'Saturday Night', Film Critic, James Mottram

0:09Jawad MirWelcome back, everyone, to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams Podcast, the making of stories. I'm your host, Jawad Mir. Today, we're gonna be reviewing the film Saturday Night, directed by Jason Reitman, based on the 90 minutes that led to the f… premier episode of Saturday Night Live. My guest today is James Mottram. He's an author, a critic, who I've had on this podcast many times, and we deep dive into the film, into the direction, into the way of filming, and we kinda agreed on some points and disagreed on others. So without further ado, here is my conversation with James Mottram reviewing Saturday Night. Thank you so much for joining, man. I appreciate it. We're here to talk about, Saturday Night, the film by Ivan Reitman, and, I saw it at TIFF…

0:55James MottramJason Reitman.

0:56Jawad MirJason Reitman, sorry. Of course, thank you for the correction. I saw it at TIFF, but you just saw it recently, but love to hear your initial reaction of what you saw.

1:06James MottramYeah, I kind of, like, the... I hadn't read a lot about it. I knew obviously it was about s… shooting the very first ever episode of, Saturday Night. I call it Saturday Night Live, by the way. Is it not called that in the States? Is it just known as Saturday Night?

1:23Jawad MirNo, it's called Saturday Night Live here, but I think the film is called Saturday Night, correct?

1:28James MottramIt is, and in the, in the film, they refer to this, you know, the show they're putting on for the first time, the first ever episode, purely as Saturday Night, not Saturday Night Live. So I guess that it's never really explained in the film, because I would assume the phrase, the title Saturday Night Live came later. But yeah, that m… or maybe in America they just call it Saturday Night even now, I'm not sure. But I've always…

1:54Jawad MirNo

1:54James Mottram... Known as it as Saturday Night. It was SNL, that's what it's known as.

1:57Jawad MirNo, it's, it's in Canada and US it's called SNL. My only guess is either what you just said that it's true that it was called SNL afterwards, so they wanted to be true to that. Other aspect could be maybe they didn't get permission from the producers of SNL, so they instead of calling it SNL, they just called it Saturday Night just so that to avoid any kind of legal. I don't know. I'm just guessing on that. But yeah, it is called SNL here for as long as I've known it, for at least 30, 35 years.

2:27James MottramYeah. So that's about as much as I knew about the film going into it, that it was just about this first ever episode that they, that they kind of put together. And I'd seen a few posters around, which are quite nicely done, sort of, you know, talking about the chaos that ensues. And I think chaos is a word that really sums up the film for good and bad, because it is an entirely chaotic first episode. John Belushi hasn't signed his contract, for example. They make a big thing about that. There's a lighting rig that falls down at one point, almost squashing Belushi, actually, and his co-star. There's sort of the unions are kind of sitting on their, sitting on their asses not doing anything, you know, not sort of doing the heavy lifting. There's... The whole thing about the fact that it might not even go out, the episode, that they might rerun a, an old Johnny Carson episode, and it's all down to this kind of contract dispute that's happening in the background with Carson.

3:28James MottramSo it's, it's a kind of great backdrop for the film, I think. I don't... My sort of wondering, my concern is obviously SNL is huge in the States, and I guess in Canada too. In the UK l… less so, and I would imagine Europe as well. So I'm curious to see how it will play, you know, i… in Europe. W… will anyone really care? Because SNL is such an American institution. Are people that concerned about it over here? That said, you do have people like, obviously, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd, who are very well known as kind of Hollywood comedy stars of the '80s, who got their start on that very first episode. So I think there will be some recognition factor, you know, outside of, outside of the States. But I think you have to look at it as a kind of great behind the scenes, movie.

4:32James MottramYou know, o… often we get behind the scenes, you know, films within films about filmmaking.

4:37Jawad MirYeah.

4:37James MottramWe don't often get film, films about TV making, or live TV making, let's call it. Although strangely there is, albeit on a very different subject, actually only about three years apart in chronology, but September 5, I don't know if you've caught that yet, but that's about…

4:54Jawad MirI…

4:54James Mottram... Live TV but…

4:55Jawad MirYeah, I was just gonna talk about that. Yeah.

