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Michael and Us

PREVIEW - #506 - Merchant Prince

Michael and Us

Luke Savage and Will Sloan

Tv & Film

4.6668 Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2024

⏱️ 4 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Remember. Every day here, you're selling. Every thing you do, every interaction you have, every breath you take needs to be in the service of selling. But it shouldn't look like that. We're not that kind of store. Our customers don't appreciate being sold to. You should feel proud to work here. We discuss THE STORE (1983), by the god of cinéma vérité, Frederick Wiseman. PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/506-merchant-100124429

Transcript

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0:00.0

After 500 episodes, we finally arrive at Frederick Wiseman, the man who may or may not be the most esteemed documentary filmmaker of all time, at least in America.

0:10.4

He's made nearly 50 films since 1967, still active and vital at the age of 94.

0:17.4

But we're in Neiman Marcus for one reason, one reason only, one grand purpose, and that's to make sales.

0:23.0

I certainly found watching the store, which, yeah, a hugely engaging documentary, two hours long.

0:29.4

Certainly the images it's showing you and the spaces it's showing you are unbelievably, I mean, banal, Kafka-esque, but I was not bored for a second.

0:39.8

At no moment did I sort of check to see how much was left or anything.

0:43.8

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I feel like it's not a sort of accountant's truth.

0:49.0

I feel like there is a kind of an editorial line of a kind that emerges here.

0:53.3

So the movie was shot in four weeks during the Christmas holiday of the Neiman Marcus department

0:59.7

store.

1:00.7

And that's the flagship store located in Dallas, Texas.

1:04.3

It is a century-old department store.

1:08.4

For many years, it was family-, and by family owned, I mean,

1:12.6

you know, owned by the Marcus family. Yeah, I mean, I suppose Coke Industries is technically

1:17.6

a family, family-owned business. Yeah, yeah, I was trying to figure out how to say that exactly.

1:24.4

But what if I told you that since September 2021, it's now owned by a group of

1:29.6

investment companies led by Davidson, Kempner Capital Management, Sixth Street Partners, and Pacific

1:35.5

Investment Management. Hell yeah, a vast ecumenical holding company. Yeah, I bet Stanley Marcus

1:41.5

doesn't look so bad anymore, does he? But yeah, it is a chain across the United

1:46.6

States, but this takes place at the flagship store. And Wiseman sort of sets the tone in one of the

1:53.3

opening scenes where there's a managerial meeting. And the meetings of managers take place, you know,

1:59.4

every 10 or 15 minutes throughout this movie and

...

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