Episode 195
The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) with Proles Pod
In this episode of Left of the Projector, I analyze Ken Loach's 2006 film, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which portrays the harsh realities of the Irish Civil War and its implications on contemporary global struggles. Joined by Jeremy and Justin from Proles Pod, we discuss the film's anti-imperialist narrative and how key dialogues reflect on historical and modern conflicts. We explore character motivations, particularly Damien’s inner conflict between personal ambition and revolutionary duty, and draw parallels to current socio-political issues. Our conversation also covers the film’s impacting visual and auditory elements, alongside its depiction of nationalism versus socialism within Ireland. As we reflect on the legacies of colonialism and the quest for justice, I encourage listeners to engage with the film's profound exploration of resistance and the ongoing costs of liberation.
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Transcript
Evan: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,
Speaker:Evan: back again with another film discussion from the left.
Speaker:Evan: This week on the show, we will be discussing Ken Loach's 2006 film,
Speaker:Evan: The Wind That Shakes the Barley, starring Cillian Murphy, Liam Cunningham,
Speaker:Evan: Patrick Delaney, and Orla Fitzgerald.
Speaker:Evan: For those of you who don't know, it follows a group of Irishmen during the Irish
Speaker:Evan: Civil War, approximately 1920 to 1922.
Speaker:Evan: Given what we are witnessing now in Gaza in the last 600 days.
Speaker:Evan: It's all the more relevant. And for those who may also not know,
Speaker:Evan: its director, Ken Loach, has been an outspoken proponent of the BDS movement for the past 15 years.
Speaker:Evan: With me to discuss, I have hosts Justin and Jeremy of Prolspod.
Speaker:Evan: Thank you both for being here today.
Speaker:Jeremy: Thank you.
Speaker:Justin: Thanks for having us. And sorry that it took us a whole ass year to get on your podcast.
Speaker:Evan: But yes, no, I'm glad to finally have you on to do this.
Speaker:Evan: And I guess before we talk about the film, You had chosen this film.
Speaker:Evan: It wasn't even on my film list that I usually send out to guests.
Speaker:Evan: So I guess what made you choose it?
Speaker:Evan: I mentioned kind of its relevance, so I don't know if that played into it.
Speaker:Justin: I want to say that I had nothing to do with this choice. I don't know why Jeremy
Speaker:Justin: would do this to us, but here we are.
Speaker:Jeremy: So I had never seen this movie before about two or three months ago,
Speaker:Jeremy: And someone posted a screenshot of the conversation that happens between Damien,
Speaker:Jeremy: sort of the point of view character, main character of the film, talking to Dan,
Speaker:Jeremy: played by Liam Cunningham, who would later more famously probably be known as
Speaker:Jeremy: Sir Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones.
Speaker:Jeremy: And they're having a conversation about...
Speaker:Justin: I didn't recognize him with all the hair. Yeah.
Speaker:Jeremy: Having a conversation about earlier rebellions, specifically the Dublin lockout,
Speaker:Jeremy: which took place between 1912 and 1913, I think.
Speaker:Jeremy: And they specifically reference the speech that Connolly gives where he says,
Speaker:Jeremy: you need to raise a red flag above the castle in Dublin or else England will
Speaker:Jeremy: still own you through its landlords, its capitalists and its commercial institutions.
Speaker:Justin: And close you know yeah true he actually says something yeah he says something
Speaker:Justin: along the lines of you must establish a socialist yes uh nation or um or it
Speaker:Justin: doesn't matter if you'll you raise a red flag um the green flag over yeah that's
Speaker:Justin: what yeah that's right yeah whatever yeah.
Speaker:Jeremy: Uh, so anyway, I was like, I was like, wow, I, I have never seen this movie.
Speaker:Jeremy: Uh, I should probably watch it. And it is very bleak, very depressing.
Speaker:Jeremy: Um, but it is, it is deeply anti-imperialist, uh, anti-British,
Speaker:Jeremy: which we are all, all for here at Pearl's Pod.
Speaker:Jeremy: So yeah, that's the main reason that I chose it.
Speaker:Justin: Don't, don't let the manners fool you. The Brits fucking suck.
Speaker:Evan: Yes. And that's like, that will take us like in a good spot at the beginning of the, of the film.
Speaker:Evan: And we, we don't necessarily have to, I can cut this if you don't want to do
Speaker:Evan: this, but sometimes I do like a little kind of like a icebreaker before we go into it.
Speaker:Evan: And I usually ask the, my standard question is usually like,
Speaker:Evan: if there is an actor living or dead, who you'd want to, you know,
Speaker:Evan: break bread with, have a drink with, you know, who might it be?
Speaker:Evan: You know, I don't know if you had any, any, anyone jump to mind.
Speaker:Jeremy: And I think, I don't know how I would have answered this question before,
Speaker:Jeremy: but at the moment, and he is currently living, but by the time this is released,
Speaker:Jeremy: it is possible he will be dead.
Speaker:Jeremy: Liam Cunningham, this morning boarded a boat which is leaving Italy,
Speaker:Jeremy: headed for Gaza to bring relief to the Palestinian people.
Speaker:Jeremy: And Israel has threatened to destroy these boats if they were to make it through the blockade.
Speaker:Jeremy: So we will see whether that happens, but I would love to sort of sit down and
Speaker:Jeremy: have a conversation with him.
Speaker:Jeremy: I kind of looked up some of his history before He was born in a working-class
Speaker:Jeremy: neighborhood in the west suburbs of Dublin.
Speaker:Jeremy: He dropped out of school when he was 15 years old to become an electrician.
Speaker:Jeremy: He worked as an electrician for several years. He went to Zimbabwe,
Speaker:Jeremy: I think, to do electrician work on a safari and to teach Zimbabwean electricians, basically,
Speaker:Jeremy: how to properly maintain this equipment before returning.
Speaker:Jeremy: He got sort of tired of this and decided one day to become an actor which is
Speaker:Jeremy: a weird trajectory and it's very uncommon for a working class person to achieve
Speaker:Jeremy: the sort of success that he has he.
Speaker:Justin: Said he saw an ad for like an acting school and he was like hmm.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah i'll give that a shot yeah but i would love to sit down and talk to that
Speaker:Jeremy: guy right now i hopefully he lives hopefully they do break the blockade and
Speaker:Jeremy: get that food in as you know children are fucking dying right now yes.
Speaker:Justin: Day 600 Just like every time I hear the number, I just want to burn everything.
Speaker:Justin: Okay, well, mine is not as, won't win me as many socialist points,
Speaker:Justin: but it's a toss-up between Pedro Pascal and Octavia Spencer.
Speaker:Justin: They just seem like the chillest motherfuckers in Hollywood.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah, also, well, you could get some points for Pedro Pascal.
Speaker:Jeremy: His uncle, wasn't his uncle like fucking Salvador Allende or some shit like that?
Speaker:Evan: Or related to that in some way. he is related.
Speaker:Jeremy: In some way to salvador allende and he has spoken in support of the uh yeah.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah he he has signed stuff and support yeah yeah but.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah not but there's a difference.
Speaker:Evan: I'd be willing to bet that he's probably more radical than he's able to sure
Speaker:Evan: say you know as yeah a lot of to maintain his.
Speaker:Justin: Position i'm assuming just his um just based on his relationship with uh what's
Speaker:Justin: their name the actor on um.
Speaker:Evan: Oh last of us yeah.
Speaker:Justin: But anyway they're super like young and and kind of radical so i'm assuming
Speaker:Justin: that there's some kind of common connection there too because they have a really great relationship.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah but anyway it just seems.
Speaker:Justin: Like some like really fun like i don't know it'd be really fun.
Speaker:Evan: I think for me only because it's because i'm a huge fan of the andor show and,
Speaker:Evan: the learning about the first season of
Speaker:Evan: andor the the creator and director tony gilroy
Speaker:Evan: has basically said all i think he
Speaker:Evan: also is more radical than he's probably able to given
Speaker:Evan: the fact that he just was able to pull off a show that i it's
Speaker:Evan: hard to believe exists like under the disney banner and
Speaker:Evan: so he said the first season was almost a direct not
Speaker:Evan: direct but like loosely based on like the lies of lenin and
Speaker:Evan: stalin and the you know heist that the soviets did pre you know revolution so
Speaker:Evan: i would say it'd be interesting to hear what tony gilroy has to say in private
Speaker:Evan: not uh yeah yeah the things he would he explaining yourself so yeah i think
Speaker:Evan: he thinks but he can't say out loud so that would be maybe a cheap one but it
Speaker:Evan: would be a i think that'd be a fun one but,
Speaker:Evan: yeah i think these are all uh all people i think would have some interesting
Speaker:Evan: things to say liam Cunningham, I think, might be the winner of this.
Speaker:Evan: I think you stole the show.
Speaker:Jeremy: I got the most socialist points.
Speaker:Evan: That's okay. But yes. And it's funny.
Speaker:Justin: I also- Boston's getting canceled for picking Hollywood- Hollywood elites. Like stars, yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. Well, so I alluded to the fact that the beginning of this film is very
Speaker:Evan: much a clear depiction of the British being colonizers as they have been for centuries.
Speaker:Evan: And so the the kind of the opening of this film takes place in 1920 and it's
Speaker:Evan: damien donovan play played by cillian murphy and uh i don't think murphy just
Speaker:Evan: is it killing murphy fuck it is you're right you're right it's killing murphy
Speaker:Evan: i i am notoriously irish are the only.
