Fremde Frau
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Jon on Fallon was great, especially this part:
People have been talking about inhumane farming practices for years, but nobody wants to actually address the conditions in which these animals live before they become food... or the process by which they become food. Because half of the people who know it cry freedom or god, and the other half cry eww and never think of it again. (I agree with Victor the Crab: that seemed like a counterproductive way to introduce a new correspondent. They're usually better about highlighting the new person. I wonder if Jon has had much of a hand in writing or editing anything these last two weeks. Regardless of whether or not I agree with the punchline of a piece, the narrative arc and focus are generally much sharper than they've been lately.)
Welcome back, Lewis!
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Great finds, nowandlater! Wow, baby Jon is so different... and yet, so familiar.
Here is the second part of Jon's Fresh Air interview.
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I rewatched the Detroit piece and then started to rewatch some of Jessica's other segments, and I have to say that two little things have become my favorite little things about the show: how happy Jessica looks whenever she cracks Jon up, and how proud Jon looks after any one of Jessica's bits.
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Looking forward to Toni Morrison tonight. I'm in such awe of everything she has accomplished and the beauty of her work. What a legend.
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Would the universe tell us if we were getting stupider? Why is this anything at all? In the worst case scenario, it should be a teaching moment for the news media, politicians, economists, et al., to explain to the general public how insurance works. In the best case scenario, it should be a non-story of someone in the public sphere saying something stupid while the media, government, and public go on about their lives. Instead, here we go again with a non-issue becoming its own reality on which everyone has to comment--not only perpetuating the ignorance and misinformation, but potentially becoming the foundations for public policy. No wonder Jon couldn't stop swearing.
I can't wait to see The Imitation Game; I'm no mathematician, but cryptanalysis is in some aspects contiguous to what I study. As for Benedict Cumberbatch, I haven't seen Sherlock or Star Trek Into Darkness or anything else in which he has starred, so this is the extent of my opinion: wow, what a voice.
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All of that 2012 hysteria was off by two years...
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Incredible that either one of them came within voting distance of the executive branch. What the hell, America? Seriously. What the actual hell?
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Unfortunately, our system is designed to reward strategy, not hope and actual change.
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I think one thing that I found interesting about that interview is how it became meta. It's always interesting when Jon turns the interview back on the interviewer, but it's not all that common to start dissecting each other's body language. I guess it just hit all of my "conversation analysis" buttons; I felt like pulling out my notepad and writing an analysis of it.
Here is Gael talking about the film, including what it's like to be directed by Jon.There was some backlash to the fact that Jon cast you, a Mexican actor, as an Iranian character. How would you respond to that?
Well, it happened in Tehran, but it was shot in Jordan. It’s in English, not in Farsi. The person that plays Rosewater is a Danish actor. The person who plays my father is a Turkish actor. The person who plays the friend of Maziar is an English-Greek actor. There are Egyptians in the film. There are many artists with a background in Iraq or Palestine or Syria. So, we were from all over the world. And it was a director from New Jersey. And I’m from Mexico. And I understand the subject on a human level. Of course I do. But definitely I’m not from Iran, and I’m from the places or nationality of many characters that I’ve interpreted in my life. I’ve never interpreted a character from Guadalajara, from where I’m from. So, it’s part of the nature of all this, to create a bigger fable.
These two interviews are older (from the London Film Festival). It was interesting to hear from some other actors, since so much of the press has been devoted to Jon, Maziar, and Gael. (I hope we get a Kim Bodnia interview sometime soon.) -
That first segment felt like something that had been edited and picked at until it lost coherency, and then they ran out of time to clean it up.
Jessica's name on a segment has become a guarantee of quality.
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The world has turned upside down! The (bucket) apocalypse is nigh!
p.s. The audience was particularly annoying last night, but Stephen enjoyed their energy, so I feel bad for saying that.
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I didn't equate them. This is the only material I've seen of hers, and her manner and the questions she asked reminded me of the 2010 Maddow interview and the 2011 Wallace interview, where they were asking the same sorts of questions in a similarly insistent manner.
This is a nice interview with Maziar Bahari.*We often hear of people in this nation claiming they’re losing their rights, be it through gun control, voter ID laws, restrictions on speech, etc. This isn’t to say there are no rights worth advocating for in this nation, but in this film, we see a very difficult struggle for rights. For instance, we see Iranians being massacred in the streets for rioting and demanding a recount after a clearly unfair election. What can you say about this difference in what each nation calls rights, for journalists or for regular people?
