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The Drunk Projectionist: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Todd Melby
The Drunk Projectionist is a podcast that's buzzed about movies. We feature interviews with directors, actors and cinematographers to reveal what makes brilliant movies timeless. From 70s classics to silents to today, The Drunk Projectionist podcast goes deep to understand what's on the screen, how it got there and why it works or doesn't.The podcast is hosted by Todd Melby, author of a book about Fargo, the 1996 Coen Brothers film. "A Lot Can Happen in the Middle of Nowhere: The Untold Story of the Making of Fargo" features a foreword by William H. Macy, interviews with dozens of cast and crew members, an analysis of screenplay drafts, a peek at audition tapes, behind-the-scenes photos of Frances McDormand, Joel Coen, Stephen Park, Roger Deakins, Peter Stormare, and the tale of Joel and Ethan’s search for snow during filmmaking.
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- 5 days ago41 min
Ep. 19: Sunset Boulevard
Todd Melby is joined by David M. Lubin to talk about “Sunset Boulevard,” a Hollywood classic. A quick plot summary for those who haven’t seen it: an aging silent film star (Gloria Swanson) falls in love with a struggling screenwriter (William Holden) while her butler watches (Erich von Stroheim). Billy Wilder directed the film. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman, Jr.Host: Todd MelbyGuest: David M. Lubin, author of Ready for My Close-Up: The Making of Sunset Boulevard and the Dark Side of the Hollywood DreamEpisode Website: Ep. 19: Sunset BoulevardSubstack: Todd Melby
- Sep 1, 202615 min
Ep. 18: American Dream
When Hormel cut wages like a buzz saw on a pork shoulder, unionized workers rebelled.Director Barbara Kopple traveled to Austin, Minnesota to document the 1984-85 meatpackers strike. In this episode, Kopple reveals how she gained behind-the-scenes access to key strategy sessions, how she struggled to tell a complex story involving many factions, and just how darn cold it was when workers took to the picket lines.The result was American Dream, an Oscar-winning documentary that has just received a 4K digital restoration by Criterion.We also talked to Kopple in Episode 2 for another union story: Harlan County, USA.
- Jun 25, 20221h 7m
Ep. 17: 32 Sounds
In 32 Sounds, director Sam Green listens. He listens to the last male bird of a dying species chirp for a mate that will never arrive. He listens to a man who can almost hear the voices of dead lovers and friends. He listens to a musician who burned a piano in her youth for art and now records underwater sounds. And he spends a day with a foley artist who manipulates a shammy to mimic the sounds of fighting, fucking and feasting.In this episode, we talk to Green and Joanna Fang, a foley artist who worked on Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), Clifford the Big Red Dog, In the Heights and other films.
- May 12, 202248 min
Ep. 16: Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life
In "Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life," author James Curtis chronicles the silent star’s private life and pictures, including The General, One Week, The Navigator and Steamboat Bill, Jr. But it’s Keaton’s days as a performer that captivated me so we begin the episode with tales from the vaudeville stage, including details about which foot Buster's father preferred to kick him with.
- Apr 1, 2022
Ep. 15: Shhhh! Silents
On this episode we open our ears to the sounds of silent films with an audio documentary about musicians who compose new scores to movies from a century ago. These composers are smitten with the works of Sergei Eisenstein, Buster Keaton, early Alfred Hitchcock and others. Before the doc, we open with one man’s obsession with the Odessa Steps in Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin."
- Dec 29, 202141 min
Ep. 14: Stephen Park
Before he was Sonny the shopkeeper in Do the Right Thing, or Mike Yanagita in Fargo, or Nescaffier in The French Dispatch, Stephen Park was a confused college student.His father was a doctor. So naturally, Park enrolled in a lot of science classes at Boston University. But it never really clicked.“After my second year, I was on academic probation,” he says.After transferring to SUNY Binghamton, he continued to struggle. Just before dropping out of college, his girlfriend suggested he take a semester full of classes he wanted to take, not classes he thought his family expected him to take.So he signed up for four theater classes: acting, mime, voice, body work. He loved it.“It didn’t feel like school. I had associated school with pain and torture and things I didn’t like to do,” he says. “It was alien to me to be having fun and enjoying what I was doing.”In this episode, we talk with Stephen Park about his journey as an actor, how he suggested changes to his character in Do the Right Thing, and much, much more.
- Nov 12, 202137 min
Ep. 13: The Godfather
GF1.That’s what the New Jersey gangsters on The Sopranos called the film. To everyone else, it was The Godfather, a 1972 film that saved Paramount Pictures and catapulted the careers of Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton to the stratosphere. It also reintroduced a struggling Marlon Brando to the world.In this episode, I interview Mark Seal, author of Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of the Godfather, recently published by Simon and Schuster. The book chronicles the unlikely rise of writer Mario Puzo (author of The Godfather novel), gambling habits, mob connections, Hollywood feuds, casting disputes, on-the-set backstabbing. The more one reads, the more one wonders how the damn thing turned out so well.
- Oct 22, 20219 min
Ep. 12: Shaft
Hotter than Bond. Cooler than Bullitt. In this episode, it's Shaft.
About The Drunk Projectionist
The Drunk Projectionist is a podcast that's buzzed about movies. We feature interviews with directors, actors and cinematographers to reveal what makes brilliant movies timeless. From 70s classics to silents to today, The Drunk Projectionist podcast goes deep to understand what's on the screen, how it got there and why it works or doesn't.The podcast is hosted by Todd Melby, author of a book about Fargo, the 1996 Coen Brothers film. "A Lot Can Happen in the Middle of Nowhere: The Untold Story of the Making of Fargo" features a foreword by William H. Macy, interviews with dozens of cast and crew members, an analysis of screenplay drafts, a peek at audition tapes, behind-the-scenes photos of Frances McDormand, Joel Coen, Stephen Park, Roger Deakins, Peter Stormare, and the tale of Joel and Ethan’s search for snow during filmmaking.
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