Speaker:Justin: White people that you can be racist against so i think that it's important that we differentiate.
Speaker:Evan: No, I have a terrible track record of mispronouncing everything.
Speaker:Evan: So it's a, it's a, I always have.
Speaker:Jeremy: That's a, that's a Pearl's pod tradition. Yeah. You know, lots of Slavic names,
Speaker:Jeremy: lots of, lots of Chinese, Vietnamese names that we consistently mispronounce. I'm sure.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. I was going to say you dug yourself a hole with like doing the entire
Speaker:Evan: list of Stalin and having just all of these names that are just so hard to pronounce.
Speaker:Justin: Or the Ukraine episodes.
Speaker:Jeremy: Oh, yes.
Speaker:Evan: That too. Yeah. Those names, I don't envy the saying of those.
Speaker:Evan: But yeah, so Cillian Murphy is sort of the lead in this film,
Speaker:Evan: played his character as Damian O'Donovan.
Speaker:Evan: And he's kind of at a crossroads of deciding whether he wants to go to London
Speaker:Evan: to be a doctor, which he's been training for his whole life,
Speaker:Evan: or staying with his brother Teddy to be a member of the Irish Republican Army
Speaker:Evan: and fight the British to expel them from their lands.
Speaker:Evan: And the sort of very initial opening scene after they're kind of playing some,
Speaker:Evan: what is it? Is it hurling?
Speaker:Jeremy: Hurling, yeah. So that's a, it's, I think the opening scene is actually to some
Speaker:Jeremy: degree meaningful because it is, that is a, an ancient sport that's been played
Speaker:Jeremy: in Ireland for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.
Speaker:Jeremy: And it is them sort of, they have their disagreements, they have their fight
Speaker:Jeremy: that they have amongst themselves, but they regulate themselves.
Speaker:Jeremy: They have control over their own sort of destiny on the field there.
Speaker:Jeremy: And then the British are introduced in the next scene. And I think-
Speaker:Justin: It's literally in reaction to the game.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yes, yeah. In reaction to them gathering for the game, the British show up.
Speaker:Evan: I'm not endearing myself to my Irish listeners right now with my lack of knowledge.
Speaker:Evan: You can tell my background is not of Irish descent.
Speaker:Evan: But yeah, so that actually adds even more weight to the fact that the British
Speaker:Evan: come in and essentially just forcibly having people take off their clothes, say their name.
Speaker:Evan: And when one of their friends refuses to say his name in English,
Speaker:Evan: as opposed to in Irish, he is tortured and shot and killed basically in front of his own mother.
Speaker:Evan: And I think it's, as you said, the movie is kind of depressing for the most part.
Speaker:Justin: From start to finish.
Speaker:Evan: From literally from start to finish.
Speaker:Justin: There's like 10 seconds of joy.
Speaker:Jeremy: This is like, it's a wonderful life levels of depressing.
Speaker:Justin: Yes.
Speaker:Evan: I mean, it really is. And you have this moment where you can kind of see the
Speaker:Evan: faces of, you know, Cillian Murphy and his friends and his comrades watching
Speaker:Evan: this happen and being able to do nothing about it.
Speaker:Evan: And you, even though the IRA had already been active before this,
Speaker:Evan: you can see how the Cillian hasn't decided to stay yet.
Speaker:Evan: He goes on a, he's about to go on a train where he meets Dan for the very first
Speaker:Evan: time played by Liam Cunningham. And I think all of these little tiny moments
Speaker:Evan: in his life just kind of like it like it like flips a switch in his head where
Speaker:Evan: he can't leave behind, you know.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah, he keeps ratcheting. There are moments in his life where he keeps ratcheting
Speaker:Justin: up his revolutionary fervor, basically, and he can't go back.
Speaker:Justin: Every time he takes a tick, he like moves further.
Speaker:Jeremy: And it's so the the train scene is really notable because it it it references
Speaker:Jeremy: the large because this is a fairly small film in terms of the scale of the conflict.
Speaker:Justin: Because there's only three sets.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah, it all takes place in County Cork, sort of in the southwest of Ireland.
Speaker:Jeremy: It felt weird to me that they didn't use more of County Cork in this movie.
Speaker:Jeremy: Maybe it was just for budgetary reasons, but like County Cork is gorgeous.
Speaker:Jeremy: I mean, some of the most incredible, dramatic sort of coastal formations,
Speaker:Jeremy: they didn't go into any of that.
Speaker:Jeremy: And I don't know if that was, again, like a budgetary thing, but...
Speaker:Jeremy: But anyway, the the train situation there, it sort of references the larger
Speaker:Jeremy: conflict because the the the inciting incident is a group of auxiliary soldiers.
Speaker:Jeremy: These these the Tans, they call them the black and Tans.
Speaker:Jeremy: They get they're trying to board the train and the porter is like,
Speaker:Jeremy: you can't get on the train.
Speaker:Jeremy: You're not allowed to be on the train. you know and he's like
Speaker:Jeremy: calling out to the driver who is uh he's he's dan
Speaker:Jeremy: the uh liam liam cunningham's character and
Speaker:Jeremy: liam cunningham's character comes over and he's like the union has
Speaker:Jeremy: said we will not transport any soldiers any
Speaker:Jeremy: weapons uh any armaments on the
Speaker:Jeremy: trains you cannot board the train and sort of they they beat the shit out of
Speaker:Jeremy: him and imprisonment they're like fuck you yeah um but that's that is important
Speaker:Jeremy: because that was part of that was part of the strategy of the Irish people to
Speaker:Jeremy: keep the British army to the roads.
Speaker:Jeremy: They had to use their own transportation. They were not going to be allowed to use Ireland's rails.
Speaker:Jeremy: And it was the unions that did that. And I think that's important to note.
Speaker:Justin: Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. I think I was looking into it further. There was even there was a number of other union.
Speaker:Evan: And I think it was it wasn't only like the train transit or whatever the union
Speaker:Evan: was as part of the blocking it.
Speaker:Evan: There's other labor unions that were preventing British people or British who
Speaker:Evan: would come to their land, as it would be, from being...
Speaker:Evan: Forcing them not just to use their own roads and their own materials but just
Speaker:Evan: also waste money because i think that the british are this is costing them a
Speaker:Evan: lot of money to bring armaments and all of these things so anything they could do to weaken them yeah.
Speaker:Justin: That's i think that that was the point i mean they knew they were never going
Speaker:Justin: to beat britain militarily right they just had to create a cost that was high
Speaker:Justin: enough that they would be like all right fuck it.
Speaker:Jeremy: We can't do this anymore yeah it's.
Speaker:Justin: Too expensive.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah exactly and yeah the the like as you
Speaker:Evan: said with the there only being a
Speaker:Evan: few different you know uh locations where they film
Speaker:Evan: like a couple different houses and a couple different areas i
Speaker:Evan: think i read that the film only cost eight million dollars the budget and this
Speaker:Evan: was in 2006 so you can think of it as a that's a tiny budget for this film i
Speaker:Evan: mean i don't think any of ken loach's films probably broke 10 million dollars
Speaker:Evan: as far as the budget was concerned but my guess is for that well.
Speaker:Justin: If you look at the credits yeah if you if you look at the credits um a large
Speaker:Justin: like probably half i don't want to say a large majority but probably half of
Speaker:Justin: the um actors were volunteers yep yeah clearly he has like principles,
Speaker:Justin: yeah he uh you know he's not interested in breaking into hollywood right he's
Speaker:Justin: interested in telling stories.
Speaker:Evan: Yes and i think that's i mean i i briefly mentioned in like the intro there
Speaker:Evan: kind of what Ken Loach's sort of personal history and his, you know, his politics.
Speaker:Evan: And for the most part, if you like, if you read just the opening, you know,
Speaker:Evan: description on just Wikipedia, it's very clear that his films and all of his
Speaker:Evan: messages is based on his socialist views and very unlikely that someone of that
Speaker:Evan: political perspective is going to get a big studio to even make his film,
Speaker:Evan: even if he wanted to so i think it's it's uh you know,
Speaker:Evan: He was a fan of, of course, Jeremy Corbyn, and I mentioned that he was part
Speaker:Evan: of the campaign for the boycott of Israel, and he's spoken heavily about the
Speaker:Evan: treatment of Palestinians.
Speaker:Evan: And we're talking about the Palestinians in Gaza in 2008 or 2009,
Speaker:Evan: so we're not even talking about the current moment, which is the insane escalation
Speaker:Evan: of, what, 600-plus days of genocide.
Speaker:Jeremy: He is, regrettably, it seems, a Trotskyist, but we will forget him.
Speaker:Justin: No! we will forgive him for.
Speaker:Jeremy: His uh his anti-imperialism and his uh his willingness to engage on this level.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah so before we dive any deeper i would like to say that number one this movie would be,
Speaker:Justin: unwatchable without subtitles if you're not irish it's
Speaker:Justin: like fuck and number two uh it sounds like it was recorded like on a yeti microphone
Speaker:Justin: in the middle of a room like you get there's so much like people's shoes on
Speaker:Justin: the ground are louder than the voices sometimes and i mean it's crazy it's very naturalistic.
Speaker:Jeremy: And it's like.
Speaker:Justin: Yes it lends itself to that like brutal kind of but yeah i mean if you if you
Speaker:Justin: don't have subtitles you're gonna miss like half the movie yeah.
