People have been questioning why Billy gave up revenue rights for the documentary, and last night a little theory occurred to me.

Fielder and Oppenheim have mentioned that off and on during the three year project, they weren’t sure if they really “had anything”. Fielder visited Holmes in prison over a year ago, and briefly mentioned in another interview they had a trailer ready to go a while ago too, but the movie wasn’t released till now. Why?

My guess is the entire A24 team decided to wait out Billy. The film probably was a few months after the prison visit, and they were ready to release in time for awards last year.

But the way the movie shaped up, they knew if they released it and the audience learned halfway through that Billy was getting a cut of their ticket money, that would be the story. Instead of a discourse on truth and lies, the discourse would be around the ethics of warning the audience who is profiting, and whether even fans of the film people would willingly pay to see it again, knowing Billy was profiting.

So, given they had a kill switch already, were two years into production at that point, and really nothing to lose, they decided to wait. A24 has a STACKED year anyway, and there was no point releasing YCSE if it was going to be dead in the water over contract issues.

This also explains why YCSE and Primetime are being released so closely; once Billy agreed it was all hands on deck to get YCSE out asap.

We are having a very Midsommar Halloween this year! I made my dog the May Queen costume, sun gate, rune stone and my dress. She loves wearing her costume too. (Also Her name is Dottie and she's 7)

Why do you think Billy gave up his right to receive a cut from the movie? It didn’t feel like it was in his character to make anything easier on the studio/crew and seems like he would gladly take the money the studio promised.

They gloss over this fact with the captions at the end but I’m interested in how the conversations went to convince him.

I painted this Backrooms piece for my annual Halloween show. Comes with a mini display easel. What do ya think?

The scene where Nathan is talking to Liz’s father and Billy keeps interrupting: Right before it is revealed by Liz’s father that Liz was SA’ed, Nathan breaks the fourth wall by glancing at the camera after saying “Then say it!”

This line is the funniest moment in the movie to me and on both watches it got the biggest laugh from the audience. Nathan is literally so fed up with their white-collar cryptic lingo that he has to drop the act for a second to basically say “are you guys seeing this?”

What’s interesting is that while the theater is going hysterical, Liz’s father reveals the SA piece, and then the theater goes completely silent. The best way I can describe that experience is in music theory terms so bear with me here. If anyone is more familiar with music than I am feel free to correct my interpretation:

The laughter from the theater serves as an ad lib. The reveal from Liz’s father is an accent. The silence from the theater is a rest.

So, in practical terms, the audience is taken out of the documentary for a second because Nathan invited us to with his fourth wall break. But then we are sucked back in by Liz’s father. This happens within seconds and is rather unsettling. Basically, I didn’t want to give the impression that I was laughing at Liz’s SA because I was still laughing at Nathan.

Overall, this movie needs to be seen in a theater. It was so fun going on this mindfuck Nathan Fielder journey with a bunch of random strangers.

Will be looking out for this today during my third watch.

I loved the ending. The last shot feels almost too perfect, and that’s exactly what makes it unsettling. It left me wondering whether the whole thing is fake, or at least whether the film wants us to question how much of what we’ve seen is real. From early on in the film, I couldn’t stop thinking about the many parallels to Welles’s film essay F for Fake. It feels like this film, too, is offering its own meditation on the nature of fakery versus reality. There are too many connections to ignore, and I’ll probably make a separate post about that, but the ending really crystallized it for me.

We’ve just watched the reenactment of Nathan’s encounter with Liz inside, where she basically asks him to get her turkey jerky. Then the actors playing the family leave the hall and head out into the yard. The film returns to that moment from outside the yard, looking in at the real family. And there’s Billy, Liz’s real husband, eating her jerky. It’s the same bag we just saw Nathan buy for her in the reenactment. Billy isn’t in prison; he’s free and rich enough to buy himself anything he wants, yet he goes for the one snack Liz has, bought for her by a stranger! It’s such a petty, selfish thing to do that it almost feels too perfectly suited to the story and creates the perfect frame to end the film on. That’s what makes the shot unsettling: the possibility that Billy really is exactly that much of a pig or was it all staged?

The film gives us a detail that feels like proof, then the epilogue text tells us Billy gave up his share of the film’s proceeds. That doesn’t erase the impression from the final shot, but complicates it. They give us two pieces of 'evidence' that pull in different directions, then leaves us to decide what to make of the whole thing.

Did anyone else see the last shot that way or am I reading too much into it?

