"A force for good in the universe.”
This was filmmaker Rian Johnson’s decree on Filmspotting, Chicago’s premier movie talk show of the century. Born as Cinecast in 2005, just months after The Guardian's Ben Hammersley coined the term “podcasting," the weekly audio program has cultivated a global fanbase across 1000-plus episodes. To mark the twentieth anniversary, co-hosts Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen, as well as co-founder and producer Sam Van Hallgren, welcome listeners, filmmakers, and fellow critics to their longtime passion project, realized at last: a film festival called Filmspotting Fest.
The “two-people-in-a-room” concept of podcasting may seem like a solitary endeavor, but community interaction forms the bedrock of Filmspotting. Beyond its film reviews, the show engages listeners with feedback segments, annual NCAA-style Filmspotting Madness tournaments, Filmspotting Family outreach, and much more. But two decades and two co-hosts ago, when Van Hallgren manned the mics with Kempenaar, the founders dreamed of curating an extended fan event like Filmspotting Fest.
Taking place from Friday, February 28 through Sunday, March 2, the festival will feature six titles significant to the podcast’s history, each followed by a conversation with a regular contributor. On Friday at the Music Box Theater is Brick (2005) with its creator, Rian Johnson. On Saturday at the Gene Siskel Film Center are Tangerine (2015) with Alison Willmore of Vulture, New York Magazine, and formerly Filmspotting: Streaming Video Unit (SVU); Pather Panchali (1955) with Dana Stevens of Slate; Take Shelter (2011) with Matt Singer of ScreenCrush and formerly Filmspotting: SVU; and Columbus (2017) with its writer-director, Kogonada. On Sunday, back at the Music Box, is Before Sunrise (1995) with Scott Tobias of The Reveal and Filmspotting affiliate The Next Picture Show.
I joined Kempenaar and Larsen to discuss Filmspotting Fest and the path leading up to it.
Tell me about the conception of Filmspotting Fest. How did you land on a film festival to commemorate the show’s milestone? Were any other ideas considered?
Adam Kempenaar: This was really the only idea, and it’s because it goes back to [when Van Hallgren] and I founded the show. We did have some delusions of grandeur from the beginning, not that we knew we’d be here 20 years later [or] have any kind of audience like this. But the moment we started getting into it—we were turning out shows every week and starting to develop a little bit of a consistent following—we started talking about, before live podcasts were a thing: “Wouldn’t it be fun to just interact with some of our audience?” “What if we did a festival?” “Could we ever get the Music Box or a venue like that to do a festival?” And of course, it was kind of an absurd thought, that first year or two. But it’s just always been in the back of our minds.
We’ve had different milestone commemorations over the years, and they’ve always been live shows, recording[s] of some kind. For our 500th episode, we [listed] the Top 5 films of the Filmspotting era. Our first-ever live show was our 400th episode—that was pretty soon after Josh joined the show—and we tried to do a Top 5 looking back on things we’ve learned from the movies. So we’re always trying to come up with events like that and topics that will help us frame our experience of doing the show, and we realized we’d done enough of these that we didn’t want to just do another show.
If there was a way to actually pull off that dream from 20 years ago of having a fest, and then on top of it, have some of the filmmakers and critics who have been such important parts of the show, that would really make it special. When I brought it up on a call with Josh and Sam initially, my recollection is [that] everybody right away said, “If we could do it…that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Josh Larsen: Around that time, a listener asked us something like, “Have we ever thought about a fest?” So it was kind of in the air, and then we got an email asking about [a fest], so it was our confirmation that this [was] the right thing to do.
Filmspotting Fest is a large-scale event. As you mentioned, you've hosted a lot of individual screenings and shows throughout Chicago—you even hosted your wrap party in L.A. last year—but this is probably the biggest event you guys have hosted. Tell me about the process of organizing the show and securing the guests.
AK: It definitely is the biggest, you're right. We've mainly pulled it off with a little bit of help from a long-time listener, Ashleigh, who volunteered. She said, “I have some experience managing projects like this, and I'm gonna be coming anyway. Do you guys want my assistance?” And we said, “Yes, very much.” We need[ed] someone who [could] help keep all our ducks in a row and make sure that we're crossing off all the tasks on the to-do list. So she's been very helpful.
Right away, the two places we knew we wanted to work with were the Music Box and the Siskel Film Center. Having developed relationships over the years with [Director of Programming] Rebecca Fons at the Siskel and then [Assistant Technical Director and Repertory Programmer] Rebecca Lyons and [General Manager] Ryan Oestreich at the Music Box, those were the first contacts.