Speaker:Evan: And almost i don't want to say it like feels like a documentary but in some ways like.
Speaker:Justin: There's scenes where it does feel.
Speaker:Evan: Like that where you just kind of like watching the interaction that happens in like a very real.
Speaker:Justin: Way but.
Speaker:Jeremy: Not a modern documentary a.
Speaker:Justin: Documentary from.
Speaker:Jeremy: Like the 1970s where there's just a camera in the room watching people talk and they just move.
Speaker:Justin: The camera.
Speaker:Jeremy: Back and forth between the the speakers that is very much how a lot of those scenes felt.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah there there's yeah there's sound there are scenes where you where nothing
Speaker:Justin: really matters like what people are saying none of it matters where they're
Speaker:Justin: just shouting at each other and it's a cacophony of like sound, you know?
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah. But they, yeah, it's very naturalistic. Like a lot of, like they don't,
Speaker:Jeremy: they don't do, they don't seem to stop and do takes for perfection.
Speaker:Jeremy: If somebody stutters over their words, they leave it in.
Speaker:Justin: That's what I was going to say. Cunningham flubs his lines like at least five or six times.
Speaker:Jeremy: So does Murphy.
Speaker:Justin: And he just, yeah. And they just roll with it. They don't, they don't try to like cut it back.
Speaker:Justin: But it feels like, I mean, if you're actually in the moment,
Speaker:Justin: it's not like you, you never stutter or mess up what you're going to say, you know?
Speaker:Jeremy: Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: I think they filmed it over a pretty short period of time.
Speaker:Evan: I couldn't find the exact length of time it
Speaker:Evan: took to film it but but it wouldn't surprise me so yeah i would
Speaker:Evan: bet that they didn't have the time or money to do
Speaker:Evan: lots of takes and have lots of fancy equipment it just kind
Speaker:Evan: of did like i i think i was saying before you
Speaker:Evan: joined um i was telling jeremy that i haven't seen
Speaker:Evan: that many of his films i think only one other one actually and i just must i
Speaker:Evan: think this is his sort of his style within a lot of his films of just kind of
Speaker:Evan: like a raw sense of it you know like it's it's low budget but like in a way
Speaker:Evan: that doesn't make you think like oh this is this is shitty this is actually
Speaker:Evan: sure it like looks good yeah despite it yeah.
Speaker:Justin: I mean honestly i'm like i mean i know it's it was an independent film but i'm
Speaker:Justin: just surprised i've never heard of it before i.
Speaker:Jeremy: I mean i'd heard of it i just had never seen it uh like i said.
Speaker:Justin: Until about i mean i might have heard of it and then just the name turned me
Speaker:Justin: off right it's it sounds like a like a uh you know movie about you know three
Speaker:Justin: daughters in like a plantation or something you know what i mean.
Speaker:Evan: Sure sure but it's funny you mentioned the the
Speaker:Evan: subtitle thing i initially turned on the film without them and i'm like oh man
Speaker:Evan: they were kind of just shouting while they're playing i have no idea what's
Speaker:Evan: what they're being what they're saying at all and had to uh had to make sure
Speaker:Evan: i had the subtitles in there and again showing my very you know non-irish blood
Speaker:Evan: here trying to trying to watch this well.
Speaker:Justin: I actually i saw this um sorry i'm getting off the reels here but um i saw this
Speaker:Justin: video um where they talked about subtitles um 50 of people without any hearing
Speaker:Justin: issues use subtitles nowadays so um yeah i thought it was interesting.
Speaker:Evan: And that and then again to continue that thought just it's a lot of the even
Speaker:Evan: like new films with high budgets don't spend as much money on like the sound
Speaker:Evan: mixing after they've actually filmed it they just like rush it to theater or
Speaker:Evan: streaming or whatever and so
Speaker:Evan: yeah the volume sometimes is too low to even like hear it perfectly yeah.
Speaker:Justin: Well that's what i was gonna say a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have
Speaker:Justin: moved away from film um film acting being like stage acting uh and to where
Speaker:Justin: it's more like real life so people are whispering and people are you know talking
Speaker:Justin: like with a morbid accent you know like not trying to talk clearly right they're
Speaker:Justin: they're mumbling and all that kind of stuff so it makes total sense.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah no that's,
Speaker:Evan: That's true. And one of the other things, again, going back to the British thing
Speaker:Evan: that I noted is, I think right after Damien decides to stay following the incident
Speaker:Evan: in the train, which you were talking about,
Speaker:Evan: is he, I think they then have a conversation of how many British soldiers are
Speaker:Evan: in Ireland at this point. I think he says 10,000.
Speaker:Jeremy: 10,000.
Speaker:Evan: And I was thinking about not just that number of soldiers, but just the concept
Speaker:Evan: at this point that while we haven't hit World War II,
Speaker:Evan: where you could maybe argue is like the real post-World War II is really the
Speaker:Evan: downfall of the ending of the British Empire as like, as we know it,
Speaker:Evan: this point, I feel like they're kind of like hanging on to the,
Speaker:Evan: you know, their name as the British Empire, trying to keep what they can keep
Speaker:Evan: Ireland, keep these, you know, these small territories.
Speaker:Evan: And it's just kind of like a, maybe it's just the way they're depicted in this film.
Speaker:Evan: It's like, they really have kind of a, they're kind of a half-assing it.
Speaker:Evan: And maybe that's just the way that they depict it in this. Or again, I don't know the.
Speaker:Justin: Well, they probably took a, I mean, they just come out of World War I.
Speaker:Justin: So they're probably reeling for it as far as losses and finances and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:Evan: Yes, that's true too. So I mean, maybe you could argue that post-World War I
Speaker:Evan: is really the downfall of the British Empire.
Speaker:Justin: I think it's the beginning of the downfall. Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, where now it's like, you know, in complete free fall where,
Speaker:Evan: you know, many people don't want to, well, British monarchists or whatever they
Speaker:Evan: would be called, or don't want to admit that, but let's face it,
Speaker:Evan: their Brexit was their death, Neil.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah the other the other thing that i
Speaker:Evan: really appreciated which i think shows some of the the scenery
Speaker:Evan: of the beauty of that part of the country the
Speaker:Evan: countryside in county cork was when they're doing kind of their
Speaker:Evan: training exercises which they easily could have just like not done and just
Speaker:Evan: kind of gone into it but it's very clear that they are trying to instill like
Speaker:Evan: these guerrilla tactics you know amongst themselves and so i don't know what
Speaker:Evan: you all thought of kind of including that in it you know where easily they could have just,
Speaker:Evan: It's not important necessarily, except that later on you see that they're continuing
Speaker:Evan: the training as part of this like anti-treaty group.
Speaker:Jeremy: I think that's part of it is that there is it's a it's a continuity, right?
Speaker:Jeremy: The and I think that's also why they reference James Connolly.
Speaker:Jeremy: You know, they sing songs which were part of the 17 like eight like 1798 uprising.
Speaker:Jeremy: So it's like a continuity This is not The things that are happening in this
Speaker:Jeremy: film Are not isolated to these two years That we're showing here This is part
Speaker:Jeremy: of a longer continuity We go all the way back to the 18th century And we go
Speaker:Jeremy: forward to The new generation being trained To fight,
Speaker:Jeremy: uh fight back i think it's part of why that happens.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah that makes that does make sense yeah and
Speaker:Evan: it's also crazy to think of how you know they're they're
Speaker:Evan: training with their with their sports equipment like they don't even have guns
Speaker:Evan: and pretty much all i think maybe there's a later moment where they ask how
Speaker:Evan: many you know guns total the ir has ira has like in the entire country and it's
Speaker:Evan: like you know a couple hundred thousand three yeah okay so they have three They have 3,000.
Speaker:Jeremy: Rifles in the whole country, which is incredible.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, they have less rifles than the British have troops. 10,000 troops to 3,000
Speaker:Evan: rifles for however many active members are in the IRA.
Speaker:Evan: And again, we only see kind of like a small group of them as opposed to seeing
Speaker:Evan: what it, you know, I assume in Dublin, it's a much larger presence of IRA.
Speaker:Justin: Right. That was another thing I thought was really interesting is just the way
Speaker:Justin: that they, At no point did they really try to address or include the overall
Speaker:Justin: movement. It was very, very focused on one cell.
Speaker:Evan: I think what strengthens the point of the idea of the IRA and the move to revolution
Speaker:Evan: or to independence is that it starts with these tiny groups of people.
Speaker:Evan: It's not necessarily, you have to have all these little groups that are all
Speaker:Evan: kind of, uh, what's the word, um, falling behind like the larger movement.
Speaker:Evan: Cause I keep, you know, a thread throughout it is they're receiving letters,
Speaker:Evan: you know, by horseback and by bicycle.
Speaker:Evan: And, you know, these little tiny notes from other groups to essentially give
Speaker:Evan: them their orders and they're following. Yeah. Kind of a, yeah.
Speaker:Justin: That was cool.
Speaker:Evan: I like the, um, all of those scenes and it's, it's, it almost shows,
Speaker:Evan: I actually think about this. This was 1920.
Speaker:Evan: I mean, this is, I don't know, I'm not deeply well-versed in like the IRA,
Speaker:Evan: but is, were they taking their cues from, you know, things that happened?
Speaker:Evan: I mean, especially with Connolly and his views on socialism and the idea of
Speaker:Evan: clearly he's, you know, red marks and probably like, do they have any cues you
Speaker:Evan: think from like the Soviet Union and what they had just recently accomplished?
