Four Favorites with Julian Higgins: mythic storytelling, Foxcatcher, Orson Welles and father figures

We’re all Golden Eagles here. Gemma is away on festival assignment, so filling in for her we’ve got Letterboxd senior editor and Weekend Watchlist co-host Mitchell Beaupre! Slim and Mitchell are joined by Julian Higgins, director and co-writer of God’s Country—his neo-Western debut feature which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is hitting theaters September 16 from IFC Films. We also dive deep into Julian’s four favorite films: Rashomon; Chimes at Midnight; The Return and Foxcatcher.

Plus: Julian growing up with college professor cinephile parents; why he’s never seen a single Star Wars movie (hint: those two things are related); why is everyone in Rashomon sweating so much?; Toshiro Mifune is the last 30 seconds of a bag of Skittles; Slim (still) isn’t a Shakespeare person; the relentless pursuit of making a juicy period epic; going “full-on Orson Welles”; Thandiwe Newton having bigger balls than Slim; “We all gotta play by the same rules if this is gonna work”; Julian being afraid of reading reviews from writers he loves; Mitchell watching Foxcatcher in the heart of du Pont country; rich people can get away with anything; ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist; nostalgia for HD DVD and how they made Slim’s dad cry, and Julian’s childhood hero Basil Rathbone.

Credits: This episode was recorded in Los Angeles, Delaware and Pennsylvania, and edited by Slim. Facts by Jack. Booker: Brian Formo. Transcript by Sophie Shin. Art by Samm. Theme: ‘Vampiros Dancoteque’ by Moniker.

Lists and links: The Letterboxd list of films mentioned; The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune by Stuart Goldbraith IV; The Criterion Collection’s HQ page; Julian’s Instagram, Winter Light by James Lee Burke; New Novel, New Wave, New Politics: Fiction and the Representation of History in Postwar France by Lynn A. Higgins—Julian’s mother

Reviews of Rashomon by Esther Rosenfield and DallasFrance, Chimes at Midnight by Alyssa Heflin, God’s Country by Brian Tallerico, The Return by Marcissus