Filmmaker Justin Kurzel is drawn to stories about outlaws and outsiders. Growing up in South Australia and living in Tasmania, he’s seen the fragile nature of small communities and the people who can prompt societal upheaval. Justin talks with Marc about his new and very relevant film The Order and why Justin was compelled to cast Marc as an assassinated radio host. They also talk about Justin’s other films, including one that the Prime Minister of Australia said shouldn’t be made. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: Who is Justin Kurzel and what are his films about?
Hi, Backmarket hier. Die mit der erneuerten Technik, die dich weniger kostet. Wie dieser Laptop. Er kann alles, was ein Laptop so können muss. Schreiben, zocken, streamen, surfen, inkognito surfen. Einfach alles, was ein brandneuer Laptop kann. Aber der hier ist deutlich günstiger als neu. Denn er ist nicht neu. Er ist von Profis auf Herz und Nieren geprüft.
Lock the gate!
All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck nicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. Welcome everybody. Holidays are coming. I hope they're tolerable. I hope they work. I hope they give you a reprieve. Wer weiß, oder? Na, ich musste es nicht so beenden. Schöne Weihnachten, das wollte ich sagen.
Obwohl es nächste Woche ist, werde ich mit Ihnen vorher sprechen. Aber ich komme in den Geist. Wie würde das sein? Ist das, klingt das sinnvoll? Ja, das ist es. Das ist der Ton meiner Weihnachtsgeist. Also, Leute, ich bin in New York. Ich mache eine kleine Kameo-Parte.
in this bruce springsteen motion picture deliver me from nowhere it's a minor part but it's an important part i play a studio engineer and i i think i i can talk to you about this i won't say anything about the film but it's already public information uh you know jeremy allen white is playing bruce springsteen And Jeremy Strong is playing his manager, John Landau.
So I've been here at the power station in New York, where the actual recording sessions that were documenting in the movie took place. And I've never been here. And it's a fairly historical event. A lot of people have recorded here. But, you know, I got here on set. I've got a few lines, but, you know, I'm present in these scenes, you know, and I have sort of these moments with the two Jeromys.
And so I'm working with Jeremy Strong and Paul Walter Hauser is here as well and some other people I know and Jeremy... Alan White. I've talked to Hauser and I've talked to Strong on the podcast, so I feel like I know them a bit. But I've also talked to Bruce Springsteen on the podcast, but he and the actual John Landau are here. They're like here all day. So in between takes, it's really...
an amazing thing okay it's there are moments where no matter how much i i may whine or complain or get you know anxious or neurotic about my life there are moments that i clearly have no choice but to go holy fuck this is kind of amazing i mean in between takes i'm like catching up with bruce the boss
Obviously he remembers talking to me, but he's just there at Video Village, Scott Cooper's directing, but everyone's kind of sitting around. It's a long day and there's a lot of motion and people here and there. I've just taken as many opportunities as possible to be as seemingly casual as I can to engage Springsteen in conversation. It's been a real kick for
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Chapter 2: What role does Marc Maron play in The Order?
It's rough and weird and highly common, obviously. I am trying to spend as much time as possible. And this is a man that I've had problems with on and off over my life, but I love him. My mother's around too, but she doesn't have dementia and she's in Florida. But I gotta go see her too. And I'll try to make time for that in the new year. But it's not as pressing because she still knows me. And...
I don't know if that's a way to prioritize spending time with your elderly parents. But I guess I'm choosing to spend time with the one whose memories are drifting away as opposed to the one who seems to have a pretty good recollection of everything. And hopefully that won't change and I'll get to spend time with her as well. Okay, well, I guess that's my holiday pitch.
Spend time with your parents. They're not going to be around forever. And they may not be around even if they are around forever. So look, I had this conversation with Justin Kerzel, the director I was talking about earlier. The Order is playing in theaters now. And like I said, I would highly recommend almost all of his other movies. There's only two I didn't see.
