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185: The Apprentice, Part 1 (with Sami Gold) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-11-02 16:47:58
Edited:
2024-11-03 00:46:35
Imported:
2024-11
Tags:

Videos

  • 185_The_Apprentice_Par... - audiogram.mp4
  • 185_The_Apprentice_Par... - audiogram.mp4

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Content

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence.

Sami Gold, undergraduate political science student at George Washington University and contributor to Liberal Currents, returns to the podcast for a two-part deep dive into the controversial new Donald Trump origin story The Apprentice, which was released weeks before the 2024 election despite half-hearted attempts from the Trump campaign to block the film.

Featuring Sebastian Stan as young Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as his notorious mentor, the political fixer Roy Cohn, The Apprentice exceeded our low expectations. Part one of our discussion is about the film itself: the challenges of depicting Trump cinematically, an evaluation of how Toronto does standing in for Manhattan in the seventies and eighties, and the mixed reaction to the film from within Trump’s inner circle.

Part two of our discussion, on Trumpism in general and the upcoming Presidential election, is exclusively available to Junk Filter patrons.

Follow Sami Gold on Twitter and subscribe to his Substack, Shmulik’s Takes

“Don't Mess With Roy Cohn” by Ken Auletta, for Esquire, December 1978

“How Gotham Gave Us Trump”, by Michael Kruse, for Politico, July/August 2017

“The Apprentice at Cannes: Location Manager Richard Hughes on the Whirlwind Of 50 Locations In 30 Days”, from the Directors Guild of Ontario’s “The Wider Lens”, May 21, 2024

International trailer for The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, 2024)

Files

Comments

Jesper Ohlsson

It really can't be overstated what an incredible job the producers of The Apprentice (the tv show) did, knowing now what we know about both the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of that show (what they kept from coming out), and just the overall, intimate familiarity with Trump we all have as him being one of the dumbest, most incurious and overall infuriating people to be around (completely divorced from any "politics" he might have and just as "a guy to be around"). I remember that time, and how it was a bone-deep feeling that "this guy fucking knows his shit; he's no nonsense, and he's like a serious mover in NY real-estate". ...and yet, the fact that he actually WAS known before that as a collective joke (stupid WWE shit, general hare-brained business ideas not often encounted from people who don't do shovel-loads of cocaine, etc) makes it even more impressive. I guess it was just a lot more difficult to look up and source stuff back then. Hats off to the satanic people who worked on that show; you really went above and beyond on this one. ...I'm completely speculating here, but I wonder if the main reason he didn't get as many of these people from the show as possible on his team later on, is mostly due to how almost singularly capable he is at burning good-will and alienating anyone who ever does him any kind of genuine favor (and for basically no relatable reason). He's really remarkable.

Jesper Ohlsson

I suspect a big part of this movie being a thing is that Sebastian Stan - by all accounts deservedly - got really good feedback for his portrayal in the tv series "Pam & Tommy", which (perhaps also deservedly) felt like a "...who cares about this 90's thing?" I can see a pitch-meeting (or just Sebastian Stan himself convincing himself) that you could do something similarly interesting about a character that "everyone" is profoundly tired of. It's a really tall order, and if I was Sebastian's agent I would just tell him to skip this one. People are uniquely tired of Trump in a way that, even if you could somehow do a "The Master" level of prestigous, carefully observed treatment of Trump, it would still have to contend with ...I dunno, 6-8 years of near everyday high-anxiety freakouts and struggle-sessions? The way to "cover Trump" in any meaningful way would probably be 5-10 years in the future, and then from the perspective of historical and cultural shifts; not as him as some dipshit in a suit where you think you can divine something about "this modern life of ours" by diligently following all his personal history. He's a symbol and a symptom; any particular part of his (frankly not very interesting) personal history isn't going to unlock anything revelatory, in a "wow, this close-reading of his life sufficiently explains the moment we find ourself in". The particular details of Trump's life is completely beside the point. It's the "why is there this massive, collective project where we're all asked to humor one of the dumbest, least curious guys that has ever lived, all the way to the white house? Why this guy, and not any other whiny, entitled cunt that you can find, sitting by himself, at the short end of every bar in the US?" that's the salient part.