When I approached Barry Hummel with the idea of talking about a film he loved that had flown under the radar, I am not even sure if I really had a sense of what I was after. Somehow, Barry was still game.
The vague conceit I had pitched was for Barry to choose a film he loved that had a foundational impact on him, but was a lessor known film. In essence it would be a chance for us to use a personal connection to a somewhat obscure flick and have that as a springboard for a conversation about film and the act of going to the movies.
Towards the end of our chat, Barry mentioned that he is always happy to be a guinea pig for ideas such as these, and he delivers in spades once again. You might remember that I interviewed Barry and his daughter Abigail back on episode #006 of the pod, about their music and beer podcast, Pops On Hops.
Barry and I dive in taking about The Stunt Man, a 1980 film within a film piece that explores concepts of identity, control, and the shifting nature of reality. From there, we discuss what a massive impact that the early years HBO had on the both of us, and what an enormous shift it was in the way we were able to view cinema in our homes.
We wax poetic for the long gone days of arthouse and repertory theaters that curated cinematic masterpieces, arthouse indies, foreign films, and cult classics. While we never say it directly, we both seem to dance around the sad fact that going to the movies these days is a largely soulless experience in hollowed out multiplexes with little to no variety in the available films to see.
As prestige television has taken on much of the cultural import of the smaller films Barry and I loved and miss seeing in the theater, it’s obvious that the days for which we are pining are almost certain to never return. It doesn't not mean that we have stopped making these sorts of films, it just means they can be tough to track down.
As we roll along, Barry shares stories about the arthouse theatre that was near him when he was a young man falling in love with New Hollywood in high school. At the main run theater near his beach community in New Jersey, he saw films like Jaws and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind that might have been blockbusters, but they contained a maturity and ingenuity that was game changing, and they opened up the young mind of Barry Hummel as he cruised in and out of theaters soaking up the American cinema one night at a time.
There is a behind the scenes story of The Little Mermaid, a breakdown of the novel that led to Jaws 2, and how the movies being made today seem to be less reflective of our current culture. Come hang with us and delve into the religion of film and the church of the movie theater.
Enjoy,Matty As promised in our chat, here is Barry’s short film based upon the opening credits sequence to The Stunt Man.
Watch The Stunt Man on YouTube
