all that kind of stuff.

Evan: Yes, that's true too. So I mean, maybe you could argue that post-World War I

Evan: is really the downfall of the British Empire.

Justin: I think it's the beginning of the downfall. Yeah.

Evan: Yeah, where now it's like, you know, in complete free fall where,

Evan: you know, many people don't want to, well, British monarchists or whatever they

Evan: would be called, or don't want to admit that, but let's face it,

Evan: their Brexit was their death, Neil.

Evan: Yeah the other the other thing that i

Evan: really appreciated which i think shows some of the the scenery

Evan: of the beauty of that part of the country the

Evan: countryside in county cork was when they're doing kind of their

Evan: training exercises which they easily could have just like not done and just

Evan: kind of gone into it but it's very clear that they are trying to instill like

Evan: these guerrilla tactics you know amongst themselves and so i don't know what

Evan: you all thought of kind of including that in it you know where easily they could have just,

Evan: It's not important necessarily, except that later on you see that they're continuing

Evan: the training as part of this like anti-treaty group.

Jeremy: I think that's part of it is that there is it's a it's a continuity, right?

Jeremy: The and I think that's also why they reference James Connolly.

Jeremy: You know, they sing songs which were part of the 17 like eight like 1798 uprising.

Jeremy: So it's like a continuity This is not The things that are happening in this

Jeremy: film Are not isolated to these two years That we're showing here This is part

Jeremy: of a longer continuity We go all the way back to the 18th century And we go

Jeremy: forward to The new generation being trained To fight,

Jeremy: uh fight back i think it's part of why that happens.

Evan: Yeah that makes that does make sense yeah and

Evan: it's also crazy to think of how you know they're they're

Evan: training with their with their sports equipment like they don't even have guns

Evan: and pretty much all i think maybe there's a later moment where they ask how

Evan: many you know guns total the ir has ira has like in the entire country and it's

Evan: like you know a couple hundred thousand three yeah okay so they have three They have 3,000.

Jeremy: Rifles in the whole country, which is incredible.

Evan: Yeah, they have less rifles than the British have troops. 10,000 troops to 3,000

Evan: rifles for however many active members are in the IRA.

Evan: And again, we only see kind of like a small group of them as opposed to seeing

Evan: what it, you know, I assume in Dublin, it's a much larger presence of IRA.

Justin: Right. That was another thing I thought was really interesting is just the way

Justin: that they, At no point did they really try to address or include the overall

Justin: movement. It was very, very focused on one cell.

Evan: I think what strengthens the point of the idea of the IRA and the move to revolution

Evan: or to independence is that it starts with these tiny groups of people.

Evan: It's not necessarily, you have to have all these little groups that are all

Evan: kind of, uh, what's the word, um, falling behind like the larger movement.

Evan: Cause I keep, you know, a thread throughout it is they're receiving letters,

Evan: you know, by horseback and by bicycle.

Evan: And, you know, these little tiny notes from other groups to essentially give

Evan: them their orders and they're following. Yeah. Kind of a, yeah.

Justin: That was cool.

Evan: I like the, um, all of those scenes and it's, it's, it almost shows,

Evan: I actually think about this. This was 1920.

Evan: I mean, this is, I don't know, I'm not deeply well-versed in like the IRA,

Evan: but is, were they taking their cues from, you know, things that happened?

Evan: I mean, especially with Connolly and his views on socialism and the idea of

Evan: clearly he's, you know, red marks and probably like, do they have any cues you

Evan: think from like the Soviet Union and what they had just recently accomplished?

Justin: Almost certainly. Yeah, I was honestly surprised they didn't address it. Oh, go ahead.

Jeremy: Oh, no. The thing about the IRA is that it was it was made up of a collection

Jeremy: of very disparate political groups.

Jeremy: They were not all socialist, obviously.

Evan: Right.

Jeremy: As is that's one of the central conflicts of this movie is this argument back

Jeremy: and forth between sort of the the nationalists who just want independence and

Jeremy: the nationalists who want a socialist republic to form in Ireland.

Jeremy: And,

Jeremy: Eventually, the socialists are more or less pushed out of the IRA or pushed down within the IRA.

Jeremy: They are not at the forefront. So I imagine some of them were absolutely adherents

Jeremy: of Lenin and others, not so much.

Jeremy: But, you know, yeah, we should probably do an episode on the IRA.

Justin: One of the things that I think really benefits from the kind of small scale

Justin: focus was that you get to see the interactions between essentially the social democrats of the IRA,

Justin: the communists of the IRA.

Justin: You get to see the, um, court, uh, like the local court, you get to see the

Justin: local rich person who's providing guns to the IRA, but also exploiting, uh, Irish workers.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Justin: Yeah. There's a lot of like interactions that you really wouldn't get.

Justin: I mean, you would probably get to see them, but you wouldn't feel them as viscerally,

Justin: uh, as like these people who grew up with each other, like yelling at each other in a room basically.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Evan: Yeah. To me, that was the, that's also like, if you look into kind of when he

Evan: can made the Ken Lewis made the film and he really wanted to specifically show

Evan: that dichotomy or that sort of contradiction between, you know,

Evan: the idea of socialism versus a more nationalism.

Evan: And you, you said that quote earlier from Connolly of, you know,

Evan: like, it's not just, we can't just change the color of the flag.

Evan: It has to actually be like a material change for the people.

