Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and Welcome to Movie Crush. Friday Interview Edition,
Speaker 1: Friday Filmmaker Series Edition, Friday Filmmaker Series, Casey Edition, Casey's Back.
Speaker 1: Glad to be back, Welcome. I just shook the table,
Speaker 1: that's how excited I am. Um. Yeah, thanks, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me again. I always look forward to these, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: So to catch everyone up, we did. We started a
Speaker 1: Casey on Kubrick series, which um, by the way, and
Speaker 1: that that has now born many filmmakers series. I I
Speaker 1: noticed I just listened to the first uh Paul Thomas
Speaker 1: Anderson episode. I really really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to the rest of those. Yeah, Adam's great, but it
Speaker 1: was great too. Um yeah, especially that first film that
Speaker 1: still underseen. So I forgured you'd be all over that. So. Um,
Speaker 1: we did several Kubrick movies. We did The Shining, we
Speaker 1: did Pads of Glory, we did Barry Lyndon, we did
Speaker 1: Eyes Wide Shut and Full Metal Jacket and Full Metal five.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's not bad. And then you made the decision
Speaker 1: to do a little switcheroo, just a little detour and
Speaker 1: do a movie of something sort of inspired by Kubrick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was a film that I had not seen,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Glazer's Birth. Yes, I remember this movie coming out.
Speaker 1: I was a huge fan of Sexy Beasts, so I
Speaker 1: don't know why I didn't see this. I didn't see
Speaker 1: Under the Skin yet either. Oh wow, yeah, oh it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's um, he's one of your guys, probably probably use
Speaker 1: best film. So I would really say, I don't know
Speaker 1: between this and Birth, or between Birth and Under the Skin,
Speaker 1: It's it's hard to say. I probably still favorite Birth
Speaker 1: a little bit. But number three Yeah, yeah, that movie.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a great movie. But but I think
Speaker 1: he really takes off with Birth and and uh, under
Speaker 1: the Skin. So I don't know much about this guy.
Speaker 1: What's his deal. He comes from commercials and music videos primarily,
Speaker 1: and he still does a lot of that work today
Speaker 1: because you can see, like Sexy Beast comes out in
Speaker 1: two thousand, Birth two thousand four, and then he doesn't
Speaker 1: make another feature until Under the Skin. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of Kubrick like in that way that he has these
Speaker 1: long stretches of time. And on Wikipedia now there's something
Speaker 1: called like untitled Jonathan Glazer Projects he's he's he's averaging
Speaker 1: about one a decade, um, you know. Um. And I
Speaker 1: think he takes a similar approach to Kubrick in that,
Speaker 1: because he has this other living that he's making off
Speaker 1: of advertising and music videos and so on, he can
Speaker 1: just kind of pick his spots and take as many
Speaker 1: years as he wants to kind of find the right
Speaker 1: story and also do a lot of the kind of
Speaker 1: technical research and refinement that Kuber did as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I did a little bit of research into Birth and
Speaker 1: saw that you know, there were dozens of versions of
Speaker 1: this script, including page one rewrites yeah, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: just like that's tough. Yeah, So you can tell he
Speaker 1: obviously cares a lot about getting it right on the
Speaker 1: page before you ever get committed to shooting something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and Birth was and is a very very polarizing film.
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, I got very famously booed at Venice. Yes.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, if you go on you know these
Speaker 1: aggregate sites, aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes something fifty something, I
Speaker 1: think it. Rotten Tomatoes is like thirty eight or forty.
Speaker 1: Critic is like right down the middle yea. And it's
Speaker 1: and after seeing it, it's sort of no wonder, like
Speaker 1: I can I really liked it, um, but I can
Speaker 1: see how it is not everyone's cup of tea. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's kind of an sird premise played super straight,
Speaker 1: super straight. And so either I think either you accept
Speaker 1: that and you go with it and you find that
Speaker 1: compelling to see. How would these kind of you know,
Speaker 1: educated adults, reasonable people react to this kind of absurd situation,
Speaker 1: um as opposed to I think some people just kind
Speaker 1: of are like, what this is nonsense and kind of
Speaker 1: you know, tune out. Yeah. So just um, some people
Speaker 1: listen to these and haven't seen the movie. Uh so
Speaker 1: to just get everyone, just to sort of the briefest
Speaker 1: of overviews. The premise of the film is that at
Speaker 1: the very beginning of the movie, you just see and
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that shot, but a jogger dies and
Speaker 1: you hear a little bit of voiceover from this jogger,
Speaker 1: and it is it turns out that that is the
Speaker 1: husband of Nicole Kidman. We pick up ten years later
Speaker 1: and a boy, a ten year old boy. Well, you
Speaker 1: see a baby get born, Yeah, you do see a
Speaker 1: baby get born, very key, and that baby grows up.
Speaker 1: Ostensibly that baby grows up to be uh his boy
Speaker 1: named Sean. Her former husband's name was Sean, and Sean
Speaker 1: enters Nicole Kidman's life. She's about to be married, She's
Speaker 1: engaged to Danny Houston's character Love Me Some, Danny always
Speaker 1: terrific and and claims to be her dead husband, and
Speaker 1: then what happens from there is the movie. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: I think you can watch the whole film and kind
Speaker 1: of come away with, you know, different different ideas of
Speaker 1: what really happened, which I think is interesting too. And
Speaker 1: that's probably another reason why you know, people are somewhat
Speaker 1: divided on it. Not that it's necessarily an open ending.
Speaker 1: I feel like the film actually kind of goes maybe
Speaker 1: a little too far out of its way to kind
Speaker 1: of show things stuff. Yeah. But but at the same time,
Speaker 1: that explanation for me is unsatisfying in the whole because
Speaker 1: I feel like there were still things that he knew,
Speaker 1: a sense that he had of who this family was
Speaker 1: and so on, some of the kind of tertiary characters
Speaker 1: that I would be really surprised that he could have
Speaker 1: gleaned all that just from some levels between two lovers.
Speaker 1: So I to me, it stilication Yeah, the implication is
Speaker 1: that he he saw the letters that and hitch buried
Speaker 1: and read them and then kind of you know, internalized
Speaker 1: all that. That's where he got all his intel from.
Speaker 1: Is sort of the implication. Um, But I don't think
Speaker 1: that explains everything. I think. Um. I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of enough of an explanation that it allows everybody in
Speaker 1: the film to kind of process it and move on.
Speaker 1: But I think there's still like some underlying, like supernatural
Speaker 1: kind of mystery there that you know, is sort of
Speaker 1: beyond logic or reason. Yeah, and there's also since you
Speaker 1: bring up supernatural. Part of the problem I think people
Speaker 1: had with this movie is that it's hard to pin down, um. Genre. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: because I've seen it described as a thriller, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: I I think you called it a thriller and I
Speaker 1: was just kind of marketed as such. Yeah, of course. Um,
Speaker 1: I've seen it labeled as a bit of a horror thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not really that. I don't really know. I've seen
Speaker 1: that labeled as a fantasy, but it's so anchored in reality,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And it's hard And I think I
Speaker 1: think that I love the glaziers of the world because
Speaker 1: they don't. Um, he's clearly not in like Kubrick to
Speaker 1: not trying to put something in a tidy little box
Speaker 1: and something that um, he's okay with confounding an audience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that's kind of what happened here. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of credit to has to go
Speaker 1: to one of the screenwriters, Jean Claud Carrier, who worked
Speaker 1: a lot with Louis been Well during his like French period.
Speaker 1: Um boon Well is uh, you know, known as a
Speaker 1: surrealist somebody who was commenting on the real world and
Speaker 1: politics and in a very kind of provocative filmmaker in
Speaker 1: his own way, um, but doing it through this kind
Speaker 1: of surrealist, absurdist kind of situation where you just have
Speaker 1: a lot of times, I mean, his films tend to
Speaker 1: center around like the world of wealthy people and they're
Speaker 1: kind of weird parlor games and you know, personal dramas
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah and uh and so it's always commenting
Speaker 1: on on class quite a bit in his films, and
Speaker 1: um but doing it through this kind of absurd lens.
Speaker 1: And I think this film does something very similar, except
Speaker 1: that I think it has more of an emotional kind
Speaker 1: of resonance. Um, there's more kind of care given to
Speaker 1: the actual kind of feelings up on the screen, and
Speaker 1: the audience kind of I think identifies way more with
Speaker 1: the characters in Birth than the kind of nameless, faceless
Speaker 1: bourgeoisie that you see in like the been Well films. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. Um, I will say that I love the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Iven said that, Yet I was wondering. I know, I
Speaker 1: was kind of like, it's like, man, am I gonna
Speaker 1: go in there having to play defense or what's going on?
Speaker 1: Because it is you know, I just I just went
Speaker 1: into it eyes wide open and um. And just like
Speaker 1: you said, you can sort of need to buy the
Speaker 1: premise and by that it's played straight and not sit
Speaker 1: there and go But what about and I didn't do that,
Speaker 1: just watched it and love it. Yeah. Um yeah. Because
Speaker 1: you know, even though there are numerous similarities to Kubrick's films,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure we'll get into all that. Um, for
Speaker 1: all that, it still doesn't feel necessarily like a Kubrick
Speaker 1: film in all respects. I think again, Um, some of
Speaker 1: the just the the emotional character of it, the performances. Um,
Speaker 1: I think you can get quite emotionally involved in this one,
Speaker 1: whereas I think Kubrick tends to maintain a little bit
Speaker 1: more of an I see kind of distance. That's true,
Speaker 1: although I will say that there was some ice in
Speaker 1: this movie. Um, I think I'm thinking more well, Lauren McCall.
