Original subtitles

♪♪

Man: Use the Force, Luke.

I stick my neck out for nobody.

Well, darling, look out, 'cause my hair is coming down.

Always do the right thing.

That’s it? That’s it.

I got it. I’m gone.

Suber: There are certain films that people keep going back to,

over and over again.

I'm gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.

Films that were not only popular in their day,

but that continue to be popular.

You talking to me?

And my question is why?

It’s not about what I want.

It’s about what’s fair!

They call me Mister Tibbs.

I’m in love with you.

Snap out of it!

Rosebud.

I’m Howard Suber.

For over five decades,

I’ve taught thousands of aspiring directors,

producers, screenwriters, and scholars

the patterns and principles I’ve found

in America’s most memorable popular films.

Join me as we discover the power of film.

♪♪

Who are you? You.

Who are you?

What are you?

These are the two fundamental questions

that determine how we act,

how we relate to the world we inhabit.

We find the answers

to those questions we ask ourselves in stories.

From his footprint, he looks like a big fella.

And stories are what we go to movies to see.

They pardoned Frank Miller.

We are a storytelling animal,

and it may be one of the things that defines us.

We have desires, fears, hopes,

but we feel the way our long-distant ancestors felt

about the experience of life as a human being.

"The Godfather" is 50 years old,

and yet it seems like a film

that could have come out this year

because the issues "The Godfather" deals with

haven’t changed.

Woman: What are you doing here?

You’re not supposed to be here now.

I’m Michael Corleone. This is my father.

My story...

your story,

all of our life stories...

There’s nobody here. What happened to the guards?

...revolve around feelings.

I’m sorry, but you will have to leave.

Lack of power, loss, triumph, humiliation,

insult, injury, and ultimately death.

Boy: [ Laughs ]

If people still identify with Michael Corleone,

maybe it’s because his world feels like our world.

So, who are you? What are you?

To a large extent, you are a compilation of memories.

Memory is the most powerful thing in human existence.

Sam: ♪ As time goes by... ♪

Sam, I thought I told you never to play.

♪♪

We choose what films we want to remember.

And we choose them because there’s something in those films

that transcends the moment it was released.

There are principles that cause people

to keep them in their heads

and be able to recall them decades later.

I’m here to stop you, One-Eyed Bart! Oh!

But popularity is not enough.

Lots of films make a lot of money

in their initial release.

They can make over a billion dollars.

But most of those films nobody wants to talk about,

let alone look at again a year later.

This whole series

is based around memorable popular American films.

I’m talking about films for which, objectively,

there’s a cultural consensus.

You read me, Hal?

I’m responding to other people’s responses.

And so, if you tell me you don’t like "The Godfather,"

my reaction is I don’t care.

It’s on everybody’s list.

But if I’m talking about memorable films,

I have to be talking about the past.

And history is biased.

During most of the history of American film,

we have had few major characters from non-white races,

non-male heroes, different sexual orientations.

Oliver!

...because they were not allowed

to be on films as strong central characters.

So, I’m going to talk about some films

from the last decade or so,

and hopefully they represent changes long overdue

in the American film industry.

I love you, Margaret. I love you, too.

In the thousands of films that I’ve taught...

I’ll take this.

...I keep seeing certain elements

appearing over and over again

and seeing the relationships of the parts to the whole.

The patterns can be as simple

as scenes of parents tucking their children into bed,

or the patterns can be more complex.

And as I often say,

I’m in the pattern recognition business.

So, let’s go way back, nearly 2,500 years,

to the ancient Greeks, what are generally considered

the greatest dramas in Western history.

Ask yourself, "What do these works have in common?"

Even if you don’t know the works.

"Oedipus Rex," "Antigone," "Medea."

See any pattern?

Let’s jump ahead

to the Elizabethan period’s Shakespeare.

"King Lear," "Macbeth," "Hamlet."

You see any patterns so far?

Let’s jump ahead to what is often called

the greatest American play, "Death of a Salesman."

In contemporary times,

what’s the most popular and memorable play?

"Hamilton." See any pattern?

