Speaker 1: What kind of a show you guys putting.
Speaker 2: On here today? You're not interested in armed now?
Speaker 3: No, look, we're going to do this thing.
Speaker 2: We're going to have a conversation. Hey, film Spotters will
Speaker 2: get to our Kristen Stewart scenes here in a minute
Speaker 2: and tell you why we're even sharing this top five
Speaker 2: from the archive. But first we wanted to let you
Speaker 2: know that you can get access at any time to
Speaker 2: top fives like this other reviews from the past over
Speaker 2: one thousand episodes by becoming a Film Spotting Family member.
Speaker 1: Josh.
Speaker 2: All they have to do if they want a discount
Speaker 2: through the month of August is do what.
Speaker 3: Use promo code Summer. Pretty easy, Yeah, through August thirty.
Speaker 3: First we are offering this over at film Spottingfamily dot com.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's always a good deal, but now
Speaker 3: especially a good deal twenty percent off use that promo
Speaker 3: code Summer.
Speaker 2: So we're sharing a top five from twenty seventeen, our
Speaker 2: top five Kristen Stewart scenes. Up until this year, Meryl
Speaker 2: Streep hadn't even been given this type of treat. Wow,
Speaker 2: on film Spotting You didn't need to point that out. No,
Speaker 2: I didn't need to. But this was the height of
Speaker 2: the case stuissance because she had just been in Personal Shopper,
Speaker 2: Olivia Asseas's film that had followed Certain Women in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: The Clouds of sils Maria in twenty fourteen, and she
Speaker 2: had credits going back to Panic Room and Into the
Speaker 2: Wild as a teen. She is by far the youngest
Speaker 2: actor we've done a top five scenes for, but it
Speaker 2: seems at that time she had been appraised as one
Speaker 2: of our finest actors and we felt that way, and
Speaker 2: we certainly felt that she was deserving of this type
Speaker 2: of treatment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like we also recognizing that this wouldn't say,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't call her resurgence, but that this recognition was building.
Speaker 3: I wanted to dig into some of her movies, specifically
Speaker 3: looking at her performances and wrapping our own minds around
Speaker 3: what we made of her as an actor, what she
Speaker 3: brought to the screen, what she brought to these roles,
Speaker 3: and then come away with our favorites from what we saw.
Speaker 2: This doesn't happen often, but over the course of doing
Speaker 2: the show together, we have done a few joint top fives,
Speaker 2: and that's what you'll get here. This is truly our
Speaker 2: Top five. Kristen Stewart scenes jone Jet, I play.
Speaker 1: I played guitar, electric guitar.
Speaker 2: Oh, jone Jet. That's a cool name.
Speaker 1: You guys got a demo?
Speaker 2: No, no, I don't, No, guys, I want to start
Speaker 2: an angle rock band. The Runaways and Kristen Stewart's Joan
Speaker 2: Jet with Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley, who's a music
Speaker 2: producer and who's their manager, and he is delightfully fun
Speaker 2: in that film was my favorite thing about that film
Speaker 2: back in twenty ten, and I was sure, Josh, maybe
Speaker 2: it's because of the critical reconsideration of Stuart. I just
Speaker 2: assumed that I was a huge fan of Stuart's performance
Speaker 2: in that movie, and I went back and looked at
Speaker 2: my notes and kind of mixed on the film, kind
Speaker 2: of mixed on her. Rewatching a lot of scenes from
Speaker 2: it for this show, I've changed my thoughts on her,
Speaker 2: and I think it's because the way we've seen her
Speaker 2: evolve through the work of directors like Olivier Assayas. Maybe
Speaker 2: it was a matter of not her needing to catch
Speaker 2: up to anything I'm doing, but me needing to catch
Speaker 2: up to what she's doing. And I think we'll talk
Speaker 2: about what we see her doing on screen as we
Speaker 2: get to our top five Kristen Stewart scenes. And it's
Speaker 2: funny when I went back and looked at those notes,
Speaker 2: Josh I had the setup for that show. Maddie was
Speaker 2: sitting opposite me, and that was the same episode where
Speaker 2: we shared our top five actresses of the decade. It
Speaker 2: was twenty ten, after all, and my setup question for
Speaker 2: Maddie was ten years from now, what are the chances
Speaker 2: is that one or both of the young actresses at
Speaker 2: the center of the Runaways, Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning,
Speaker 2: what are the chances that one of them will make
Speaker 2: our list ten years from now? Looking back on the decade,
Speaker 2: and the fact is, it really was like a lot
Speaker 2: of our setups are just a provocation to get the
Speaker 2: conversation going. At the time, in twenty ten, I had
Speaker 2: no thoughts at all that Christen Stewart might genuinely be
Speaker 2: in that conversation. But right now, as we sit in
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, how could you try to form that list
Speaker 2: and at least not consider her.