Evan: And it's like slowly, you know, kind of unfolds like

Evan: the first time when Dan and Damien are in the

Evan: prison cell from their first the first time they're

Evan: kind of just having that little conversation realizing they're kind of on the

Evan: same team and then to me the most like important part of the film maybe is that

Evan: court scene which you mentioned where they're going after this uh the court's

Evan: going after someone for exploiting a person what with 300 interest or something or like.

Jeremy: Just so that she could buy groceries. She's trying to buy groceries and she

Jeremy: can't afford to because she doesn't get paid enough.

Jeremy: And so he loans her the money to buy the groceries and then charges her 300 percent interest.

Evan: Yeah. And basically, you know, Teddy is saying like, you know,

Evan: the independence is more important than a box of groceries.

Evan: And he said, I think he says, like, it's better than painting it red.

Evan: Like, they're very much anti-communist in the idea that like,

Evan: oh, these socialist views are going to be the undoing of us.

Evan: We can't stop to think about all these little things when, you know,

Evan: Damien is very clearly thinking about the after the revolution, after the success. Yes.

Evan: And I think what comes next, which is like the downfall of like 98% of films

Evan: that show any kind of revolution is they don't ever even pose the question of what happens.

Jeremy: What comes next. Yeah.

Evan: And so that I have to give.

Justin: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And which is ironic, I think, coming from a Trotsky.

Jeremy: Um the oof but.

Justin: The reality is that they like there he was right right i mean they they pushed

Justin: out the socialists ira the uh uh the irish republic's the shitty one right so

Justin: what's the free state right yeah.

Jeremy: Well yeah so the the free state was a temporary sort

Jeremy: of situation in between because for

Jeremy: for a period of time and it wasn't very long the

Jeremy: the republic of ireland was still a a

Jeremy: governant of the british empire they

Jeremy: were granted independence uh we'll

Jeremy: uh we'll reference back to the philippines episode where uh

Jeremy: i forget the dude's name but he called it hindependence like uh

Jeremy: hindi and tagalog is like the opposite of it's like a

Jeremy: prefix that means the opposite of they were granted hindependence and

Jeremy: at that point accepting the northern counties

Jeremy: the rest of ireland was quote unquote free of the british empire but for a brief

Jeremy: period of time there it was referred to as the irish free state which was like

Jeremy: the under the treaty they still were technically part of the british empire

Jeremy: but they governed themselves uh yeah anyway it.

Evan: Was like called dominion is that what the i think.

Jeremy: Yeah yeah they were under the dominion of the british empire um.

Justin: But yeah like what i was going to say is that britain is i mean to this day

Justin: right they control they still control them through their capital,

Justin: through the business owners, through,

Justin: the corporations all of it.

Jeremy: Yeah and they still have the northern counties they still hold them yeah people

Jeremy: maybe not for much longer yeah.

Evan: Well um we have what is it there's that that that scene from i don't know if

Evan: you both watch star trek but like the uh where he talks about the irish unification of 2025.

Jeremy: And so we've got we've got six months for everyone out there to to make.

Justin: That happen if.

Evan: Not then you know what.

Justin: I thought one of the like it was really important because there's like a couple

Justin: scenes that are like this but um where they're like we will never get this kind of energy again we.

Jeremy: Have to take advantage.

Justin: We have to keep pushing.

Jeremy: We can't.

Justin: Stop now and that's exactly what the fuck happens every time.

Jeremy: Yeah the the argument in front of sinade's farmhouse at the beginning when the

Jeremy: british soldiers leave and teddy is basically begging damien to stay and fight

Jeremy: That's an important argument,

Jeremy: even though Teddy flips later on in the movie.

Jeremy: Then the argument that happens in the courtroom is another vital scene where

Jeremy: you get these sort of opposing viewpoints butting heads.

Jeremy: And then again, when the treaty appears in front of them and they're arguing

Jeremy: about whether or not they should ratify the treaty, same thing.

Jeremy: It's important not to show these people as a unified, monolithic,

Jeremy: we want freedom for Ireland, whatever that means.

Jeremy: There are people with ideological viewpoints that have very different ideas

Jeremy: of what freedom looks like, and they come into conflict with one another.

Jeremy: That's also that scene that you were just talking about where he's like,

Jeremy: you know, whatever, we're this close.

Jeremy: We just need to push. We're an inch. So he says we're an inch from winning.

Jeremy: We just need to keep pushing. That's also the scene where Dan pulls out the

Jeremy: like sheet that he reads like a like section from some previous document.

Jeremy: But at the end, he says, if you move forward with this treaty, why?

Jeremy: The only thing that's going to change is the accents of the oppressors and the color of the flag.

Jeremy: And I'm like. Yeah.

Justin: So I thought just to draw like a just to draw like a link between and or and

Justin: this movie, I think that that both of them.

Justin: Because we, you know, we just got done with and or we did an episode that hasn't

Justin: been released yet about like just left media in general.

Justin: But the way that they depict revolution

Justin: the reality of revolution yes not the not

Justin: the hollywood ideal of quote-unquote revolution but

Justin: the reality of revolution being fucking brutal and

Justin: awful yeah tough and everyone's arguing and

Justin: everyone's coming from different viewpoints right like mon mothma

Justin: and uh what's the uh i

Justin: can't ever remember his name saw the lutheran saw

Justin: well yeah saw and uh the guy the guy that

Justin: kind of runs everything luthan um luthan yeah

Justin: they're all like different opposing viewpoints working together to

Justin: overthrow the empire it's it's the same kind of shit and every

Justin: people are dying and they're given these opportunities to

Justin: to like okay we can stop this right we can yeah we

Justin: can get a win but in in those moments

Justin: you can feel for like what i would call the liberals right

Justin: you can feel for them because their families have died they've

Justin: watched their friends die they've done terrible fucking things

Justin: they've gone through terrible fucking things they've had hired they they've

Justin: made you watch their fingernails getting pulled out for like three minutes right

Justin: um in an actual scene in this movie um and so you understand the desire to just

Justin: stop yeah but that has a cost like you've lost you've already lost at that point yeah.