Speaker:Justin: Almost certainly. Yeah, I was honestly surprised they didn't address it. Oh, go ahead.
Speaker:Jeremy: Oh, no. The thing about the IRA is that it was it was made up of a collection
Speaker:Jeremy: of very disparate political groups.
Speaker:Jeremy: They were not all socialist, obviously.
Speaker:Evan: Right.
Speaker:Jeremy: As is that's one of the central conflicts of this movie is this argument back
Speaker:Jeremy: and forth between sort of the the nationalists who just want independence and
Speaker:Jeremy: the nationalists who want a socialist republic to form in Ireland.
Speaker:Jeremy: And,
Speaker:Jeremy: Eventually, the socialists are more or less pushed out of the IRA or pushed down within the IRA.
Speaker:Jeremy: They are not at the forefront. So I imagine some of them were absolutely adherents
Speaker:Jeremy: of Lenin and others, not so much.
Speaker:Jeremy: But, you know, yeah, we should probably do an episode on the IRA.
Speaker:Justin: One of the things that I think really benefits from the kind of small scale
Speaker:Justin: focus was that you get to see the interactions between essentially the social democrats of the IRA,
Speaker:Justin: the communists of the IRA.
Speaker:Justin: You get to see the, um, court, uh, like the local court, you get to see the
Speaker:Justin: local rich person who's providing guns to the IRA, but also exploiting, uh, Irish workers.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah. There's a lot of like interactions that you really wouldn't get.
Speaker:Justin: I mean, you would probably get to see them, but you wouldn't feel them as viscerally,
Speaker:Justin: uh, as like these people who grew up with each other, like yelling at each other in a room basically.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. To me, that was the, that's also like, if you look into kind of when he
Speaker:Evan: can made the Ken Lewis made the film and he really wanted to specifically show
Speaker:Evan: that dichotomy or that sort of contradiction between, you know,
Speaker:Evan: the idea of socialism versus a more nationalism.
Speaker:Evan: And you, you said that quote earlier from Connolly of, you know,
Speaker:Evan: like, it's not just, we can't just change the color of the flag.
Speaker:Evan: It has to actually be like a material change for the people.
Speaker:Evan: And it's like slowly, you know, kind of unfolds like
Speaker:Evan: the first time when Dan and Damien are in the
Speaker:Evan: prison cell from their first the first time they're
Speaker:Evan: kind of just having that little conversation realizing they're kind of on the
Speaker:Evan: same team and then to me the most like important part of the film maybe is that
Speaker:Evan: court scene which you mentioned where they're going after this uh the court's
Speaker:Evan: going after someone for exploiting a person what with 300 interest or something or like.
Speaker:Jeremy: Just so that she could buy groceries. She's trying to buy groceries and she
Speaker:Jeremy: can't afford to because she doesn't get paid enough.
Speaker:Jeremy: And so he loans her the money to buy the groceries and then charges her 300 percent interest.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. And basically, you know, Teddy is saying like, you know,
Speaker:Evan: the independence is more important than a box of groceries.
Speaker:Evan: And he said, I think he says, like, it's better than painting it red.
Speaker:Evan: Like, they're very much anti-communist in the idea that like,
Speaker:Evan: oh, these socialist views are going to be the undoing of us.
Speaker:Evan: We can't stop to think about all these little things when, you know,
Speaker:Evan: Damien is very clearly thinking about the after the revolution, after the success. Yes.
Speaker:Evan: And I think what comes next, which is like the downfall of like 98% of films
Speaker:Evan: that show any kind of revolution is they don't ever even pose the question of what happens.
Speaker:Jeremy: What comes next. Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: And so that I have to give.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And which is ironic, I think, coming from a Trotsky.
Speaker:Jeremy: Um the oof but.
Speaker:Justin: The reality is that they like there he was right right i mean they they pushed
Speaker:Justin: out the socialists ira the uh uh the irish republic's the shitty one right so
Speaker:Justin: what's the free state right yeah.
Speaker:Jeremy: Well yeah so the the free state was a temporary sort
Speaker:Jeremy: of situation in between because for
Speaker:Jeremy: for a period of time and it wasn't very long the
Speaker:Jeremy: the republic of ireland was still a a
Speaker:Jeremy: governant of the british empire they
Speaker:Jeremy: were granted independence uh we'll
Speaker:Jeremy: uh we'll reference back to the philippines episode where uh
Speaker:Jeremy: i forget the dude's name but he called it hindependence like uh
Speaker:Jeremy: hindi and tagalog is like the opposite of it's like a
Speaker:Jeremy: prefix that means the opposite of they were granted hindependence and
Speaker:Jeremy: at that point accepting the northern counties
Speaker:Jeremy: the rest of ireland was quote unquote free of the british empire but for a brief
Speaker:Jeremy: period of time there it was referred to as the irish free state which was like
Speaker:Jeremy: the under the treaty they still were technically part of the british empire
Speaker:Jeremy: but they governed themselves uh yeah anyway it.
Speaker:Evan: Was like called dominion is that what the i think.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah yeah they were under the dominion of the british empire um.
Speaker:Justin: But yeah like what i was going to say is that britain is i mean to this day
Speaker:Justin: right they control they still control them through their capital,
Speaker:Justin: through the business owners, through,
Speaker:Justin: the corporations all of it.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah and they still have the northern counties they still hold them yeah people
Speaker:Jeremy: maybe not for much longer yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Well um we have what is it there's that that that scene from i don't know if
Speaker:Evan: you both watch star trek but like the uh where he talks about the irish unification of 2025.
Speaker:Jeremy: And so we've got we've got six months for everyone out there to to make.
Speaker:Justin: That happen if.
Speaker:Evan: Not then you know what.
Speaker:Justin: I thought one of the like it was really important because there's like a couple
Speaker:Justin: scenes that are like this but um where they're like we will never get this kind of energy again we.
Speaker:Jeremy: Have to take advantage.
Speaker:Justin: We have to keep pushing.
Speaker:Jeremy: We can't.
Speaker:Justin: Stop now and that's exactly what the fuck happens every time.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah the the argument in front of sinade's farmhouse at the beginning when the
Speaker:Jeremy: british soldiers leave and teddy is basically begging damien to stay and fight
Speaker:Jeremy: That's an important argument,
Speaker:Jeremy: even though Teddy flips later on in the movie.
Speaker:Jeremy: Then the argument that happens in the courtroom is another vital scene where
Speaker:Jeremy: you get these sort of opposing viewpoints butting heads.
Speaker:Jeremy: And then again, when the treaty appears in front of them and they're arguing
Speaker:Jeremy: about whether or not they should ratify the treaty, same thing.
Speaker:Jeremy: It's important not to show these people as a unified, monolithic,
Speaker:Jeremy: we want freedom for Ireland, whatever that means.
Speaker:Jeremy: There are people with ideological viewpoints that have very different ideas
Speaker:Jeremy: of what freedom looks like, and they come into conflict with one another.
Speaker:Jeremy: That's also that scene that you were just talking about where he's like,
Speaker:Jeremy: you know, whatever, we're this close.
Speaker:Jeremy: We just need to push. We're an inch. So he says we're an inch from winning.
Speaker:Jeremy: We just need to keep pushing. That's also the scene where Dan pulls out the
Speaker:Jeremy: like sheet that he reads like a like section from some previous document.
Speaker:Jeremy: But at the end, he says, if you move forward with this treaty, why?
Speaker:Jeremy: The only thing that's going to change is the accents of the oppressors and the color of the flag.
Speaker:Jeremy: And I'm like. Yeah.
Speaker:Justin: So I thought just to draw like a just to draw like a link between and or and
Speaker:Justin: this movie, I think that that both of them.
Speaker:Justin: Because we, you know, we just got done with and or we did an episode that hasn't
Speaker:Justin: been released yet about like just left media in general.
Speaker:Justin: But the way that they depict revolution
Speaker:Justin: the reality of revolution yes not the not
Speaker:Justin: the hollywood ideal of quote-unquote revolution but
Speaker:Justin: the reality of revolution being fucking brutal and
Speaker:Justin: awful yeah tough and everyone's arguing and
Speaker:Justin: everyone's coming from different viewpoints right like mon mothma
Speaker:Justin: and uh what's the uh i
Speaker:Justin: can't ever remember his name saw the lutheran saw
Speaker:Justin: well yeah saw and uh the guy the guy that
Speaker:Justin: kind of runs everything luthan um luthan yeah
Speaker:Justin: they're all like different opposing viewpoints working together to
Speaker:Justin: overthrow the empire it's it's the same kind of shit and every
Speaker:Justin: people are dying and they're given these opportunities to
Speaker:Justin: to like okay we can stop this right we can yeah we
Speaker:Justin: can get a win but in in those moments
Speaker:Justin: you can feel for like what i would call the liberals right
Speaker:Justin: you can feel for them because their families have died they've
Speaker:Justin: watched their friends die they've done terrible fucking things
Speaker:Justin: they've gone through terrible fucking things they've had hired they they've
Speaker:Justin: made you watch their fingernails getting pulled out for like three minutes right
Speaker:Justin: um in an actual scene in this movie um and so you understand the desire to just
Speaker:Justin: stop yeah but that has a cost like you've lost you've already lost at that point yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah there's that's a it's actually a good uh comparison to and or in that they're
Speaker:Evan: both have They both talk about things that you don't normally see.