Speaker 1: You'd have to write, that's.
Speaker 3: What we've been doing. I mean, I haven't given her
Speaker 3: that sort of consideration. Really, I've only seen, you know,
Speaker 3: not even half of her films. I think we've both
Speaker 3: managed to now see the ones that most people will
Speaker 3: regard as the important ones. But it is this reappraisal
Speaker 3: that's been happening in the last few years that's forced
Speaker 3: me too to think, Okay, I got to look more closely,
Speaker 3: you know, at some of the specific scenes visit films
Speaker 3: I haven't seen before, and for me, it was more
Speaker 3: trying to get not really a quality thing and where
Speaker 3: does she rank. It was just trying to get a
Speaker 3: grasp on what does she do on screen? And so
Speaker 3: that was what I was excited about having the opportunity
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: Well. We'll rustle with that here in a moment. But
Speaker 2: if you are out there thinking, I've seen a handful
Speaker 2: or several Kristen Stewart films, I don't know what all
Speaker 2: the fuss is about, and that's totally fair. You're not
Speaker 2: alone in terms of the people producing this show. We
Speaker 2: can mention that one of the people behind the scenes
Speaker 2: was not necessarily all that on board with our desire
Speaker 2: to do this top five and actually suggested, looking back,
Speaker 2: we've done these types of appraisals of actors' careers for
Speaker 2: people like Robert de Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman why her.
Speaker 2: So part of the question is where's the body of work?
Speaker 2: And then you could also ask where's the talent? And
Speaker 2: some of the names that were mentioned, Scarlet Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence,
Speaker 2: even Mia Vasakovska, Sir Sharonan, Brie Larson, all some might
Speaker 2: argue or some of them better actresses maybe than Kristin Stewart.
Speaker 2: But I think what we talked about, Josh is that
Speaker 2: none of those actresses, I think it's fair to say,
Speaker 2: have captured the imagination of critics anyway and some moviegoers
Speaker 2: the way Stuart has recently. And there are some very
Speaker 2: formidable voices in film criticism who are all in on
Speaker 2: Stuart beyond Stephen Cohne, including Wesley Morris and Ao Scott,
Speaker 2: who in the New York Times when they did their
Speaker 2: piece a dialogue between them about the great performances of
Speaker 2: the year twenty sixteen, Ao Scott said his hunch is
Speaker 2: that Kristen Stewart is the new Robert de Niro. He says,
Speaker 2: she doesn't, of course transform physically the way de Niro
Speaker 2: has made a career out of doing or at least
Speaker 2: did early in his career, but according to Scott, she
Speaker 2: burrows as deeply as de Niro ever has into the
Speaker 2: interiors of her characters, and he says the fact that
Speaker 2: she's the most interesting person in all the films she
Speaker 2: was in in twenty sixteen, including Cafe Society, Certain Women
Speaker 2: and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, suggests that her movie
Speaker 2: star chrisma is still intact. She's just using it in
Speaker 2: subtle and occasionally subversive ways. In Wesley Morris ads, I
Speaker 2: think christ Stewart is just about the best American movie
Speaker 2: actress we have.
Speaker 1: So okay, yes, some hyperbole there.
Speaker 3: Time to temper all that a little bit.
Speaker 1: We'll see.
Speaker 3: This is what I found. She's very to my mind,
Speaker 3: she's extreme. She excels at doing some things very well,
Speaker 3: and as a result of that, there are some things
Speaker 3: that are not in her They're not her strong suit,
Speaker 3: and you can see when certain movies place her in
Speaker 3: the positions to not be able to excel, at least
Speaker 3: from the small sample size that I've taken and getting
Speaker 3: ready for the show gives me that impression, and let
Speaker 3: me give you an idea what I'm talking about. I
Speaker 3: think Personal Shopper is a good place to start, because
Speaker 3: she is She's one of those ghosts that Coan is
Speaker 3: talking about, not literally, but she has that sense in
Speaker 3: the movie. She's an apparition. She's elusive, she's ephemeral. You
Speaker 3: can't pin her down, and I think some people have
Speaker 3: claimed that that makes her a bad actress because you
Speaker 3: don't you can't say this is exactly what she's doing easily, okay,
Speaker 3: and so they will read that as blank and that's
Speaker 3: been a criticism of hers. Now you have others who
Speaker 3: go away the other way, the people that you've mentioned,
Speaker 3: and I think, you know, my experience of her work
Speaker 3: at this point is that she's something in between those
Speaker 3: two positions. She's a master of reticence, just an absolute
Speaker 3: master of that. But perhaps because of that, I think
Speaker 3: she can be a little bit limited when it comes
Speaker 3: to conveying a genuine connection between two people.
Speaker 1: Really, that's where.
Speaker 3: I see some of the scenes, and there are exceptions.
Speaker 3: We'll get to Clouds of.