Evan: Yeah there's that's a it's actually a good uh comparison to and or in that they're

Evan: both have They both talk about things that you don't normally see.

Evan: You know, some of my favorite parts of Andor are like the...

Evan: Could have just like the scenes where Andor and Bix are just kind of,

Evan: they're tired and they're just like have to go do mundane things.

Evan: Like you never see like the, that side of exhaustion.

Evan: I think you see it in this too, even, even in those court scenes,

Evan: even those in the, the, the jail scenes and all of those.

Evan: And the, the quote you were saying from Dan, the first part he reads,

Evan: I'll just, that he pulls out his little piece of paper.

Evan: Says the nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the nation,

Evan: but to all its material possessions, the nation's soil, all its resources,

Evan: all the wealth, all the wealth producing processes within the nation.

Evan: And so it's very clear what he wants for the nation. He wants everyone to,

Evan: you know, he wants collectivization.

Evan: He wants people to have- He wants nationalization. He wants nationalization of all these resources.

Evan: And yes, they have strong unions right now and the unions are willing to do

Evan: things but i think you have to go to be have been as successful to become a

Evan: socialist irish republic or whatever it would be you have to go.

Justin: Right further.

Evan: And people like teddy are willing to just take the bare minimum.

Justin: Right yeah yeah but they don't yeah but like they don't pose it in like a in

Justin: like a way that you can't understand where you're like all this motherfucker

Justin: right you're just like you get it he's not a bastard he's not evil right he

Justin: he's just he's tired he's.

Jeremy: Just tired of fighting yeah.

Justin: Yeah and there's this scene i don't know

Justin: if we want to get get there but um there's the

Justin: scene where he visits his brother in jail

Justin: like after like after they've signed the treaty after the uh now it's the people

Justin: with different accents oppressing the irish people yeah um and his he gets arrested

Justin: and he goes in there and he's like please like I will beg I will do anything

Justin: just please stop and he's like,

Justin: motherfucker. Like I killed a 12 year old for, for betraying us.

Justin: Would you, do you really think I would swallow it now?

Justin: It's like a, it's not like a, he doesn't say it in that way.

Justin: Right. It's more in like the way of like, I can't, right.

Justin: I can't live with myself if I do that. I would love to do that because I'm tired

Justin: and I'm scared and I don't want to die, but I can't.

Jeremy: Yeah. That's another aspect of this that I love because none of these people are like,

Jeremy: they don't depict any of this as like this is

Jeremy: fun and cool and good right like they show

Jeremy: after after the big massacre on the

Jeremy: road where they kill all the british soldiers and the trucks there's dudes

Jeremy: crying they don't they don't want to look at

Jeremy: the dead bodies they hate it when killian

Jeremy: murphy has to kill that kid and the landowner he

Jeremy: just like he's he just like he's barely alive

Jeremy: right like he's just stumbling he's like a zombie like falling

Jeremy: yeah falling almost falling down as he's walking

Jeremy: trying to get away from it um and

Jeremy: when he's because it does the the end of the

Jeremy: movie is uh more or less not quite the end

Jeremy: but almost at the very end uh damien is

Jeremy: executed uh and he is spoiler alert

Jeremy: the the bulk

Jeremy: of the movie is filmed in county cork but that particular scene is filmed in

Jeremy: the jail where james connelly was executed in the place i believe in exactly

Jeremy: the place where james connelly was executed which if you aren't familiar with

Jeremy: the story during the easter rising in 1916 uh.

Jeremy: Connelly had already been shot several times in combat and the British had to

Jeremy: tie him to a chair because he couldn't stand up.

Jeremy: He was going to die anyway, but they had to execute him.

Jeremy: They had to. They had to put him down, which, you know, if he died from his

Jeremy: combat wounds, I guess that would make him too heroic. But if he died in an execution, whatever.

Evan: They don't want him to be a martyr.

Jeremy: Correct. I mean, he's still a martyr, but like, yeah, but, but anyway,

Jeremy: that's, that's where that takes place.

Jeremy: But Killian Murphy is not like brave, like staring into the guns.

Jeremy: Like I'm going to die with honor.

Jeremy: He's, he's terrified. And he's like, he's.

Justin: He's like crying and he's like, yeah, he's having a panic attack.

Justin: He's hyperventilating.

Jeremy: Yeah and teddy his brother is is also crying like all of this sucks everything

Jeremy: about this sucks uh which also felt good you know not to depict it as like.

Evan: Glory whatever like glorified glorious.

Jeremy: Dead the glorious dead and all that shit.

Evan: And and one of the great things they do too especially

Evan: with all of the people right before they're going

Evan: to be executed like the 12 like the 12 year old kid or

Evan: he like they they ask everyone to basically write a letter

Evan: to give to their family afterwards words he was the only one i

Evan: think doesn't write a letter he just tells he couldn't read yeah

Evan: he couldn't read so he tells his mother just to you know like tell him where i'm buried and

Evan: another thing that also struck me is that after killian murphy

Evan: has to execute the landowner which again

Evan: we could also talk about like that's another threat of just like the traitorous

Evan: the trip the traitorous uh you know bourgeoisie in this that are still siding

Evan: with the british because they gained from it but after he kills the child and

Evan: he later sees his mother the mother like he takes him to where he's buried in

Evan: the church and then, you know, can't talk to him.