Speaker 1: And then not even the performances, just sort of these
Speaker 1: the the apartment and the apartment building. It all felt
Speaker 1: very Stanley Kubrick with this just very cold marble, um,
Speaker 1: not overly adorned. Um, there's a distance there. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a warm Yeah, no, that's very true. Um, But I
Speaker 1: still think like he he tends to use a few
Speaker 1: more close ups. He tends to kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: I find I find Um, I'm I'm totally with Nicole
Speaker 1: Kidman as I watched this, and I really do feel
Speaker 1: her kind of internal struggle and her kind of knowing.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, rationally there's no way that this
Speaker 1: can be true, but emotionally feeling that it is true
Speaker 1: anyway and wanting it to be true absolutely absolutely, And
Speaker 1: I think ultimately like it is a film about love,
Speaker 1: it's a film about kind of the unknowability of the
Speaker 1: other person in that relationship that is so much based
Speaker 1: on projection on what we think that person is or
Speaker 1: means to somebody. Um. And it's almost like the boy
Speaker 1: sean is like he is that projection of Nicole Kidman's
Speaker 1: feelings about her late husband, whereas the reality, which is
Speaker 1: more represented by the NHGE character, is a little more
Speaker 1: complicated and not so pure and cut and dry. Um,
Speaker 1: but sean On is sort of that the boy is
Speaker 1: sort of that pure, you know, good intentions, never strayed,
Speaker 1: never you know, meant anything wrong, um, kind of kind
Speaker 1: of character. And so it's like and and then when
Speaker 1: it comes later to when the boy has to explain
Speaker 1: how he's not her husband, all he can say is
Speaker 1: something that sounds absurd on its face, which is that, um,
Speaker 1: I'm not your husband because I love you something to
Speaker 1: that effect. Yeah, Because the whole conceit at the end
Speaker 1: is uh and Hay says, reveals that she was a lover, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that they've carried on this like long affair yeah,
Speaker 1: and was his real true love. So if you were Shawn,
Speaker 1: you would have come to seen me, not uh Anna yeah, Anna. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so that's what he says at the end, He said,
Speaker 1: I can't be sewn because I love you yeah, and
Speaker 1: she says that makes no sense, and he says, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that's that's the best I can explain it, because he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to He doesn't want to shatter at that
Speaker 1: love that she has for her husband by revealing what
Speaker 1: happened and so and that's that's sort of what the
Speaker 1: character is planning on doing at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: film when she comes with all those letters in the
Speaker 1: box to the party, to the kind of engagement announcement. Um,
Speaker 1: she I think she wants to sort of free her
Speaker 1: from that that baggage that she's carrying around. That she's
Speaker 1: still kind of carrying a torch. She's still going to
Speaker 1: his grave. It seems like somewhat regularly and still kind
Speaker 1: of you know. The Danny Houston character talks a lot
Speaker 1: about how throughout their relationship he's had to kind of
Speaker 1: deal with this other presence of this this you know,
Speaker 1: this lost love that she still has real affection for
Speaker 1: and yet she she feels the need to move on,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, there's always going to be
Speaker 1: that part of her that kind of belongs to this
Speaker 1: other guy, and um yeah, And it's like kind of
Speaker 1: the big question though about all of us. Yes, and
Speaker 1: and there's there's situations people in my family. And there
Speaker 1: was another one I just read about where oh and
Speaker 1: know it was the big thing that went around the
Speaker 1: internet about the World War two veteran who had the
Speaker 1: French girlfriend starting seen in seventy or they're like seventy
Speaker 1: five years or something and they were reunited. But it's
Speaker 1: that whole thing of and this happened a lot in
Speaker 1: that generation where your husband would go off to war
Speaker 1: and maybe never come back, and you just pick up
Speaker 1: and move on and find someone else. But that is
Speaker 1: a big question of all of us if we believe
Speaker 1: in a destined partner or that there is only one,
Speaker 1: Like how do you move on from Like you find
Speaker 1: that person? That's the hardest thing in the world, Like
Speaker 1: what do you do from there? Yeah? How do you
Speaker 1: move on? Yeah? Exactly how do you move on? I
Speaker 1: mean it gets to the core of like do we
Speaker 1: think there is just one person that is you know,
Speaker 1: destiny to be right for you? Or are relationships more
Speaker 1: of like work and compromise and negotiation and you know
Speaker 1: it's something that you know you don't luck into meeting
Speaker 1: the person that's the exact perfect fit. You kind of
Speaker 1: build that with somebody and um, yeah, it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think there's also, liking a lot of Kubrick films,
Speaker 1: in this film, there's also the dimension of class because
Speaker 1: you see that the Nicole Kidman character, Danny Houston character,
Speaker 1: they they live in this kind of very affluent, old
Speaker 1: money world of New York high society, and Sean the
Speaker 1: boy is clearly from a much more like working class background,
Speaker 1: like his parents are educated, his dad's like a piano
Speaker 1: tutor or something. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but um
Speaker 1: but you know, but his videy has the line though
Speaker 1: at one point he said something like they have money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's literally like the only description he gives. He's like,
Speaker 1: he's like where his people are, but they've got money.
Speaker 1: You did that feel like I'm red herring to you
Speaker 1: the first time, Like they're going to try to cash
Speaker 1: in or something like that might be some value because
Speaker 1: one of the things I loved about the film is
Speaker 1: I had no idea where it was gonna go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of tension in the film because if
Speaker 1: you buy into as an audience, you have no there
Speaker 1: there's no telegraphing. Yes, it's very smartly, like plotted out
Speaker 1: movie to where you really don't see where it's like
Speaker 1: going next, gonna is there a magical element that's gonna
Speaker 1: happen where all of a sudden it's big and she
Speaker 1: says the magic words and he turns into Sean or
Speaker 1: are his parents fleecing him? Or like is he gonna
Speaker 1: kill her? Or yeah, I had no idea where it
Speaker 1: was going. Yeah, Um, so I don't know. To me,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't feel it like a red herring,
Speaker 1: but it is sort of only brought up that one time. Um,
Speaker 1: although you see it a little bit also with an
Speaker 1: Haitian the Peter stormare character that couple. They also seem
Speaker 1: to be slightly less moneyed. And I think it is
Speaker 1: Sean's brother, yes, right, yeah, so she was having an
Speaker 1: affair with her brother's husband yeah yeah, or not her
Speaker 1: brother brother in law. Um, and so I think you
Speaker 1: I think you can kind of see a lot of
Speaker 1: things going on class wise where Um, if you assume
Speaker 1: that the late Sean was kind of similar to his brother,
Speaker 1: he was probably marrying up by being with Nicole Kidman
Speaker 1: because it was her money and she lives with her
Speaker 1: mother the house on Long Island apartment, and something similar
Speaker 1: is going on. I think even a step up that's
Speaker 1: happening from Nicole Kidman to Danny Houston. Because when you
Speaker 1: see Nicole kidmane at work, she's like one of many
Speaker 1: a kind of a conference room table and they kind
Speaker 1: of come in and let her know that her sister had,
Speaker 1: you know, given birth. Um. Then at the end of
Speaker 1: the film, yeah, in the boardroom, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: like he seems like he kind of owns that room,
Speaker 1: you know, he's at the he's alone at a yes,
Speaker 1: and she she goes as far as to kind of
Speaker 1: get down on her knee and like embrace his hand,
Speaker 1: and it's this real like Miakula kind of thing, and
Speaker 1: it does feel like she's also moving up the kind
Speaker 1: of ladder in that way, and it's almost like the
Speaker 1: marriage of her to him. There's a dimension of it's
Speaker 1: not purely based on love. It's also based on security.
Speaker 1: It's based on like this is you know, this is
Speaker 1: going to set me up to have like the rest
Speaker 1: of my life be kind of solid and taken care
Speaker 1: of and provide for, you know, to start a family
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. So, I think there's there's also that
Speaker 1: tension in there. Yes, there isn't a lot of Kubrick too.
Speaker 1: I think there was the original Sean O. G. Shawn
Speaker 1: and we never see we only had that one brief voiceover.
Speaker 1: Was a scientist, Yeah, and he was lecturing at hospitals.
Speaker 1: And so I see why he made him a scientist
Speaker 1: because it sort of fits the fact that, like because
Speaker 1: even says at the very beginning talks about reincarnations, the
Speaker 1: fact that he does not believe that. But I think
Speaker 1: it might have had a little more of impact had
Speaker 1: he been more blue collar even. Yeah, and like her
Speaker 1: true love was a fucking like high school teacher. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. That's true. But I mean he's he's get that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean he's getting like guest lectures. It
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like he was like, you know, like big
Speaker 1: name in the field. Yeah, he wasn't a wealthy guy, probably,
Speaker 1: but very smart. But maybe that was the middle ground
Speaker 1: from like humble kind of beginnings probably. Um. Touching on
Speaker 1: that scene you just talked about though, when she goes
Speaker 1: to him at the end and gets on her knees.
Speaker 1: I thought that scene was so real because she basically
Speaker 1: not basically she flat out says like, you know, what
Speaker 1: was I supposed to do? Like, how could I have
Speaker 1: done anything else? I couldn't send that boy away? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: And then he sits there and again I still didn't
Speaker 1: know what was going to happen, and he considers it
Speaker 1: because she basically is like, can we just move on
Speaker 1: and have our life together? And he goes, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just like, you know what am I going to do?
Speaker 1: Start over now? I guess because he shows a lot
Speaker 1: of range in this movie. Um, as an audience member,
Speaker 1: you feel very bad for him for the longest time,
Speaker 1: and then he fucking loses it. He does Barry Lyndon
Speaker 1: exactly Bullington style. Yeah, like I mean is yanking him
Speaker 1: through the house and spanking him and like assaults him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it turns into a monster. But you also like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but funck man, what are you supposed to do? He was?
Speaker 1: He held it in for so long and then the
Speaker 1: kid was going out of his way to be a
Speaker 1: little ship to him by keeping the back of his chairs.
Speaker 1: So he knew what he was saying. This ten year
Speaker 1: old boy was a threat to his marriage. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting that, Yeah, you do see that that evolution of
Speaker 1: his character where first he's just laughing about it. He's dismissive.