Well, I’m in the pattern recognition business.

The most memorable popular works going back 2,500 years

are the names of characters,

and the works are essentially character studies.

[ Applause ]

Now let’s turn to movies.

"Citizen Kane."

"Godfather" one and "Godfather II."

"Lawrence of Arabia," "The Graduate,"

"Taxi Driver," "Forrest Gump," etc.

Why do you have so many stories

named after the central character?

Which is to say, the single individual

who bears the title of the work is whose story it is.

Why?

Because my story is the story of me.

I’m at the center of my story.

I’m the hero, if you will --

sometimes the villain -- of my story.

And when we see a story in which a single character

is what the story is about,

we instantly understand.

One of the crucial elements in writing drama is empathy,

being able to project yourself into the other person.

"Psyche" is the Greek term for soul,

and it’s not so much the psyche of the character

that filmmakers focus on.

It’s the psyche of the audience.

Okay, I’ve thrown out a bunch of titles

that span 2,500 years.

What else is a pattern?

Nearly all of those works deal with a family,

and whether it’s a biological family or a surrogate family,

that’s the most important social unit in human society.

That’s one of the things that made

"The Godfather" series unique.

Francis Coppola originally declined to direct the film,

even though he was in dire straits financially,

because he said, "I don’t want to make a gangster film,

especially one about Italian gangsters."

Well, "The Godfather" series is certainly about gangsters.

Aaah! Aaaah!

It’s also, as the title suggests,

it’s about a family.

But what are the psychological elements that define a family?

Loyalty, nurturing, mutual protection and support.

And they share memories, both good and bad.

But inevitably, they also quarrel.

It’s all-out war. We go to the mattresses. Some of the other families won’t sit still for all-out war!

Then they hand me Sollozzo! Your father wouldn’t want to hear this!

This is business, not personal!

Suber: ...and have differences

that threaten to destroy the family.

You're my older brother, and I love you.

But don’t ever take sides

with anyone against the family again.

Ever.

"The Exorcist,"

another gigantically popular film...

[ Snarling, screeching ]

...is a horror film.

Can’t deny that.

Aaaah! Let the enemy have no power over her,

and the son of iniquity be powerless...

...of one of the most powerful horror films ever made,

but it’s equally about a mother trying to rescue her child

who has been kidnapped by a demon.

Amen.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,"

which a lot of people think of as being simply a film

about the oppressed inmates in a mental institution,

but it’s about a surrogate family.

On the one hand, from the standpoint of biology,

nobody’s related to anybody,

but they develop that relationship,

thanks to our hero Jack Nicholson,

in one of many roles like this.

Jesus!

I mean, you guys do nothing but complain

about how you can’t stand it in this place here,

and then you haven’t got the guts just to walk out?

What do you think you are, for Christ’s sake,

crazy or something?

Well, you’re not. You’re not.

You’re no crazier than the average asshole

out walking around on the streets.

And that’s it.

He takes the inmates out on a boat to go fishing.

What are you laughing at, Martini?

You’re not an idiot, huh?

You’re not a God damn looney now, boy.

You’re a fisherman. [ Laughs ]

He frees them from the prison they’re in.

He gives them faith in their own potential --

the greatest gift one human being

can give to another.

They’re gonna be trolling this place

for six months looking for dead bodies.

What else is a pattern?

It isn’t always on the surface and declaring itself,

but deeply embedded in virtually all memorable stories,

let alone films, is the element of loss.

In "Star Wars," Luke Skywalker returns home

to encounter his first great loss.

♪♪

Loss appears almost invariably in memorable stories

because it’s one of the principal experiences

we all have.

It’s a fundamental aspect of being a human being,

and we don’t talk about it a lot,

but we feel it.

Loss is an important element

of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

You hear me, Chiron?

Loss is an important part of "Moonlight."

I hear you, Mama.

Loss is an important part of "Toy Story."

Loss, in fact, is an important part

of virtually all of the Pixar films.

Nemo! Nemo!

No! Please, no!

Suber: In fact, loss is an important part of Disney,

which owns Pixar.

It’s one of the reasons

that studio has been so successful.