Evan: Like it, this, it not only divides the, like the sectarianism of it with,

Evan: you know, the socialists and the nationalists, it,

Evan: these small families in these small towns.

Justin: That just it's.

Evan: Like destroying lives across you know from the top to the bottom i guess.

Justin: Yeah well he says that he walked six miles with her she didn't say a word he

Justin: showed her where he was buried and she said i never want to see your face again

Justin: and at the end of the movie yes when teddy gives the necklace to um sinead she

Justin: doesn't say anything to him.

Justin: He gives the necklace to him and she says, I never want to see your face again.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Justin: I thought that was cool.

Jeremy: It's an echo.

Justin: I mean, it's sad.

Jeremy: Very sad.

Evan: The Sir John, who was like this traitor who essentially turned in.

Evan: And what's so sad about it?

Jeremy: So this is a lot of Ireland was under the control of what they referred to as

Jeremy: Anglo-Irish landowners, but they were primarily British.

Jeremy: They were primarily English families who had

Jeremy: been invited over at various times like

Jeremy: the the conquest of ireland took a long time it

Jeremy: was it began basically it's sort

Jeremy: of it's quite sad actually because it was

Jeremy: it was at the request of an a deposed irish king who was like i want my my property

Jeremy: back and so he invited some uh some anglo-norman mercenaries over and when he

Jeremy: did that it more or less opened the door to the conquest of Ireland.

Jeremy: And it was like, it's hard to talk about this as like the English were the ones

Jeremy: doing the invading because the Normans were not English.

Jeremy: And it was, a lot of Ireland was already under the control of the Norse.

Jeremy: So there was conflict amongst multiple groups, but it was this event which opened

Jeremy: the door for what eventually became the English conquest of Ireland.

Jeremy: It had more or less been, not entirely, but mostly conquered by about 1300.

Jeremy: And then it was almost completely, the power was completely consolidated by

Jeremy: the time of Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century.

Jeremy: So it was a process by which this happened. Yeah.

Jeremy: Every time this did happen, landowners from what what is now England and eventually

Jeremy: became England came over and took over sections of land.

Jeremy: And these landowners remained forever.

Jeremy: Basically, they they remained until, you know, and some of them still own that

Jeremy: land, which is insane. But most of them were were were kicked out.

Evan: Another reason why they needed to follow the socialist track and get rid of

Evan: these wealthy landowners who are exploiting them.

Evan: And, you know, you could argue like, okay, well, they're employing some of the

Evan: local Irish people, but Sir John gets the child killed because he threatened him.

Evan: Mean like you're a kid like it's it's tough to hold out against you know people

Evan: torturing you and threatening you probably threatening his family and so he

Evan: ends up dying for it and it's uh as you said like it's fucking bleak yeah.

Justin: And and again like they don't try to glorify it like they fucking hate it they

Justin: don't want to do it right but like at the same time they can't risk people not

Justin: being scared of selling out the ira right they need that.

Evan: Yeah the the uh what was the other thing i was gonna bring up

Evan: about the the it's like one of

Evan: like the things in general like obviously there was the kind of the nationalist

Evan: versus socialist but it's also just like you could i

Evan: don't even think we use this term or maybe it just sort of like the infighting once

Evan: the treaty is signed and you know there's this

Evan: there's a scene in the church where they're the like the

Evan: the church is on the side of of course the the wealthy and catholic priest yeah

Evan: like he called it like damien calls it out saying of course you're you know

Evan: with the exception with very few exceptions you're always going to side with

Evan: the rich and it's just like all of these things that they get excommunicated

Evan: yeah they get excommunicated and you know it's uh it's just the what's the,

Evan: There was another quote that I was thinking of. I think it's where Damien might

Evan: have said to Teddy something about, like, putting himself in the,

Evan: like, wrapping himself in the flag of Britain for, you know, what they're doing.

Jeremy: Oh, yes. He says you've wrapped yourself in the Union Jack.

Evan: Yes.

Jeremy: The butcher's apron, he calls it. The butcher's apron.

Justin: Yeah. Yep.

Evan: Yeah. It's great. Like it's, it's very like they, they like love each other,

Evan: but at the same time, they are still going to fight to the end for kind of what their beliefs are.

Evan: And you have to kill each other. Yeah. Kill each other over.

Evan: And it's, uh, it's commendable. I don't know.

Justin: Um, it's sad, but it's real.

Evan: Yeah. Yeah.

Justin: That is the price that you pay. And if you're going to be a revolutionary,

Justin: you need to know the price that you're going to pay.

Justin: Yeah. Another, you know, that's one of the things I kind of walked away from

Justin: the movie with is just this, like, You know, as revolutionaries,

Justin: we carry with us, behind us, every Lenin, every Connolly, every Mao, every Stalin,

Justin: every Che, every Fidel, every Sankara,

Justin: every Kollontai, right?

Justin: All of these people are behind us.

Justin: It's the legacy of revolution and the sacrifices that they made and the hard

Justin: decisions that they paid paved the way for us.

Justin: And so, I don't know, there's just this kind of moment of like,

Justin: this is our struggle also, even though we don't know anybody there,

Justin: we don't know anybody that fought in it, you know what I mean?

Justin: But we are bonded, yeah.