Speaker 1: He um, almost cute. He finds it kind of cute
Speaker 1: and kind of endearing. He's like, oh, this little kid,
Speaker 1: I don't know what is, you know angle is, but
Speaker 1: it's this is pretty funny. This is gonna be a
Speaker 1: good story. And then yeah, solutely but surely he starts
Speaker 1: to have those moments where he's like, this kid could
Speaker 1: really be a threat to this marriage, of this relationship. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Although I will say in that that very first elevator
Speaker 1: scene where he goes and gets the boy and they're
Speaker 1: in the elevator by themselves. Um. For of all, the
Speaker 1: movie does so much with the face acting and in
Speaker 1: his face in that scene. And we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: scene um and the shot of all shots later, but uh,
Speaker 1: even in the elevator, early on, he goes from like
Speaker 1: amusement two, I saw a glimmer of like this is
Speaker 1: going to be a problem for me, Like this kid
Speaker 1: is a threat to me because I think the kid
Speaker 1: has such a seriousness and he's so grounded and he's
Speaker 1: not he's not needy at all. He's not looking for
Speaker 1: anybody's approval. Um, even when he's kind of confronted with,
Speaker 1: you know, evidence that maybe he's not who he says
Speaker 1: he is. You know, his response is always something along
Speaker 1: the lines of like, I don't care and it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter and it's not going to change a thing about
Speaker 1: you know how I feel. Well. When they asked him
Speaker 1: to not see her anymore, he goes, I can't. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And they asked him like five times, and every time
Speaker 1: he goes, no, I can't. He he does not budge,
Speaker 1: And I think that obviously, Nicole Kivin's character finds that
Speaker 1: very moving, very and dear, and she's like, there really
Speaker 1: is something there, Like this kid is not bending at all,
Speaker 1: and he seems maybe he's mistaken, but he really does
Speaker 1: seem to believe this, And that's I think initially what
Speaker 1: really compels her about the kid. Yeah, I can see
Speaker 1: how an audience would hate this, I think, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I just didn't just taking it. Yeah again, at face value,
Speaker 1: it's like this is such a such an absurd story about.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I think that's what makes it so
Speaker 1: moving in a lot of ways is that, you know,
Speaker 1: I think relationships love itself is very irrational, you know,
Speaker 1: I Mean, that's what It is kind of beautiful about
Speaker 1: it is that it doesn't add up and it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily make sense. And if you were to look at
Speaker 1: a situation from the outside with that kind of purely
Speaker 1: rational perspective, you could say, why is that person with
Speaker 1: that person? It makes no sense. You know, you should
Speaker 1: be with this other person. They're a way better fit.
Speaker 1: You know, the families are similar or whatever the thing
Speaker 1: may be. But uh, yeah, it is is this kind
Speaker 1: of like unknown factor that we cannot necessarily account for,
Speaker 1: that is like the thing that draws us as somebody
Speaker 1: else so so powerfully. Yeah, there's so much that um
Speaker 1: Glazer withholds from the audience. That is a real um.
Speaker 1: I think as a filmmaker that's sort of the hardest
Speaker 1: thing to resist is to give too much and explain
Speaker 1: too much. And he withholds so much, not only in
Speaker 1: terms of um, just like who are these people? Like
Speaker 1: it really and you don't know un till an hour
Speaker 1: plus in who and hey she even is Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the whole beginning or stormareor I was like, well, who
Speaker 1: are these people? Why is she having? Why does she
Speaker 1: want to go to this party? Why is she bearing
Speaker 1: this gift? But um. Also withholding emotionally like um, it
Speaker 1: would have been a real knee jerk reaction as a director,
Speaker 1: I think to make Nicole Kidman's character this sort of
Speaker 1: hippie dippie like, well, of course she believes in reincarnation
Speaker 1: and like she was the opposite of her scientists husband,
Speaker 1: so she's buying right into this. It really you don't
Speaker 1: know where she stands, because I don't think she knows
Speaker 1: where she stands. Yeah, she's she's openly conflicted about it. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so much of a richer thing though, yea than I
Speaker 1: think what most films might have thought considered doing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of um is kind of pretentious. But
Speaker 1: guard philosopher who his whole attitude towards like Christianity was
Speaker 1: that the whole story is kind of absurd on its face,
Speaker 1: the resurrection and so on. But he's like, I believe
Speaker 1: because it is absurd, Like that's why there's faith, rather
Speaker 1: than just you know, looking at the facts and the
Speaker 1: evidence and being like, okay, I'm on board. Like the
Speaker 1: whole point is that it is difficult to believe and
Speaker 1: it's hard to accept with your rational mind, and yet
Speaker 1: that is why it's such a powerful thing for people
Speaker 1: who possess that kind of belief. So um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's important that she, on the one hand, can
Speaker 1: very easily talk about how this is like an impossibility
Speaker 1: and yet here it is. You know. It's that it's
Speaker 1: that contradiction, that paradox love is kind of overcome all
Speaker 1: all all rationality. It definitely, Um. I mean, Nicole Kimman
Speaker 1: was an ey sweatshut, Arliss Howard was Rafterman. So there
Speaker 1: were a couple of It was for some reason I
Speaker 1: was thinking Danny Houston might have been in a Kubrick film,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't look but I don't think so. But
Speaker 1: but he's definitely has that kind of energy somehow. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And right off the bat, I mean, I mean we
Speaker 1: can talk a little bit about just some of the
Speaker 1: filmmaking aspects and the framing and how it relates to
Speaker 1: Kubrick and that opening shot right out of the gate,
Speaker 1: beautiful of Sean Um sort of a faceless Sean. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You only see him from the back, you never see
Speaker 1: his face, which I think he's also an interesting choice
Speaker 1: dark hoodie. Yeah, um, running with that perfectly centered frame,
Speaker 1: running through the snow, yeah, central part maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit of a shining shout as well. And um that
Speaker 1: that score, you know, he there's Wagner just all throughout
Speaker 1: this thing. Although it's yeah, the um, I think that
Speaker 1: opening scene is is original sports Alexander Spla right, he
Speaker 1: wrote the score. Yeah, he's he's That's That's another aspect
Speaker 1: to talk about this film, like the number of collaborators
Speaker 1: that he has. They're all like, you know, yeah, masters
Speaker 1: of their own field, especially displah Um, Harris Vitas, cinematographer. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you know that the Cassidy assembled, the screenwriter, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, um. And she's great, she's she
Speaker 1: has that kind of it wasn't like a cameo or no,
Speaker 1: and us that gravitas. Yeah, she just brings like such
Speaker 1: weight to the role of the kind of matriarch, you know,
Speaker 1: the one who's kind of running the whole family. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you I mean, if you can cast Lauren bacalled,
Speaker 1: why not by by all means, or if you can
Speaker 1: get these I mean, when when you're hearing the score,
Speaker 1: like I love me a good movie soundtrack, but when
Speaker 1: you hear a score like this in a film like this,
Speaker 1: I was thinking last night. In fact, they even typed,
Speaker 1: why would you do anything else? Yeah, yeah, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you can do that, yeah exactly, like get a true
Speaker 1: symphonic like masterpiece. I know, it's like why would you
Speaker 1: do anything else? And it adds It adds such an
Speaker 1: energy to the film. I think there's so many moments
Speaker 1: where visually he's just kind of sitting on a close
Speaker 1: up or he's doing one of his slow kind of
Speaker 1: pushings Dolly ins, Dolly back. Um. But the the energy
Speaker 1: from that kind of pulsing score um just really propels
Speaker 1: the emotion and keeps keeps it moving. Um, even when
Speaker 1: visually it can be a little static. That just kind
Speaker 1: of I think it gives the movie just the right
Speaker 1: amount of lifting and kind of movement that it needs. Um.
Speaker 1: And it gives the sense that you know that there's
Speaker 1: a lot more happening beneath the surface because there's all
Speaker 1: this kind of base that it's like pulsing and um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just gives like the the idea of like we're
Speaker 1: seeing the tip of the iceberg, but there's so much
Speaker 1: more buried underneath. Yeah. And but the score as well,
Speaker 1: doesn't um, it could have gone a little more dire sounding.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, and sort of tipped toward horror very easily.
Speaker 1: But it didn't only only at the end, I think
Speaker 1: on the beach, does he kind of allow it to
Speaker 1: become this kind of like tragic thing. Um yeah, But
Speaker 1: the rest of the time, it's not really commenting on
Speaker 1: the action so much as it is just like this
Speaker 1: propulsive kind of engine that that keeps us kind of
Speaker 1: um yeah, locked into what's happening. Well, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the shot. Yes, Um, they go, um, they find they
Speaker 1: figure out who Sean's dad is. They go to see
Speaker 1: him in the building. He's in the building tutoring someone.
Speaker 1: He basically they have this great hallway scene where you know,
Speaker 1: they say you can't be doing this and they leave
Speaker 1: their leaving to go out for the night too. I
Speaker 1: guess the opera. You know, you don't see the stage
Speaker 1: and you see him collapse in the hallway. Yeah, after
Speaker 1: he's said no, no, no, I'm not guarantee that I'm
Speaker 1: not going to see her again. I will not leave
Speaker 1: her alone, allows like he collapsed when he died in
Speaker 1: the jogging um. And Nicole Kidman sees this just sort
Speaker 1: of as she's leaving and then The next shot you
Speaker 1: see is this just is them entering the opera house,
Speaker 1: and it follows them down the aisles, down the aisles
Speaker 1: until they get to their row, across the row and
Speaker 1: the cameras just going in and in and in, and
Speaker 1: it meets them in their seats on her face and
Speaker 1: holds there for like three minutes. Yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: seems like an hour. Yeah, it really does. And it's
Speaker 1: a remarkable shot. Because remarkable you're you're not seeing, you're
Speaker 1: hearing the music, the Wagner music that's obviously intense and
Speaker 1: beautiful and emotional, and yeah, all you see is Nicole
Speaker 1: Kibbin's face and and you watch just over the course
Speaker 1: of three minutes, you kind of watch her have all
Speaker 1: these questions in her mind, all the emotions, yeah, happening
Speaker 1: kind of simultaneously, and just like the the subtle way
Speaker 1: that her like she she moves the corners of her
Speaker 1: mouth or you know, her eyes widened or closed, or
Speaker 1: there's even like it's so it's so subtle you don't
Speaker 1: even see like a tear roll down her face, which
Speaker 1: she does in a few other scenes. Yeah, her eyes
Speaker 1: are wet and you can see that. And when she
Speaker 1: kind of moves her eyes in one direction. You can
Speaker 1: see in the corner there is a tear that just
Speaker 1: hasn't started to fall yet and the red Yeah, the
Speaker 1: redness as she had been crying perhaps, Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's that that one part where she's so locked in
Speaker 1: on her ownself and Danny Houston leans in and it
Speaker 1: startles her and she jumps. Yeah, it's so good, and
Speaker 1: it's like it's a big jump, but it's also a
Speaker 1: small jump. You register it because you're so in on
Speaker 1: everything she's doing, and yeah, you do. You do feel again,
Speaker 1: you feel that conflict that she's having this like private
Speaker 1: internal kind of like emotional whirlwind that's happening, and she's
Speaker 1: so locked in on that that when he whispers to her,
Speaker 1: it just makes her jump and it also kind of
Speaker 1: takes her out of that moment. And yeah, but you
Speaker 1: can see that again. It's that conflict that she has
Speaker 1: this new relationship, but the old one still has such
Speaker 1: a pull on her that even something is absurd as
Speaker 1: this ten year old boy saying that he is, you know,
Speaker 1: her her lost you know husband um is enough to
Speaker 1: kind of draw her in and think, like the wishful
Speaker 1: thinking is so powerful and she wants to see it.