Speaker:Evan: You know, some of my favorite parts of Andor are like the...
Speaker:Evan: Could have just like the scenes where Andor and Bix are just kind of,
Speaker:Evan: they're tired and they're just like have to go do mundane things.
Speaker:Evan: Like you never see like the, that side of exhaustion.
Speaker:Evan: I think you see it in this too, even, even in those court scenes,
Speaker:Evan: even those in the, the, the jail scenes and all of those.
Speaker:Evan: And the, the quote you were saying from Dan, the first part he reads,
Speaker:Evan: I'll just, that he pulls out his little piece of paper.
Speaker:Evan: Says the nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the nation,
Speaker:Evan: but to all its material possessions, the nation's soil, all its resources,
Speaker:Evan: all the wealth, all the wealth producing processes within the nation.
Speaker:Evan: And so it's very clear what he wants for the nation. He wants everyone to,
Speaker:Evan: you know, he wants collectivization.
Speaker:Evan: He wants people to have- He wants nationalization. He wants nationalization of all these resources.
Speaker:Evan: And yes, they have strong unions right now and the unions are willing to do
Speaker:Evan: things but i think you have to go to be have been as successful to become a
Speaker:Evan: socialist irish republic or whatever it would be you have to go.
Speaker:Justin: Right further.
Speaker:Evan: And people like teddy are willing to just take the bare minimum.
Speaker:Justin: Right yeah yeah but they don't yeah but like they don't pose it in like a in
Speaker:Justin: like a way that you can't understand where you're like all this motherfucker
Speaker:Justin: right you're just like you get it he's not a bastard he's not evil right he
Speaker:Justin: he's just he's tired he's.
Speaker:Jeremy: Just tired of fighting yeah.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah and there's this scene i don't know
Speaker:Justin: if we want to get get there but um there's the
Speaker:Justin: scene where he visits his brother in jail
Speaker:Justin: like after like after they've signed the treaty after the uh now it's the people
Speaker:Justin: with different accents oppressing the irish people yeah um and his he gets arrested
Speaker:Justin: and he goes in there and he's like please like I will beg I will do anything
Speaker:Justin: just please stop and he's like,
Speaker:Justin: motherfucker. Like I killed a 12 year old for, for betraying us.
Speaker:Justin: Would you, do you really think I would swallow it now?
Speaker:Justin: It's like a, it's not like a, he doesn't say it in that way.
Speaker:Justin: Right. It's more in like the way of like, I can't, right.
Speaker:Justin: I can't live with myself if I do that. I would love to do that because I'm tired
Speaker:Justin: and I'm scared and I don't want to die, but I can't.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah. That's another aspect of this that I love because none of these people are like,
Speaker:Jeremy: they don't depict any of this as like this is
Speaker:Jeremy: fun and cool and good right like they show
Speaker:Jeremy: after after the big massacre on the
Speaker:Jeremy: road where they kill all the british soldiers and the trucks there's dudes
Speaker:Jeremy: crying they don't they don't want to look at
Speaker:Jeremy: the dead bodies they hate it when killian
Speaker:Jeremy: murphy has to kill that kid and the landowner he
Speaker:Jeremy: just like he's he just like he's barely alive
Speaker:Jeremy: right like he's just stumbling he's like a zombie like falling
Speaker:Jeremy: yeah falling almost falling down as he's walking
Speaker:Jeremy: trying to get away from it um and
Speaker:Jeremy: when he's because it does the the end of the
Speaker:Jeremy: movie is uh more or less not quite the end
Speaker:Jeremy: but almost at the very end uh damien is
Speaker:Jeremy: executed uh and he is spoiler alert
Speaker:Jeremy: the the bulk
Speaker:Jeremy: of the movie is filmed in county cork but that particular scene is filmed in
Speaker:Jeremy: the jail where james connelly was executed in the place i believe in exactly
Speaker:Jeremy: the place where james connelly was executed which if you aren't familiar with
Speaker:Jeremy: the story during the easter rising in 1916 uh.
Speaker:Jeremy: Connelly had already been shot several times in combat and the British had to
Speaker:Jeremy: tie him to a chair because he couldn't stand up.
Speaker:Jeremy: He was going to die anyway, but they had to execute him.
Speaker:Jeremy: They had to. They had to put him down, which, you know, if he died from his
Speaker:Jeremy: combat wounds, I guess that would make him too heroic. But if he died in an execution, whatever.
Speaker:Evan: They don't want him to be a martyr.
Speaker:Jeremy: Correct. I mean, he's still a martyr, but like, yeah, but, but anyway,
Speaker:Jeremy: that's, that's where that takes place.
Speaker:Jeremy: But Killian Murphy is not like brave, like staring into the guns.
Speaker:Jeremy: Like I'm going to die with honor.
Speaker:Jeremy: He's, he's terrified. And he's like, he's.
Speaker:Justin: He's like crying and he's like, yeah, he's having a panic attack.
Speaker:Justin: He's hyperventilating.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah and teddy his brother is is also crying like all of this sucks everything
Speaker:Jeremy: about this sucks uh which also felt good you know not to depict it as like.
Speaker:Evan: Glory whatever like glorified glorious.
Speaker:Jeremy: Dead the glorious dead and all that shit.
Speaker:Evan: And and one of the great things they do too especially
Speaker:Evan: with all of the people right before they're going
Speaker:Evan: to be executed like the 12 like the 12 year old kid or
Speaker:Evan: he like they they ask everyone to basically write a letter
Speaker:Evan: to give to their family afterwards words he was the only one i
Speaker:Evan: think doesn't write a letter he just tells he couldn't read yeah
Speaker:Evan: he couldn't read so he tells his mother just to you know like tell him where i'm buried and
Speaker:Evan: another thing that also struck me is that after killian murphy
Speaker:Evan: has to execute the landowner which again
Speaker:Evan: we could also talk about like that's another threat of just like the traitorous
Speaker:Evan: the trip the traitorous uh you know bourgeoisie in this that are still siding
Speaker:Evan: with the british because they gained from it but after he kills the child and
Speaker:Evan: he later sees his mother the mother like he takes him to where he's buried in
Speaker:Evan: the church and then, you know, can't talk to him.
Speaker:Evan: Like it, this, it not only divides the, like the sectarianism of it with,
Speaker:Evan: you know, the socialists and the nationalists, it,
Speaker:Evan: these small families in these small towns.
Speaker:Justin: That just it's.
Speaker:Evan: Like destroying lives across you know from the top to the bottom i guess.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah well he says that he walked six miles with her she didn't say a word he
Speaker:Justin: showed her where he was buried and she said i never want to see your face again
Speaker:Justin: and at the end of the movie yes when teddy gives the necklace to um sinead she
Speaker:Justin: doesn't say anything to him.
Speaker:Justin: He gives the necklace to him and she says, I never want to see your face again.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah.
Speaker:Justin: I thought that was cool.
Speaker:Jeremy: It's an echo.
Speaker:Justin: I mean, it's sad.
Speaker:Jeremy: Very sad.
Speaker:Evan: The Sir John, who was like this traitor who essentially turned in.
Speaker:Evan: And what's so sad about it?
Speaker:Jeremy: So this is a lot of Ireland was under the control of what they referred to as
Speaker:Jeremy: Anglo-Irish landowners, but they were primarily British.
Speaker:Jeremy: They were primarily English families who had
Speaker:Jeremy: been invited over at various times like
Speaker:Jeremy: the the conquest of ireland took a long time it
Speaker:Jeremy: was it began basically it's sort
Speaker:Jeremy: of it's quite sad actually because it was
Speaker:Jeremy: it was at the request of an a deposed irish king who was like i want my my property
Speaker:Jeremy: back and so he invited some uh some anglo-norman mercenaries over and when he
Speaker:Jeremy: did that it more or less opened the door to the conquest of Ireland.
Speaker:Jeremy: And it was like, it's hard to talk about this as like the English were the ones
Speaker:Jeremy: doing the invading because the Normans were not English.
Speaker:Jeremy: And it was, a lot of Ireland was already under the control of the Norse.
Speaker:Jeremy: So there was conflict amongst multiple groups, but it was this event which opened
Speaker:Jeremy: the door for what eventually became the English conquest of Ireland.
Speaker:Jeremy: It had more or less been, not entirely, but mostly conquered by about 1300.
Speaker:Jeremy: And then it was almost completely, the power was completely consolidated by
Speaker:Jeremy: the time of Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century.
Speaker:Jeremy: So it was a process by which this happened. Yeah.
Speaker:Jeremy: Every time this did happen, landowners from what what is now England and eventually
Speaker:Jeremy: became England came over and took over sections of land.
Speaker:Jeremy: And these landowners remained forever.
Speaker:Jeremy: Basically, they they remained until, you know, and some of them still own that
Speaker:Jeremy: land, which is insane. But most of them were were were kicked out.
Speaker:Evan: Another reason why they needed to follow the socialist track and get rid of
Speaker:Evan: these wealthy landowners who are exploiting them.
Speaker:Evan: And, you know, you could argue like, okay, well, they're employing some of the
Speaker:Evan: local Irish people, but Sir John gets the child killed because he threatened him.
Speaker:Evan: Mean like you're a kid like it's it's tough to hold out against you know people
Speaker:Evan: torturing you and threatening you probably threatening his family and so he
Speaker:Evan: ends up dying for it and it's uh as you said like it's fucking bleak yeah.
