DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, HOST:
The conversation about what it means to be a man has been getting much, much louder in recent years. I'm talking here about Donald Trump and how he talks about men, debates about male loneliness and, of course, the manosphere of influencers and podcasters shaping young men. So we wanted to explore how movies reflect masculinity because films have been exploring manhood basically as long as there have been movies. You see it in Westerns like John Ford's "The Searchers"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SEARCHERS")
JOHN WAYNE: (As Ethan Edwards) From now on, you stay out of this - all of you. I don't want you with me.
KURTZLEBEN: ...Or the antiheroes in Martin Scorsese films like "Taxi Driver."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TAXI DRIVER")
ROBERT DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) Here is a man who would not take it anymore, a man who stood up against the scum, the dogs, the filth. Here is someone who stood up.
KURTZLEBEN: So we brought in two NPR colleagues who've also been thinking about this, political reporter Elena Moore and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Marc Rivers, who produces our Cineplexity segment. Hey, guys.
MARC RIVERS, BYLINE: Good to be here.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: Oh, my gosh, so honored to be here.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah. All right, so let's define what we're talking about here 'cause we're not just talking about movies about men because...
RIVERS: Right. There are a lot of those.
KURTZLEBEN: ...So many - yeah, so many movies...
RIVERS: Yeah.
KURTZLEBEN: ...Are about men. I mean, it's why we have things like the Bechdel test. What we're talking about here are movies that critique or question what it means to be a man. So, Marc, you are the man here.
RIVERS: That's true.
KURTZLEBEN: So, you know, men first.
RIVERS: I have to represent for the men.
KURTZLEBEN: What movies come to mind for you when I say movies about masculinity?
RIVERS: I mean, forget, like, movies. Talk about whole genres, right?
MOORE: Yeah.
RIVERS: I mean, we mentioned Westerns up top, you know, with their stories of male rivalry and undercurrents of homoeroticism. Sometimes they're on the surface like a movie like "Red River" from Howard Hawks...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "RED RIVER")
JOHN IRELAND: (As Cherry Valance) That's a good-looking gun you were about to use back there. Can I see it? Maybe you'd like to see mine.
RIVERS: ...Or the gangster picture going all the way back to the '30s, you know, with people like James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LITTLE CAESAR")
EDWARD G ROBINSON: (As Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello/"Little Caesar") If you ain't out of town by tomorrow morning, you won't ever leave it except in a pine box.
RIVERS: But two films that I thought of recently, both from 1971, that I feel really speak to this moment - "Carnal Knowledge" by Mike Nichols and "Wake In Fright," this Australian film from Ted Kotcheff. And "Carnal Knowledge" tracks two friends and their romantic entanglements from their college years to their mid-40s - one played by Jack Nicholson, and the other played by Art Garfunkel - that Garfunkel, yes. The other, "Wake In Fright," is about this soft-spoken schoolteacher in the Australian outback who gets roped into this bacchanal of booze, gambling and kangaroo hunting in this rundown mining town the locals call The Yabba.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WAKE IN FRIGHT")
DONALD PLEASENCE: (As Doc Tydon) All the little devils are proud of hell.
GARY BOND: (As John Grant) Do you mean you don't think The Yabba is the greatest little place on Earth?
PLEASENCE: (As Doc Tydon) Could be worse.
BOND: (As John Grant) How?
PLEASENCE: (As Doc Tydon) Supply of beer could run out.
RIVERS: In both of these films, we see that to be a man, living as a man means to constantly be tested on what it means to be a man. And so in "Carnal Knowledge," it's what kind of woman you can get. It's - and how many women can you get with? What kind of job can you get? In "Wake In Fright," it's - how strong are you? How many drinks can you guzzle?
KURTZLEBEN: Right, yeah. Right.
RIVERS: The screenwriter for "Carnal Knowledge" has talked about how his - he pitched his movie as a film about heterosexual men who don't like women.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CARNAL KNOWLEDGE")
ART GARFUNKEL: (As Sandy) You were in love with Gloria.
JACK NICHOLSON: (As Jonathan) I was starting to be in love with her. Then she let me feel her up on the first date, turned me right off.
GARFUNKEL: (As Sandy) You kept going with her, though.
NICHOLSON: (As Jonathan) Well, she let me feel her up.
GARFUNKEL: (As Sandy, laughing).
RIVERS: And you can see the way that these - the two friends talk...
KURTZLEBEN: Oof.
RIVERS: ...That they do not like women. They think of women as objects that kind of project their own fantasies about how their life is supposed to be.
MOORE: Yeah.
RIVERS: So yeah, both of these films, I think, it presents masculinity as a constant performance and a fear of being humiliated by other men.
KURTZLEBEN: That sounds like an obstacle course, kind of. Yeah.
RIVERS: Truly, truly. And it never stops.
KURTZLEBEN: But, OK, wait, wait. Elena, you - I know - your desk is very close to mine. You've reported a lot on young people, especially young men and politics. So what movies reflect some of the themes you've seen in your reporting?
MOORE: Yeah. And I mean, obviously, no group is a monolith. But some of the big themes that I've heard talking with young voters for years now, and especially young men out of the 2024 election - I'll go even more specific - is this feeling of feeling forgotten, this feeling of buying into a system that has not worked for them and this feeling of not meeting expectations that have been set for them.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
MOORE: And I think for many people, in the political sense, that's translated to disaffection. That's translated to distrust in the system. And those are themes that have been reflected in movies forever. But, you know, not going too far back. I think a prime example is David Fincher's 1999 "Fight Club."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIGHT CLUB")
EDWARD NORTON: (As Narrator) But what do you want me to do? You just want me to hit you?