Speaker 1: Sillsby a bunch of exceptions.
Speaker 3: Maria is one where you know she's on it. It's
Speaker 3: a relationship movie, and I think it's her best performance
Speaker 3: that I've seen, but think about. You know, the first
Speaker 3: time I saw on screen Stephen mentioned it in David
Speaker 3: Fincher's Panic Room. She played a character there who was
Speaker 3: literally withdrawn. Right, She's this diabetic tween who's hiding in
Speaker 3: the safe room with her mother, and the posture she
Speaker 3: has there that she has to adopt. It's curled up,
Speaker 3: it's leaning back, it's turning away, and that is still
Speaker 3: I think her defining quality or her go to position
Speaker 3: as an actress on screen. And I think you can
Speaker 3: say that even in something like you know, the swoony
Speaker 3: Twilight series, which Stephen pointed out that maybe when she's
Speaker 3: not as invested in the material then it's not going
Speaker 3: to work. I think there's probably some of that going
Speaker 3: on there. But she's also too withdrawn to pull off
Speaker 3: this heavy breathing Bella character that she was supposed to
Speaker 3: be playing. You never believed that central relationship between the
Speaker 3: two of them. You always felt that Bella wasn't after Edward, Right,
Speaker 3: you'll be able to back me up.
Speaker 1: It was that, right, Oh yeah, I'm the expert.
Speaker 3: She wasn't after Edward as much as she wanted his doomed,
Speaker 3: lonely lifestyle more than she wanted him. That's the feeling
Speaker 3: I always got. Okay, So I think what makes her
Speaker 3: fascinating is that it's the same thing that makes her frustrating.
Speaker 3: She's this movie star that we can't have and the
Speaker 3: way that we like to have movie stars. Because her
Speaker 3: true talent is keeping us at a distance that's not
Speaker 3: like a good or bad thing. I think that is
Speaker 3: what makes her an alluring presence.
Speaker 2: I would say it's definitely more good than bad, because
Speaker 2: there is that allure. There is something that you can't
Speaker 2: help but be drawn to. There's a mystery you're constantly
Speaker 2: trying to solve.
Speaker 3: But there are scenes where that doesn't work. And you know,
Speaker 3: Twilight is maybe the easy example to give of that.
Speaker 3: But I think even in a film, a good film
Speaker 3: like Personal Shopper, there are scenes that suddenly require her
Speaker 3: to be connecting with another person personally and in a
Speaker 3: vulnerable way, and there's just the disconnect there for me
Speaker 3: where in Personal Shopper And we'll get to it on
Speaker 3: our list. So I don't want to spot when she's
Speaker 3: alone the word Stephen was using solitude intensely private. Those
Speaker 3: are the ones that sing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of know where you're going, and I
Speaker 2: don't completely disagree. At the same time, I think that
Speaker 2: I still feel like when she is interacting with people
Speaker 2: in this film, it's meant to have that sort of
Speaker 2: awkwardness of people trying to connect in a world where
Speaker 2: they're much more used to connecting with people constantly over text.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to mention to Stephen that that's a
Speaker 2: huge part of this film where we have this other
Speaker 2: ghostly presence in Personal Shopper that is sending her these
Speaker 2: harassing text messages, and look, we all do that every day.
Speaker 2: Another presence is the presence we project of ourselves when
Speaker 2: we're interacting with people over text messages. And you add
Speaker 2: two at the layer of she doesn't know who she's
Speaker 2: talking to and when she then is forced to actually
Speaker 2: try to connect with another individual, it's still fraught with
Speaker 2: that kind of artificiality, and I think it works. I
Speaker 2: think it definitely works.
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to get trapped into a Personal Shopper conversation,
Speaker 3: but I'm thinking of the one with her client's lover. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a long extended exposition scene where all of the sudden
Speaker 3: she just starts spilling her guy. It's not that the
Speaker 3: reticence is a problem there. It's that all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: it's completely gone. And it's not true to that character
Speaker 3: in particular that she opens up so much to this
Speaker 3: guy she just met. And it's also not true to
Speaker 3: Stuart's talent as a performer.
Speaker 1: What are you doing person, I'm waiting, let me go,
Speaker 1: what are you waiting for? My brother died here, my
Speaker 1: twin brother died in Paris.
Speaker 2: Makecident. No, I will give you briefly that when he
Speaker 2: started to engage her in a conversation and she stopped
Speaker 2: walking out the door and turned around and engaged with him,
Speaker 2: I thought that felt false. But then it also made
Speaker 2: sense to me that that character in that moment, who
Speaker 2: was so used to not having any kind of actual
Speaker 2: conversation with people, would say, Okay, I'm going to put
Speaker 2: my guard down for a second. I'm going to actually
Speaker 2: do this. I thought it made sense. But let's talk
Speaker 2: about connection. It's going to be a big part of this.