I didn't see Assassin's Creed or his Macbeth. But I believe I've seen all the other ones. And The Order is disturbing. And the other ones are too. So brace yourselves. And know that you're going to deal with some heavy shit, but it's all done brilliantly on a cinematic level. And he came into my house and I hadn't seen him since we shot the movie. And so this is me talking to Justin Kerzel.
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Weißt du noch, als wir mit unseren Mountainbikes diesen Wahnsinnsberg downhill gebrettert sind, nachdem wir neue Bikes gekauft hatten? Einfach online bezahlt mit der Sparkassencard.
Musik
How are you doing? Good. Yeah? Yeah, yeah. What is the, as I was about to say off the mic there, though, the part that I did in your movie, in The Order, was a small but essential part. It was. I didn't know I would open the movie.
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Chapter 3: How does Justin Kurzel approach storytelling in his films?
How did you hear about me?
Well, I was a I remember being in London and I was doing a film and I was sort of hating it. Yeah. And my family was away from me. It was this film called Assassin's Creed. You hated that movie? I hated the process of making it because we didn't have a script and it was just really challenging and really kind of hard. And my family were away from me. It wasn't that I hated doing the film.
I sort of hated the time because I was feeling quite lonely.
But it was such an out of character movie. Was it a job? No.
Nein, ich wurde wirklich von dem Konzept und der Idee des Spiels enttäuscht. Das war diese Idee, dass das DNA durch uns fliegt. Und die Idee, wer wir sind und warum wir sind. Von unseren Angehörigen. Und Michael Fassbender und ich haben zusammen auf Macbeth gearbeitet. Ja, ja. Also, wir haben... Yeah, we had sort of something there.
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Chapter 4: What themes are explored in The Order?
But I remember walking around Hyde Park and started listening to your podcast. Oh, really? Like this is really early on and that fantastic one you did with Louis. Oh, yeah. And I thought it was just kind of amazing that you were trying to work your shit out through talking on a podcast. And I found it just captivating. Yeah. So I kind of... Ich habe viel von dir gehört. Ja.
Und sobald ich das Skript gelesen habe, habe ich mir über dich gedacht.
Das ist lustig, denn als sie mir die Rolle gefordert haben, sagten sie, er wolle Alan Berg spielen. Und ich dachte mir, wer sonst spielt Alan Berg?
So was Alan Berg someone that was a figure that you were very conscious about?
Yes. I mean, I absolutely knew who he was. I knew the story. At some point in my life I kind of looked into it and what happened. I think it was pre-Internet rabbit hole. But certainly I saw Boghossian's show and then the movie. And I think that probably when that came out, it elevated my... My fascination with Berg. But I knew of him, but I didn't know specifics.
And it turns out, even with the research that you did, there's not a lot there to go on. There's a bit of audio. And then there's just the, you know, who he is. So, but I was always sort of fascinated with the idea of it. You know, just a solitary voice that, you know, lodges in this ideological... Kind of, you know, that becoming a target.
And I thought, well, knock on wood, I thought, well, if I do this, maybe it won't happen in real life. I feel threatened, but I feel scared in general. I don't know how much of it's paranoia and how much of it's real. Obviously I'm not high on the target list as a guy who speaks his mind, but certainly when I go out into the world to do stand-up, I feel it. So I just thought that I had to do it.
I thought it was some sort of... serendipitous thing, beyond coincidence.
There's something interesting you said the other day in that press conference that you kind of, you know, you do your thing and you put it out there and sometimes you don't know where it lands.
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Chapter 5: What does Marc Maron think about the portrayal of violence in films?
Hast du einen solchen Reaktion zu dem, dass die Intention deiner Erscheinung dieses Mannes nicht darin war, ihn mit dieser Gemeinschaft zu erhöhen, die jetzt groß ist?
Well, you know, when I read it, the screenplay and then the book, Silent Brotherhood, it was very stealth-like, all this stuff. It was really sort of sitting in the shadows. And I think even at the time when those kind of heists were happening and they were sort of building this militia for these domestic terrorist attacks, it was all pretty unknown.
Well, yeah, this was like supposedly the minority, the margins, the dark underbelly of what we always knew. But there's an order in every small city now.
