BONUS: The Phoenician Scheme (w/ guest Matthew Ellis)

“Normal people want the basic human rights that accompany citizenship in any sovereign nation. I don't… I don't live anywhere; I'm not a citizen at all. I don't need my human rights.”

The Cold War Cinema team is back with special guest Matthew Ellis, a researcher, artist, and cohost of the Pacific Northwest Insurance Corporation Movie Film Podcast, for a special bonus episode covering Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme. Recently released on home video and streaming, the film follows the cunning, reprobate industrialist Zsa-zsa Korda (Bencio Del Toro) as he swindles his way into a massive infrastructure deal in the country of Upper Independent Phoenicia. 

 Join Matthew Ellis and hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as they discuss:

• The Phoenician Scheme’s connections to the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-backed cultural operation from 1950 that weaponized writers, artists, and other thinkers for intelligence operations.

• How Anderson’s film reveals the Cold War origins of the contemporary world in its critiques of capitalism and the neoliberal project. 

• The ways that The Phoenician Scheme breaks Anderson’s hermetically sealed aesthetics and alludes to its formal limitations.

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Each episode features book and film recommendations for further exploration. On this episode: 

• Matthew recommends Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later.

• Paul recommends Matt Zoller Seitz’s The Wes Anderson Collection and Louis Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation.”

• Tony recommends Carpenter’s Gothic by William Gaddis.

• Jason recommends The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World by Vijay Prashad.

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To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. 

For more from your hosts:

• Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. 

• Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas.

• Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com 

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Logo by Jason Christian 

Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). 

Happy listening!