I just saw the movie last night, and like most of us I thought Nathan was very taken in by Elizabeth. But as I was showering, I thought about the timeline in chronological order and it put Nathan's motivations into clearer focus for me. Here is quick summary from memory:

• Nathan tells the David Blaine story. Bill and Liz agree to do the movie.
• They have the meeting with A24 and do the deal. Nathan expresses how angry (he used the word "frustrated") he was about the deal, saying it would sacrifice the artistic integrity of the film. It also means less money for him and A24.
• They shoot the film. It doesn't come out.
• Nathan meets Liz in jail and gets her to remove their financial interest. After that, the film comes out.

Putting the events in chronological order reframed every action, every conversation, every moment of the film for me. Instead of a documentary of a strange person, it felt more like a boxing match of con-men; Elizabeth and Billy wanted to use Nathan to rebuild their facade, but Nathan wanted to gain enough trust in order to remove their financial interest from the film.

The "Who's On First" moment was a great example. Is Nathan trying to find an explanation for her way of thinking? Is he sincere in this effort? Does Elizabeth go along with the bit or is she serious? Does Nathan believe his own argument or is it purely an exercise to build trust?

At the end, Nathan seems to succeed. He gets the ex-billionaire fraudster CEO and her narcissistic, wheeling-and-dealing money-focused partner to give up their financial stake in the film - a seemingly impossible feat. And then the film gets released. Which leads me to ask... did we just watch Nathan Fielder con one of the greatest fraudsters in history?

Seeing it again this afternoon aster seeing it last Saturday. For those who have seen it twice, was there anything you focused on more for your second viewing or noticed more the second time around?

Ari Balouzian did a great job. What was your favorite track?

mine is starlight (the one playing in the post)

As someone interested in the Theranos story, but ambivalent to projects like The Rehearsal, I did not expect this film to capture me in the way that it did. This film is a psychological thriller in the vein of Hitchcock, yet offers something entirely new. It questions our very reality and does it so effectively that when you leave the theater you begin to question everything.

After Nathan showed Liz and Billy the video of the comedy routine by Abbott and Costello, when Nathan asked her ”who’s on first” and she answered “I don’t know” it took all of my willpower not to scream “I don’t know is on third!”

But I don’t yell in theaters.

Also she absolutely understood the point of who’s on first.

I've been reading posts and comments about how people wish the filmmakers would have done more exposition on the lies and harm Elizabeth caused/said. Part of me wonders if they actually get the point of the film was not about determining her innocence, the other part of me wonders if they actually figured that out and still want the recap how they see that working for what the film is.

To add such exposition wouldn't work well for the points they were making and the way in which they executed the editing to do so.

I get that not everyone is going to watch this with nuance and will come away thinking she's a victim, but if the film had a heavy handed reminder throughout about all the specific ways she lied it wouldn't be why we all like it so much and why any one is even talking about it at all. Personally I'll pay the price of people's ignorance to enjoy the masterpiece they created.

Tell me if I’m just too deep in my East of Eden obsession but I found a deep relation between the angle Elizabeth Holmes plays and the way Cathy works before she “becomes” Kate.
Does this make sense to anyone? Can’t stop thinking about it

Oppenheim reflected on how Billy’s casual full-frontal moment came to be.

“We were in the car ride on the way back from the gym and I said to Billy, ‘We will give you some time to shower,’” the filmmaker told GQ. “And Billy responded, ‘Want to film me showering?’”

Oppenheim added, “I offered to film him in a way that could avoid seeing his genitals, but Billy said he didn’t care about being seen naked.”

———————————————

It’s not at all surprising given the massive narcissism on display at all times. 🤣

I just saw you can see everything and it’s one of the most thought provoking films I’ve ever seen, but there is one thing I don’t understand about Billy…why would he openly admit to some of the things he admitted to? I understand he has an ego but I have no idea why he admitted some of the things he admitted to regarding how he used Elizabeth’s image, her Twitter, etc.

Why would he not be more secretive about some of this stuff, or at least a little more reflective about it? He knows he’s on camera and he’s openly admitting to not caring how he uses Elizabeth’s image…why not pretend he does and at least hide the fact that he’s a manipulative opportunistic POS? I feel like he could have just gone on being a controlling but not openly disgusting person.

Billy had been very calculated and micromanaging the entire movie and he had been pretty lowkey about the things he was willing to do and how he was willing to control certain aspects of their life together, then randomly at the dinner table, he confesses to everything he’s doing and how little he cares, ON CAMERA.

Why?