“How am I not influenced by this?” Daniel Clowes & Ari Aster on THE PLUMBER

[00:00:00]So, we're gonna talk about Peter Weir's The Cable Guy.

[00:00:04]>> Correct.

[00:00:05]>> The Plumber, 1979. It was made for Australian television. In many ways, it's the closest film to some of my comics that I know of. After I saw it, I thought like, how am I not influenced by this yet?

[00:00:20]>> I can't remember how I saw this film. It was at least 15, 20 years ago. I remember like watching it having no idea what it was going to be. And after about 15 minutes, I said out loud, "Where have you been all my life?" Just been waiting waiting to see this film and I didn't know it. It's such a great ambiguous film. You're never quite sure where you stand. Is Max the plumber who comes into this academic couple's house and reres havoc? Is it a class rebellion? Is he justified in doing this pressure?

[00:00:58]Is he a malevolent monster? Hey, >> how did you get in here?

[00:01:04]>> How did you get in?

[00:01:04]>> I called out. The door wasn't locked.

[00:01:07]>> Oh my god, you gave me a fright.

[00:01:09]>> I said I was sorry.

[00:01:10]>> You know, anybody who's had people doing work on their house like that, it's very easy to turn that into a horror film.

[00:01:18]>> I've had a few experiences myself with with malevolent plumbers. So, it's one of those films that you can watch over and over and over and never quite know what exactly it's saying. It's really in the world of like Harold Pinter, the theater of menace.

[00:01:35]>> The comedy of menace. Yeah.

[00:01:36]>> Comedy of menace. Yeah. It's such an astounding script. I mean the fact that you know before that Peter Weir had written um the last wave which is very metaphysical and ponderous and uh certainly not you know snappy dialogue it's very smart but then to do the plumber which feels like uh one of the great screenplays of all time. It's a film I've told people to watch and they go that sounds unwatchable. I can't possibly bear to watch the idea. They're so anxietyprovoking.

[00:02:12]>> Yeah, >> it's such an amazing performance by Ivar Kz.

[00:02:18]>> Worth a fair bit of coin.

[00:02:21]What's it for you to say?

[00:02:22]>> I didn't say.

[00:02:25]>> Fair enough.

[00:02:26]>> Who, as far as I know, only did television in Australia.

[00:02:30]>> He's so unknown. And he's amazing.

[00:02:32]>> Absolutely amazing. I love the ambiguity of the character. like he has a no tax sticker on his back, but he's also got a save the whales pin and he thinks of himself as a folk singer.

[00:02:44]>> I was going okay going all right. I had everything until I blew it.

[00:02:55]>> And it's tonally ambiguous, too.

[00:02:57]>> Totally ambiguous.

[00:02:57]>> It's a comedy, but there's something very sinister going on, but there's a lightness to it that doesn't ever let up either.

[00:03:03]>> Yeah. But it is like a horror film. It's very sinister and you never know where he's going to go and he gets very dark and he's very menacing. His body language is >> the husband's such a buffoon.

[00:03:14]>> Yeah. The husband has no idea he's working on his grant at the college and >> that's where the last wave kind of seeps in as well like you know because he's >> literally the last wave is all you know set in the sewer >> and fear of the other fear of the foreigner and and of course the husband is is researching people in New Guinea I think >> and the wife too. Yeah. And well, you get the idea the that we must have done all this research into Aboriginal cultures. And it's so it feels somewhat selflessating in a way that he's sort of >> personifying his character as as this couple that seems rather clueless to their own social conditions in their country.

[00:03:51]>> Talk about discrimination against the blacks. They're still allowed to flog those signs in hardware shops.

[00:03:57]>> Oh, come on. No one thinks that anymore.

[00:03:59]>> You'd be surprised.

[00:04:01]The dialogue of the plumber is incredible to Max the plumber. He so funny when he tells her about, you know, I have all these music promoters that are interested in me, but >> they want me to go commercial. See, I'm a lyrics man, anger at society, all that. Bob Dylan, you know, >> and I love the music that like every time he arrives, >> the same song kicks in every time, right?

[00:04:24]>> And it becomes so like everything about him is an irritant, you know?

[00:04:28]>> Yes. Well, and it's got that sense of of, you know, they their living room is is sort of a civilized space and he's taking like the literal like out of the bathroom, the pipes and just bringing it into the civilized space and it's like a great metaphor, you know?

[00:04:46]He's really like bringing reality in its sort of visceral way. Problems