Those are two totally different situations. Someone was telling me that David Sanger from the New York Times said the Obama Administration has been the worst administration for journalists. And yes, it might be true that the Obama Administration has been the worst for journalists in the U.S., but in Iran or in China, David Sanger would be an incarcerated journalist. He wouldn’t be invited to Meet the Press, he wouldn’t be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to write a book and complain about the government. So I think that is the main difference. Here you have a system of checks and balances, you have a freer press, and you have more opportunity to criticize the government. Of course the United States is not a perfect country – although Sean Hannity tries to say otherwise – and I think there are many things that can be improved. What people want in this country is to be regarded as citizens of the country. Even if a lot of people unfortunately don’t exercise their voting rights in this country, they want to be regarded as people with one vote. That is something that Iranians want, that Egyptians want, that Chinese want. I think that’s a universal phenomenon that people want to be regarded as citizens of a country with citizen rights rather than subjects of the country. That’s why you had the revolution here hundreds of years ago. You wanted to be citizens. And I think because of social media, because of the digital revolution and satellite television, people can communicate more this day in age. So people in Egypt, in China, in Russia, in Iran, they see things that people have in the U.S. and in other countries, and they want that. And it’s the same thing in the U.S. People look at Scandinavian countries they see health systems in those countries and they want that here. Well, some people do. -
Okay, you guys have convinced me!
I do hope they bring back the Toss for Larry. They have a different dynamic than Jon does with Stephen, but I love it, and their desk pieces are my favorites of all of the contributor pieces. As a pair, they always seem to be ready and willing to go over the line of comfort to make the point--and not in the sense of cringe humor, like Sam's or Jason's, but addressing real social tensions. On top of that, they seem to have respect and affection for each other. Well, clearly Jon has respect for Larry since he wanted him to host his own show, but I get the sense that there's a professional and personal trust going both ways. (Of course, I am basing this on nothing but my subjective interpretations of how they interact once their segments end and the camera pulls away. I really know nothing.)
Here's the Stern interview.
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This is one of the more interesting interviews he's had, with Wendy Mesley on CBC News. It's about 13 minutes. I don't know Mesley's background, but she and Jon got into a really fascinating place that was both cordial and tense. She was almost--and I understand the weirdness of what I'm about to say--a blend of Rachel Maddow and Chris Wallace, asking Jon to understand and articulate his own social and/or political importance. In any case, it was nothing like 95% of the interviews he's had over the last month or so.
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D: Victor the Crab, I... I hate you. You've now given me new nightmares. But let me share mine with you: that, in Stephen's last episode (which should be an hour-long special), he'll say goodbye at the end, and Jon will wave goodbye, as well, and we'll think that he's saying goodbye to Stephen and goodbye to us only for the winter break, but he's actually saying goodbye to us forever. And they'll clarify it later via Twitter: "The king is dead. Long live the king." And everyone will think that it's referring to "Stephen" and Larry, until the show opens up next year with Jessica at the desk. Thing is, Jon is so familiar with and tired of the hyperbolic media cycle that I don't know if he'd want to downplay retirement almost to invisibility, or if he'd accept the inevitable and offer us a direct goodbye, "Thanks for watching me all of these years. Stay tuned for your new host. Here it is, your moment of Zen (which will be Jessica usurping his office)."
Anyway, I'm clinging to your interpretations as long-time viewers. I feel a not-slight sense of panic at the thought of both "Stephen" and Jon disappearing from TV before I've even had a chance to fall from my current state of infatuation into a milder, sustainable state of comfort love. Honestly, I feel somewhat like a kid in a new toy store, finding an Ollie doll, a Jon doll, and a Stephen doll, and as I'm sitting there playing with them, a clerk comes up to me and says, "Actually, we were just about to take the Stephen doll off the shelf. Oh, and we're no longer making the Jon doll. But please enjoy this limited edition Ollie doll, as it may be a premium-only item next year."
stacey, that's a good point. Jon looks 80, so I keep forgetting that he's only (almost) 52. BOOM.
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That is my dream ticket, as well.