Evan: Well, this is another thing that I was maybe slightly hesitant to bring it up,

Evan: but one of the things that follows with the socialism versus nationalism kind of track,

Evan: and I've seen this argument before, and as I was trying to find articles about this,

Evan: people writing about this film and talking about whether, can it be a true revolutionary

Evan: group or revolution if they're not, they don't have a socialist,

Evan: mindset or that's the end goal.

Evan: And so people are arguing, oh, well, the Palestinians aren't socialists,

Evan: so why should we support them as their independence? And I...

Evan: I guess gets back to like the socialism versus nationalism. And I think as,

Evan: you know, communists, you support any movement that's seeking to decolonize

Evan: or fight against imperialism, fight against this oppression of a colonizer.

Evan: And then it's sort of like the aftermath that you have to figure out these,

Evan: you know, what's the, what's the next step in it? So I don't know.

Justin: And there, so I think this is actually like an interesting question because

Justin: we can actually draw a parallel to how the ideology needs to exist,

Justin: but doesn't matter when it comes to decolonization,

Justin: national liberation movements.

Justin: I mean, I think that something that a lot of people don't understand about Palestine

Justin: is that the state of Israel probably never would have existed if it wasn't for socialists,

Justin: Zionist socialists, paving the way for the state of Israel.

Justin: So in the 20s and especially in the 30s, there were this large group of Jewish

Justin: socialists that started collecting money and purchasing land in Palestine from

Justin: rich landowners that owned the land.

Justin: And then, once they had that land, they would evict the Palestinians that were

Justin: on that land, that were, like, working as land tenants.

Justin: And they created—over the years, they perfected this system of going in,

Justin: setting up, asking them to leave, offering them, like, whatever,

Justin: money or whatever if they leave.

Justin: If they don't take it, going in at night, building fences around their territory.

Justin: Building towers, and then in the morning, surprise, you don't have land anymore.

Justin: And these were socialist movements, right?

Justin: And again, I think it kind of paints in a new light the way that we look at

Justin: like the Soviet Union's policy against Zionism in the 30s and 40s.

Justin: It makes a lot of sense from this perspective.

Justin: And so there was already this blueprint and basis of people in Palestine when

Justin: the state of Israel was formed.

Justin: All they did was switch it to a quote unquote legalized version.

Justin: And I just think that like that's kind of what I mean.

Justin: Like you could put socialism on anything. You need both. You need decolonialism.

Justin: You need national liberation.

Justin: You need rights for indigenous folks. Then you need socialism.

Jeremy: Yeah, because the primary contradiction is imperialism.

Jeremy: And if your quote unquote socialism is in favor of imperialism,

Jeremy: that makes it fucking useless.

Jeremy: And if your anti-imperialist movement is not socialist, that still makes it valuable.

Jeremy: Um you the the important part

Jeremy: is to defeat imperialism because we cannot have worldwide socialism until we

Jeremy: do it will not happen it's not possible to defeat capitalism so long as imperialism

Jeremy: is the dominant sort of uh means of governance globally it's it's uh so the

Jeremy: more we can weaken it the better.

Evan: Yeah as uh you know as the as the famous uh book

Evan: imperialism is the highest form of capitalism so

Evan: yeah you can't you can't you if you have one

Evan: you you have both it's all uh yeah you know

Evan: it's not you can't separate the two from each other and to like

Evan: also on that part about the like israel and the socialist movement i mean that's

Evan: essentially what like the kibbutz system was which i think is what you're kind

Evan: of referring to i'm talking about these are still still to this day people view

Evan: those communities as like a socialist community And having personally,

Evan: I think I've done an episode a long time ago with another podcast that doesn't exist anymore,

Evan: we talked about my personal experience of living on a kibbutz in 2000 in Israel

Evan: and just looking back on the way that those...

Evan: The people on those kibbutzes don't probably view what they're doing as colonial. Obviously, they don't.

Justin: No, they didn't.

Evan: Then or now, it's just like the idea is like, oh, well, we just have this community.

Evan: Just leave us alone kind of thing.

Justin: We bought this land. Yeah.

Evan: We paid for it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We paid for it. I mean, just like what the U.S.

Evan: Paid for, what, Hawaii and Alaska or whatever.

Evan: Because you bought it doesn't mean it's yours in a sense.

Justin: Yeah.

Evan: But no, I maybe wasn't hesitant to bring that up.

Evan: But I think I see that unfortunate argument coming from in the same argument

Evan: of like, oh, how could you support, you know, Palestine, Palestine,

Evan: if you are, you know, LGBT community like these kind of these,

Evan: you know, pinkwashing and other arguments.

Justin: Yeah, he's got to arguments.

Evan: Yeah, that does kind of all fall into this. But yeah, I think.

Evan: Yeah. Oh, and this is one other line that I wanted to bring up that kind of

Evan: relates to a lot of again, like the infighting is I think.

Evan: That i think that it was dan who said

Evan: it although maybe it was damian he to teddy he

Evan: says i'm not a dreamer i'm a realist and i think it's this idea that many people

Evan: have that they see socialism as you know idealist and it's idealism when it

Evan: couldn't be more the opposite that liberalism is idealism and reactionary and

Evan: obviously as materialists we understand that.

Justin: Yes yeah that And it's funny that you said that because it kind of ties into

Justin: what I was about to say, which is that people act like there's this big ambiguity

Justin: or obscure concept of how...