4:56James MottramWe can bring that up in a minute, but that's obviously about a different side of live TV, but connected to the terror attacks in the Munich Olympics in 1972. So it's interesting that those... And that film in the UK at least is coming out on February the 6th, so you know, a week after, Saturday Night. And, you know, both of them capture the kind of absolute chaos, as I mentioned that word earlier, the chaos of live TV. And I think when the film, when Saturday Night starts and you really do... You know, Reitman does convey this, you know, insanity of, you know, kind of the cameras weaving in and out. There's characters kind of moving in and out the studio. There's,.. I… it's almost hard to concentrate, to begin with. I think it does calm down a little bit later on as you begin to discover who the characters are. I mean, it's driven by the producer of the show, Lorne Michaels, and you know, he's quite a young chap who's collected all these, comedic talents, these kind of anarchic comedic talents like Chevy Chase, like Dan Aykroyd, like John Belushi.

6:02James MottramHe's found them all, you know, in various improvisational sort of, on, onstage improv troops in Chicago and so forth, and he's collected them all for this huge NBC show on national TV. W… which is game changing really. So I think it does convey that element, you know, the kind of risks that were happening at that moment. That doesn't make it an easy film always to watch and possibly to enjoy, I think, because it is quite chaotic to watch as well as c… perhaps because it is conveying this chaos, that is happening in the studio. How true all that is, I really would love to know. I mean…... You know, did a lighting rig fall down and almost squash John Belushi, for example? I don't know. Did he, did he, you know, leave the studio in his bee costume and go ice skating, which is what we see at one point in the film? I don't know. But it kind of makes for good, you know, good drama, right?

7:01Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, I honestly didn't, again, TIFF was like, I went into TIFF, as we talked last time about Flow, just knowing about a couple of films that I wanted to watch because I just wanted to go on the fly and just sort of figure out things. And a lot of that happened as I, you know, I, Saturday Night kind of came up in the program like, "Oh, Saturday Night is gonna show." So I got the ticket, I went, and I really, I re… be… maybe because it's the d… the director in me and the producer in me, I really liked the behind the scene chaos because I've never done anything SNL, like in terms of live. But even like a production itself, there's always chaos, like whether it's small, medium, or large. And but to add the live element to it, I thought that was very, you know, well done. Especially for me personally, what really made it engaging was the way the camera kept following from hallways to stairways to outside and this one world that they created.

8:03Jawad MirAnd to me, whether it was accurate or not, it really sucked me in. And even if it stands, even if there was no SNL and it was just like a fiction story, I was really involved in the characters and their struggles and their contracts and ups and downs. So full-fledged... And I think that's might, it, for that purpose, it might work in UK and Europe even if you take the SNL thing out completely because it's a form of entertainment as to what goes on. But now whether people are fascinated by behind the scene or not, I don't know. It is for me because I'm in the behind the scenes world. But, go, again, going to what you were saying, September 5th, which I haven't seen, but I know exactly what it's about, i… it's a similar thing but a completely different tone, right? Something way more serious and dramatic.

8:49James MottramYeah. Yeah, very much so. I mean, but it, but they both convey, I suppose, the high-wire nature of live television and... Although ironically, we don't in Saturday Night, we don't really see how the show itself unfolds because this is a real time, a real time film set in the hour and a half leading up to…

9:16James Mottram... The broadcast of that first episode. So, you know, one would almost have to assume that the actual broadcast, obviously some of it is prerecorded, sketches I think that they've done, but some of it is because they're editing them through, you know, in this hour and a half leading up to it, and then some are gonna be live. But one would assume that it all went swimmingly because we never actually see if anything goes wrong during that actual broadcast of the show. It's all about the chaos leading up to it, and getting on air in the first place, which, you know, obviously as we know, that happened. But I, you know, I liked it as a, as an idea. I mean, what I really liked, I think, was generally speaking the cast. I think some of them I recognize. Well, you'll certainly recognize Willem Dafoe, who plays…

10:00James Mottram... One of the kind of NBC executives who, kind of has the big say so over whether it goes on air or not. But then there were a lot of people I didn't recognize, so much. I mean, took me a while to figure out the British actor Matthew Rhys, who plays…

10:18James Mottram... George Carlin, one of the more volatile comedians, you know, that's, that we see in there. And then who else have we got? I mean, there's, Corey Michael Smith, he plays Chevy Chase. I thought he was great. I thought he really captured Chase's sort of slight smarminess, you could call it. Now an actor I'm not familiar with but who pl… the guy who's, who's cast as Lorne Michaels, Gabriel LaBelle, he was great. I thought, now he, the, he really does live and die by his performance because he is the sort of the guide through this chaos. Who else have we got? I mean, there's Rachel Sennot, who is kind of sort of reasonably well known as kind of Lorne Michaels' kind of, you know, colleague Rosie. Yeah, it's just a bunch of really interesting, performers. Matt Wood as Belushi. Yeah, so again, I don't know how well known some of these people are in the States, but I don't think they're particularly well known over here, but they're all really authentic. I thought it was a really authentic-ly feeling cast, and that was one of the things I really enjoyed.