About Stephen and Jon, the live Q&A on Thursday was mostly silly but sometimes serious, and that was without Stephen's character. It'd be nice if they could have a serious conversation, but that would probably require Stephen to drop the character. They're kind of jointly at a big moment in their professional lives. They're both taking big risks after fifteen years of working together, even if the film doesn't change anything immediately for Jon. Plus, they've been close friends throughout those years, and now they're leading up to an end of their partnership. It'll probably be sweet and silly and supportive, with a significant dose of snark from "Stephen."
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We'd be almost guaranteed a Republican in office, and no weight to counterbalance it.
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I hope you both are right. That he talks about the show continuing on without him makes me think that he might step away even with Larry's show starting and the 2016 elections looming around the corner. On the other hand, they're sort of having a crisis of talent right now, what with Jason at least and possibly Sam leaving if that pilot goes well. Aasif and Al aren't there full time. Jessica and Jordan are super talented and capable, but one's young and one's still inexperienced, and I wouldn't be surprised if other networks were eyeing them for major roles, after how they've stood out all year long. It might be that Jon has to stay around longer than he's comfortable, simply for lack of an heir as ready for the desk as John was.
I'll definitely be enjoying him while he's on TDS. It's been quite a run for him. I still have years worth of archived videos to catch up on, and the same for Stephen. I sure hope Comedy Central leaves those videos up for a while, if DVD sets are an impossibility. I can't hope to catch up yet on all that Stephen has done.
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Victor the Crab, that was hilarious! I hadn't seen it, so I had to look it up: "The Carell Corral"
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It was the best thing on TDS this week, easily tied with Carell's appearance!
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The pacing seemed a bit disjointed, and to anyone following the deluge of interviews lately, there wasn't really any new information about the film. But I enjoyed the emotional experience of last night's episode quite a lot. Jason and the producer's interview was a little dry, but I'm glad they had a chance to talk about it again, since their role was so inadvertently pivotal in making this movie a reality. I loved how Maziar and John teased each other, and I thought that the professional trust between Maziar and Gael came across really well.
That said, John and Jon cannot interact enough for me. Their joy in sharing the screen for a few minutes was all I wanted, really, once I realized what was happening. May they continue to pop in from time to time on each other's shows, for as long as they are on the air.
@Chattygal, this article in Quartz sums up the reasoning, including a quote from Maziar that I hadn't seen before on his preference for his actor's nationality, and then the article goes on to make suggestions for Iranian actors who could have played Maziar, regardless of the safety or authenticity issues. (They raise an unfortunately great point that it's hard for actors to break out of the commonplace villain role. (Never mind. I misread the second part. Although it's implied, it's not directly stated that Jon being Jewish is an additional complication.))
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That was a really excellent interview with Saman Arbabi. Fresh questions, thoughtful answers, and they had a great vibe between them. Thanks for the link!
I wasn't being very clear. I didn't mean to imply that there was no context but just that they were poorly introduced and then never mentioned again, so I didn't get the focus on that one guy when Maziar was sitting behind him in the shadows. I definitely agree with you about what he represented.I don't quite think it's a spoiler at all. These are the people that Maziar work with at Channel 4. Seemed to be an editor and a fellow journalist or 2 fellow journalists. I mean, it was pretty clear that they worked together as they were talking about the angle of the story Maziar should get while in Tehran.
The guy in front of the computer was pretty important to setting up the idea that as Westerners we make a lot of assumptions. He was so sure the Ahmadinejad supporter was an uneducated kid street kid who was brainwashed and could be swayed be chocolates. Instead the kid was London born, bred and educated, who went to Iran to support what he believed was the right system. So in a lot of ways, we have the exact same mindset as the specialist in Evin prison or the people in charge. The guy in front of the computer had made a false assumption about the kid over some stupid evidence he had, just like Rosewater was sure that Maziar was a porn addicted spy from stupid things that he found. It's all about pre-conceived notions.
I loved LOVED the scenes with the mom. Especially at the end when Maziar gets released and they hug. I got pretty emotional. And the scenes with the sister were so strong. When boy Maziar visited her in prison? Wow. I do think the hallucinations did come kind of early in the film. Day 18 works, but I think it came too early in terms of what we saw. It kind of made Maziar crazier than it should have. However, I do think they worked. The opening segment that has Maziar's walk through London intertwined with images of his dad and sister and his childhood being projected on building was pretty clever. I think a lesser movie would have really drawn that out more.
