WEBVTT
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Before it was a film, it was a script. Welcome
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to a Film By presents a Script By a limited
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series hosted by me Brad Kozo.
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In this series, we'll.
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Explore some of Hollywood's most celebrated screenplays, the scripts that
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define genres, inspire generations, and change the way stories are told.
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Each episode, we're going to break down what makes these
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screenplay so powerful, how the acts flow together, how structure
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and character drives story and theme, and how every page
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earns its place well als. It's like a closer look
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at the writers behind the words, their process, their influences,
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and the journeys that led them to create these iconic works.
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This is a script By. Let's turn the page. Welcome
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to the premiere episode of A Script By. I am
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Brad Kozo, and I am so excited to finally have
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this out there for anyone that would want to hear it.
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I just want to thank anybody that's listening right now,
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and we'll get right to it. For our first episode,
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We're going to dive straight into what many consider one
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of the greatest screenplays ever written. I'm talking about Robert
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Town's master work, the screenplay for nineteen seventy four's Chinatown.
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It's a script that defined an era of filmmaking, a
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story of corruption, deceit, the illusion of control wrapped in
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the sun bleach glamour of old Los Angeles. Today, will
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take a closer look at why these screenplays still studied,
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still quoted, and still regarded. It as a blueprint for
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how to tell a story that feels both timeless and tragic.
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From the first ten pages to its devastating final line,
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will break down and how Chinatown earned its place as
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one of the most celebrated scripts in Hollywood history.
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So to start off.
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Before we get going, I am very pleased to welcome
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to the first episode of a script by my guest,
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Chuck Brian, the host of the Cinematic Flashback. That's right, folks.
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By day, Chuck's a senior software developer, but by night
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he's all about seventy cinema. On his podcast, he and
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his co host revisit the films that defined the decade,
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diving into the stories, the culture impact, and why they
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still resonate. Chuck, Welcome to the show.
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How are you, sir, Brad?
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Thank you so much for inviting me on. I am
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really super psyched to be here tonight. I have to say,
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I I am. I've been looking forward to this conversation
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now ever since Jeff reached out to me and pitched
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the idea. I thought it was great. I love your
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limited series, and I'm really looking forward to hearing what
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you have to do on Chinatown and moving forward.
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Yeah. I mean, this one, I'd have to say, is.
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Not so much the easiest, but the most you can
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kind of talk about why it's considered so great. And
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like when Jeff told me about you know, he's got
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the script and you know, and then about your podcast
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and things like that, I'm like, well, yeah, that's that's
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just like you know, a my doppelganger.
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Perfect.
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You could almost say that seventies movies is my meta.
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Oh it's it's I think if you even though it's
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kind of said the seventies movies, it's about nineteen sixty
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seven to like mid eighty, I mean that that whole
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group of films, you know, that fourteen thirteen years, that
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is just the classics that will always be considered classics.
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Oh yeah, best years of cinema.
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Well, on the cinematic flashback, we are solely keeping in
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between nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy nine, and it's hurting
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a little bit because you're right, there's a couple of
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them that are right on the edge. But I grew
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up in the eighties, so I grew up with the
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you know, in the seventies when I was a child,
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the movies I saw were The Superman, The Star Trek,
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the Star Wars. You know, I did not know about
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films like mash Kelly's Heroes, Clute, all of these films
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that are just real early and they are just magnificent films.
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There's so much fun.
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There's some clever ones, there's some ones that aren't so
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great as well, but you know, overall, Matt, my co host,
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Matt Sardine and I we decided that we would restrict
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ourselves to this one decade period and just explore what
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we can and then just ask each other, honestly, does
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it still grow or has it actually skipped a beat?
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And that's the way in which we render our final
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judgment of thumbs up or thumbs down on it.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I think I was watching one of those,
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like the CNN the movies that they did a couple
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of years ago, and one of the film school professors
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just kind of said it. He goes, you can basically
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teach the seventies films for just like years, just to
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steep you know, for years, he goes, And that's all
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you kind of really need, you know. But yeah, now
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with Chinatown, do you remember when you first saw it,
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what you thought of the film, and then later on what.
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You kind of thought of the script.
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So I can say I can definitely tell you all
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of those because I first saw Chinatown for the first
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time last year in our Season one when we reviewed
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the film. Okay, before that, I mean I I one
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of Chinatown was always one of those films that a
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friend of mine said you should watch, and he told
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me a little He didn't tell me much of the plot,
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but he told me it was about water, water works,
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water department. And in my mind, I kept thinking, Okay,
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it's Jack Nicholson, but I don't know. The water thing
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just never really really sat with me. We want we
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reviewed it last year, and I'm telling you, without necessarily
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spoiling anything for anyone here right at this point, I
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will say that the ending of the movie, my job
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was literally in my lap. I was I just I
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couldn't believe it. How this film ended, and it was
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a satisfying film. Even though it was tragic at the end,
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the whole film was was was satisfying. This past Christmas,
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I had the chance to be with my mom and
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I showed her this film. She had never seen it,
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she'd always wanted to see it as well, and she
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had the exact same reaction. And you know, it's almost
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like I think she actually maybe had bought the film
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before she left and had it shipped from Amazon.
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To her home. Yeah.