Speaker 1: She wants to believe it even though it is Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is not hyperbolic. That is one of
Speaker 1: the most astounding shots and bits of acting I've ever seen. Well,
Speaker 1: it's like the old saying, and I fore you who
Speaker 1: said it first, But you know, the the greatest special
Speaker 1: effect in cinema is a close up of the human face. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like gets back to the yeah, like Joan of
Speaker 1: Arc or whatever, like the just just there's nothing more
Speaker 1: compelling to look at than a human efface that that is,
Speaker 1: that is emoting, that is feeling something, that's thinking. When
Speaker 1: when you have that caliber of an actor that can
Speaker 1: portray thought and and just you know, yeah word listen
Speaker 1: and you can sit on it for minutes and minutes
Speaker 1: and it's compelling. And he sat on it for an
Speaker 1: absurd length of time, like on purpose, like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it required that, I think for that weight to really
Speaker 1: the effect to work. Yeah, for for you to see
Speaker 1: her go through that entire And it's interesting too because
Speaker 1: if you think, if you think about the the alternates,
Speaker 1: you know, um, a lesser film, maybe you know, she
Speaker 1: paces in a room or something and she and she
Speaker 1: she vocalizes these things to herself. You know, we have
Speaker 1: those kind of bad scenes of characters thinking out loud
Speaker 1: it can't be true. But what if it is? You know,
Speaker 1: all that stuff like you don't you don't need it,
Speaker 1: You wouldn't accept it as a viewer nearly as easily
Speaker 1: as you accept something that is unspoken and more purely
Speaker 1: like emotional and visual. Um. It just allows us to
Speaker 1: to kind of take that leap with her and um
Speaker 1: and sort of believe the impossible. Yeah. I bet there
Speaker 1: are some acting teachers who queue that up. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: on the on the day that they work on, um,
Speaker 1: wordless face acting, yes, Like what else would you use?
Speaker 1: I mean there are plenty great examples. But boy, Nicole Kiman, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean she's so underrated still I think, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is just a master class. The whole full performances man
Speaker 1: so great. Um. So I'm still on the edge of
Speaker 1: my seat at this point because i still have no
Speaker 1: idea how it's going to resolve. And that's sort of
Speaker 1: the the thing that's hanging out there, Like the gun
Speaker 1: that you see an act one that you know it's
Speaker 1: going to go. But the gun is this kid, and
Speaker 1: it's just so tense because it didn't feel like supernatural
Speaker 1: and it didn't feel like there would be magic at
Speaker 1: the end where he does a Josh Baskin. Um. So
Speaker 1: it's just it's such an unsettling feeling. I think that's
Speaker 1: why people might tip it towards like thriller or horror,
Speaker 1: because there's an unsettling feeling because you have no idea
Speaker 1: the resolution to come. Yeah, you don't. You're not sure
Speaker 1: what the boundaries are, what the rules are, how far
Speaker 1: this might go, or what what route it might take
Speaker 1: because you are, for one moment to the next, constantly
Speaker 1: being surprised by the film, and it's going in these
Speaker 1: directions you don't expect it to, and it is like
Speaker 1: a perfect case of one of those movies that is
Speaker 1: probably best to see, you know, with this little information.
Speaker 1: That's as that was the very first thing I typed
Speaker 1: in was and I knew the premise unfortunately, was that
Speaker 1: she thinks it's her dead husband. But if you knew nothing,
Speaker 1: then that's the best way. Yeah, it really is to
Speaker 1: just be listening to this and you haven't seen it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you kind of screwed up, Like bail now and watch
Speaker 1: it come back. Um, I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: interrogation scene. Um, there's a scene where young Sean, to
Speaker 1: prove himself, is interrogated by Arless Howard. Um, the I
Speaker 1: guess she's with the brother. Is she another brother or
Speaker 1: she brother in law? Brother in law? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And um, it's you get three perspectives on this because
Speaker 1: you get the actual interrogation and what's going on with
Speaker 1: Arless Howard and young Sean who I don't think we
Speaker 1: mentioned the guy's name yet. We need to shout out
Speaker 1: Cameron Bright. He's who does such a good job. Um.
Speaker 1: Then you you get another perspective, which is the tape
Speaker 1: being played of that session in front of Arless Howard
Speaker 1: and the whole family. And then you also, and I
Speaker 1: think this is easily overlooked, but you have Seawan's mom
Speaker 1: in the room at the store in the kitchen listening
Speaker 1: in on this, and she's like, let's talk about her
Speaker 1: character for a minute. Let me see what is her name? Uh,
Speaker 1: Kara Seymour. Yeah, she's great too from adaptation, Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And al I don't, I haven't. I feel like I
Speaker 1: haven't seen her anything in a while. But she's underrated,
Speaker 1: so great An adaptation as well. But let's talk about
Speaker 1: her character, because this is a situation where she's we
Speaker 1: we don't hang with Buffalo Bill ted Levine too much. Um,
Speaker 1: you mainly see what's going on through her eyes, but
Speaker 1: this is a situation where her ten year old son is,
Speaker 1: from her perspective, acting crazy and this family is sort
Speaker 1: of not buying it. But like Nicole Kidman's lobbying to
Speaker 1: have him spend the night from school. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's another there's likeass exactly the power class thing where
Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman feels almost entitled in a way to just
Speaker 1: be like, I'm going to keep him for a night
Speaker 1: and you know, right, that's fine. Yeah, yeah, she's not.
Speaker 1: And then it seems like she even keeps him a
Speaker 1: second night without even really calling to check in or
Speaker 1: you know, she she has this line like that that
Speaker 1: doesn't I hope you weren't too worried, Like doesn't that
Speaker 1: doesn't bother you, does it? And meanwhile, the poor mother's
Speaker 1: on the couch smoking cigarettes and clearly been stressing the
Speaker 1: whole day. Shots it's just so like it's a parent.
Speaker 1: It's so distressing, Like I found myself empathizing with her
Speaker 1: character yeah, like to a more degree than anyone else
Speaker 1: in the film, I think. Yeah, And she's not even
Speaker 1: in that much of it, and you kind of feel
Speaker 1: like her character maybe felt like she couldn't say no,
Speaker 1: which is a strange thing to think about your child,
Speaker 1: that there's this other random person that is more entitled to,
Speaker 1: you know, have your kid around because if the class,
Speaker 1: if it were switched, Yeah, Nicole Kima would be like,
Speaker 1: it would be absurd. No, wait, that's keeping my happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like they'd hire a security, wouldn't come to the build person,
Speaker 1: you know, get them out of my site, you know.
Speaker 1: And and but I don't think it's also played as
Speaker 1: like she thinks if she goes along with this, there
Speaker 1: may be a pot of gold for her. No. Um,
Speaker 1: which maybe with that one line could have been a
Speaker 1: dimension there. But I think it's more like I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It is hard to say exactly what
Speaker 1: the parents are angling out, especially the dad with that
Speaker 1: comment about but to me, it just it just felt
Speaker 1: like he deals with a lot of probably wealthy clients.
Speaker 1: He's tutoring their kids to play piano, and um, I
Speaker 1: think he just has a certain awareness of that dynamic
Speaker 1: that hat. These people have money, you know. Well, the
Speaker 1: scene that wrecked me was when when real mom, when
Speaker 1: Kara Seymour goes into tuck him in and he says,
Speaker 1: I'm not your son anymore, a stupid child, your stupid
Speaker 1: little boy and a little boy. Oh my god, and
Speaker 1: he turns over and it's just like I could devastate.
Speaker 1: It's just devastating. Yeah, but it's not played overly dramatic.
Speaker 1: Um he'd doesn't you know, spoon feed like this big moment.
Speaker 1: It just sort of happens, and you see this woman
Speaker 1: just her heart breaks right in front of exactly she
Speaker 1: turns off the light and then it just cuts to
Speaker 1: the next scene and it moves on. But yeah, you can. Again,
Speaker 1: I think that's something that outside of this particular situation,
Speaker 1: I think that's something that a lot of parents probably
Speaker 1: have to face when their kid gets to be like
Speaker 1: a rebellious teenager. Well, there are different versions of yes
Speaker 1: of your child basically shutting the door to their bedroom
Speaker 1: on you. Yeah, exactly. It's every parent's worse fear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's somewhat inevitable maybe, you know, at
Speaker 1: least for a certain kind of kid that is going
Speaker 1: to go through that rebellious face. It can be. I
Speaker 1: take heart when I see my brother who had these
Speaker 1: two kids who just like always thought he was the
Speaker 1: best and our best buddies for life, and trying to
Speaker 1: cultivate that man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, trying to cultivate it.
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, they wanted to find themselves
Speaker 1: a separate from parent, and sometimes it's it's like a
Speaker 1: forceful thing, right and hopefully they come back around, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but um, where we started with this, this conversation that
Speaker 1: was that the interrogation scene, the kind of the three
Speaker 1: ways see the three perspectives. It was really interesting how
Speaker 1: that played out. Yeah, it's it's it's so compelling. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's something that you could think about a film like
Speaker 1: The Exorcist. You can think about like, um, what's the
Speaker 1: gene hack of the conversation? You know, It's it's always compelling.
Speaker 1: I think to watch listening to tape and play back
Speaker 1: and rewinding it and like what's the detail that we
Speaker 1: missed or whatever. That's such a good, good like thing.