YES. The scenes with his mother were just fantastic, all of them. Especially at the end, I just felt such pain for her (and for him but mostly for her). The way Shohreh Aghdashloo played that scene was so powerful in a way that's hard to describe. She wasn't ecstatic and hugging him energetically, but just so weary and emotionally drained yet there was this strength about her from the times she had endured it before. Just really beautiful. I think a lesser movie would have played that up with some sort of chorus in the background as they both smile and laugh and hug each other through their tears; I really liked the edge they found for it. I agree about that opening sequence in Iran, with the images projected onto buildings. That was a really nice touch: articulating these lives and Maziar's relationship to them and to this country without being obtrusive.
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Jon and friend are doing his AMA now.
Damn it. I have been listening to the NPR interview, and I just read this phone interview with the Wall Street Journal. Jon really is all but gone, isn't he? I get the sense from his interviews and from what people like Maziar, Stephen, and John have said that his work ethic won't let him half-ass it until he leaves, and it's clear that he still feels deeply and strongly about the issues that TDS covers, but it's also clear that he's privately ready for a "nap" (to quote his AMA). Damn. I did find it interesting, though, that he considers the film and the show to be the same conversation (the same material and work) along a great continuum, so maybe that means that he'll still be writing and performing stand-up or in the public sphere somehow after he's rested a bit. I just hope he stays until his contract is up and doesn't try to sneak out the back door in December or something.
Has the Daily Show peaked? And if so, when?
[Laughs.] You want the day!? That’s probably up to us. Like anything that people have become accustomed to the rhythm of, it maybe takes a little bit more to generate the type of visceral reaction you could have gotten when it was more novel. Young love is always more evocative than comfortable love. At the same time I feel like we execute our ideas better, and at times we still deliver bits that are as good as anything we’ve ever done.
In that way your satirical news show is becoming an institution, like some serious new programs that have gone on for decades–
–purposelessly drifting. It’s always a battle between evolving it in a way that makes sense and makes it better, or just contriving it to make it different. The flipside of that is leaving it alone and letting it die a quiet, perfunctory death. There is a shelf life. Not necessarily for the format, but for my input in it. You probably do reach a certain peak Stewart.
So would there continue to be a “Daily Show” without Jon Stewart?
I think absolutely. It will be interesting to see the next iteration. John Oliver has been able to take that mentality and apply it to a more long-form, considered study [on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight”] and that’s been really exciting to watch. Our shows are different animals, but somebody will be able to bring the next iteration of that day-to-day process that I might not have the vision for.
Everybody has that thing they would do — or so they tell themselves — if they weren’t so busy with their damn day job. What’s your nagging ambition?
I think I scratched that itch. That ambition was to move to New York to try this. Now it’s just a question of doing it well, even if you hit an obstacle. If you’re in a slump in baseball, sometimes you just don’t have your swing. And in those moments you go, “At least I’ll just try and hustle around the bases and try not to be a detriment to the team.” I’ve learned that those ups and downs are cyclical. -
Stephen was in his suit from the show and Jon was in his uniform (khakis, grey tshirt that was probably black at one point, jacket, and boots).
I'm laughing out loud, maculae. Seriously, though. Why, Jon? Why? Does his closet hold an indefinite number of each piece of clothing that you list, or does he wash the same outfit over and over and over and then finally replace it with an identical outfit once it's too threadbare and indecent for public appearances?
Our interview part started with Jon talking about how the CIA did play a part in the coup in 1953 so perhaps the Iranians did have a good reason to be paranoid. So fremdefrau I hope you can let us know the Q&A before that!
Oh, golly, let's see if I can remember... I don't think you missed that much, really. Some people were getting up to leave before coming back when they realized the Q&A was happening, so I was a little distracted at the start. Stephen was definitely praising Jon's film to high heaven but with a slightly sarcastic flavor to it, like he was staying a bit in character. Jon was, as usual, caught between appreciating the sentiment and dealing with the awkwardness by trying to blow it off with a joke, so they played on that for a few minutes. Stephen asked the usual question of why Jon felt compelled to make the film, and Jon gave his now-standard answer.