11:23James MottramYou know, it, that did, you know, as much as the sort of costumes and the sets, you know, had this mid…'70s kind of feel, it was really their performances that kind of grabbed me and m… made me go, "Yeah, I can believe that this is a troupe of young up-and-coming comedians who we know some of them are gonna be super famous in 10 years' time or even less than 10 years' time." But yeah, and I, so I kind of really bought it from that point of view, and that's why I found it an enjoyable enough film because it was, it was really well performed. It was a good ensemble performance or series of performances.

12:01Jawad MirYeah, and J… and d… that's the thing with Jason Reitman. I mean, I, his films like Up in the Air with George Clooney that came out, I'm guessing it must have been now 15, 20 years, and, he did Juno, I think, and s… I think he also did the most recent Ghostbusters, or he produced it.

12:20James MottramYeah.

12:20Jawad MirBut h… he has this ability which I find… Not many directors have, and he has that same ability that Chris Columbus had with films like Mrs. Doubtfire, Home Alone, Spielberg has. He's really able to write the characters really well, and then when the actors who are really good at what they do, they take that and then they take it to another level. And that really works with this film as well. And for me, the most impressive part was... Now, this was the editor in me for looking at it, because whenever it was, like, you know, the countdown, you know, 20 minutes in or whatever the time was, and the way it was, especially towards the end, the last act, the way the time and the way the flow of the film was going, it was very much in accordance to the time that they were showing. And that, I don't know if that... Do you know what I'm saying about what I mean by that in terms of…

13:15James MottramYeah. Kind of. I'm, I'm slightly nitpicky about that time thing because as you said, like, it, the first caption I think we see is 10 o'clock, 10:00 PM, and then it kicks into 10:01, 10:01. And then the film is, I think, about an hour 45 minutes, something like that, and yet it goes from 10:00 PM to 11:30. Now, this is me being really pedantic, but I kind of think the film should have run to 90 minutes to completely convey that 90-minute hysteria, but that's just me being picky, basically.

13:43Jawad MirNo, you're, you're, you're right, and I think that did happen the last part, like the last 10, 15 minutes of the film. But yes, you are right, it should have been, or at least they should have started at 9:45. All they had to do…

13:53James MottramOh, yeah. Exactly. 9:45. What difference would that have made? Yeah

13:56Jawad Mir... W… just flip the time, that's a much easier thing to do, right? So…

13:59James MottramYeah

14:00Jawad Mir... But yeah, no, but…

14:00James MottramBut it is, it is close to being a real time m… movie as much as you can make these things real time, and it did convey that kind of urgency of, oh my God. You know, like there's the funny bit where they've got this pinboard, corkboard with all the little different cards, that are gonna represent all the sketches and songs and all the various bits and pieces that are making up the show, and he ha… he… a… and Lorne Michael still hasn't decided what's going in the show. So it's gonna run to about three hours if they did all of those sketches and, we know that's not gonna happen, of course. So, you kind of get the sense of how absolutely wild the show was then. And, you know, people keep asking him, "What is this show?" And he doesn't really have an answer to that, at least until the end, which we won't reveal, of course. And that's a very, like, nice speech that, Gabrielle has. But, yeah, in a, in a way it sums up the kind of anarchic nature of the show, that no one really knew what it was or what the tone was gonna be, but it was gonna be completely out there.

15:01James MottramAnd of course, it did ultimately launch, an incredible amount of comedians, not just in that initial series, but, you know, repeatedly, the new generations again and again. I mean, it's funny because it, as a, as someone from the UK you often hear about SNL, and of course, you know m… many of the, you know, the famous comedians that came out of it. But you don't often see a lot of it. I mean, we had our own version in the, in the 1980s. There was a Friday Night Live basically with kind of…

15:30Jawad MirOh, was it?