Speaker:Justin: And and again like they don't try to glorify it like they fucking hate it they
Speaker:Justin: don't want to do it right but like at the same time they can't risk people not
Speaker:Justin: being scared of selling out the ira right they need that.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah the the uh what was the other thing i was gonna bring up
Speaker:Evan: about the the it's like one of
Speaker:Evan: like the things in general like obviously there was the kind of the nationalist
Speaker:Evan: versus socialist but it's also just like you could i
Speaker:Evan: don't even think we use this term or maybe it just sort of like the infighting once
Speaker:Evan: the treaty is signed and you know there's this
Speaker:Evan: there's a scene in the church where they're the like the
Speaker:Evan: the church is on the side of of course the the wealthy and catholic priest yeah
Speaker:Evan: like he called it like damien calls it out saying of course you're you know
Speaker:Evan: with the exception with very few exceptions you're always going to side with
Speaker:Evan: the rich and it's just like all of these things that they get excommunicated
Speaker:Evan: yeah they get excommunicated and you know it's uh it's just the what's the,
Speaker:Evan: There was another quote that I was thinking of. I think it's where Damien might
Speaker:Evan: have said to Teddy something about, like, putting himself in the,
Speaker:Evan: like, wrapping himself in the flag of Britain for, you know, what they're doing.
Speaker:Jeremy: Oh, yes. He says you've wrapped yourself in the Union Jack.
Speaker:Evan: Yes.
Speaker:Jeremy: The butcher's apron, he calls it. The butcher's apron.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah. Yep.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. It's great. Like it's, it's very like they, they like love each other,
Speaker:Evan: but at the same time, they are still going to fight to the end for kind of what their beliefs are.
Speaker:Evan: And you have to kill each other. Yeah. Kill each other over.
Speaker:Evan: And it's, uh, it's commendable. I don't know.
Speaker:Justin: Um, it's sad, but it's real.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:Justin: That is the price that you pay. And if you're going to be a revolutionary,
Speaker:Justin: you need to know the price that you're going to pay.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah. Another, you know, that's one of the things I kind of walked away from
Speaker:Justin: the movie with is just this, like, You know, as revolutionaries,
Speaker:Justin: we carry with us, behind us, every Lenin, every Connolly, every Mao, every Stalin,
Speaker:Justin: every Che, every Fidel, every Sankara,
Speaker:Justin: every Kollontai, right?
Speaker:Justin: All of these people are behind us.
Speaker:Justin: It's the legacy of revolution and the sacrifices that they made and the hard
Speaker:Justin: decisions that they paid paved the way for us.
Speaker:Justin: And so, I don't know, there's just this kind of moment of like,
Speaker:Justin: this is our struggle also, even though we don't know anybody there,
Speaker:Justin: we don't know anybody that fought in it, you know what I mean?
Speaker:Justin: But we are bonded, yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Well, this is another thing that I was maybe slightly hesitant to bring it up,
Speaker:Evan: but one of the things that follows with the socialism versus nationalism kind of track,
Speaker:Evan: and I've seen this argument before, and as I was trying to find articles about this,
Speaker:Evan: people writing about this film and talking about whether, can it be a true revolutionary
Speaker:Evan: group or revolution if they're not, they don't have a socialist,
Speaker:Evan: mindset or that's the end goal.
Speaker:Evan: And so people are arguing, oh, well, the Palestinians aren't socialists,
Speaker:Evan: so why should we support them as their independence? And I...
Speaker:Evan: I guess gets back to like the socialism versus nationalism. And I think as,
Speaker:Evan: you know, communists, you support any movement that's seeking to decolonize
Speaker:Evan: or fight against imperialism, fight against this oppression of a colonizer.
Speaker:Evan: And then it's sort of like the aftermath that you have to figure out these,
Speaker:Evan: you know, what's the, what's the next step in it? So I don't know.
Speaker:Justin: And there, so I think this is actually like an interesting question because
Speaker:Justin: we can actually draw a parallel to how the ideology needs to exist,
Speaker:Justin: but doesn't matter when it comes to decolonization,
Speaker:Justin: national liberation movements.
Speaker:Justin: I mean, I think that something that a lot of people don't understand about Palestine
Speaker:Justin: is that the state of Israel probably never would have existed if it wasn't for socialists,
Speaker:Justin: Zionist socialists, paving the way for the state of Israel.
Speaker:Justin: So in the 20s and especially in the 30s, there were this large group of Jewish
Speaker:Justin: socialists that started collecting money and purchasing land in Palestine from
Speaker:Justin: rich landowners that owned the land.
Speaker:Justin: And then, once they had that land, they would evict the Palestinians that were
Speaker:Justin: on that land, that were, like, working as land tenants.
Speaker:Justin: And they created—over the years, they perfected this system of going in,
Speaker:Justin: setting up, asking them to leave, offering them, like, whatever,
Speaker:Justin: money or whatever if they leave.
Speaker:Justin: If they don't take it, going in at night, building fences around their territory.
Speaker:Justin: Building towers, and then in the morning, surprise, you don't have land anymore.
Speaker:Justin: And these were socialist movements, right?
Speaker:Justin: And again, I think it kind of paints in a new light the way that we look at
Speaker:Justin: like the Soviet Union's policy against Zionism in the 30s and 40s.
Speaker:Justin: It makes a lot of sense from this perspective.
Speaker:Justin: And so there was already this blueprint and basis of people in Palestine when
Speaker:Justin: the state of Israel was formed.
Speaker:Justin: All they did was switch it to a quote unquote legalized version.
Speaker:Justin: And I just think that like that's kind of what I mean.
Speaker:Justin: Like you could put socialism on anything. You need both. You need decolonialism.
Speaker:Justin: You need national liberation.
Speaker:Justin: You need rights for indigenous folks. Then you need socialism.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah, because the primary contradiction is imperialism.
Speaker:Jeremy: And if your quote unquote socialism is in favor of imperialism,
Speaker:Jeremy: that makes it fucking useless.
Speaker:Jeremy: And if your anti-imperialist movement is not socialist, that still makes it valuable.
Speaker:Jeremy: Um you the the important part
Speaker:Jeremy: is to defeat imperialism because we cannot have worldwide socialism until we
Speaker:Jeremy: do it will not happen it's not possible to defeat capitalism so long as imperialism
Speaker:Jeremy: is the dominant sort of uh means of governance globally it's it's uh so the
Speaker:Jeremy: more we can weaken it the better.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah as uh you know as the as the famous uh book
Speaker:Evan: imperialism is the highest form of capitalism so
Speaker:Evan: yeah you can't you can't you if you have one
Speaker:Evan: you you have both it's all uh yeah you know
Speaker:Evan: it's not you can't separate the two from each other and to like
Speaker:Evan: also on that part about the like israel and the socialist movement i mean that's
Speaker:Evan: essentially what like the kibbutz system was which i think is what you're kind
Speaker:Evan: of referring to i'm talking about these are still still to this day people view
Speaker:Evan: those communities as like a socialist community And having personally,
Speaker:Evan: I think I've done an episode a long time ago with another podcast that doesn't exist anymore,
Speaker:Evan: we talked about my personal experience of living on a kibbutz in 2000 in Israel
Speaker:Evan: and just looking back on the way that those...
Speaker:Evan: The people on those kibbutzes don't probably view what they're doing as colonial. Obviously, they don't.
Speaker:Justin: No, they didn't.
Speaker:Evan: Then or now, it's just like the idea is like, oh, well, we just have this community.
Speaker:Evan: Just leave us alone kind of thing.
Speaker:Justin: We bought this land. Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: We paid for it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We paid for it. I mean, just like what the U.S.
Speaker:Evan: Paid for, what, Hawaii and Alaska or whatever.
Speaker:Evan: Because you bought it doesn't mean it's yours in a sense.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: But no, I maybe wasn't hesitant to bring that up.
Speaker:Evan: But I think I see that unfortunate argument coming from in the same argument
Speaker:Evan: of like, oh, how could you support, you know, Palestine, Palestine,
Speaker:Evan: if you are, you know, LGBT community like these kind of these,
Speaker:Evan: you know, pinkwashing and other arguments.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah, he's got to arguments.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, that does kind of all fall into this. But yeah, I think.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. Oh, and this is one other line that I wanted to bring up that kind of
Speaker:Evan: relates to a lot of again, like the infighting is I think.
Speaker:Evan: That i think that it was dan who said
Speaker:Evan: it although maybe it was damian he to teddy he
Speaker:Evan: says i'm not a dreamer i'm a realist and i think it's this idea that many people
Speaker:Evan: have that they see socialism as you know idealist and it's idealism when it
Speaker:Evan: couldn't be more the opposite that liberalism is idealism and reactionary and
Speaker:Evan: obviously as materialists we understand that.
Speaker:Justin: Yes yeah that And it's funny that you said that because it kind of ties into
Speaker:Justin: what I was about to say, which is that people act like there's this big ambiguity
Speaker:Justin: or obscure concept of how...
Speaker:Justin: To orient yourself in world
Speaker:Justin: and in the world and in revolutions but there's
Speaker:Justin: not like there's there is a there's a path and
Speaker:Justin: it's not a fun path and it's not a happy path but
Speaker:Justin: it's a realistic path of how revolutions should go
Speaker:Justin: and like that's kind of what you know what we're talking about yeah like obviously
Speaker:Justin: there's plenty of reactionary uh belief systems in a lot of uh hyper-religious
Speaker:Justin: communities in all across the world, but certainly in Palestine. Right.