Stephen wanted to know how Jon found the humor in the story, and Jon explained that much of that came from Maziar's own book. Then Jon went on to explain in a really nice way (I thought) how he and Stephen have always thought of humor as a way of coping with darkness, and yet what happens when the facilitator of that release mechanism (the audience) is taken away and you're left with nothing to reflect your humanity back at you? Jon explained how Maziar was able to humanize himself in a vacuum, through retaining his sense of humor and through his history, culture, relationships, etc. I thought that it was a very stand-up/performer way of understanding humor, but it also made me think of how effective my own sense of humor is when it's trapped in my own mind. Does it really relieve pain and stress or does it need a reflection somewhere? Anyway, it was a nicely considered answer.
It was funny that, when the CIA stuff came up (both in the film and in the Q&A), the same person in the audience kept calling out "What?!" It looked like she was getting up to leave at one point during the interrogation scenes (gathering her coat and bags, etc.), but then she sat back down, and I forgot about it until the Q&A. Weird.
I can't recall anything else from the beginning, but it might come to me later. I'm sorry! It was mostly them loving each other, though. Not exactly quotable but highly enjoyable.
Stephen lets him finish talking and just goes something like "as much as I like making things about me, let's go back to talking about you", and they both just start cracking up.
Don't forget Maziar hugging them instead of shaking their hands because of the "mutual masturbation" or however he phrased it. That was hilarious. On a side note, I loved that Jon couldn't stop hugging and clinging to Stephen at the end before the screen went black. He seemed so giddy and relieved to finally be at this stage and letting his BFF steer that ship for a bit.
A lot of praise for Kim Bodnia.
Kim was present in the NY audience, I believe. They could never find him, but Jon said he was there, and he got a round of applause.
Asked about the casting of Gael, Jon said that there was one scene that Gael handled better than any auditiony (?) After watching the movie, yes, he came off great there and a lesser actor would have made it cringe worthy.
I loved how Stephen and Maziar joked about that. How did Stephen put it? "What part of Iran is Mexico?" Maziar and Jon: "Very south." Hee! Maziar and Jon have both addressed the "why is a Mexican playing an Iranian?" question, so I wished Jon had added the part about how he'd wanted to film it with all Iranian actors and in Farsi, but Maziar had been the one to insist on broadening the language/appeal/etc.
The scene in question
was the part when Maziar gets to phone his wife. Jon has described it in interviews previously, and I had in mind that it was one continuous shot over two minutes, but that must have been just how they filmed it. In the finished movie, it was broken up by a cut back to Maziar's wife. But, yes, Gael was very flexible and physically eloquent in that scene and handled the transitions between emotions beautifully.
Stephen had asked Maziar if he had been there during filming and if it was difficult at all. Maziar started the answer with "As you know, as journalists we must..." and Stephen just goes "no, I don't know..." and Maziar just starts talking about how there's a great journalist on TV who looks just like Colbert and how great he is.
I loved that part so much. I felt that Maziar dominated the stage once he appeared, and perhaps Jon sort of intentionally closed in on himself, as well; he was sitting off to Maziar's side (Maziar was centered between them) and his body language was supportive of Maziar.
I was surprised to learn that Maziar and Stephen had only met once before. With Maziar having breakfast with Jon so often over the last few years, and then working together so closely on the screenplay and film, I had assumed that Maziar would have been a regular presence. I wonder how much of that is Jon separating work on the film from work on the show (at least as much as was possible until this week), and how much of it is that Stephen and Jon actually don't socialize as much as people might imagine. I know Stephen has joked about that in the past, but maybe he was serious.
Stephen asked if Maziar's wife had seen the movie and if she had fully understood what Maziar had gone through.
That was an awkward moment where the sweetness of it was drowned out by the technical issues. I'm not sure why he asked her a question unless he was planning to relay her answer to everyone. She seemed to like the film, from what I could gather.
Stephen asked one question that I sort of face palmed over since it was very American. He basically asked Maziar how similar Jordan and Iran are and Maziar had to say it's about as similar as America and El Salvador.
That had me face-palming, as well. It seemed like Stephen was anticipating what "Stephen" might want to know--he even prefaced it by saying that this is a very American (i.e. dumb) question--but it was just a weird thing to ask.
I'll try to remember more details!
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"The Daily Show": Week of 12/1/14
in The Daily Show With Jon Stewart [V]
Wonder if he'll try to kiss Jon again.