Justin: To orient yourself in world

Justin: and in the world and in revolutions but there's

Justin: not like there's there is a there's a path and

Justin: it's not a fun path and it's not a happy path but

Justin: it's a realistic path of how revolutions should go

Justin: and like that's kind of what you know what we're talking about yeah like obviously

Justin: there's plenty of reactionary uh belief systems in a lot of uh hyper-religious

Justin: communities in all across the world, but certainly in Palestine. Right.

Justin: And that sucks. But we have to take step one before we take step five.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Justin: And if you take step five before you take step one, you're never going to get anywhere.

Justin: Then you just like hand it over to the capitalists and that's it.

Jeremy: Yeah. When liberals say that socialists are idealist and they mean it in the

Jeremy: sense of Not like idealism versus materialism, but you are focused on your ideals and not reality,

Jeremy: the world around you that actually exists.

Jeremy: But what is going on underneath that is that they believe, which is insane and also in my mind,

Jeremy: the absolutely idealist in both senses, that they think they can change the

Jeremy: system from within the system.

Jeremy: And what they mean is it's very very hard to do a revolution that's what makes

Jeremy: us idealists but the reality is that that's the only way things change you cannot

Jeremy: without incredible violence take power away from people who have a lot of it and it sucks but.

Justin: That's why I think media like Andor, like this movie, The Wind That Shakes the

Justin: Barley, are so important because it's important for us to know what we're getting

Justin: ourselves into, that we're not just talking about it.

Justin: We understand the consequences of what we're saying.

Jeremy: Right.

Evan: It honestly makes it all the more insane that Andor exists.

Justin: I am shocked, honestly.

Evan: I think about this all the time, you know, that they made the first season.

Evan: And the other i think i just saw i read a lot

Evan: about andor i've done multiple episodes on it and

Evan: the the like they gave uh

Evan: gilroy 650 million dollars to make

Evan: andor and they basically said the only note he got was he couldn't use the f

Evan: word at the end of season one and other than that he could basically do whatever

Evan: he wanted it was supposed the marvel was supposed to say fuck the empire and

Evan: they've recorded that and then they made it re-dub over saying fight the empire

Evan: but But if you watch her mouth during that scene, it definitely says fuck.

Jeremy: She says fuck to the Empire. Amazing.

Justin: Nice.

Evan: And other than that, they just let him do it. And it's just,

Evan: it's shocking. Like, I can't believe that the Disney banner is on it.

Justin: We actually talked about it briefly. I think the only reason they were able

Justin: to pull it off is because it's the Empire and the Rebellion and X-Wings and

Justin: U-Wings and Aliens and, right? Right.

Justin: And so it's so divorced from what we live the day to day that people can watch

Justin: it and not really pick up on.

Jeremy: And the other thing is that they are very vague about what the rebellion wants.

Jeremy: They do not come out and explicitly sort of say, here's what we want after the revolution happens.

Jeremy: They're very like freedom and anti-oppression, but what does that mean and what

Jeremy: do we want after the rebellion wins? What do we get out of that?

Jeremy: And I think those are the two things. I think Andor is much more...

Jeremy: Like a blueprint of how to do a revolution rather than uh explicitly like socialist

Jeremy: in any way shape or form you know what i mean.

Evan: That's that's true that the old that actually

Evan: reminds me of one of my favorite lines or one of

Evan: many favorite lines in and or i think it's uh clay and and or

Evan: like arguing about something i won't this won't be any spoilers

Evan: who hasn't seen and or and he says you know like it was so

Evan: great yeah and oh she's the best the best character uh or close to it but i

Evan: think they're arguing and he's and or says something to the effect of like i

Evan: want to start doing you know what i want to do and she basically says like isn't

Evan: that why we're doing this so you can do that and it's it's yes it's such a great line because it.

Justin: Was it was huge yeah i loved it.

Evan: You in in the same thing where

Evan: you kind of see bringing it back to when the shakes of barley is

Evan: teddy and dan and the socialists arguing

Evan: is yes we can we can stop

Evan: now we could have our our revolution we could have this treaty we're still going

Evan: to be under the yoke of them but what we what you want teddy what you really

Evan: deep down want is ultimate complete freedom but you're willing to accept the

Evan: the the the simple version of that you're not willing to go the extra right ancient yeah.

Justin: You could almost rephrase it with like um all i want is for people to stop dying

Justin: yes that's what we all want that's why we want the revolution so people stop

Justin: dying It's this weird kind of dichotomy of like,

Justin: you're not free until you have bound yourself so tightly that you have created

Justin: this system that frees you.

Justin: You cannot stop the death until you have...

Justin: Die like until a bunch of people have died right it's just a thing that is is

Justin: part of the process the contradiction of the movement.

Evan: Yeah like and the the same like the what is it the line like

Evan: you know um we're not free till all of us are

Evan: free in the sense that yes they could have this treaty but there's still going

Evan: to be that woman who can't buy groceries she's not really free like the kid

Evan: that killian murphy has to go see because he's sick he's like starved right

Evan: and they have no money they have no food they have nothing and so what's what's

Evan: it going to solve when you know the is.

Justin: Yeah is he happy that he can fly an irish flag you know yeah yeah.

Evan: It doesn't doesn't give him anything yeah.

Jeremy: And that's uh you know another scene that sort of hits that

Jeremy: home sort of more directly is that at

Jeremy: sinade's family farmhouse the

Jeremy: british army visits twice and then the irish free state army visits a third

Jeremy: time to try to take out the rebels and they they do the same shit that the british

Jeremy: did they bust down the door yeah they go looking for guns they they abuse the

Jeremy: people that are there um because they are the same.