15:31James MottramYeah. With alternative... You know, with comedians that were kind of as influential in their own way as some of the guys that we've just been talking about, who did a lot of, you know, what they called alternative comedy in the '80s in the UK. So they basically ripped off, you know, the you know, the SNL format, and it lasted for a while and, you know, but it never had the lasting impact that SNL did. So yeah, it's... Yeah. It's, it's a, it's... It definitely is a film that captures that, you know, this is the beginning of a generation moment, I think. But yeah, time, with the timing, going back to the timing, yeah, it's hard to do a real time movie, I think. And I think he did a pretty good job. I mean, it's very different to, you mentioned a few of his movies that he's done before. As you said, Juno. He did The Front Runner, if you saw that one, the political drama with Hugh Jackman.

16:30James MottramYeah. The, it's... I feel like it's a really different film for him, in terms of, yes, I suppose you could say, well, he works in the entertainment universe. It's not that, so it's not so far away from Reitman's, you know, world that he understands. But purely as a piece of narrative and the way it was put together, as we were saying, this kind of, you know, the tension of this 90 minutes or a little over 90 minutes, that was... That's hard to pull off. And, I think, I think he did a pretty good job in that sense.

17:03Jawad MirYeah. No. I enjoyed it. I liked it. And I think going back, one of the things you mentioned about Friday Night Live, the one that British humor, a little log… a segue here, British humor that I kind of watched a lot, you must have, you must know this, show, Mind Your Language? And you…

17:24James MottramYeah. That's from the '70s, isn't it?

17:25Jawad MirYeah.

17:25James MottramYeah. I…

17:25Jawad MirThe '70s one. Yeah. Which, I mean, even to the day, like, if you watch some of it, like, it, you know, it has, it's, it's still somewhat timely. But the thing with SNL is it has lau… SNL is like, even, like, I think I've gotten to more into SNL now again after kind of being away from it for a while, now because of the movie. Beca… and the tone of the comedy is so different now than it was back then. Now it's very political natured, right? Like, there's all these political and social and psychological elements. But back then in the '80s it was so different, and it has launched pretty much... Like, even now, like for any comedian, the starting comedian, if he or she gets a bit at Saturday Night Live, it's like a huge achievement. So that's how big of a platform it is. It's like every comedian's dream. But

18:16James MottramYeah. No, it really is. I mean, I don't know now whether it's considered as influential as it was then, but as you say, you still... It's often these days it seems about who's hosting it as well, because they have all these different…... Actors and celebrities hosting it, and that seems to be a massive thing. If you've hosted SNL, then you've kinda made it basically. But yeah, I s… I guess we won't really know about this generation and who's gonna turn out to be, you know, a huge Hollywood star a… until a few years' time. But, yeah, I feel like it wasn't just the Chevy Chases and Dan Aykroyds that got their starting point. I mean, I think was Eddie, was Eddie Murphy on SNL at one point? And then, maybe Jim Carrey as well, although I think that might have been…

19:03Jawad MirYep

19:03James Mottram... In Living Color.

19:03Jawad MirJerry Seinfeld…

19:05James MottramYeah

19:05Jawad Mir... Jim Carrey, for sure, all of them. I'm just,.. I think the Oscar nominations came out today.

19:13James MottramThey have, yeah. I had a quick glance

19:15Jawad Mir... I don't know if Saturday Night got nomin… nominated for anything.

19:19James MottramI didn't, I didn't see that it did, but, our favorite animation Flow did, though.

19:26Jawad MirOf course.

19:28James MottramAlthough if you look by the, I'm looking on the Academy's website, it says the nominees are to be determined for Flow, which I think quite, it's quite strange. So, they haven't decided who yet will potentially get the Oscar. Presumably the dir… the writer-director would, but, outside of that, I'm not sure.

19:49Jawad MirWell, if you go to IMDb, there's only one person who has done every single thing from directing to…

19:53James Mottramhuh

19:53Jawad Mir... Editing to, he's barely any cred. But speaking of the animation features, Flow, Inside Out 2, Wallace & Gromit, Wild Robot, Memoir of a Snail, which I still have to see. But yeah, may… other than

20:07James MottramWell, these are the ones…

20:08Jawad MirI think that…

20:08James Mottram... We were talking about last time we spoke

20:10Jawad Mir... We talked about. Yeah.

20:10James MottramWe pretty much na… named that those five I think would get nominated. I think, you know, they are all front runners in different ways. So it's a, it's a great category this year in terms of animation, in terms of who would win it, because you could pick any of those five and they'd be worthy winners, for sure. So

20:28Jawad MirI think it's gonna be a tight race between Flow and, Memoir of a Snail. I haven't seen it but I've, heard from you and a lot of people. Because Inside 2, the sequel, Disney's Pixar, you know, Wallace & Gromit is something not original e… even though it is a great movie. Wild Robot, it's based on a book, but, you know, with Flow and Memoir of a Snail, I think it's a different type of animation and it's not been done before. And good stories, at least for Flow, and I'm sure Memoir of a Snail, so we'll see.