Speaker:Justin: And that sucks. But we have to take step one before we take step five.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah.
Speaker:Justin: And if you take step five before you take step one, you're never going to get anywhere.
Speaker:Justin: Then you just like hand it over to the capitalists and that's it.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah. When liberals say that socialists are idealist and they mean it in the
Speaker:Jeremy: sense of Not like idealism versus materialism, but you are focused on your ideals and not reality,
Speaker:Jeremy: the world around you that actually exists.
Speaker:Jeremy: But what is going on underneath that is that they believe, which is insane and also in my mind,
Speaker:Jeremy: the absolutely idealist in both senses, that they think they can change the
Speaker:Jeremy: system from within the system.
Speaker:Jeremy: And what they mean is it's very very hard to do a revolution that's what makes
Speaker:Jeremy: us idealists but the reality is that that's the only way things change you cannot
Speaker:Jeremy: without incredible violence take power away from people who have a lot of it and it sucks but.
Speaker:Justin: That's why I think media like Andor, like this movie, The Wind That Shakes the
Speaker:Justin: Barley, are so important because it's important for us to know what we're getting
Speaker:Justin: ourselves into, that we're not just talking about it.
Speaker:Justin: We understand the consequences of what we're saying.
Speaker:Jeremy: Right.
Speaker:Evan: It honestly makes it all the more insane that Andor exists.
Speaker:Justin: I am shocked, honestly.
Speaker:Evan: I think about this all the time, you know, that they made the first season.
Speaker:Evan: And the other i think i just saw i read a lot
Speaker:Evan: about andor i've done multiple episodes on it and
Speaker:Evan: the the like they gave uh
Speaker:Evan: gilroy 650 million dollars to make
Speaker:Evan: andor and they basically said the only note he got was he couldn't use the f
Speaker:Evan: word at the end of season one and other than that he could basically do whatever
Speaker:Evan: he wanted it was supposed the marvel was supposed to say fuck the empire and
Speaker:Evan: they've recorded that and then they made it re-dub over saying fight the empire
Speaker:Evan: but But if you watch her mouth during that scene, it definitely says fuck.
Speaker:Jeremy: She says fuck to the Empire. Amazing.
Speaker:Justin: Nice.
Speaker:Evan: And other than that, they just let him do it. And it's just,
Speaker:Evan: it's shocking. Like, I can't believe that the Disney banner is on it.
Speaker:Justin: We actually talked about it briefly. I think the only reason they were able
Speaker:Justin: to pull it off is because it's the Empire and the Rebellion and X-Wings and
Speaker:Justin: U-Wings and Aliens and, right? Right.
Speaker:Justin: And so it's so divorced from what we live the day to day that people can watch
Speaker:Justin: it and not really pick up on.
Speaker:Jeremy: And the other thing is that they are very vague about what the rebellion wants.
Speaker:Jeremy: They do not come out and explicitly sort of say, here's what we want after the revolution happens.
Speaker:Jeremy: They're very like freedom and anti-oppression, but what does that mean and what
Speaker:Jeremy: do we want after the rebellion wins? What do we get out of that?
Speaker:Jeremy: And I think those are the two things. I think Andor is much more...
Speaker:Jeremy: Like a blueprint of how to do a revolution rather than uh explicitly like socialist
Speaker:Jeremy: in any way shape or form you know what i mean.
Speaker:Evan: That's that's true that the old that actually
Speaker:Evan: reminds me of one of my favorite lines or one of
Speaker:Evan: many favorite lines in and or i think it's uh clay and and or
Speaker:Evan: like arguing about something i won't this won't be any spoilers
Speaker:Evan: who hasn't seen and or and he says you know like it was so
Speaker:Evan: great yeah and oh she's the best the best character uh or close to it but i
Speaker:Evan: think they're arguing and he's and or says something to the effect of like i
Speaker:Evan: want to start doing you know what i want to do and she basically says like isn't
Speaker: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.
Speaker:Justin: Was it was huge yeah i loved it.
Speaker:Evan: You in in the same thing where
Speaker:Evan: you kind of see bringing it back to when the shakes of barley is
Speaker:Evan: teddy and dan and the socialists arguing
Speaker:Evan: is yes we can we can stop
Speaker:Evan: now we could have our our revolution we could have this treaty we're still going
Speaker:Evan: to be under the yoke of them but what we what you want teddy what you really
Speaker:Evan: deep down want is ultimate complete freedom but you're willing to accept the
Speaker:Evan: the the the simple version of that you're not willing to go the extra right ancient yeah.
Speaker:Justin: You could almost rephrase it with like um all i want is for people to stop dying
Speaker:Justin: yes that's what we all want that's why we want the revolution so people stop
Speaker:Justin: dying It's this weird kind of dichotomy of like,
Speaker:Justin: you're not free until you have bound yourself so tightly that you have created
Speaker:Justin: this system that frees you.
Speaker:Justin: You cannot stop the death until you have...
Speaker:Justin: Die like until a bunch of people have died right it's just a thing that is is
Speaker:Justin: part of the process the contradiction of the movement.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah like and the the same like the what is it the line like
Speaker:Evan: you know um we're not free till all of us are
Speaker:Evan: free in the sense that yes they could have this treaty but there's still going
Speaker:Evan: to be that woman who can't buy groceries she's not really free like the kid
Speaker:Evan: that killian murphy has to go see because he's sick he's like starved right
Speaker:Evan: and they have no money they have no food they have nothing and so what's what's
Speaker:Evan: it going to solve when you know the is.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah is he happy that he can fly an irish flag you know yeah yeah.
Speaker:Evan: It doesn't doesn't give him anything yeah.
Speaker:Jeremy: And that's uh you know another scene that sort of hits that
Speaker:Jeremy: home sort of more directly is that at
Speaker:Jeremy: sinade's family farmhouse the
Speaker:Jeremy: british army visits twice and then the irish free state army visits a third
Speaker:Jeremy: time to try to take out the rebels and they they do the same shit that the british
Speaker:Jeremy: did they bust down the door yeah they go looking for guns they they abuse the
Speaker:Jeremy: people that are there um because they are the same.
Speaker:Evan: Well i wrote i think that my like last note sort
Speaker:Evan: of the section which is actually perfect timing is i wrote this kind of like the circle
Speaker:Evan: of violence you have the irish army doing the same thing i think there's a moment
Speaker:Evan: where they talked about the tans and their shootout how they're sort of just
Speaker:Evan: their savagery of the British and they then it's shown when they basically scalp
Speaker:Evan: Sinead in that scene after which is really hard to watch,
Speaker:Evan: and then you see you don't see necessarily the.
Speaker:Justin: They use sheep shears.
Speaker:Evan: Oh that's right horrible but then the Irish are maybe not doing the same level
Speaker:Evan: of violence but they kill they kill Damien I mean that's The circle,
Speaker:Evan: that's the, just, yeah, it's, um.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah. I think they refer to them as the green and tans at one point.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:Jeremy: Instead of the black and tans. Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: I never realized they called that the black and tan. And I guess that's the,
Speaker:Evan: like the famous drink, the, you know, Irish, uh, lager and like a Guinness or whatever.
Speaker:Evan: And you never have one of those again. Now that I sort of associate that with
Speaker:Evan: my head, my head, not that I've had one anytime recently, but like,
Speaker:Evan: you know, when I've been to England, you're like, oh yeah, a black and tan.
Speaker:Evan: Like, I don't know about that.
Speaker:Evan: Is it just like an imperialist drink?
Speaker:Jeremy: Come out ye black and tans is a banger, as always. I don't know if you've heard the song.
Speaker:Evan: I don't know if I have.
Speaker:Justin: You haven't?
Speaker:Jeremy: No? Really? Banger.
Speaker:Justin: I don't think so. Okay.
Speaker:Evan: That's one other thing in this that we didn't even mention is the music in this
Speaker:Evan: is sort of like not heavily overused.
Speaker:Evan: It's sort of just, it's always very somber in the background.
Speaker:Jeremy: And it's part of the scene.
Speaker:Justin: There's almost no music in it at all.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah. It's part of the scene that's going on. So like at the funeral for Mahal.
Speaker:Jeremy: Uh, the, the Sinead's brother who gets killed at the beginning of the movie,
Speaker:Jeremy: uh, at his funeral, that's where they sing the song, the wind that shakes the
Speaker:Jeremy: barley, the line comes from that.
Speaker:Jeremy: Um, and then later this, the, uh,
Speaker:Jeremy: the IRA soldiers are marching down the road and they sing, uh,
Speaker:Jeremy: again, like a song from the 1798 uprising, the Jacobite uprising, um,
Speaker:Jeremy: which the lyrics to that song was changed by an Irish nationalist who was killed
Speaker:Jeremy: or imprisoned at the same jail where Connolly was killed and where,
Speaker:Jeremy: um, Damien ends up being killed.
Speaker:Jeremy: But that's, again, those are the only times that music really appear is sort
Speaker:Jeremy: of somebody is singing in the movie.
Speaker:Evan: Right.
Speaker:Justin: There was also the piano player during the news reel, which one of the coolest
Speaker:Justin: parts of the movie for me was that there obviously is silent films.
Speaker:Justin: So anything that comes up on the screen, the people that can read would yell
Speaker:Justin: it out because a lot of the people in the theater can't read.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah.