"Bambi" -- what is it about,

if not the loss of Bambi’s mother?

We made it, Mother!

Wait.

Mother!

Mother!

That traumatized me when I was 5 years old.

The scar is still not healed.

Mother, where are you?!

Why is loss so omnipresent? Mother!

Because it’s one of the fundamental human feelings.

We’ve all experienced loss.

We all keep on experiencing loss until we are lost.

Ricky!

"Boyz n the Hood" is about being trapped

and how it can lead to a terrible loss.

The protagonist, Tre, played by Cuba Gooding Jr.,

helplessly watches his best friend Ricky,

who dreamed of escaping the hood,

die in his arms.

Some losses are inevitable,

but the most tragic are those that weren’t.

[ Voice breaking ] Ricky.

Help me! Help me! Somebody help me!

What makes us human is how we feel.

What makes us human is how we then act

in response to the way we feel.

Feeling is necessary to action.

And behind feelings,

what are memorable popular films about?

My answer is power.

♪♪

I don’t necessarily mean power over other people.

I mean power in the way it’s used in physics.

Power is the ability to produce change or prevent it.

To produce change or prevent it.

Power is the fulcrum of drama.

He was onto something. Clever boy.

Don’t worry, that’s mine.

If you are somebody who’s unknown

and you have aspirations to become famous,

such as Ally, played by Lady Gaga

in the fourth version of "A Star Is Born,"

at the moment you have

the first inklings of the desire,

you don’t have the power to get it.

There’s a friend of mine who, uh, came a long way to be here,

and she wrote a great song,

and I'd just like to hear her sing it.

I think it’s pretty fucking good.

Suber: That’s what life is about.

"I want...whatever it is."

You have to apply what I call the GOYA principle,

which is get off your ass.

You have to strive. You have to work.

♪ Tell me something, boy ♪

♪ Aren’t you tired tryna fill that void? ♪

It’s not going to come to you

and say, "I give you this power."

It’s not "The Wizard of Oz"

with a fairy godmother who anoints you.

You have to work.

Often, you may desire something,

you may work to get it,

and you don’t.

Why not?

Inertia.

Inertia prevents change.

Well, as we will see eventually...

...for all I care!

...in all stories,

whether it’s a romantic comedy...

What have I done?

Ow!

...whether it’s a film about a serial killer...

I’d like to speak to my lawyer, please.

God damn it!

...the seeking of change

and the preventing of change...

...are what the story is about.

We don’t go to movies just to see the world.

We got to see a just world,

a world in which things work out

the way we wished or desire that they would.

Most film stories begin with the central character

in a position of low power.

And sometimes they end up in a position of high power.

[ Cheers and applause ]

But Charles Foster Kane in "Citizen Kane"

and Michael Corleone in "The Godfather" trilogy

end up with a lot of power,

but we don’t value the characters

as much at the end as we did at the beginning.

Because in movies,

we are not as oriented towards power

the way we are in real life.

Everybody in the world

knows what the American value system is.

What is it that, whether consciously or not,

Americans are trained to value?

Money,

a big, plush, palatial home,

an expensive car,

and for some people, a trophy spouse.

I need them to want to live like me.

You get it? To live like me.

Although you may say those are not your values,

I’m assuming you would agree

that most of your fellow Americans do.

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

Greed is right.

Suber: Many people think "Wall Street"

glorifies cutthroat competition and greed.

In fact, what "Wall Street" is about

is a young guy named Bud

who starts out wanting to be like Gordon Gekko,

but comes to recognize that family and loyalty

are more important than incredible riches,

private jets, and trophy spouses.

Because young Bud's old man

is head of Airline Mechanics Association

and working on behalf of his fellow union members,

and Gordon Gekko is going to buy that aircraft company

and then fire everybody.

He’s using you, kid.

He’s got your prick in his back pocket,

but you’re too blind to see it.

No, what I see is a jealous old machinist

who can’t stand the fact that his son’s become

more successful than he has.

What you see is a guy

who never measured a man’s success

by the size of his wallet!