Speaker 2: I think physicality is going to be a big part
Speaker 2: of what we single out when we single out these
Speaker 2: scenes and the moments that we love from very good
Speaker 2: to great. Kristen Stewart performances, and I want to go
Speaker 2: back for number five. Here we're doing a joint list
Speaker 2: to Into the Wild from two thousand and seven, another
Speaker 2: one that Steven mentioned, and it's Chris and Tracy's Goodbye
Speaker 2: Chris played by Amiel Hirsch. He's Christopher McCanless, the kid
Speaker 2: who is heading off to Alaska, and this is kind
Speaker 2: of his last big stop, his last big encounter with
Speaker 2: society before he goes off for his life of solitude
Speaker 2: in Alaska. And he meets this teenage girl, Tracy, who
Speaker 2: Stuart manages to convey without doing a whole lot that
Speaker 2: she has enough hormones flowing through her that it prompts
Speaker 2: Chris's friend Rainy to say that poor girl is about
Speaker 2: ready to vault herself onto a fence post. And yes,
Speaker 2: there is that element to her performance and her character.
Speaker 2: But like her playing Joon Jet in The Runaways, this
Speaker 2: is another bit that involves her playing a guitar and
Speaker 2: performing Josh. A lot of people listening might think, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go with the Angel from Montgomery duet scene
Speaker 2: where they're playing this great John Prime song and she
Speaker 2: sings and Hirsch joins her in the duet singing for
Speaker 2: these people who have all joined together at a place
Speaker 2: they call Slab City, which is just a snowbird kind
Speaker 2: of camping ground. But for me, it's the moment right
Speaker 2: after the song and that performance Angel from Montgomery dissolves
Speaker 2: into their goodbye. They've made this connection. She's only sixteen
Speaker 2: years old though, so he hasn't engaged with her sexually,
Speaker 2: but they've certainly had some kind of bond over this
Speaker 2: brief time they've been together. And Sean Penn, the director,
Speaker 2: really stages this goodbye wonderfully. Where it starts with the
Speaker 2: camera panning slowly across the campground. We see the camper
Speaker 2: that he's going to be going away in pulling in,
Speaker 2: and then it cuts to Chris and Tracy, and Chris
Speaker 2: is in profile, and the close up is really on
Speaker 2: Stuart's face as he's telling her where she can send
Speaker 2: him mail. You can send mail to this address. It's
Speaker 2: South Dakota.
Speaker 3: I don't know what I'm going to get it, but
Speaker 3: I'll get it.
Speaker 2: I'm treat of magic. Yeah, she's clearly upset, she's sad
Speaker 2: that he's going, but there's something more than that in
Speaker 2: her face.
Speaker 1: It's not just anger. Or sadness.
Speaker 2: It's almost like, the only way I can describe it,
Speaker 2: like she's trying to will him to stay with her eyes.
Speaker 2: She's not doing anything physically in this moment, but there's
Speaker 2: nothing passive about the scene whatsoever. And it extends to
Speaker 2: the moment where they finally do say goodbye and he
Speaker 2: shares this cheesy platitude with her. He says, if you
Speaker 2: want something in life, reach out and grab it, and
Speaker 2: that's where this physicality comes in, where she then gives
Speaker 2: him a hug. And it's something I think we see
Speaker 2: in a lot of Stuart performances. She makes a slightly
Speaker 2: unconventional choice in the Runaways. It's the way she smokes
Speaker 2: a cigarette, It's the way she hunches her shoulders like
Speaker 2: she's always ready for a fight. Here, she doesn't just
Speaker 2: throw her arms around him. It's not a hug like
Speaker 2: we've given or been given a million times, but she
Speaker 2: actually cups the back of his neck and pulls her
Speaker 2: toward him in that moment. And I love that choice
Speaker 2: and I love the aggressiveness of it. Again, nothing passive there,
Speaker 2: but also it is her literally reaching out and grabbing him,
Speaker 2: just as he expressed to her, whatever you want just
Speaker 2: go and get it. Well she does, she does in
Speaker 2: that moment, and yet he obviously doesn't stay. So there's
Speaker 2: a bittersweet irony to this whole endeavor, and we know
Speaker 2: it's going to play out in terms of ultimately how
Speaker 2: things end for Chris. And I think that's where the
Speaker 2: scene also really hits me in terms of some emotional resonance,
Speaker 2: because we know that he could have this, whether it's
Speaker 2: her or someone else, that type of connection, that bond
Speaker 2: with another person. He's about to let it all slip
Speaker 2: away in this quest to find himself and his determination
Speaker 2: to be alone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Into the Wild my favorite film of two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven, and Stuart one of the reasons for that.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna jump head about ten years exactly and go
Speaker 3: to Kelly Reikert Certain women, and this is the horseback
Speaker 3: riding scene that many people who have seen this film
Speaker 3: come out of it talking about. Stuart anchors one of
Speaker 3: the triptychs here in Reikert's movie. She plays a young
Speaker 3: lawyer who travels to middle of Nowhere, Montana once a
Speaker 3: week to teach a class on school law. A ranch
Speaker 3: hand played by Lily Gladstone crashes the class and becomes
Speaker 3: infatuated with her, so they form this tentative relationship. She
Speaker 3: sits in on the class, they go out afterwards for
Speaker 3: a late night dinner. I think this is probably certain
Speaker 3: women's best scene, when Gladstone offers to give her a
Speaker 3: ride on her horse after class and she accepts. There's
Speaker 3: a quiet understanding between them there that no words are
Speaker 3: used at all to express what they've both come to
Speaker 3: realize and know. And I like towards the end of
Speaker 3: this where Stuart just leans in slightly, and in a
Speaker 3: movie that's very matter of fact in its framing and
Speaker 3: its camera work, also allows them to pass in front
Speaker 3: of a street light at one point, so that a
Speaker 3: halo glows over them, and that's a big flourish for
Speaker 3: someone like Reichert in a movie like this. And I
Speaker 3: think it's also fitting that here, going back to this
Speaker 3: idea of reticence as Stuart's real talent, that her character
Speaker 3: here can't express this until she's not facing the Gladstone character.
