The Anthony Bourdain thread

Agree, i read the oral history bio recently published, and am now working through the series again. The book confirms your take on the final series, inasmuch as he was not as interested/engaged as he had been

that Quebec episode is my favorite for sure. something about watching him eat so many amazing meats in the freezing cold with cool people.

the Libya ep is so good. it also feels like its where the show really starts grow, exploring that somewhat journalistic niche for him.

the vietnam episode in s4 has always been a highlight for me, looking foward to revisiting

oh and i used to love the Vienna episode because he’s so sure he’ll hate it and he ends up having a lovely time

*final season, i meant, not series

Worst episode: the one with Joe Rogan

I love almost all of the rest of it but haven’t seen all of it yet. The Quebec episode was great, I liked the one in the Philippines a lot cause he obviously had such a personal connection there.

that Berlin episode with that numpt US rockband mate of his was pretty bad, though at least there was a bit of Ellen Alien in there as well to almost redeem it!

one of the production crew, i cant remember if it was an editor or a director, said that they would call “cut to wide” to mark the end of a scene, and that Tony would often invariably say something offhanded because he knew he was done - they used 100% of those, because he always said or did something great.

it was cool reading about how engaged he was with the show, even about what a pain in the ass he could be. as a crew they were very much “all-in” with him, and working towards the same goal because of his enthusiasm for the authentic experiences they were trying to capture. a lot of it kind of sounds like a stressful nightmare as you could well imagine, but the driving underlying determination to get it right really shows on screen remarkably consistently

Yeah the Berlin one a good example of his self-indulgence. Newcombe is entertaining enough, but c'mon, show me Berlin!

I'll have to check out that oral history book, I loved the behind-the-scenes ep in the last season and am eager to know more about how they made the show

it’s great - and a lot of varied feedback about him, not just a “he was a genius” circle jerk

watched road runner last night, and found the last 30 minutes or so completely repugnant. was enjoying the enneagram 7 energy before that tho