Evan: Well i wrote i think that my like last note sort

Evan: of the section which is actually perfect timing is i wrote this kind of like the circle

Evan: of violence you have the irish army doing the same thing i think there's a moment

Evan: where they talked about the tans and their shootout how they're sort of just

Evan: their savagery of the British and they then it's shown when they basically scalp

Evan: Sinead in that scene after which is really hard to watch,

Evan: and then you see you don't see necessarily the.

Justin: They use sheep shears.

Evan: Oh that's right horrible but then the Irish are maybe not doing the same level

Evan: of violence but they kill they kill Damien I mean that's The circle,

Evan: that's the, just, yeah, it's, um.

Jeremy: Yeah. I think they refer to them as the green and tans at one point.

Evan: Yeah.

Jeremy: Instead of the black and tans. Yeah.

Evan: I never realized they called that the black and tan. And I guess that's the,

Evan: like the famous drink, the, you know, Irish, uh, lager and like a Guinness or whatever.

Evan: And you never have one of those again. Now that I sort of associate that with

Evan: my head, my head, not that I've had one anytime recently, but like,

Evan: you know, when I've been to England, you're like, oh yeah, a black and tan.

Evan: Like, I don't know about that.

Evan: Is it just like an imperialist drink?

Jeremy: Come out ye black and tans is a banger, as always. I don't know if you've heard the song.

Evan: I don't know if I have.

Justin: You haven't?

Jeremy: No? Really? Banger.

Justin: I don't think so. Okay.

Evan: That's one other thing in this that we didn't even mention is the music in this

Evan: is sort of like not heavily overused.

Evan: It's sort of just, it's always very somber in the background.

Jeremy: And it's part of the scene.

Justin: There's almost no music in it at all.

Jeremy: Yeah. It's part of the scene that's going on. So like at the funeral for Mahal.

Jeremy: Uh, the, the Sinead's brother who gets killed at the beginning of the movie,

Jeremy: uh, at his funeral, that's where they sing the song, the wind that shakes the

Jeremy: barley, the line comes from that.

Jeremy: Um, and then later this, the, uh,

Jeremy: the IRA soldiers are marching down the road and they sing, uh,

Jeremy: again, like a song from the 1798 uprising, the Jacobite uprising, um,

Jeremy: which the lyrics to that song was changed by an Irish nationalist who was killed

Jeremy: or imprisoned at the same jail where Connolly was killed and where,

Jeremy: um, Damien ends up being killed.

Jeremy: But that's, again, those are the only times that music really appear is sort

Jeremy: of somebody is singing in the movie.

Evan: Right.

Justin: There was also the piano player during the news reel, which one of the coolest

Justin: parts of the movie for me was that there obviously is silent films.

Justin: So anything that comes up on the screen, the people that can read would yell

Justin: it out because a lot of the people in the theater can't read.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Justin: And I thought that that was a really cool thing that they didn't have to do.

Jeremy: Mm-hmm.

Evan: Yeah.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Evan: I thought you're the other moment. I think where they sing too,

Evan: is when they're arrested the very first time and they meet Dan in the prison.

Evan: I think they start singing while Teddy is being tortured. Like they start singing out loud.

Justin: Yeah. They do.

Evan: Yeah.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Evan: Yeah. It's like all of the moments of the, of the song it's,

Evan: it's more like the music is meant to be like both joyous, but also,

Evan: you know, in these, like the two opposite ends of like the joyous singing and

Evan: then just someone has died and now we're singing for their, for their death or like as we mourn them.

Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. So there's a there's like a cultural concept in Korea that's known

Jeremy: as Han, which is it's more or less like a cultural sadness.

Jeremy: And it is born out of like having been colonized.

Jeremy: Over and over and over and having your nation split in half.

Jeremy: Uh, and so it's like, you are distant from your family. You can't go and visit them anymore.

Jeremy: Like it, it is this, like, basically it's all, it's almost like it's a,

Jeremy: it is a cultural sadness born out of imperialism.

Jeremy: And I feel like Ireland has that, right? Like there's a, there's an element of that.

Jeremy: Like ireland has its own kind of han um like

Jeremy: i feel like it's the only nation really that might be like that in the world

Jeremy: where you just have hundreds and hundreds of years of colonization and you are

Jeremy: still divided um you know it's a little bit different now as you can travel

Jeremy: freely across the border but still it's it's like uh i don't know it's fucked.

Evan: Yeah so for anyone listening and you

Evan: uh watch this movie don't expect it to

Evan: be as we said at the outset it's not a it's not

Evan: a heartfelt uplifting not a rah rah

Evan: rah movie yeah it's not like uh it's not a revolutionary film

Evan: that's gonna you know maybe fill you with

Evan: uh you know happiness and glee it's uh it begins and ends just like true truly

Evan: just you know the cycle of violence the the murder at the hands of the british

Evan: and then the murder at the hands of the irish you know uh aren't uh the army

Evan: what do they call it the what's the irish forces at the end that teddy's part of like you know what oh.

Jeremy: I forget they what they call them the regulars i think or.

Evan: Oh yeah that may be it yeah but yeah it's um,

Evan: it's a it's a tough one but i'm glad that i am glad you uh both uh or glad that

Evan: you jeremy had chosen this film to talk about made this watch this because it's

Evan: it's uh it's like definitely an important film more than more now than maybe

Evan: well than maybe ever in fact so i'm glad uh i don't know if you either you had

Evan: any last last thoughts on it,

Evan: Anything we missed?