Speaker 3: So that just makes a lot of sense for the
Speaker 3: character in the film and for Stuart as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, without a doubt, and again, it's something physical, it's
Speaker 2: a gesture and it's an actual connection in a film
Speaker 2: where the heartbreak of the movie is in watching two
Speaker 2: people so thoroughly disconnected from each other, even as most
Speaker 2: of the film we see them just sitting across from
Speaker 2: each other at a diner, and it is almost as
Speaker 2: if they are two completely different people having two completely
Speaker 2: different conversations at the exact same time. I did want
Speaker 2: to highlight a comment about that ormance in those scenes
Speaker 2: from Nick Davis, because he's an instructor here at Northwestern.
Speaker 2: He's a film critic, and he wrote an article that's
Speaker 2: in the July slash August issue of Film Comment. So
Speaker 2: going back last summer called Hiding in Plain Sight that
Speaker 2: considers Stuart's career, and I think he really expresses this well.
Speaker 2: He says throughout in fact, we never know when Beth's
Speaker 2: friendly but terse responses to Jamie Beth. Is Stuart's character
Speaker 2: imply exhaustion, class based discomfort, embarrassed, detection of erotic feeling,
Speaker 2: or just a personal habitists. Stuart and Gladstone convey bottled
Speaker 2: up characters without making an incongruously big show of playing
Speaker 2: your word, Josh reticence or overexplicating their secrets and pauses.
Speaker 2: Their exertions turn an anecdote of two people not connecting
Speaker 2: into a rare display of two actresses doing just that.
Speaker 2: There is something remarkable going on in that scene, just
Speaker 2: as Nick said, where I can imagine how two lesser
Speaker 2: performers would make a show of playing disconnection.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because and be afraid otherwise they're all nothing there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And instead it's absolutely organic to what is transferring
Speaker 2: in the space between them, and that's what makes it
Speaker 2: remarkable as opposed to certain mannerisms or certain ways of speaking.
Speaker 2: You mention a lean in and a lean in is
Speaker 2: a big part of a scene that I chose for
Speaker 2: our number three, and it's from the twenty fourteen film
Speaker 2: Still Alice, which won Julianne Moore, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 2: a Best Actress Oscar. She plays Kristen Stewart's mom. She's
Speaker 2: a linguist who has an early onset of Alzheimer's and
Speaker 2: she has a complex relationship with her daughter, Lydia, who's
Speaker 2: played by Stuart and somebody on Twitter when we threw
Speaker 2: out this topic, Josh mention the scene that actually I
Speaker 2: first thought of and what I think is the most
Speaker 2: devastating scene in the movie. The most devastating moment is
Speaker 2: when Lydia, who has been fighting with her mom about
Speaker 2: her desire to continue to be an actress. That's what
Speaker 2: she wants to pursue while her siblings are more stable.
Speaker 2: One is a med student, I think one's a law student.
Speaker 2: She has a play, she has a performance, and Julianne
Speaker 2: Moore comes backstage her mother and compliments around the performance.
Speaker 2: But it becomes clear at some point that she actually
Speaker 2: doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know it's her
Speaker 2: daughter anyway. She thinks it's just an actress who she
Speaker 2: watched a few moments ago. That's devastating, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: find that online. And I actually think the end scene
Speaker 2: is just as good. She's now taking care of her
Speaker 2: mom and Moore's condition has pretty well deteriorated.
Speaker 1: And she's reading.
