Culture Gabfest - Might As Well Jump
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 October 2020
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Dana, Steve, and Julia talk about Kirsten Johnson's new documentary, Dick Johnson is Dead, in which Johnson documents her father's experience with dementia. Then the hosts are joined by LA Times television editor Matt Brennan to discuss Luca Guadagnino's HBO series We Are Who We Are. And finally, Slate's pop critic Jack Hamilton joins the show to talk about Eddie Van Halen and the appeal of screeching guitar solos.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest. |
| 0:12.9 | Might as well Jump Edition. |
| 0:14.5 | It's Wednesday, October 14th, 2020. |
| 0:18.1 | On today's show, in the documentary, Dick Johnson is dead. |
| 0:20.8 | The filmmaker, Kirsten |
| 0:21.9 | Johnson tries to gain emotional and narrative control over the impending loss of her father |
| 0:26.1 | to dementia. She does this by faking his death over and over again on camera. It's streaming |
| 0:30.9 | on Netflix. And then, We Are Who We Are is an HBO limited about an American military base |
| 0:36.2 | in Italy and all the many |
| 0:37.5 | psychosexual dramas contained therein. It's from Luca Guadernino, the director |
| 0:42.0 | of Call Me By Your Name. I think he's best known for that. Matt Brennan, the TV editor |
| 0:45.7 | from the LA Times, will join us for that segment. And finally, Eddie Van Halen, perhaps the |
| 0:50.4 | godliest guitar god of them all has died. We discuss a monumental rock and roll legacy |
| 0:55.2 | with Slate's own Jack Hamilton. Joining me is the deputy managing editor at the LA Times. |
| 1:02.2 | Julia Turner. Hey, Julia. Hey. Hello, hello. And of course, Slate's film critic, Danny Stevens. Hey, Dana. |
| 1:07.8 | Hello, hello. Good to be back. Yeah, I love our subject today. |
| 1:11.1 | Let's begin. |
| 1:14.5 | Kristen Johnson is a documentary filmmaker who lost her mother to Alzheimer's. |
| 1:18.4 | Now her octogenarian father is on the verge of being lost to dementia. |
| 1:22.1 | He is a psychiatrist, a reflective man who's been an abulient, warm-spirited, generous father. |
| 1:27.3 | He's at that extraordinary |
| 1:28.6 | moment, a tipping point, when his faculties are still more or less fully intact. His full personality |
... |
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