Justin: I was, yeah, I mean, just, you can watch it for free, but, like,

Justin: it's on Plex, and you have to sit through, like, three minutes of commercials

Justin: every 15 minutes, and I just wanted to stab my own eyeballs out.

Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah, if you could find it cheap to purchase somewhere, maybe just do that.

Justin: Or if you have, like, there's, like, different streaming services.

Jeremy: I think it's on AMC.

Justin: Like, AMC Plus. Like, AMC Plus, yeah. Yeah, but I don't have that one.

Evan: Yeah, I didn't have that one either. I acquired it through other means.

Justin: Secret means on the high seas yes yes

Justin: yeah um no i like i said i i think that

Justin: um just you know as revolutionaries it

Justin: is important for us to find the joy the camaraderie the rah rah rah we need

Justin: that to keep us going the community that keeps us together it's important for

Justin: us to um keep our eyes open when black people are being suffocated by cops or

Justin: when Israel is doing a genocide in Palestine day after day.

Justin: It's important for us to keep our eyes open and watch those things and feel

Justin: that pain so that we know what we're fighting for.

Justin: But it is also important for us to understand the consequences of what it is

Justin: that we want for the world and so that we can have a sober, clear eyed view moving forward.

Jeremy: Yeah, we it's you got to bear witness and you have to you have to gird your loins.

Jeremy: I think also don't don't jump into this being like, yeah,

Jeremy: I'm going to kill a bunch of imperialists like you need to you've got to get

Jeremy: the people on your side first or you're just doing adventurism and they will turn against you.

Jeremy: So before any of that happens, please go talk to your neighbors.

Jeremy: Please go talk to the people you work with. You need to bring them on side first

Jeremy: before any of this will be possible.

Jeremy: And also Free Palestine.

Evan: Excellent point. And I guess before we depart, I think I mentioned in the beginning

Evan: you all have your own podcast, PearlsPod, but I did not or forgot to ask you

Evan: to tell people about it, maybe what you are coming up.

Evan: You did mention you have an episode coming up on leftist kind of media,

Evan: but I'll let you describe it.

Justin: Jeremy?

Jeremy: Do you know when this episode will go up?

Evan: Probably in two-ish weeks, maybe three.

Jeremy: Okay. So the newest episode, which will probably go up, but it'll go up a week

Jeremy: before, would be we interviewed a Brandon who is currently getting his PhD in,

Jeremy: I believe, in history.

Jeremy: But he wrote it on sort of his family's relationship to the guerrilla struggles

Jeremy: in Guatemala in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Jeremy: And also, you know, not just his family, but others.

Jeremy: So that episode focuses on the sort of left-wing guerrilla movements in Guatemala

Jeremy: during that period. After that,

Jeremy: we're doing a theory episode on Reformer Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg.

Jeremy: And then i believe is the the left media sort of um the anti-capitalist media

Jeremy: we got two episodes on that one that focuses on science fiction and one that

Jeremy: focuses on like quote-unquote real world kind of um conversations about capitalism.

Justin: And yeah and in it we kind of discuss more

Justin: than we discuss the films or movies or shows themselves it's uh more about like

Justin: the strengths and limits of media and like how does that where does that line

Justin: draw and how far can it go is it good is it bad at what point is like you know

Justin: whatever so that's kind of what we discuss no.

Evan: That's a that's the very i'm very interested in that as as someone who is uh

Evan: actively doing you know films obviously in TV shows, it's like there's pros

Evan: and cons, I guess you could say, of,

Evan: as easy as it would be to say, but...

Justin: We should have had you on.

Evan: That's okay.

Jeremy: Yeah, we should have.

Evan: But no, but Jeremy and Justin, appreciate you coming on and finally making this

Evan: happen and talking about the wind that shakes the Bartlett.

Justin: It's a long way from WALL-E, which is what we were originally going to do.

Jeremy: That is what we were originally going to do. We talked about this literally

Jeremy: a year ago, and then we got busy with the,

Jeremy: Stalin series, which nearly killed us.

Evan: Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know how you all did it because...

Jeremy: Not well.

Evan: We were dying.

Justin: Crawling to the finish line.

Jeremy: Yes, it was... We were... That's the most tension we've ever had.

Jeremy: That's the most stressed I've ever been.

Jeremy: Not in my entire life, but as far as related to this podcast,

Jeremy: insane amount of research and editing. and oh my god i i don't know how we did it.

Evan: But we're.

Jeremy: Done we did the damn thing.

Evan: Yeah listeners you should definitely go listen to that full series on stalin

Evan: eras which i think is it nine episodes ten geez.

Jeremy: It so there's the intro the intro which was just by itself and then one two three and four each had.

Evan: Two parts.

Jeremy: Except three which had which had two which had three parts.

Evan: Okay so maybe it's 10 and.

Jeremy: Then we had then we had the the conclusions of the controversies episode yeah

Jeremy: uh episodes which yeah so there's like i think 11 episodes.

Evan: Okay i think or 12 you can all listeners can listeners can strap in over 20

Evan: hours listen yeah strap in you know if you're going on a long flight if you're

Evan: flying to to china for example and you've got a 16 hours,

Evan: you're.

Justin: Going to be an expert on the other.

Evan: End yeah yeah yeah right exactly you get to the other end and you're going to

Evan: be speaking uh speaking russian or yeah.

Justin: I believe the saying is a thousand hours and you become an expert i'm i think

Justin: we are now stalin experts.

Evan: Yes but uh yeah so let's listeners can go check out pearls pod and uh listen

Evan: wherever you get your podcast and we will catch you next time bye.