Speaker 1: Anytime I'm in a film and that's going on, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this is the best. I love this. You know, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the the way that the scene, it's so interesting,
Speaker 1: the way it will cut from for instance, when um,
Speaker 1: when the boy Sewan says to uh, the adult, you know,
Speaker 1: oh I thought your wife couldn't have kids or something
Speaker 1: like that, and then it cuts away at that point.
Speaker 1: That scene was so great. It cuts away from Arless Howard,
Speaker 1: and then a few minutes later it kind of resumes
Speaker 1: in that same spot, but now we're in the in
Speaker 1: the sort of session with the family. Yeah, the editing
Speaker 1: in that scene is so good. He says, you know,
Speaker 1: let's just stick to you know, the main topic here,
Speaker 1: so you know that it's a continuation, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, there's been this lapse in time, and then
Speaker 1: it actually ends up jumping back to the original scene
Speaker 1: as well as hopping over to the other room where
Speaker 1: the mothers listening in. So yeah, it's just a very
Speaker 1: interesting when you consider, you know, the amount of coverage
Speaker 1: you would have had to play that scene out, and
Speaker 1: just the way it is structured, and um, the way
Speaker 1: it jumps back and forth in time, because you could
Speaker 1: edit that a number of ways. Yeah, you can play
Speaker 1: it straightforward, you know, you could you could just kind
Speaker 1: of do like a progression where it starts on the
Speaker 1: two of them in the room, then it talks to
Speaker 1: them mother, and then it jumps forward to the family
Speaker 1: listening or something. But the way it bounces back, you know,
Speaker 1: all three, you kind of realize that he's playing with
Speaker 1: time as well and um, and he's doing something just
Speaker 1: very interesting with the effect of seeing something happened firsthand
Speaker 1: versus listening to it afterwards, and then the depending on
Speaker 1: who's listening to it, the dynamics within that room, people
Speaker 1: looking at each other, not even saying yeah a lot.
Speaker 1: I was about to say there there's not much dialogue.
Speaker 1: They're they're not saying like the fucking kids greatly like
Speaker 1: oh my god, how did he know that? Yeah, nobody
Speaker 1: has an obvious bad line with that where they're just
Speaker 1: like that's absurd, How can you know that? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you can tell there was just such great care
Speaker 1: and consideration with the script. Doesn't surprised me that there were,
Speaker 1: you know, two dozen versions or whatever, And I think
Speaker 1: it's hard when you get right. Yeah, I mean the
Speaker 1: casting of like the entire extended family, everybody is so
Speaker 1: good in their role of just being this believable adult
Speaker 1: that Alison Elliott. Yeah yeah, Um, I mean I love it, Like,
Speaker 1: it's great seeing Arless Howard in this too, because I
Speaker 1: feel like I don't see him in a tone either,
Speaker 1: and he's so good in this and he really he's um,
Speaker 1: super super compelling. Um, there's obviously the Cooper connection, but
Speaker 1: I mean just on its own, merit, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. I mean he cast Peter Stormare is kind
Speaker 1: of a nice guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love him
Speaker 1: kind of playing its type. Yeah. Um, So about halfway
Speaker 1: through the film, we get are finally get our first
Speaker 1: scene aside from the little very first introductory scene with Sean,
Speaker 1: but our first scene with Nicole Kidman and or with
Speaker 1: Anna and Sean alone where they essentially go on a date.
Speaker 1: They go get ice cream, They're going to carriage ride,
Speaker 1: and this is when you get to see like, there
Speaker 1: aren't many moments where he feels like a kid, but
Speaker 1: when he's eating the ice cream, he sort of is.
Speaker 1: He's kind of boyish. Yeah, and um, that scene just
Speaker 1: like I can't I bet they workshopped a lot, like
Speaker 1: exactly how to play all this stuff. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's because it could easily go wrong, exactly. I was
Speaker 1: just thinking about like the kind of guts to go
Speaker 1: forward with a scene like that where you have lines
Speaker 1: like you know, she says yeah. She She says to him,
Speaker 1: you know, husband needs to like provide for his wife,
Speaker 1: you know, his wife gonna you're gonna get a job,
Speaker 1: Like what are you gonna do? And he's like, I'll
Speaker 1: get a job, and she's like, how are we gonna
Speaker 1: like take care of my needs? Like have you ever
Speaker 1: loved to a girl? Before he says that would take
Speaker 1: care of my needs. He goes, I know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like I know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, flat out says it, yeah, like have
Speaker 1: you ever made love to a girl? And it's so
Speaker 1: great that his reaction is not to say not to
Speaker 1: be like yeah one time, or you know, like try
Speaker 1: to try to play it off. Yeah, it's like, I
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing. He just says, you would be
Speaker 1: the first, you know, which it's so it's like the
Speaker 1: perfect response to give because it's weirdly sweet. He owns
Speaker 1: up to the fact that he is what he is,
Speaker 1: which is a ten year old boy who obviously doesn't
Speaker 1: have any experience in that domain, but it's not a weakness,
Speaker 1: it's just what it is. It's like you would be
Speaker 1: the first and he throws it back to her almost
Speaker 1: as if like it would be that much more special
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, it's as opposed to I'm this like
Speaker 1: inexperienced virgin that doesn't know what he's doing or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean again the restraint like less is more in
Speaker 1: this movie for sure. And his his his yeah, his
Speaker 1: confidence his just like he's he's so he says what
Speaker 1: he means and means what he says, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's not like the usually it's not a roet
Speaker 1: like oh don't you worry about that? And it would
Speaker 1: be like a last line. Yeah, none of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is the only way to have played this movie.
Speaker 1: And it was still very divisive. Yeah oh yeah. Um
Speaker 1: because she alternately is um sort of a mother to him, um,
Speaker 1: but also a potential lover. And I mean let's talk
Speaker 1: about the well first of all, before we get to
Speaker 1: the tub scene, you had the scene where she's watching
Speaker 1: him in the park and he's playing on the playing
Speaker 1: on and you get that great Kubrickian pushing on Danny
Speaker 1: Houston in the window. Yeah, I guess seeing this, well,
Speaker 1: it seems I think. I think what it is is
Speaker 1: that they were supposed to look at an apartment that
Speaker 1: blew it off, and she blew it off to hang
Speaker 1: out with his kid because she was just going to
Speaker 1: pick him up at school and take him home. But
Speaker 1: instead she picked him up and they went on the date. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they got on the horse drawn carriage and they hung
Speaker 1: out in the park and whatever. They ate the ice cream.
Speaker 1: And so he's having that moment during that Kubrickian pushing
Speaker 1: man where he's just like, damn, this has gone from
Speaker 1: a silly thing for us to laugh about to a
Speaker 1: legitimate threat. That's almost his Jack Torrance switch being exactly
Speaker 1: it is the Jack Torrance like frozen, you know, grizzled
Speaker 1: looking out the window, that kind of thousand yards stair thing, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: such a great shot. Um. So then then we have
Speaker 1: the tub scene. I mean that this scene is was
Speaker 1: caused a lot of controversy at the time and left
Speaker 1: to cause even more today for sure, but left a
Speaker 1: lot of people upset. Um. And it's a scene where
Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman is in the bathtub and uh Sean comes
Speaker 1: in and fully undresses You don't see pep, but you
Speaker 1: see him, you see him kind of like waste up
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, but you seem take everything that
Speaker 1: you seem take. Clearly he's taking everything off. And then
Speaker 1: it kind of goes to like a tighter shot when
Speaker 1: he takes the underwear off, but it is definitely implied
Speaker 1: that he's fully nude and he gets in the tubs
Speaker 1: in there, but um, again, the way they played this
Speaker 1: is just so like he's got the tightest little hair
Speaker 1: as a director that you can walk and pull off
Speaker 1: the scene because he doesn't you know, Sean gets in
Speaker 1: the tub and he doesn't act overtly sexual. She doesn't
Speaker 1: really move. She also doesn't tell him to get out
Speaker 1: right away. They just sort of sit there. They're kind
Speaker 1: of testing each other. Yeah, and yeah, they're they're staring
Speaker 1: at each other very intensely. And she says to him,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You know? And he says, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at my wife and I'm looking at my wife
Speaker 1: and and and just the Yeah, it's it's like a
Speaker 1: standoff and like neither one is going to make a
Speaker 1: move or do anything. Um, but the reaction should be
Speaker 1: to scream. Yeah. He walks in the room right like
Speaker 1: get out of here, what are you doing? You know,
Speaker 1: and she's allowing this behavior to a certain degree. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like though, if if he had made a
Speaker 1: physical move toward her at that moment, she wouldn't write
Speaker 1: because they had already had the kiss at this point, right,
Speaker 1: I think, So when did that happen? Yeah, on the sidewalk. Yes,
Speaker 1: they have a kiss right after after Danny used and
Speaker 1: kind of attacks him. That Raptorman witnesses and I love
Speaker 1: that he sees his kiss and he's just sort of
Speaker 1: like I'm going back inside yah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like I can't deal with this, Like but um yeah,
Speaker 1: that tuugh scene. Man. I didn't get upset by it. No,
Speaker 1: I wasn't offended by it. I didn't think it was creepy.
Speaker 1: I thought it was perfect for the movie. It's just yeah,
Speaker 1: but it is kind of a marvel of like maintaining
Speaker 1: exactly the right tone and there's so many pitfalls. It's
Speaker 1: kind of the thing of like you're on a you know,
Speaker 1: a high wire, and you just don't look down. You
Speaker 1: just don't consider all the myriad ways that it could
Speaker 1: just be a complete disaster. I mean, how many hours
Speaker 1: of discussion went into this scene. Well, that's the thing
Speaker 1: is I feel like, you know, a film like this
Speaker 1: with a storyline like that, that particularly scene, I just
Speaker 1: don't think you would make it to the screen nowadays.