You have an idea you think is great. You're really excited about it. But there [are] all those logistical things. Is it going to work with [the venues’] schedules? Does it make sense for them from a business standpoint to do all of those things? Fortunately, [the venues] were both very interested, and we were able to work out something that made use of both spots. So they've been really crucial.
The other part of it was just me reaching out to our friends, the fellow critics that we wanted to involve, and making those calls to a couple of filmmakers that we've been fortunate enough to develop professional and somewhat personal relationships with over the years in Rian Johnson and Kogonada. We hoped the event would still be special and stand on its own as a celebration of Filmspotting and of great cinema…but we also knew it would really put it over the top and make this truly a special 20th-anniversary celebration if we could get [filmmakers] like Rian Johnson and Kogonada to appear and talk about their work after viewing it. I knew that they would both be open to it. For them both to say “yes,” we couldn't be more grateful and excited.
JL: The festival really has fallen nicely into place. There's a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that Adam and Ashley have been taking care of. Ashley's been indispensable. Things don't always come together that quickly for us on this show. We love to rehash and argue and debate what we should do, but the titles came together fairly easily, the critics and the filmmakers were responsive, and [so were] the venues. For something of this scale, it seems like it's fallen into place really nicely.
The festival has an eclectic lineup of films, in terms of both release date and when you discovered them on the show. How did you land on the final lineup?
AK: There certainly weren't any arguments about the titles. We all came with a list, and I think we all started with a similar goal in mind. And it’s the word you said, Anthony: it's “discovery,” and it's thinking about how important that's been to the show over the years. To us, as critics, to be discovering new films and new filmmakers—or filmmakers who are not new, but they're new to us—and finally catching up with some of the films that we have missed. A perfect example would be Satyajit Ray. Of course, you know of Satyajit Ray; you know of his reputation as a critic or even just as a cinephile, always being a little bit embarrassed that if Satyajit Ray ever comes up in conversation, you can’t speak. That’s what those Marathons have always been about.
The first [Marathon] we ever did was on Classic Westerns, and the reason we did that is because…I grew up in a house where my dad watched Westerns all the time. Maybe because of that, I rejected them as a rebellious kid, and I never was that interested in them. And then we started doing the show, and all these listeners [were] writing in with picks and references to Westerns, and Sam and I [didn’t] speak the language. We said, “[We] need to speak this language. We need to have some foundation in Westerns.” We picked eight all-time Westerns that we had never seen before, and [those] started our education. We've now done 50 [Marathons].
So discovery is a key part of [the festival lineup]; we wanted to make sure that we had a cross-section of movies that [included] at least one great Marathon title and some Golden Brick titles. But also, the key thing was thinking about…a timeline or the arc of the show, what tells the story of the show. If you polled 1,000 listeners who've been listening for 15 - 20 years, and you said, “When you think about Filmspotting, what are the titles that come to mind?” I think [they are] titles like Brick, obviously, which we named our Golden Brick Award after. [They are] the titles that people discovered through us, through our discovery. A lot of people were in the same boat we were with Pather Panchali and Satyajit Ray and had their eyes opened to him and his work.
These films are all significant to the show's history, [Take Shelter] being one where I did some bonus content with Dana Stevens to talk about how we processed the ending. [I] didn't think it was anything amazing at the time; I was just telling Dana what my interpretation was. It turn[ed] out to be very helpful for a lot of listeners trying to process that movie. So it's things like that, the titles that people have discovered through us and that they immediately associate with us.
JL: I think that's probably why you see relatively recent films in the lineup, But within that, as you said, Anthony, we do have Pather Panchali, a classic. I like that “eclectic” is the word you use. [The lineup is eclectic] if you look at these other titles, too. So you have a romance with Before Sunrise, a neo-noir with Brick, a psychological thriller with Take Shelter, and then something meditative with Columbus. Post Anora, I now think of Tangerine…[as] almost a screwball comedy. So I like the variety in terms of genres and settings and narratives that the lineup offers as well. It's eclectic in that sense.
Let’s talk about Filmspotting as a whole, looking back on 20 years of the show. One thing I love about Filmspotting is your humility, that you always admit a blind spot and you always make the listeners feel like you're learning alongside them. How do you feel you've grown as film critics, or even just film viewers, over the past two decades?
AK: Really a great question. I'll just speak to the humility part first. It wasn't a deliberate choice in the sense that I think it just came naturally to myself and Sam to be our authentic selves on the show. Being our authentic selves meant not putting on any airs of being these critics in our ivory towers who've seen everything and know everything. [We said,] “Let's make this a community. Let's all be on this journey together.”