Speaker 2: Lydia is reading a scene from Tony Kushner's Angels in America,
Speaker 2: and she does really more perform it. I don't remember
Speaker 2: the exact context, has been a while since I saw
Speaker 2: the film, whether she is doing the part or has
Speaker 2: done the part before, but she kind of starts channeling
Speaker 2: the text. This amazing monologue. The Kushner wrote, and she
Speaker 2: goes from channeling it to living in it and really
Speaker 2: living in the text and the images that it evokes.
Speaker 2: And when she's done with the reading, goes and sits
Speaker 2: down by her mother, and she says, did you like it?
Speaker 2: And she's sitting next to her, facing her. She's trying
Speaker 2: to connect with her through this art, but she's still
Speaker 2: looking for her mom's approval, and she leans in when
Speaker 2: she says it. She's not just sitting back though, close
Speaker 2: to her mother, asking what she thought of it. She's
Speaker 2: trying urgently to get out of her something that she
Speaker 2: still needs from her mother. And it's not only that approval,
Speaker 2: but I think what we've seen throughout the film again,
Speaker 2: she was a linguist, this professor. She's always been the
Speaker 2: person who's had the answer, the person who's always been
Speaker 2: able to hear words and decipher meaning. And she needs
Speaker 2: this from her mother in this moment. She needs that
Speaker 2: connection and she needs that guidance. And as I said,
Speaker 2: it's so subtle, but just this little lean in to
Speaker 2: her mother gives the whole scene this great sense of urgency,
Speaker 2: and I think it's just great acting. It's not about
Speaker 2: what her character is doing, but what's fundamental to performing.
Speaker 2: It's about what her character's objective is, and without overplaying it,
Speaker 2: we know precisely what Lydian needs from her mother in
Speaker 2: that moment. Did you like that what I just read?
Speaker 2: Did show I get? H m hm m hmm. What
Speaker 2: was it about? Well?
Speaker 3: Love him?
Speaker 2: It was about love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a somewhat similar scene we'll get to where
Speaker 3: she's working with other texts and performing while performing. That
Speaker 3: I think shows the multiple layers Stewart can manage at once.
Speaker 3: The number two film we picked though, is Personal Shop
Speaker 3: and there were two scenes I thought about here that
Speaker 3: both have to do with what I was mentioning about
Speaker 3: Stuart being best in my mind as a solitary performer,
Speaker 3: that she's best when she's alone on the screen. And
Speaker 3: the opening of Personal Shopper is an extended sequence like that,
Speaker 3: where she goes to this mansion, really kind of a
Speaker 3: worn down mansion where her brother had been living, and
Speaker 3: she's trying to commune with what she suspects might be
Speaker 3: his spirit wandering through this amazing place. All these doors
Speaker 3: that she keeps passing through and they all have glass windows,
Speaker 3: so there's multiple dimensions at play. Just visually here, but
Speaker 3: she's often in darkness as well, and there's a furtiveness
Speaker 3: to it, and somehow the way she holds the screen
Speaker 3: by communicating that we're watching someone who doesn't want to
Speaker 3: be seen. Okay, so it's that playing with that tension
Speaker 3: is really great. But I went with another scene from
Speaker 3: Personal Shopper, and this has a brazenness to it. She's alone.
Speaker 3: It's when she defies her client's orders and she's in
Speaker 3: her client's apartment. Client is away on a trip, and
Speaker 3: she goes ahead and tries on these high fashion dresses
Speaker 3: that she usually shops for but otherwise isn't really allowed
Speaker 3: to touch, you know, given that Maureen the Stuart character,
Speaker 3: normally wears this nondescript sweater, this is quite a transformation
Speaker 3: scene and it's one that's communicated, Yeah, through the change
Speaker 3: of clothing obviously, but as you've been pointing out, through
Speaker 3: the physicality and just look at the way Stuart carries
Speaker 3: herself and how it changes within that scene, how her
Speaker 3: shoulders again lose that hunched expression, and her gaze even
Speaker 3: when she looks into the mirror. It becomes more direct
Speaker 3: than it ever is anywhere else in the movie. But
Speaker 3: again she's alone with there's doing.
Speaker 2: Softness to it that we don't otherwise see in her
Speaker 2: character in that moment, I think when she sees herself reflected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it comes through.
Speaker 3: And even an elegance in the way in the way
Speaker 3: she does begin to move. So this is, you know,
Speaker 3: I think it's Maureene's declaration of independence, though notably it's
Speaker 3: a it's a statement she can only make when when
Speaker 3: she's alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that independence so key as we're going to get
Speaker 2: to our number one choice here, and I think we
Speaker 2: can spoil it that we're sticking with asas in terms
Speaker 2: of our favorite scenes drawing from his work and Stuart's work,
Speaker 2: and it isn't lost on me that in both films
Speaker 2: she's playing assistance. Basically, she's there to serve other great
Speaker 2: women in their pursuits. And yet something about Stuart and
Speaker 2: her individuality is constantly bursting through. The conflict seems to
Speaker 2: be her desire and her ability to be a good servant,
Speaker 2: so to speak. But at the same time, she's constantly recognizers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she's recognizing that cost and that really comes through. And
Speaker 2: I think for me, in terms of things about personal
Speaker 2: choppera especially what I've decided that works for me about Stuart.