BRAD PITT: (As Tyler Durden) Come on. Do me this one favor.
NORTON: (As Narrator) Why?
PITT: (As Tyler Durden) Why? I don't know why. I don't know. Never been in a fight. You?
NORTON: (As Narrator) No, but that's a good thing.
PITT: (As Tyler Durden) No, it is not. How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in fight?
MOORE: I recently watched it, and I was just struck by how apparent these themes are. If you haven't seen the movie, it's about this character played by Edward Norton, who's obviously flawed and hurting and unwell in many ways. And he befriends this - I don't know how to describe this man that Brad Pitt plays.
RIVERS: Uber man (ph), this...
MOORE: Like, cool - he's...
KURTZLEBEN: Right (ph).
MOORE: ...Overwhelmingly cool.
KURTZLEBEN: Right.
MOORE: The whole movie kind of explores this idea of, like, men realizing they are not alone in that anger and that frustration.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIGHT CLUB")
PITT: (As Tyler Durden) We're the middle children of history, man - no purpose, no place. We have no great war, no Great Depression. Our great war's a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives.
MOORE: I think that larger theme of looking for people who feel that same sense of frustration in a system that hasn't worked for them rung very, very current to me.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
RIVERS: It's a portrait of men who are lost.
KURTZLEBEN: What is central to the biggest movies that we're all discussing here, I think, is self-awareness, right?
RIVERS: Yeah.
KURTZLEBEN: I mean, you have movies like "Taxi Driver." I think a lot about the Claire Denis movie "Beau Travail"...
RIVERS: Sure.
KURTZLEBEN: ..."Moonlight." Those are movies that are exploring manhood.
RIVERS: Yeah.
KURTZLEBEN: Like, they are really delving into it. You have movies like "Fight Club" that are too, but I would argue are maybe a little less self-aware, maybe a little more muddled. And you also have, you know, the war movies and the Westerns that have built up the idea of manhood that we all have in our head.
MOORE: And, like, sexify (ph) it.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
RIVERS: The heroic gunslinger or soldier.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah, yeah.
MOORE: Totally.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah, or like...
MOORE: Or "Top Gun" - put that in there, right?
KURTZLEBEN: Sure.
RIVERS: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah, I mean, which is not exactly what we're talking about today, but I'm curious if this idea of a sort of spectrum of self-awareness here is that - how does that idea hit you guys?
RIVERS: I think about this quote from the writer D.H. Lawrence. It's like, trust the tale and not the teller. Fincher has talked about how he wanted "Fight Club" to be seen as a cautionary tale. But you're watching "Fight Club," and the style of it, the energy of it is clearly so besotted with Brad Pitt.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
RIVERS: He is such a - he's such a compelling spectacle that that is what you come away with. You also have to think about just the differences between the protagonists in "Fight Club" and "Moonlight." You know, on the one hand, you have Edward Norton playing this straight white guy, reasonably successful job, no problems in life, really. And then you have "Moonlight," Barry Jenkins' 2016 film, the character Chiron who's gay and Black, you know, his very existence is under constant threat.
MOORE: Yeah.
RIVERS: But I think sometimes the filmmakers, they can kind of get wrapped up in the bad behavior...
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
MOORE: Yeah.
RIVERS: ...Of the men that they're trying to critique.
KURTZLEBEN: Yes. Yeah.
MOORE: I feel like there's a focus of a movie like "Moonlight," which is literally on challenging what you think a man should be or a young man...
RIVERS: Right, yeah.
MOORE: ...And showing the nuances there and how that can break from an expectation or a societal expectation, rather, or a community expectation.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MOONLIGHT")
NAOMIE HARRIS: (As Paula) But you going to raise my son, though, right? You ever see the way he walk, Juan (ph)?
MAHERSHALA ALI: (As Juan) You watch your d*** mouth.
HARRIS: (As Paula) You going to tell him why the other boys kick his a** all the time?
MOORE: And then there's a movie like "Fight Club," where it's hard not to feel a bit drawn in, even though you know that the flaws are potentially harmful or seen as toxic.
KURTZLEBEN: Are there specific filmmakers or actors that you think are doing a good job of saying something about manhood?
MOORE: I think an example of a man who's doing it in a really striking way, I think is Paul Thomas Anderson, the director.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
MOORE: The most recent film from him is "One Battle After Another."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER")
LEONARDO DICAPRIO: (As Bob) Steve Lockjaw just attacked my home. I lost my daughter. This is Bob Ferguson. You understand? I don't...
MOORE: It's an epic story that really, like, simplified focuses on this conflict between these two men, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn. And, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio's daughter in the film, played by Chase Infiniti, plays such a big role in keeping this story going. And I think it's very hard to watch that movie and not see the importance of people outside of the protagonists in the movie...
RIVERS: Absolutely, absolutely (ph).
KURTZLEBEN: Oh, yeah.
MOORE: ...And also just the importance of having characters, regardless of gender, that are fulsome and how you can explore masculinity and the pitfalls and the nuances of it while also having very fleshed-out women characters, people of color that are not the white cis man characters. And those things can all exist in a film.
KURTZLEBEN: All right, that was NPR's Elena Moore and Marc Rivers. This was great. Thank you both.
RIVERS: Thank you.
MOORE: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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