Speaker:Justin: And I thought that that was a really cool thing that they didn't have to do.
Speaker:Jeremy: Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: I thought you're the other moment. I think where they sing too,
Speaker:Evan: is when they're arrested the very first time and they meet Dan in the prison.
Speaker:Evan: I think they start singing while Teddy is being tortured. Like they start singing out loud.
Speaker:Justin: Yeah. They do.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. It's like all of the moments of the, of the song it's,
Speaker:Evan: it's more like the music is meant to be like both joyous, but also,
Speaker:Evan: you know, in these, like the two opposite ends of like the joyous singing and
Speaker:Evan: then just someone has died and now we're singing for their, for their death or like as we mourn them.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. So there's a there's like a cultural concept in Korea that's known
Speaker:Jeremy: as Han, which is it's more or less like a cultural sadness.
Speaker:Jeremy: And it is born out of like having been colonized.
Speaker:Jeremy: Over and over and over and having your nation split in half.
Speaker:Jeremy: Uh, and so it's like, you are distant from your family. You can't go and visit them anymore.
Speaker:Jeremy: Like it, it is this, like, basically it's all, it's almost like it's a,
Speaker:Jeremy: it is a cultural sadness born out of imperialism.
Speaker:Jeremy: And I feel like Ireland has that, right? Like there's a, there's an element of that.
Speaker:Jeremy: Like ireland has its own kind of han um like
Speaker:Jeremy: i feel like it's the only nation really that might be like that in the world
Speaker:Jeremy: where you just have hundreds and hundreds of years of colonization and you are
Speaker:Jeremy: still divided um you know it's a little bit different now as you can travel
Speaker:Jeremy: freely across the border but still it's it's like uh i don't know it's fucked.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah so for anyone listening and you
Speaker:Evan: uh watch this movie don't expect it to
Speaker:Evan: be as we said at the outset it's not a it's not
Speaker:Evan: a heartfelt uplifting not a rah rah
Speaker:Evan: rah movie yeah it's not like uh it's not a revolutionary film
Speaker:Evan: that's gonna you know maybe fill you with
Speaker:Evan: uh you know happiness and glee it's uh it begins and ends just like true truly
Speaker:Evan: just you know the cycle of violence the the murder at the hands of the british
Speaker:Evan: and then the murder at the hands of the irish you know uh aren't uh the army
Speaker: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.
Speaker:Jeremy: I forget they what they call them the regulars i think or.
Speaker:Evan: Oh yeah that may be it yeah but yeah it's um,
Speaker:Evan: it's a it's a tough one but i'm glad that i am glad you uh both uh or glad that
Speaker:Evan: you jeremy had chosen this film to talk about made this watch this because it's
Speaker:Evan: it's uh it's like definitely an important film more than more now than maybe
Speaker:Evan: well than maybe ever in fact so i'm glad uh i don't know if you either you had
Speaker:Evan: any last last thoughts on it,
Speaker:Evan: Anything we missed?
Speaker:Justin: I was, yeah, I mean, just, you can watch it for free, but, like,
Speaker:Justin: it's on Plex, and you have to sit through, like, three minutes of commercials
Speaker:Justin: every 15 minutes, and I just wanted to stab my own eyeballs out.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah, if you could find it cheap to purchase somewhere, maybe just do that.
Speaker:Justin: Or if you have, like, there's, like, different streaming services.
Speaker:Jeremy: I think it's on AMC.
Speaker:Justin: Like, AMC Plus. Like, AMC Plus, yeah. Yeah, but I don't have that one.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, I didn't have that one either. I acquired it through other means.
Speaker:Justin: Secret means on the high seas yes yes
Speaker:Justin: yeah um no i like i said i i think that
Speaker:Justin: um just you know as revolutionaries it
Speaker:Justin: is important for us to find the joy the camaraderie the rah rah rah we need
Speaker:Justin: that to keep us going the community that keeps us together it's important for
Speaker:Justin: us to um keep our eyes open when black people are being suffocated by cops or
Speaker:Justin: when Israel is doing a genocide in Palestine day after day.
Speaker:Justin: It's important for us to keep our eyes open and watch those things and feel
Speaker:Justin: that pain so that we know what we're fighting for.
Speaker:Justin: But it is also important for us to understand the consequences of what it is
Speaker:Justin: that we want for the world and so that we can have a sober, clear eyed view moving forward.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah, we it's you got to bear witness and you have to you have to gird your loins.
Speaker:Jeremy: I think also don't don't jump into this being like, yeah,
Speaker:Jeremy: I'm going to kill a bunch of imperialists like you need to you've got to get
Speaker:Jeremy: the people on your side first or you're just doing adventurism and they will turn against you.
Speaker:Jeremy: So before any of that happens, please go talk to your neighbors.
Speaker:Jeremy: Please go talk to the people you work with. You need to bring them on side first
Speaker:Jeremy: before any of this will be possible.
Speaker:Jeremy: And also Free Palestine.
Speaker:Evan: Excellent point. And I guess before we depart, I think I mentioned in the beginning
Speaker:Evan: you all have your own podcast, PearlsPod, but I did not or forgot to ask you
Speaker:Evan: to tell people about it, maybe what you are coming up.
Speaker:Evan: You did mention you have an episode coming up on leftist kind of media,
Speaker:Evan: but I'll let you describe it.
Speaker:Justin: Jeremy?
Speaker:Jeremy: Do you know when this episode will go up?
Speaker:Evan: Probably in two-ish weeks, maybe three.
Speaker:Jeremy: Okay. So the newest episode, which will probably go up, but it'll go up a week
Speaker:Jeremy: before, would be we interviewed a Brandon who is currently getting his PhD in,
Speaker:Jeremy: I believe, in history.
Speaker:Jeremy: But he wrote it on sort of his family's relationship to the guerrilla struggles
Speaker:Jeremy: in Guatemala in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
Speaker:Jeremy: And also, you know, not just his family, but others.
Speaker:Jeremy: So that episode focuses on the sort of left-wing guerrilla movements in Guatemala
Speaker:Jeremy: during that period. After that,
Speaker:Jeremy: we're doing a theory episode on Reformer Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg.
Speaker:Jeremy: And then i believe is the the left media sort of um the anti-capitalist media
Speaker:Jeremy: we got two episodes on that one that focuses on science fiction and one that
Speaker:Jeremy: focuses on like quote-unquote real world kind of um conversations about capitalism.
Speaker:Justin: And yeah and in it we kind of discuss more
Speaker:Justin: than we discuss the films or movies or shows themselves it's uh more about like
Speaker:Justin: the strengths and limits of media and like how does that where does that line
Speaker:Justin: draw and how far can it go is it good is it bad at what point is like you know
Speaker:Justin: whatever so that's kind of what we discuss no.
Speaker:Evan: That's a that's the very i'm very interested in that as as someone who is uh
Speaker:Evan: actively doing you know films obviously in TV shows, it's like there's pros
Speaker:Evan: and cons, I guess you could say, of,
Speaker:Evan: as easy as it would be to say, but...
Speaker:Justin: We should have had you on.
Speaker:Evan: That's okay.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yeah, we should have.
Speaker:Evan: But no, but Jeremy and Justin, appreciate you coming on and finally making this
Speaker:Evan: happen and talking about the wind that shakes the Bartlett.
Speaker:Justin: It's a long way from WALL-E, which is what we were originally going to do.
Speaker:Jeremy: That is what we were originally going to do. We talked about this literally
Speaker:Jeremy: a year ago, and then we got busy with the,
Speaker:Jeremy: Stalin series, which nearly killed us.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know how you all did it because...
Speaker:Jeremy: Not well.
Speaker:Evan: We were dying.
Speaker:Justin: Crawling to the finish line.
Speaker:Jeremy: Yes, it was... We were... That's the most tension we've ever had.
Speaker:Jeremy: That's the most stressed I've ever been.
Speaker:Jeremy: Not in my entire life, but as far as related to this podcast,
Speaker:Jeremy: insane amount of research and editing. and oh my god i i don't know how we did it.
Speaker:Evan: But we're.
Speaker:Jeremy: Done we did the damn thing.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah listeners you should definitely go listen to that full series on stalin
Speaker:Evan: eras which i think is it nine episodes ten geez.
Speaker:Jeremy: It so there's the intro the intro which was just by itself and then one two three and four each had.
Speaker:Evan: Two parts.
Speaker:Jeremy: Except three which had which had two which had three parts.
Speaker:Evan: Okay so maybe it's 10 and.
Speaker:Jeremy: Then we had then we had the the conclusions of the controversies episode yeah
Speaker:Jeremy: uh episodes which yeah so there's like i think 11 episodes.
Speaker:Evan: Okay i think or 12 you can all listeners can listeners can strap in over 20
Speaker:Evan: hours listen yeah strap in you know if you're going on a long flight if you're
Speaker:Evan: flying to to china for example and you've got a 16 hours,
Speaker:Evan: you're.
Speaker:Justin: Going to be an expert on the other.
Speaker:Evan: End yeah yeah yeah right exactly you get to the other end and you're going to
Speaker:Evan: be speaking uh speaking russian or yeah.
Speaker:Justin: I believe the saying is a thousand hours and you become an expert i'm i think
Speaker:Justin: we are now stalin experts.
Speaker:Evan: Yes but uh yeah so let's listeners can go check out pearls pod and uh listen
Speaker:Evan: wherever you get your podcast and we will catch you next time bye.