Speaker 2: The best way I can describe it is her characters
Speaker 2: are all self aware, but Stuart isn't at all self conscious.
Speaker 2: So the characters often exhibit a heightened awareness of their contradictions,
Speaker 2: their flaws, their strengths, their power, their sexuality, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: And somehow Stuart is just incapable of suppressing that. Actors
Speaker 2: talk all the time about wanting to feel comfortable on
Speaker 2: a set, they have to trust a director. Stuart, to me,
Speaker 2: always acts as if she must be shooting at every
Speaker 2: point in the safest space for her imaginable, because to
Speaker 2: go back to Steven's words, she's completely vulnerable. I think
Speaker 2: in every moment there's no shame, there's no fear, there's
Speaker 2: no embarrassment, and I'm sure that those are factors for
Speaker 2: her like anyone else. She's just able to somehow harness
Speaker 2: it when she hears action. And I'll go back to
Speaker 2: another performance of hers that I remember made its way
Speaker 2: around social media back in December. It's her performance in
Speaker 2: the Rolling Stones video for the Blues cover Write Them Down?
Speaker 1: Did you see this?
Speaker 2: So she's the key figure, really the only figure in
Speaker 2: this Rolling Stones video, and we see her driving this
Speaker 2: amazing vehicle. I want to say it's a Mustang, a
Speaker 2: blue Mustang, licking a blue lollipop. She's dancing while she's
Speaker 2: driving in the car, licking the lollipop in a very
Speaker 2: exaggerated way. She later dances at a gas pump in
Speaker 2: a pseudo stripper fashion.
Speaker 1: And it's not that it's bad.
Speaker 2: Dancing, but it's not good dancing either. It's not that
Speaker 2: it's sexy, but it's not unsexy. And there is a
Speaker 2: certain awkwardness to it I think anyone would have to admit.
Speaker 2: But it's just this raw expression of exuberance and of energy.
Speaker 2: I think anybody watching it could be just as easily
Speaker 2: turned on by it as they could be moved to mocket.
Speaker 2: But Stuart just doesn't care. And maybe that is the
Speaker 2: vulnerability ultimately that we're talking about. It's at least what
Speaker 2: I think I'm responding to in her work. And that
Speaker 2: brings us to our joint choice here for the best
Speaker 2: Kristen Stewart scene, and it is from Clouds of Sales, Maria,
Speaker 2: which you just caught up with. It was one of
Speaker 2: my favorite films, just missed my top ten of the previous.
Speaker 3: Year, I know, and I've been doing a bad job
Speaker 3: of correcting that mistake, so this was another good excuse
Speaker 3: to do that. I'm so glad I did. I really
Speaker 3: liked it more than Personal Shopper as a matter of fact,
Speaker 3: and this is sort of the consensus pick I think
Speaker 3: for Stuart's performances. We're not breaking any new ground here.
Speaker 3: She won the French equivalent of the Oscar for this,
Speaker 3: and what a wonderful film about just such a unique relationship.
Speaker 3: Although it is an assistant role again, this time she's
Speaker 3: the assistant to a French actress named Maria played by
Speaker 3: Juliett Pinoche. Val is the character name for Stuart here,
Speaker 3: and the plot centers on this revival of a play
Speaker 3: that launched Maria to stardom some twenty years earlier. Back
Speaker 3: then she played the part of this youthful temptress who
Speaker 3: seduced as an older woman. Now she's been cast in
Speaker 3: the older role. So as part of this preparation and
Speaker 3: here's the scene that I wanted to mention, Maria and
Speaker 3: Val read scenes from the original play. Of course, Maria
Speaker 3: now in the different role, and I think it might
Speaker 3: be the first time they do this, it's a really
Speaker 3: extended line reading scene, and Val is now reading the
Speaker 3: part of the younger woman, Maria's attempting to perform the
Speaker 3: older part. And I think it's the best work Stewart
Speaker 3: has done because it incorporates everything that we've been talking about,
Speaker 3: and even that I've been talking about is sometimes what
Speaker 3: I see as weaknesses. Here it becomes an absolute strength. Now,
Speaker 3: up until this point, she's given this, for me, a
Speaker 3: really surprisingly warm, open hearted connection performance. She and Banocha.
Speaker 3: I mean they could almost be sisters extended by a
Speaker 3: couple extra years. They're just so in sync together. So
Speaker 3: this was something for me at least that was pretty new.