I think that's what it is. There's a discussion in the film where Butler, the head of the Aryan Nation, talks to Bob Matthews about just steadying down. You know, and he sort of says, you know, in 10 years time we'll have people in churches and high places, yeah. And it is kind of, that to me is what's quite shocking, is just how kind of visible it is now.
Well, they were very stealth, you know, and this sort of marriage of, you know, religious activism and... You know, conservative politics, whatever that may be, that the right was, you know, slow and steady. It's not it didn't happen overnight. You know, the way it's all come together, you know, and now with this sort of influx of young man's. I do, I do.
I saw a fantastic photo the other day sent by Kevin, who wrote The Silent Brotherhood, sitting in a cinema with Alan's ex-partner, who was watching it for the first time. His ex-wife? Yeah, she was extremely moved. Ja? Ja. I think there was a simpatico with you in that character. There was something there that was just sort of effortless.
I mean, that was what was really interesting about directing you. Your experience and the DNA of you next to this sort of presenter and how much is you and how much is the character and how much to kind of push certain things. That was really interesting. For you? Yeah, it was because... Deine Stimme ist so anerkennbar. Und dann gibt es so etwas. Und dann hat Alan seine eigene Stimme.
Und dann ist es so, ob ich dich zu diesem anderen Charakter drücke, oder ob ich natürlich verabschiede, was von dir kommt. Es war ein interessanter kleiner Tussle.
Ich denke, ideologisch und in Bezug auf unsere... Impulse to to to start shit for the right reasons. You know, I think I shared that with him because this is not a guy that was this was pre talk radio really, you know, in terms of the cultural impact of what talk radio become primarily on the right.
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Chapter 6: How do personal experiences shape a filmmaker's work?
Und es gab etwas darüber, das plötzlich, weißt du, begann zu sprechen, in einer Art bis heute, das für mich unerwartet war.
Was war das, was du mit diesem Film erholt hast? Das seltsame ist, dass der Hauptmann, Hmm. Hmm. But he was a moral arbiter or saw himself as somebody who was acting in a moral way, right?
Yeah, I mean, I'm fascinated by those characters that come into communities and straight away actually almost don't talk, they just sit there and listen. They just sort of sit there and empower and... listen and really create a barbecue for people to kind of stand around and think, I belong to something.
Vulnerable people.
Lost people. Traumatized people. And those that sort of desperately want family. And that was what was fascinating about Snowtown. I mean, it really was like a Western. A guy comes in to a community that's being terrorized by a group of pedophiles, where No one's doing anything about it. And he comes in and he solves the problem.
And then, you know, within the first 10, 15 minutes, you're going, oh, all right, so he's the good guy. And the good guy just happens to be, you know, a serial killer. Oh, yeah. Bad guy. Yeah. And it always fascinated me, that, like how someone can come in and... Das John Bunting-Charakter in Snowtown war ein sehr ungewöhnlicher Serial Killer. Er war sozial, er war kein Hermit.
Die Leute wussten ihn. Er war sehr visibel. Der echte Mann. Ja, der echte Mann. Und ich dachte, mit Bob Matthews gab es etwas sehr Beziehendes über diesen Charakter. Er war, er hat nicht... Well, the interesting thing about like Snowtown is that...
War es, wie du es charakterisiert hast, dass das eine Stadt war, die von Pädophilen getröstet wurde? War es irgendein, ich habe nicht den Sinn der Szene der Stadt, was war es in deiner Meinung, waren es mehr Pädophilen als irgendeine normale Stadt?
Ja, es gab in diesem bestimmten Bereich und auch Menschen innerhalb der Autorität eine Art Korruption, die dort stattgefunden hat. Und niemand hörte zu dieser bestimmten Gemeinschaft. Es war sehr unabhängig. Ich bin eigentlich sehr nah am Bereich geboren, weshalb ich involviert wurde.
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Chapter 7: What are the influences of Australian culture on filmmaking?