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But yeah, And you know, when we're doing our study
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for this, a reviewing for the for the preparing for
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the podcast, I came across that how much that this
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film is is taught. The screenplay is taught. And I
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did not know the name Robert Town. It didn't mean
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anything to me, but now I see his fingerprints all
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over the place. And you got the opportunity, uh recently
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to read the screenplay in preparation for this for tonight,
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and it really brings out a lot in the film.
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I really liked.
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That the the again it's it reads well and there's
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a lot of details that I think Robert Town put
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into the film, are into the screenplay that when you
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read the screenplay and then you watch the film, you
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just start to notice all these small little characteristics are
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a little movements.
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But yeah, it's it was.
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It's pretty amazing.
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Yeah, I remember, I didn't see it until when I
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had this crazy notion that a long time ago, when
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I thought I was going to be a screenwriter, the
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thing to get was Sidfield's screenplay book, and that film
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or a Chinatown and Dog Day Afternoon are mentioned very
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frequently in the you know, like the first couple chapters
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of the book. So the more research it is like, Okay,
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this is supposed to be this other classic like you know,
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the Godfather and stuff. And then I was starting to
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really get into these seventies movies and yeah, like I said,
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after it, my I was shocked.
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But I was also just kind of like did that
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did that happen?
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You know, and almost kind of had to go back
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to make sure it was like did I miss it?
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It was like, no, you didn't miss it. It's just
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very cleverly put there.
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Oh yeah, oh yeah, so many things.
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Well, let's get started with our breakdown. This is a
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script by Robert Town fade In. So Robert Town was
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basically kind of all over everywhere in the seventies, he
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you know, he's even his name wasn't really always on screen.
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He was always doing uncredited working movies like Bonnie and Clyde,
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where he was a creative consultant, Kay and Missus Miller
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the Parallax View basically, like you mentioned before, shaping the
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tone of the entire decade. But the moment that really
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got people talking was his rewrite on that Godfather's scene
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between the Marlon Brando and Paccino. It was it was subtle,
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it was emotional, and it caught the attention of Godfather
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producer Robert Evans, who then invited Town out to dinner
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and they start talking about what are you gonna do next?
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You know?
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And he tells him, I got this idea. I'm sitting
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on nineteen thirties detective story. But wait now, it's not
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about gangsters or shootouts. It's about water, who controls It
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happens when you steal the lifeblood of a city. Evan's
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immediately wants a script. Town tells him, no, it's mine,
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So instead of walking away, Evans does something rare. He
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backs him anyway. He tells Town, you know what, don't
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write with studio once write what only you can.
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And what Town.
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Delivers is a story about murder, corruption, power hiding in
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plain sight under California's son. But he also knew the
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script needed a director, some precise someone could turn elegance
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into something as sentley. And that's when he of course
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thought of Roan Polanski because they had already worked together
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on Roseenbary's Baby. But at that time Polanski had basically
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left Hollywood and disappeared after the brutal man Some murders
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of his wife Sharon Tate in nineteen sixty nine, and
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he didn't want to come back to Los Angeles. But
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I mean he initially said no, He said no, the
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city just carries too much weight. But Evans kept pushing tundon.
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This wasn't just a movie. It was a story about
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Los Angeles itself. You know, you know that Robert Evans
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voice you can always hear about the ru to the beneath,
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the beauty, the lie, the control.
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You know.
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He read the script and then just something clicked, you know,
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he recognized that that underbelly, you know, and that's where
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the fun, you know, the script really comes into focus.
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It's it's basically the collision between Town's perspective, which is
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truth still matters, and Polanski's perspective of you know, truth
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doesn't save anyone. You know, what do you what do
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you think about that kind of like approach to it,
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like two people that see it, one happy, but one like, no,
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that's not the real world.
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Hmmm, well I think you end up with Chinatown.
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Yeah.
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One of the things that really stuck out for me
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for Robert Town was his origin story and how he
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first started off off with Roger Corman. You know, Roger
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Corman gave most of our Hollywood heroes, Yeah, their start.
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It's it's amazing. And the first thing that I remember.
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I have this this book here about by Roger Corman,
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his autobiography called How I Made one hundred movies in
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Hollywood and Never lost a dime exactly, and he was
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talking about Robert Town, and he said, give this man
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enough time and he will write Chinatown or a shampoo.
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But I need him to write faster. He even told uh,
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one of his writers who had she was just coming
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in to work. He said, in that room, the doors closed,
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and in there is Robert Town. He's he's writing for me,
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and he's gonna slip paper underneath the door to you,
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and then you take them as he gives them, and
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then at some point bring him lunch. But whatever you do,
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don't let him out of the room. So Corman leaves
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to go do his his his movie, and Robert looks
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out and says, is he gone yet? And then takes
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a break. So give him enough time and he will
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write Chinatown. And I think that what he was able
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to do with story about water wars and just murder
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and mystery and all the things was pretty incredible.
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Yeah, And I kind of did a little bit of
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a dive with his work for the show, besides just
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Chinatown and watching the last detail and body and Clyde
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and kind of seeing how his it's just a it's
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straight in your face. It's it's not he doesn't show.
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He doesn't as to say that, he doesn't give you
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a metaphor.
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He shows you.
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I'm not I'm not going to give you a metaphor
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about it. I'm showing you that the the horror right there,
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and no apologies and very very brutal, you know, very
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kind of kind of rough.