Speaker 1: I think that there would be too many like voices
Speaker 1: kind of being like studio, shouldn't shouldn't we just not
Speaker 1: do this? Isn't there some other way that you can
Speaker 1: get this point across? And I think it's remarkable. You know,
Speaker 1: somebody like of Nicole Kidman's caliber obviously read the script,
Speaker 1: understood what it was going for, trusted the director enough
Speaker 1: to be like, Okay, let's do this. You know, I
Speaker 1: trust you. I think that you're making this movie for
Speaker 1: the right reasons, and I trust that you're actually going
Speaker 1: to be able to pull it off. You know. It's
Speaker 1: it's a there's also that that that that's part in
Speaker 1: the scene where Danny Houston is sort of in the
Speaker 1: apartment and and as an audience member, you're I was thinking,
Speaker 1: fucking don't open that door. I don't open that door, um,
Speaker 1: which is a weird reaction to have. You should be
Speaker 1: thinking like, exactly, yeah, it's so weird. Yeah, it's so
Speaker 1: interesting too that just as he gets more and more
Speaker 1: kind of uh actually threatened about what's going on. His
Speaker 1: position becomes weaker and weaker. It's like he shows his hand,
Speaker 1: he shows his hand, and when he when he shows
Speaker 1: that to him, it's becoming a big deal. Suddenly it
Speaker 1: is a big deal. And so it's like when she
Speaker 1: when she hears the door kind of creak in the
Speaker 1: floorboard and whatever, and she knows that he's out there listening,
Speaker 1: and she kind of looks off, like, get out of here,
Speaker 1: leave us alone, you know, jerk. Um, it's just putting
Speaker 1: more of a wedge between the two of them, and
Speaker 1: it's sort of enus versus them dynamic. And she's very
Speaker 1: much with Shawn at that moment, which is just she's
Speaker 1: crossed over. Yeah. Yeah, it's really really interesting to watch
Speaker 1: how that how little by little she's kind of like
Speaker 1: worn down to accept the the the impossible. Well, there's
Speaker 1: too much evidence. Yeah, he knows too much. Um wait,
Speaker 1: too much that she had not kissed him by that point,
Speaker 1: by the way, because I have it sort of chronologically
Speaker 1: noted out here. Um, Danny Houston flips out after that.
Speaker 1: That's when he does the Barry Linda Bank during the
Speaker 1: wedding guy, and then Sean runs out and she runs
Speaker 1: out after him. That's when she kisses Yeah. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: even the way that's played is very sweet and almost motherly. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the line that's like the weird line, because like
Speaker 1: there's there's a great moment to um kind of near
Speaker 1: the end of their relationship where she comes home. He's
Speaker 1: already in bed and he's shirtless, and you kind of
Speaker 1: assume that maybe he's just wearing underne underwear something the
Speaker 1: covers and she walks. She kind of goes to his
Speaker 1: side and she bends down, and you kind of think,
Speaker 1: what's she gonna do? Is she gonna pull the covers down?
Speaker 1: Like what's going to happen here? And it's like she
Speaker 1: has this own hesitation and then she tucks him in,
Speaker 1: him in, and it's like her tucking him in is
Speaker 1: like asserting this kind of motherly thing. I think it's
Speaker 1: also just in a literal sense. It's like, I'm tucking
Speaker 1: you in. You're not getting out of those covers. You know,
Speaker 1: this is not going to be a situation where you
Speaker 1: know we're gonna embrace each other something. She's like, I'm
Speaker 1: tucking you in and you know, I'm just gonna be
Speaker 1: this motherly kind of thing. Well, but her plan, though
Speaker 1: it's so heartbreaking at the end. She wants this to
Speaker 1: be her true love so much. She basically was like,
Speaker 1: here's what we're gonna do. We're going to run away
Speaker 1: and in ten years this will all be okay. It's
Speaker 1: weird too, she says twenty one. She's like, I was like,
Speaker 1: why don't shave three years off of that? But I
Speaker 1: guess just to make it a little more respectable or something,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, But that's such a heartbreaking scene because
Speaker 1: it's like, it just shows how much she loved Sean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that she's willing to give up this new guy who
Speaker 1: the middle part where he freaks out aside um, it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty good dude. It seems like, yeah, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: he's kind of played him for an evil or something
Speaker 1: really bad things. But those were the obvious things I've
Speaker 1: seen in other films. But it doesn't show that. No,
Speaker 1: like he seems like a decent guy. He's he's much
Speaker 1: more um sympathetic than like Barry Lyndon is you know,
Speaker 1: yeah for sure when when Barry Lyndon loses his cool,
Speaker 1: you're kind of on bulling. Inside you're like, yeah, he
Speaker 1: is a jerk, and it is cool that you gotta
Speaker 1: rise out of him finally and got him to like
Speaker 1: embarrass himself in front of all the important people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a movie where the empathy is very evenly
Speaker 1: dist right, there's there's no um, there's no bad guy
Speaker 1: really and and and you feel for people on all sides.
Speaker 1: Everyone's everyone's wrong. Yeah, it's like the Red War thing,
Speaker 1: like everybody has their reasons. Like everybody's just kind of
Speaker 1: doing the thing that they would do in this situation,
Speaker 1: even if they end up on opposite sides of things.
Speaker 1: We as an audience kind of want the best for everybody,
Speaker 1: even though that's kind of somebody's gonna win, somebody's gonna lose.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's sort of an impossibility that everyone's gonna
Speaker 1: walk away from this thing unhurt. But but we do
Speaker 1: want that, And I think that's also part of why
Speaker 1: it's for everyone to be unhurt. Yeah, for everyone to
Speaker 1: be unhurt, for for everyone to just be okay, Because
Speaker 1: did you want it to be sewn? Mm hmm. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the big question, right, I mean, do you
Speaker 1: want as an as an audience member, do you want
Speaker 1: that to be sewn? I still I mean, I you know,
Speaker 1: my my like interpretation and movies that it is. In
Speaker 1: some ways, it's almost like an incomplete version because he
Speaker 1: doesn't know this Anhasian thing. But it's like he is
Speaker 1: the embodiment somehow this more idealized, almost non existent love
Speaker 1: that Nicole Kidman had for her late husband, like he
Speaker 1: is like the the embodiment, the personification of this like
Speaker 1: perfect projection that she had of who he was, that
Speaker 1: his love was pure, that he never cheated on her,
Speaker 1: that she maybe I missed this, but she didn't find
Speaker 1: out about the affair, did she exactly? She never does.
Speaker 1: She's still in the dark. That's why Hayes was going
Speaker 1: to give her all those letters, which was devastating because
Speaker 1: there's dozens of them, it appears, and and they were
Speaker 1: all unopened by her. He doesn't love Nicole Kidman, and
Speaker 1: it was it was this thing again. This is where
Speaker 1: the class dynamic comes in. That the real Sean apparently
Speaker 1: was carrying on this affair for years and wouldn't leave
Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman because he felt like he couldn't and the
Speaker 1: reason he probably felt like he couldn't was because it
Speaker 1: was sort of like a golden handcuffs situation because she
Speaker 1: had the money. She had the money, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I can't give up this like great thing. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: set for life. So I've just got a scientist. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's why it's a scientist. He's essentially right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he's he's able to live way above what
Speaker 1: is means would be if you were just you know,
Speaker 1: living off his university earnings. But instead he's he's become
Speaker 1: part of this like you know, elite world, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it also goes to show the kind of
Speaker 1: that that dilemma that happens in Barry Lyndon as well,
Speaker 1: where it's like almost like an arranged marriage kind of thing, um,
Speaker 1: where the marriage is more for the acquisition of title
Speaker 1: and status and you know, solidifying various assets and so on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you see the same thing here where it's like the
Speaker 1: the pure love comes from underneath, comes from the working class,
Speaker 1: or it comes from just something completely outside your own world.
Speaker 1: And for all these practical, pragmatic reasons, it doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense, and yet there it is, and you know,
Speaker 1: the more kind of like responsible, reasonable well, he's a
Speaker 1: nice guy, he's got a a good job, and you
Speaker 1: know we're from kind of the same circles and so on.
Speaker 1: This kind of makes sense, you know, that consideration versus
Speaker 1: I will give up everything and run away with you,
Speaker 1: even though you're a ten year old boy, and you
Speaker 1: say you're my dead husband. Like, that's the thing that's
Speaker 1: more compelling to her heart, to her, you know, emotionally,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that that grips her. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I didn't really pick up on that.
Speaker 1: I feel like a dumb dumb Now, the whole point
Speaker 1: of the letters was to hint that that's where Sean
Speaker 1: had been getting his information right, and that he dug
Speaker 1: those up. But there's there's this thing, Hold on a second,
Speaker 1: not yeah, because she dug those up. She So what
Speaker 1: happens is is that she is going to this party.
Speaker 1: She's got them in the in the package, and then
Speaker 1: she makes up the story about all I forgot the
Speaker 1: ribbon because she's delaying, she's reconsidering it. And then she
Speaker 1: walks outside and she does, you know, bury them in
Speaker 1: the park just to kind of get rid of them,
Speaker 1: and he and he follows her and he sees her
Speaker 1: bury them, So the implication is that he then dug
Speaker 1: them up after she left, opened them all and ran
Speaker 1: them and then that is how he got all his
Speaker 1: information about who everybody is. So he was just there
Speaker 1: because he happened to be in the building because his
Speaker 1: father was tutoring someone there, and he would take him
Speaker 1: along and make him sit in the lobby. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the implication. Okay, and then he just did all of this.
Speaker 1: But the but the weird the weird thing is that,
Speaker 1: you know, I think there there are moments where, for instance, um,
Speaker 1: like the maid, you know, the sort of live inmate
Speaker 1: that they have, he doesn't seem to fully remember her
Speaker 1: at first, you know, um or like, for instance, the
Speaker 1: woman that tells h Nicole kim In that there's no
Speaker 1: Santa Claus. She asked about that. He said, I'll know
Speaker 1: her when I see he orth exactly. He's like, I'll
Speaker 1: know her when I see her, and he does. And
Speaker 1: there are a few situations like that where it's kind
Speaker 1: of like you get this feeling that the version of
Speaker 1: Sean that's kind of been reincarnated in this boy has
Speaker 1: like a limited scope of knowledge, like it is Sean
Speaker 1: but it's not the full Sean. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: certain amount of Sean, and he can kind of like
Speaker 1: extend those boundaries a little bit by encountering firsthand, like
Speaker 1: sitting at the desk where Sean worked or something supernatural. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it has. Yeah. Yeah, Um, so
Speaker 1: I don't know that it's necessarily that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's one of those things that's hard
Speaker 1: to make into a coherent kind of theory. Has Glazer
Speaker 1: ever spoken on this, you know, I don't know. Um,
Speaker 1: I think Lazer is a little bit you know, he
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to do as much like press or as
Speaker 1: much kind of speaking about the meaning of things. He
Speaker 1: worships Stanley Cooper. Yeah, I mean I think he definitely
Speaker 1: subscribes to that school of like the film speaks for itself.