Denn einige dieser Menschen waren Kinder. Und nach dem, wurden sie in Kinderheimen eingeführt. Und schreckliche Dinge sind ihnen passiert. Ja. I guess I've been fascinated by this sort of feeling of the exploitation of a community and what are people looking for in terms of that sense of security.
And you think that started around those murders or around your childhood?
Yeah, yeah. I was always surrounded by also men, like really interesting kind of role models. We had some really... sehr starke Rollenmodelle, die in der Gemeinschaft waren, die eher Männer waren. Sie waren sehr positiv, aber man wusste auch, dass es einiges Schlimmes gab. Es war ein sehr interessanter Zeitpunkt.
War es desoliert? Ich habe den Sinn, dass auch in Nitram, in dieser Stadt, Es fühlte sich ein bisschen zerbrochen und verbreitet an. Ich hatte keinen Sinn für den Ort, außer dass es eine gewisse Anzahl an Armut gab und eine niedrigere Klasse Desperation, aber nicht so viel wie in Nitram.
Aber ich habe noch nicht, wie wenn er in dem Film bei der Waffe geht, wie dieser Typ, das ist ein guter Beispiel. Er sah wie ein guter Typ aus.
Ja, well, NITRAM und Snowtown were two very, very different places in Australia. Snowtown was in South Australia and it was in quite a desolate area. A lot of sort of trust homes, very economically poor.
Was that what the projects...
Yeah, so a really interesting area, Elizabeth, where it was filmed, a lot of English migrants. Actually, ACDC came out of that area and Cold Chisel and a lot of really interesting kind of music because you had a lot of people come from Liverpool and so forth. They came from Scotland, right? Yeah, yeah.
ACDC's folks.
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Chapter 8: How does Justin Kurzel's background affect his storytelling?
Jeder war weg.
Also alles war geblieben. Ja, also viele Immigranten gingen dort, um die Straßen zu bauen und die Wasserpfeife aus dem Marienring in die Stadt zu bauen.
Was tat dein Vater?
Er arbeitete auf den Straßen. Er war Taxi-Fahrer, er war auch Mietinspektor, er arbeitete in der Klasse und er schaute nach den anderen sechs Kindern in der Familie. Hatte er sechs Brüder und Schwestern? Ja, er hatte viele Familien, die er nachgefragt hatte. Und deine Mutter war auch da? Nein, meine Mutter war in der Barossa-Wallee. Die beiden haben sich später aufgetreten.
Yeah, so it was a really unusual place, really interesting groups of sort of people, but it was very, very poor. And then sort of over time it became, you know, a very disadvantaged kind of place. Whereas NITRAM, that is set in Tasmania, where actually I live now, on an island down the bottom of Australia.
And it was sort of based on the Port Arthur murders, one of the biggest mass shootings that Australia ever had in 1996 in Nigeria. in Tasmanien, also ein ganz anderer Ort und ein ganz anderer Bereich. In der Klasse? Ja, ja. Tasmanien ist so wie... Tasmanien ist wirklich wunderschön und hat eine unglaubliche Geschichte.
Viele der ersten Konviken aus Australien sind in Tasmanien in Bezug auf Penal-Kolonien und so weiter gegangen. Die Teile von Hobart sind wie in Skotland. Es ist sehr kulturell und sehr wunderschön. Also ganz verschiedene Geschichten in verschiedenen Bereichen. Aber das ist nicht, wo du geboren bist. Ich bin geboren in Snowtown.
How do you get out? I mean, it sounds like your parents were not, he was a middle class guy, working class anyway. Working class, yeah. But things were taken care of, right? You guys did all right. Yeah. You made it by, you had love in the house and whatnot.
Yeah, yeah. No, it was, no, we had a very loving family. We were very sport friendly. orientiert. Und ich denke, mein Bruder und ich, der die Musik in den Filmen macht, Komposer. Alle Filme? Ja. Oh, er ist gut. Ja, ja. Jed und ich. Interessant. Jed und ich haben viel Raum gehabt und wir haben viel Sport gemacht. Und unsere Ziele waren es, Wimbledon zu gewinnen.
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