And young Bud discovers that the values

of all the power that Gordon Gekko has

are not equal to the values

of being devoted to your fellow human being.

You’re under arrest, Mr. Fox.

I challenge you

to name three memorable popular American films

that tell you that wealth and material possessions

are the most important things in life.

And we could talk about a lot of other films

in which somebody acquires real-world power,

becomes fabulously wealthy,

and they do not come to a good end.

I'm finished.

This leads us back into another one of those patterns.

Many of the most popular and memorable stories,

going back to the Greeks,

do not have a happy ending.

Happy endings are obligatory for musicals...

...and for romantic comedies,

which are not the same genre as love stories.

The world’s great love stories more often than not

end in the separation or death of the lovers.

Think of "Romeo and Juliet."

Evelyn, put that gun away! Let the police handle this.

He owns the police.

Suber: "Chinatown."

[ Gunshots ]

The death of the woman who’s loved by the protagonist.

But it’s not just love stories.

The world of film is filled with unhappy endings.

With "All Quiet on the Western Front,"

one of the earliest blockbuster successes,

our protagonist escapes from the war,

but only because he’s dead.

In "Do the Right Thing,"

Mookie, played by director Spike Lee,

witnesses the callous murder of his friend Radio Raheem

by a white policeman.

In response, Mookie leads the neighborhood

into burning down his own employer’s restaurant,

which means he’s out of a job,

so we can’t say the ending is a happy one.

But they have taken a stand against injustice.

In "The Godfather Part III,"

Michael Corleone’s daughter Mary is killed

by an assassin’s bullet intended for him.

Even though he won’t die for several more years,

Michael’s life is essentially over.

So many movies have essentially unhappy endings.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

I hope I haven’t depressed you with all this.

Because that’s not the only thing

that drives us to movies.

There’s another.

It’s what makes the world go round.

It’s the "F" word.

Fun.

We go to movies,

certainly to American movies, to have fun.

Whatever the genre, whatever the plot,

whatever the time period, we sell fun.

Fun is part of the genius of America.

Since our beginning, it’s been one of the things

that other cultures have made fun of us for having,

because we were not a serious people.

We told jokes in the most inappropriate places.

Harold, please.

We have created some of the best villains

in world history.

Now I’m always smiling.

But we do it with a smile. We do it with a wisecrack.

We do it with a gag, which is an American term.

Here’s Johnny! Aah! Aah!

We have always combined humor

with the most serious of subjects.

We get it so we’re not overcome by the tragedy.

We’re laughing, and laughing blocks pain.

All three of the great silent comedians --

Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd --

demonstrate this over and over and over again.

And the audience could say, "Oh, my God. He broke his back."

Well, if that happened, it wouldn’t be a gag.

All comedy is based on pain or potential pain.

The greater the potential for pain,

the greater the opportunity to be funny.

In "The 40 Year Old Virgin,"

Steve Carell’s character gets his hairy chest waxed.

Ohhh! You fucker!

Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That’s just your job.

Suber: No pain or potential pain,

no laughter.

There’s something else I want to mention

that has to do with power.

Not the power of characters, but the power of film.

♪♪

Part of the power of film

is its ability to use scale for dramatic purposes.

You walk in, and there’s an 80-foot screen --

at least in the days when everybody had to go

to a movie theater to see the film --

and the camera gives us a close-up

of this part of somebody’s face.

And it can be filled with love...

I love you.

...or hate

or any emotion you want.

Alright, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.

Suber: Great directors understand

the power of the close-up.

♪♪

They understand that close-ups are so powerful

that you use them frugally.

I’m Angela. Vickers.

I saw you here last spring.

The director George Stevens in "A Place in the Sun"

had these enormous tight close-ups

of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

That’s the first time anybody ever said that.

You keep pretty much to yourself, don’t you?

It’s a love story that -- surprise -- doesn’t end well,

and in scenes where he really wants the audience

to empathize with the character

and to really be involved in their love,

the camera moves in,

and the lighting is so carefully sculpted

that those images could go on a huge billboard,

and people could see it from a half mile away

and instantly recognize who those people were

and say, "I want to see that,"

because some human faces

are really just fascinating in themselves.