Speaker 1: I mean, no one wants to hear that interview though,
Speaker 1: or well, here's the deal, Sean is just exactly have
Speaker 1: found these letters and it was just a big prank. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: no one wants to see that interview. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: movie does. I mean, it certainly does go pretty far
Speaker 1: in that direction to explain a lot of it. I
Speaker 1: just feel like there are these edge cases where there's
Speaker 1: still things that it's kind of like, I don't think
Speaker 1: that was in those letters, And I don't know how
Speaker 1: he would have connected quite so many of these dots
Speaker 1: and known quite so many of these things. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: when you think about some of the things that were said,
Speaker 1: like I didn't think you could have kids. That could
Speaker 1: have been in a letter. We made love on the
Speaker 1: green couch. That could have been in a letter. You know,
Speaker 1: how would he have known where he died in the park,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean maybe it was in the paper,
Speaker 1: but obituary, I mean, but would would they really specify
Speaker 1: liked at this exactly? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, it seems kind
Speaker 1: of far fetched. Yeah, that's true because he has a
Speaker 1: meter there. Yeah, that's where they're first big meeting it, Right,
Speaker 1: So I think there's to me, there's just like you
Speaker 1: can account for a lot of it by the letters,
Speaker 1: but you can't account for all of it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of to me. That's the takeaway is
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to still have these lingering doubts of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it probably wasn't yet it was probably this weird thing.
Speaker 1: But what if you know, there's there's always going to
Speaker 1: be that that lingering doubt, that uncertainty of maybe it
Speaker 1: was somehow, But he's also not like again, a lesser
Speaker 1: film would have sold you on the power of true love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it would have been so much more small
Speaker 1: cyr Like this movie could have gone so horribly absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean we've seen this story about, like you know,
Speaker 1: the dead husband is reincarnated as some other form or
Speaker 1: big Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: play here that we've seen before, but I've never seen
Speaker 1: it done like this, never seen it kind of done
Speaker 1: as a straightforward drama asking emotionally what would this do
Speaker 1: to somebody? And it feels really might have done it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean when you say it's Kubrickie and it's not
Speaker 1: just the shots in the tone, but like there's a spirit,
Speaker 1: right that sort of is inhabited here. Yeah, a bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think I think kubrick you know, in a
Speaker 1: lot of his films too. I mean, like when he
Speaker 1: talks about The Shining, he's like, I think The Shining
Speaker 1: is an optimistic film, because any ghost story implies that
Speaker 1: there's something greater beyond. I think this is similar in
Speaker 1: that way that you know, it is a ghost story
Speaker 1: in a certain sense, or a reincarnation story, or just
Speaker 1: something that there has to exist, something larger than you know,
Speaker 1: the scientific world what we today know to be observable
Speaker 1: and measurable. And in some way that's an optimistic thing
Speaker 1: because it means that it's not all just you know,
Speaker 1: what we see in front of us. Yeah, yeah, anything
Speaker 1: is possible. A couple of other favorite parts here, um
Speaker 1: as we're kind of wrapping this up, as the very
Speaker 1: first scene where Sean enterest the apartment during the birthday party,
Speaker 1: they turn off all the lights and that allows him
Speaker 1: to slip in and he just sort of walks into
Speaker 1: the room where they are and he's in there with
Speaker 1: him and they don't know it. Then the lights come on.
Speaker 1: That had a sort of a horror feeling. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that this boy is just now standing in there. But
Speaker 1: because it's a boy, is not a threat, so no
Speaker 1: one's like what the fund who were you? Everyone's just
Speaker 1: kind of like this is weird. Yeah, sure some kid
Speaker 1: might wander. Yeah, but the framing in that scene is
Speaker 1: very much reminded me of Couber because it looked like
Speaker 1: a painting. Yes, I don't know if you remembers around
Speaker 1: the tables, and there were, but there were a few
Speaker 1: shots like that that looked like paintings. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think the you know, like having it lit practically by
Speaker 1: those candles obviously a very very Linden kind of thing
Speaker 1: for Kubrick to do, as well as all the all
Speaker 1: the kind of practical as you see in shots that
Speaker 1: just get blown out to pure white. Um, that's that's
Speaker 1: very Kubrickian. Um. The apartment itself, I think you could
Speaker 1: you could compare to like Rosemary's Baby, because she also
Speaker 1: has that haircut. Um, that's very similar to that. I
Speaker 1: saw some reviews where they say it definitely echoed Rosemary's Baby. Um.
Speaker 1: Trying to think of some of the other we can
Speaker 1: kind of hit the highlights of the Kubrickan similarities here.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously any of those zooms. Yeah, they did stare,
Speaker 1: which the kid does at one point, and also Danny
Speaker 1: Houston does, Yeah when she he does the double push.
Speaker 1: Because the Danny Houston, when I forgot, pushing in on
Speaker 1: the window is edited together with pushing in on Nicole
Speaker 1: park bench and she's watching Sean play. Yeah, So if
Speaker 1: I mean that's one of the great shots and movies
Speaker 1: that you have that you have, Um, you have a
Speaker 1: couple of little nods, like one of the kind of
Speaker 1: the bell hops on the first floor is throwing a
Speaker 1: ball against the wall with Jack in the shine. M Um,
Speaker 1: let's see what else do you have? Well? And just
Speaker 1: the score itself, yes, is you know Stanley Kubrick very
Speaker 1: famously rarely used any I guess Full Metal Jacket was
Speaker 1: the only movie where us pop music. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: symphonic classical score. It's just so kubrick in. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we I mean, we should talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the cinematographer, Harris Sevitas. Yeah, so what's what's his he is?
Speaker 1: He is my pick for like the best cinematographer the
Speaker 1: last half of the twentieth century, and unfortunately he's not
Speaker 1: with us anymore. He died pretty young, I think around
Speaker 1: fifty one. Roger Deakins huh yeah, yeah, no for me,
Speaker 1: there's there's no none higher. Um. So so here's Sevides.
Speaker 1: He starts off in music videos and commercials. He works
Speaker 1: a lot with uh like Ridley Scott early on. He
Speaker 1: works quite a bit with Mark Romanic in music videos.
Speaker 1: So he shoots a lot of iconic stuff like the
Speaker 1: closer video for nine inch nails. Um, he shoots pull up.
Speaker 1: I made a whole now I've looked at it here.
Speaker 1: Now he shot Zodiac. Yeah. He his first or one
Speaker 1: of his first features anyway is the game for Fincher.
Speaker 1: He goes on to shoot Zodiac as well. Find Yeah.
Speaker 1: He well, he worked. He had probably his best definitely.
Speaker 1: I think his best collaboration was over several films with
Speaker 1: Gus Van Sant, including Elephant. Yeah, Elephant, which is probably
Speaker 1: my pick for one of the best look movies ever. Um.
Speaker 1: But also Jerry for Gus Van sand didn't see that, Oh,
Speaker 1: Jerry is incredible. Yeah. And Casey affleck Um shot some
Speaker 1: Sofia Coppola somewhere blingering, Yeah exactly and blingering he Um.
Speaker 1: He started, but he didn't finish because that was around
Speaker 1: the time that he started getting really sick. So what
Speaker 1: another his his assistant, well, I think what killed him
Speaker 1: was some kind of terminal condition. I forget now exactly
Speaker 1: what it was. Um, but he started on blingering and
Speaker 1: then his assistant, another great cinematographer in his own right, Um,
Speaker 1: Christopher Blovel, had to finish that film, and I think
Speaker 1: blovel interesting Is is sort of almost like the Air.
Speaker 1: To Harry Sevite Is because he shoots quite a bit
Speaker 1: with Sofia Coppola, with Kelly Reichhart. He also shot with
Speaker 1: Gus van Stand a recent film he made with Joaquin
Speaker 1: Phoenix called Don't Worry He Won't Get Far on Foot that.
Speaker 1: I love that film. Actually it got kind of mixed reception,
Speaker 1: but to me, it's like the best thing gust Fan
Speaker 1: Sants done and in quite a while. And Gus van
Speaker 1: sand was like a really really important filmmaker for me
Speaker 1: in kind of his two thousands period when he made
Speaker 1: that trilogy of Jerry Elephant, Last Days, Um, his kind
Speaker 1: of death trilogy, which again all were shot with Harris
Speaker 1: sevites Um. He was being influenced a lot by uh,
Speaker 1: this Hungarian filmmaker Bell Attar, who works quite a lot
Speaker 1: in extremely long takes a lot of following shots. Um.
Speaker 1: If you have characters walking from one location to another,
Speaker 1: he'll just shoot them walking and you see their heads
Speaker 1: kind of bobbing up and down for like minutes on
Speaker 1: end um. So Harry sevites to me is like he
Speaker 1: I think he was such an elite kind of um cinematographer,
Speaker 1: and he had this you know income through again commercials
Speaker 1: and music videos. He could pick his projects like you
Speaker 1: know as as a as a sematographer films. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's hardly any duds in there, and he's he's
Speaker 1: one of the rare filmmakers that are cinematographers that I
Speaker 1: would actually watch something of his because he shot it.