The second Top 5 we ever did was [on] blind spots. I think we called it “The Top 5 Movies We’re Most Embarrassed to Admit We've Never Seen.” So, a cumbersome Top 5 title that…[told] our audience right off the bat, “Here [are] five all-timers that many of you listening probably have seen. You're listening to us talk about cinema, and we've never seen these films.” We wanted to be candid about our background and…let the earnestness of our desire to engage with these films in conversation drive our credibility. It was never going to be about how many titles we'd seen. We just implicitly understood that and built the show around that idea.
You asked how we've grown. The Pantheon is one of those things that we started early on because we said, “We love these films.” Like Glengarry Glen Ross; it’s just one of our favorite films. We've got a bunch of others like that: Apocalypse Now, just a crucial, formative film as a cinephile. Doing Top 5 lists…if we didn’t put these movies away and make them ineligible, we’d just keep talking about the same titles. So again, [the Pantheon] was almost about forcing us to discover new titles, too.
Now we've been doing this show for 20 years, and we've seen thousands of films, and we've done 50 Marathons with 300-ish titles. In almost every case, [a film] is on the Marathon list because both of us haven't seen it. So I certainly do think I'm more…what's the movie version of “well read”? I have seen a lot more film. I have considered a lot more film. Just the act of doing the show every week and having to bring some insights into our conversation, making sure that I'm giving Josh something to engage with has made me a much better, a more astute viewer of film. I have more personal experience to draw on, but I also have…all the reps we've developed having all these thousands of hours of conversation together. We've developed some critical muscles that we certainly didn't have when the show started.
JL: The first time I guest co-hosted, [Adam] needed somebody to fill in, and I think I emailed [him] right after that time, “Had a great time. It was really fun. This has already made me be a better critic.” It's just having [film criticism] in conversation rather than just…writing reviews and sending them out to the world. But having that back and forth, I could tell from doing it once, was honing skills. So definitely, that's continued throughout the years.
As far as the Marathons, when I did join the show, that's one of the things I was most excited about. You learn pretty early on that there's always going to be somebody who's seen more movies than you, except for maybe Marya Gates, friend of the show. She may have seen the most. So it is about seeing more, but it's not always about the count. It's also about the conversation and what you can bring to it and receive from it. So I think that's a crucial part.
I come from a print journalism newspaper background, so I felt when I started pretty young, I had to put up the front that I did kind of know everything, because these were the reviews that appeared in print in the paper. They were in the public record. A conversation is something different. It opens up that space Adam’s talking about. [Before] the first [Marathon] we did together, on Robert Bresson, [I could] say, “Well, yeah, sure, I've seen Au hasard Balthazar.” And I talked about that as often as I could because then it looked like I knew Robert Bresson, but I didn’t. So now I got to spend a couple of weeks, a couple of months with five of his other films and think about them in the context of each other and process them in conversation. Across the years, Marathons have remained one of my favorite things to do on the show.
In honor of David Lynch—whose sad passing was announced just last month, and whose work you both love—what David Lynch character would you invite to be a special guest at Filmspotting Fest, and what film would you discuss with them? For example, Dean Stockwell's Ben from Blue Velvet might have some insights on Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind. Or maybe the Lady in the Radiator from Eraserhead could have a great conversation with you about Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.
AK: [Laughing] Oh, it's a great question. I could say I want to talk to the Log Lady [from Twin Peaks] because then I'd be able to dominate the conversation. A woman of few words. There are so many great characters to think about, and maybe this is a little bit of a copout, but as I'm thinking about the influence Lynch had on me and the characters that I love the most, I don't need to talk about film. I need at Filmspotting Fest Agent Dale Cooper, and we’ll spend the entire time talking about coffee and pie. I'm good.
Trees, maybe, too, could come up.
AK: Maybe trees! I am a fan of trees as well. [Laughs]
JL: I'm going to take a safe route as well. It seems like there are a lot of bad options to answer this question [with]. [Laughs]
There sure are!
JL: I’m going to take the older, even wiser version of Cooper and go with Richard Farnsworth’s Alvin from The Straight Story, a Lynch outlier, which I think is just a wonderful movie but certainly doesn't fit alongside his other, more bizarre output. I think the kindness, the softness, the spirituality that you find tucked in the corners of so many of Lynch's other films are embodied by The Straight Story. It's all out front there for you, and that's why I love that it's part of this oeuvre, that [Lynch] just said, “I'm just gonna go all in on that for this one.” And Farnsworth's Alvin, this older guy just riding along on his tractor, making time for the horizon, making time for the people he meets along the way, in an attempt to reconnect with this estranged brother. Sitting down for a chat with him, I’d probably learn a lot.
Select tickets to Filmspotting Fest are still available through the Music Box Theater and the Gene Siskel Film Center. You can listen to Filmspotting episodes on WBEZ Chicago or your preferred podcast app.
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