This intimacy with another human being

replicates the intimacy

of being an infant at your mother’s breast,

and you’re this far away, and you lose that.

You get it in sex later,

if you keep your eyes open.

But intimacy in love, sex,

in violence is very powerful and memorable.

Lecter: You still wake up sometimes, don’t you?

You wake up in the dark.

You hear the screaming of the lambs.

Suber: Like this exchange in "The Silence of the Lambs." Yes.

And you think if you save poor Catherine,

you could make them stop, don’t you?

You think if Catherine lives,

you won’t wake up in the dark ever again

to that awful screaming of the lambs.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Thank you, Clarice.

Thank you.

One of the most important and often seen

kinds of power is institutional power.

[ Siren wailing ]

If you’re driving down the street or highway,

and you look in your rear-view mirror

and you see the familiar red light,

as in "Thelma & Louise,"

and the cop comes up to you,

and you notice he has a weapon,

but you don’t really expect, at least if you’re white,

that he’s going to use it on you.

You’re more concerned with his badge.

Hello, Officer. Is there a problem?

That tin star is a symbol of where his power comes from.

You want to let me see your license, please?

He’s got other cops and courts and everything else behind him,

and he can lock you up and throw away the key

for a long period of time.

You want to get out of the car?

The institutional power of a cop is really high.

Come with me, please.

But as powerful as institutions are in real life,

we compensate for that power in movies,

most often by making fun of it

or by proving it to be irrelevant.

In the old days of silent comedy,

a lot of the fun consists of making fun

of the symbols of power.

Stuffy guy in a top hat, people who are nothing

if you remove their institutional affiliation.

We don’t really like institutional power,

especially if we don’t have it.

So, to see people who are inflated

with their own institutional power

get their comeuppance is really satisfying.

In "The Shawshank Redemption"...

I believe in two things -- discipline and the Bible.

...the warden clearly has enormous power.

Put your trust in the Lord.

Your ass belongs to me.

Welcome to Shawshank.

But we know from the opening scene at the lineup

that this guy may have the power now,

but he won’t by the end of this film.

Open the door.

Heroes are victimized all the time.

That’s the setup that leads to the hero acting...

Turn that off!

...well, heroically.

[ Knock on door ]

The hero appears to be trapped... I am warning you, Dufresne. Turn that off!

...but he doesn’t allow his victimization to stop him.

He defies that which has bound him,

and he summons the greatest power of all --

willpower,

which is often the only power he or she had.

Saying no, being defiant,

not allowing yourself to be the victim

or to be victimized by what happens to you.

The prisoner wishes to say a word.

[ Crowd shouting ]

In "Braveheart,"

Mel Gibson’s character William Wallace

is tortured to death,

but he has the willpower to utter one last defiant word,

one that will make him a memorable hero to his people.

Freedooooooom!

♪♪

Finally, in our list of powers,

I think it necessary to mention respect.

But I saved this for last

because respect is something that other people bestow on you.

Shortly before the ending of "Schindler’s List,"

after the war ends, Schindler says...

I could have got more out.

I could have got more.

I don't know. If I'd just...

I could have got more.

Oskar, there are 1,100 people who are alive because of you.

Look at them.

And he is rewarded by Itzhak Stern with a gold ring

that is a sign of the respect of the inmates who faced death

if it weren’t for his effort.

The film doesn’t end there.

We see a long line of the descendants

of the Jews that Schindler saved.

And we are at what we realize

is Schindler’s grave in the real world.

And they walk by, and they each put a stone,

because that is a ritual of Jews when they visit the dead

as a sign of respect.

It is the greatest achievement to be respected and remembered.

♪♪

Our greatest fear, I think, is not death.

It’s impotence.

It’s powerlessness.

It’s discovering that we are --

as we will discuss in the next episode --

trapped,

that we don’t have the power to change our world,

and it hurts.

And one of the compensations

that memorable popular films give their audiences

is a great gift,

is the belief that you don’t have to be powerless.

You can change your world and your experience of life.

♪♪

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