Speaker 1: Because I think even the best cinematographers typically like Roger
Speaker 1: Deakins or something, it's more for me, like if he
Speaker 1: shoots something for the Cohen Brothers, like obviously I'm going
Speaker 1: to see that anyway. Um, but you know there's there's
Speaker 1: films that they work on that I just kind of
Speaker 1: go whatever, you know. Um, But like everything here Sevites did,
Speaker 1: it was almost like a seal of approval. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: if Harris wants to make this movie, right, there's got
Speaker 1: to be something more to it that's worthwhile. Um. He
Speaker 1: worked a bit with James Gray as well, and James
Speaker 1: Gray is another one of my I mean he worked
Speaker 1: with most of the filmmakers he worked with more than once,
Speaker 1: which is always a good sign. Yes, Um, Noah, bomb
Speaker 1: Box with Greenberg and Margaret at the Wedding and Greenberg
Speaker 1: is a beautiful film too. It has like a real
Speaker 1: seventies kind of quality to it. That I mean that
Speaker 1: was the Sevites aesthetic. Was shooting on lenses from bygone
Speaker 1: eras that didn't have the codings on the lens, so
Speaker 1: that you get more reflections, you get more flares. Uh,
Speaker 1: the whole thing is like lower contrast. He was a
Speaker 1: huge proponent of shooting very low contrast negative and then
Speaker 1: kind of adding contrast as needed in post, but that
Speaker 1: way he could control exactly how much contrast there was.
Speaker 1: And he was a big believer in the idea that
Speaker 1: you know, in real life, when we're looking at something
Speaker 1: very rarely is there like true black, you know, like
Speaker 1: zero zero zero kind of thing. There's always shades of
Speaker 1: something in there, there's always colors kind of filtering in.
Speaker 1: And so he was very interested in what he called
Speaker 1: the toe or the toe nail of the negative, which
Speaker 1: is like the very very bottom before it goes to
Speaker 1: pure black. He thought that was where all the kind
Speaker 1: of magic and interesting stuff happened in And so he
Speaker 1: was known for in cinematography terms, exposing to like hold
Speaker 1: the highlights, so nothing's burned out and then just letting
Speaker 1: the rest of it fall where it would. And you know,
Speaker 1: he he talks a lot about like when he would
Speaker 1: be in some of these low light scenes because he's
Speaker 1: he's very fond of under exposure sometimes like a stop
Speaker 1: and a half, two stops. Um. He's he's very fond
Speaker 1: of just letting, uh, lighting a room, lighting a space,
Speaker 1: and then letting the actors live within that space, but
Speaker 1: not putting a spotlight on an actor saying like, here's
Speaker 1: your key light, here's your mark, do this, do that?
Speaker 1: Like letting people fall into shadow. Um, So you get
Speaker 1: so much more the emotion out of a scene if
Speaker 1: an actor is you know, kind of in and out
Speaker 1: of the light, it just feels more real and less
Speaker 1: kind of presentational. And so he would go to extremes
Speaker 1: like baking film and ovens, flashing film, um, you know,
Speaker 1: shooting on one stock and printing on another that you
Speaker 1: would not normally pair together. Just all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it would even get him into trouble where, um,
Speaker 1: there's a scene in the yards where it's this long,
Speaker 1: complicated scene where it's like characters altogether in this house
Speaker 1: and everybody's talking at different you know, there's a million
Speaker 1: kind of pieces of coverage you would need to get
Speaker 1: to make that happen, and he under exposed the whole
Speaker 1: thing so much that there was nothing on the negative
Speaker 1: when they finished after like two weeks or something, and
Speaker 1: he and James Gray had to go to the studio
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, actually we need to reshoot this,
Speaker 1: you know. And the funny thing about it is, of
Speaker 1: course he is a world class cinematographer, so he could
Speaker 1: easily just expose, properly, get the image in the can
Speaker 1: every time, and probably to the average view or it
Speaker 1: would be fine, you know, it would be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like a movie. But he was not interested
Speaker 1: in that. He wanted that. He wanted to to to
Speaker 1: exist in that zone of uncertainty and like butterflies when
Speaker 1: you're at Daily's the next day and kind of being
Speaker 1: like I don't know if that's going to come out
Speaker 1: or not, you know, and just breaking breaking all the rules.
Speaker 1: So he um, I would encourage anybody to, you know,
Speaker 1: just go through his whole filmography and it's it's a
Speaker 1: lot of remarkable stuff in there. He uh. He died
Speaker 1: of brain cancer at behind a wife and daughter. Wow,
Speaker 1: so sad. I mean he like I said, he um,
Speaker 1: I can't think of anybody from the last several decades
Speaker 1: like to me, he's kind of the air to like
Speaker 1: a Gordon Willis or something, somebody who also preferred dark
Speaker 1: images and uh and and created something that was like,
Speaker 1: you know, almost more painterly than like photographic. Yeah. Yeah, wow,
Speaker 1: that's great. Here's an admission that's going to displease you.
Speaker 1: I've not seen any of those three Gusts fans and films.
Speaker 1: They're beautiful. Yeah, somehow it did not see Jerry, Elephant
Speaker 1: or Last Days, and they're all they're all fairly polarizing
Speaker 1: films too. This is when when Gusts Fan Sant was
Speaker 1: interested in a lot of long takes, um minimal dialogue,
Speaker 1: sometimes only improvised dialogue. I think a lot of the
Speaker 1: dialogue and Elephant is more or less improvised by these
Speaker 1: non actors kids that he's working with. Jerry. There's a
Speaker 1: really funny script of Jerry where it's the entire screenplay
Speaker 1: sits on like one or two sheets of paper and
Speaker 1: it's just it literally like a scene would just be
Speaker 1: walking walking, walking talking, walking, Uh, getting worried, feeling lost, panicking, sleeping,
Speaker 1: waking up, walking, um. And you know, they made the
Speaker 1: whole film based on that. So the other thing that
Speaker 1: I wanted to say, the other part that I really loved,
Speaker 1: very small part um at the end of the film,
Speaker 1: after sort of everything is sort of resolved more or less,
Speaker 1: and uh, Lauren bacall is sitting there with a kid,
Speaker 1: and she just goes, I never liked Sean. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the past tense, which says, first of all, it's
Speaker 1: a revelation, revelation that she didn't like him, her daughter's
Speaker 1: husband she loved, and then this this past tense where
Speaker 1: it's like, you're not him, you're not him, and I
Speaker 1: didn't like him anyway, if you way, and so it's
Speaker 1: just like and it's great because, you know, as we
Speaker 1: have learned more about the Sean, the real Sean, she
Speaker 1: was right maybe to not like him because he was
Speaker 1: basically using his wife, you know, um and kind of
Speaker 1: carrying on an affair with with somebody else. So it's
Speaker 1: like Lauren McCall had that killer instinct. Maybe she didn't
Speaker 1: know precisely what he was doing, but she knew enough like,
Speaker 1: I don't trust him, I don't like him. But you
Speaker 1: also get the sense that she has probably never said
Speaker 1: that to her daughter, you know, but it makes sense
Speaker 1: like if she was not innamorative, Sean, she would not
Speaker 1: be innamorative. She's not susceptible. The same way to coole
Speaker 1: Kidman is to like this wish fulfillment thing. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's talk about that final image. You know, they get married,
Speaker 1: and um, does she read the letter there? I couldn't
Speaker 1: quite get better. She just reflecting upon the letter. I
Speaker 1: think she's reflecting upon it. Yeah, and and just oh god,
Speaker 1: what a great way to end this movie. That heartbreaking
Speaker 1: uh shot of her walking into the ocean, and there's
Speaker 1: a scene right before where she's she's getting her photo
Speaker 1: made by herself in her dress by the photographer and
Speaker 1: lingers for a really long time on the photographer like
Speaker 1: meeting her and saying step this way, do this, And
Speaker 1: then it cuts to a reverse where you see Danny
Speaker 1: Houston kind of walking into her eyeline as I and
Speaker 1: he has this kind of like cheshire cat grin of
Speaker 1: like it's official, We've done it, you know, now we're
Speaker 1: really married, Like you're you're you can't run away now
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Almost, it's this sort of self satisfied thing,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and she and she kind of it brings
Speaker 1: it all back, and she kind of has this like
Speaker 1: moment of like, what have I done? You know, I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily I love this man. My love for him
Speaker 1: anyway is not pure the way it was for Sean.
Speaker 1: It's it's a compromise. And now the rest of my
Speaker 1: life is going to be about this compromise. It's not
Speaker 1: going to be this like youthful, exuberant like love that
Speaker 1: you know, conquers all. It's instead it's this kind of adult, responsible,
Speaker 1: safe thing to do, and it just breaks down. It's
Speaker 1: so it's devastating watching her on that beach and she
Speaker 1: goes with him, though she allows him to. She does
Speaker 1: he you know, he's and again he's he's very very
Speaker 1: gentle with her, the way he kind of approaches her
Speaker 1: very tentatively, and she kind of steps to the side,
Speaker 1: and he steps a little bit with her, like as
Speaker 1: if she's going to run away, and then he just
Speaker 1: kind of slowly embraces her, and you feel bad for
Speaker 1: him again. Feel like he sees her breakdown, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: desperate tears, and he kind of I think he understands
Speaker 1: in that moment like this is something that's going to
Speaker 1: be a factor that we're both going to be dealing
Speaker 1: with for the rest of our lives, probably because she's
Speaker 1: always going to have this his first love that she is,
Speaker 1: you know, um, is kind of unresolved and unfinished in
Speaker 1: some way. All Right, dude, I think we did it. Yes. Uh,
Speaker 1: here's what I think now, casey Okay, I think the
Speaker 1: playing field has been the door is wide open. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we can kind of do whatever we want. I
Speaker 1: don't think we should stick with one filmmaker. Sure, Um.
Speaker 1: What I did like about this is that it was
Speaker 1: a film I hadn't seen yet, So maybe maybe you
Speaker 1: can pick one out absolutely, some just great film yeah
Speaker 1: by a master, Yeah, that I haven't seen, and we'll
Speaker 1: just do that, I think. Do you have I have
Speaker 1: one in mind? Yeah? What what you got? I've got
Speaker 1: Contempt by Jean and Good Art. I never saw a
Speaker 1: contempt perfect. Let's do it perfect. Heard a lot about it.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be really funny, right, it's pretty funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is. Actually it's one of his funnier films.
Speaker 1: And uh, I mean just the kind of meta commentary
Speaker 1: on the film industry is all right, Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know much about it. Then it's one of the classic
Speaker 1: films about filmmaking. Oh yeah, I didn't know that at all.
Speaker 1: Great alright, casey much more than that, but yeah, save
Speaker 1: it all right, Thanks a lot, Buddy, Thanks joh For
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