20:53Jawad MirBut, anything exciting you're watching next?

20:57James MottramThat is a good question. Well, I'm going to see on Monday, again, The Last Showgirl, the Pamela Anderson film, which didn't get…

21:07Jawad MirAll right

21:07James Mottram... She didn't get a nomination, and she was definitely, I suppose, what you'd consider a snub, because she was definitely in the running, I think. Yeah, she's been beaten out by... Well, I'm just looking at the actress. Well, all fairly solid performances. Cynthia Erivo, Karla Sofía Gascón from Emilia Pérez, Mikey Madison, Anora. That's possibly a little, a bit of a surprise, although that film has done very well. Demi Moore, The Substance, I mean, that's, she's gotta be a front runner. And then, I mean, the, probably the big shock is Fernanda Torres from the Walter Salles Brazilian movie, I'm Still Here, and she won the Golden Globe. So that's, which is amazing that she's, you know, for a subtitled movie has got that far, but that's probably edged out poor Pamela. But, yeah, so I think I'm seeing that next week. That's about it for the moment. What about you? Anything exciting on your roster?

22:00Jawad MirI might be going to see Flight Risk, the Mel Gibson film.

22:05James MottramIs that the one with Mark Wal… is that Mark Wahlberg as well?

22:07Jawad MirYeah. And Top…

22:08James MottramI know very little about that film. I haven't seen it or read about it or...

22:12Jawad MirWell, I just saw the trailer and then, and that's pretty much it, and that's all I know. Topher Grace, I think is it. Topher Grace? Yeah, I think Topher Grace is in it. Mark Wahlberg and, Mel Gibson. I mean, Mel Gibson so far to me has had a hu… has 100% track record. It's kind of a different film for him considering what he's done in the past like Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ.

22:34James MottramIs he, is he directing Flight Risk or…

22:36Jawad MirYeah.

22:37James MottramOh, wow. I didn't know that.

22:38Jawad MirYeah.

22:38James MottramWow.

22:38Jawad MirYeah. It's... And I think they shot most of it indoors, like with the LED screens and everything. But

22:45James MottramRight

22:46Jawad Mir... But yeah, looking forward to that. So I might see that this weekend. But, other than that, probably just gonna narrow down the Oscar list with, like, films like The Brutalist, Conclave, The Complete Unknown, and just check them out and

23:00James MottramAre they all out now where you are?

23:03Jawad MirYeah, they should be. They should be. Yeah. I'm, I'm really... I'm actually, I didn't... The Brutalist I didn't know much about until it won the Golden Globe and then I saw the trailer. I'm like, "Oh, this is a great story." You know, I think it's a very timely story. And a Complete Unknown is, you know, James Mangold, and the story is qui… kind of interesting of an underdog and, you know. So we'll see. We'll, we'll see. But looking forward to that. Maybe we can chat about one of those in the near future.

23:28James MottramYeah. I've,.. I mean, I love The Brutalist. I'm a big fan of that. I've seen that, seen that twice because that was in Venice, back in September. So, yeah, you'll enjoy that. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time though. It's three hours and a half, including an intermission. So…

23:43Jawad MirAh

23:44James Mottram... 15-minute intermission, so you know, very old, very old school. But, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't schedule anything else on that day to give yourself time to absorb it. And, yeah, you know, the Timothy Chalamet as Bob Dylan is, you know, very good as well. It's a very nice e… you know, evocation of the era. And Mangold has been nominated for Best Direction on that movie as well, so... Although I kind of think it's a difficult shout, that one, that category, because you've got Sean Baker for Anora, who won the best film in Cannes. Brutalist, Brady Corbet won Best Director in Venice. Then you've got Mangold, as I said. Then you've got Emilia Pérez, which has got the most nominations at the Academy Awards this year with Jacques Audiard. And then The Substance, which, you know, has got its own fans as well. So that's a, it's a good race. It's a good race in that category.

24:38Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, I'm excited. I'm excited. Looking forward to all that. So, let's do that again. And awesome, looking forward to chatting more, and, keep me posted about, all the other fun stuff that you're working on.

24:50James MottramAll right, man. Take care of yourself.

24:51Jawad MirAll right. Take care.

24:51James MottramCheers.

24:52Jawad MirBye-bye. Bye.