Speaker 3: She's so open to her co star here, not turned
Speaker 3: away from her, not trying to cut her off, nothing
Speaker 3: like that. So that was really fun to see. But
Speaker 3: when they're reading the play's dialogue, then she slips back
Speaker 3: into what we normally think of as a Kristen Stewart performer.
Speaker 3: So at least what I think of, you know, aloof
Speaker 3: and aggressive. This is the younger woman part.
Speaker 2: You're using you to humiliate me. It's not just your
Speaker 2: youth or your powers of seduction.
Speaker 1: No, it's your plum shakable self confidence.
Speaker 2: You don't know me. Nothing gets through you.
Speaker 3: You radiate self confidence, and you don't.
Speaker 1: I wear a mask. It works with some people. Others
Speaker 1: see you right through it.
Speaker 2: I can't tell which was which right away. There's one
Speaker 2: of thing anks, so it it's reading people's behavior, So
Speaker 2: how should I be reading yours? How do you think?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm reluctant to say it. That's pretty clear to me. Reluctant.
Speaker 3: Alana nervously crosses and n crosses her legs, reaches for
Speaker 3: a cigarette. I don't know if this is something actors do.
Speaker 3: But she'll stop to say the stage directions, huh, and
Speaker 3: she'll just drop the performance. But she's not really becoming
Speaker 3: Val again. She's kind of becoming this like it's a
Speaker 3: reality breaker. And then she becomes Val and then goes
Speaker 3: back and forth, and it's such to watch her moving
Speaker 3: back and forth like that is just really a wonder.
Speaker 3: And there's one line she gives as the play character.
Speaker 3: Now she says to Maria, you don't know me, and
Speaker 3: it fits for the play, but also based on what
Speaker 3: we've seen and what's happening to their relationship, Maria's beginning
Speaker 3: to wonder maybe she doesn't know Vow, and we can
Speaker 3: sense that Vow sending messages or maybe even exploring the
Speaker 3: possibility of sending messages at this way. There's just so
Speaker 3: much going on in this there is, and it's really something.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is, and I just rewatched it today in
Speaker 2: preparation for this discussion. And there's a flatness that some
Speaker 2: might decide is a negative to the way she says
Speaker 2: that line where she says, you don't know me. But
Speaker 2: I love it for all the reasons you said, but
Speaker 2: because what it really gets at is think about all
Speaker 2: the ways that character there playing a character could say
Speaker 2: you don't know me and actually betray things about themselves
Speaker 2: to the other person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could say you.
Speaker 2: Don't know me so many different ways that would suggest
Speaker 2: a self confidence or a certain desire to seduce, or
Speaker 2: just you're trying to play mystery. You're trying to play mysterious.
Speaker 2: That could all be expressed and more. But in that moment,
Speaker 2: Stuart plays that character who just means exactly what she says,
Speaker 2: you don't know me. It's as simple as that, and
Speaker 2: that whole conversation you nailed. It works on the level
Speaker 2: of the parts the characters are playing running lines. It
Speaker 2: works on the level of the parts. The characters are
Speaker 2: playing with each other, and there's that third perhaps layer
Speaker 2: of Banoche and Stuart, the actresses playing with each other.
Speaker 3: And their personas. Yeah, definitely Stuart's persona. I mean this
Speaker 3: is you know, this is a movie that's matt in
Speaker 3: so many ways. There's some jabs at Hollywood, and there's
Speaker 3: references to were wolves at one point.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: So it definitely is aware of the perception of Stuart.
Speaker 3: Never lets that become the main thing or derail what
Speaker 3: is mostly going on in the film, but it is
Speaker 3: just one more element there at play. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Another great candidate from Clouds of Sils Maria is the
Speaker 2: scene after they go see that space movie starring Chloe
Speaker 2: Grace Moretz's character in this film, and she has to
Speaker 2: try to argue with a Juliet Binoche about how there's
Speaker 2: nothing invalid or I suppose non profound yeah about this
Speaker 2: film just because it takes place in space.
Speaker 1: That's another great one.
Speaker 3: Remind me of some of our conversations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder what role I'm playing in your version
Speaker 2: of that scene, Josh.
Speaker 3: Just leave it at that.
Speaker 2: We will link to much more about Stewart in our
Speaker 2: show notes, including the Nick Davis article, which you can
Speaker 2: read some of online from Film Comment and we'll post
Speaker 2: this entire list over at filmspotting dot net under top fives.
Speaker 2: We hope you enjoyed our top five Kristen Stewart scenes
Speaker 2: from March twenty seventeen, and we hope you'll consider becoming
Speaker 2: a Film Spotting Family member once again. You can learn
Speaker 2: more at f Spotting family dot com. And don't forget
Speaker 2: that promo code summer. Thanks for listening. This conversation can
Speaker 2: serve no purpose anymore.
Speaker 3: Goodbye,