An Angel at My Table with Dana Stevens

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, don't know what to say, check I long to be as full of secrets as she seemed to be that would prompt a man to podcast them That's so good that we did that

[00:00:31] We waited about 15 minutes. I want to explain what happened, which is this movie has no quotes page and then when I googled Angel at My Table quotes, I got quotes from the book So I opened up a window with Criterion Channel and scrubbed to the scene

[00:00:47] That's the line that kind of jumped out to me the most watching the movie I don't know if it's the iconic line, but there's not too much

[00:00:55] Can't Be a Tour of Credit does not overuse the device of the voiceover narration giving us sort of like the verbatim excerpts from the book No I think that wording of I Say the actual line, right

[00:01:08] The actual line is I long to be as full of secrets as she seemed to be that would prompt a man to discover them But just the implication of I long to be as full of secrets as she seemed to be is like

[00:01:22] a verbalization of a feeling I've never really heard expressed before I love it In terms of just like thinking about how you wish people perceived you and that they wanted to ask questions Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, that's great

[00:01:40] And so much of this character's struggle is that she has no like filter and guard that she's so readable that people don't really know what to make of her, you know Well and also that her inner life is so inscrutable even to us

[00:01:55] And it's something I really love about this movie is you spend two hours and 38 minutes with this woman on camera basically every second It's so intimate in a way and yet she's such a mystery

[00:02:04] And even at the end of the film, you don't really feel like you know her You don't completely understand what motivates her to write, what it means to her to write And that mystery is just a huge part of what I love about Angel at My Table

[00:02:16] She's both at the same time though because I think especially with Carrie Fox's performance She's playing the kind of person who cannot hide exactly how she's feeling on her face at all times, right? Like she's like so painfully expressive and transparent

[00:02:33] That's what freaks people out that she seems like such an open, you know, sort of wounded person I guess I don't know Well her social self is very transparent, you're right, painfully transparent

[00:02:45] So much so that she has to hide and has to eat in private and all of those things Her artistic self, and this really is like a coming of age movie about an artist One of the best coming of age movies about an artist

[00:02:55] Her artistic self really remains so private And it almost is like, I feel like Campion is almost depending on you either knowing her work going in Or that you're gonna run off immediately afterwards and read the three autobiographies that this is based on

[00:03:08] You know, it's like she's leaving a lot of things just outside of the frame The frame frame Ooh, Dana, 15 comedy points, that's good The ladies called frame But that's a question I want to ask around the room in one moment after I introduce this show

[00:03:27] Because this is Blank Check with Griffin and David, I'm Griffin I'm David It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want

[00:03:38] Sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce baby And this is a mini series on the films of Jane Campion It is called The Podcastiano That's right Which I think we've realized only works if you say it in an Italian accent The Podcastiano

[00:03:56] You have to, otherwise it's, I don't know An interesting thing about this filmography Today we're covering her third feature film And it is her second feature film that was designed for TV Which we usually try to not cover on main feed

[00:04:15] But this one never aired in the TV format, right? It was sort of meant, produced under that idea I believe it did air Now I want to triple check my research We'll look it up I think it aired as 50, sorry, three 50 minute episodes But only in New Zealand?

[00:04:36] But only in New Zealand and Australia or whatever And, but that is, you know, it looks not in a bad way But you know, it has a more stationary camera It feels it was made on a television production schedule Yeah You feel that sometimes

[00:04:53] But I believe it did air on television Before immediately pretty much being packaged into a movie And taken to the Venice Film Festival Where it went over better than I think anyone thought Given that this is like a very specific figure You know, like this is not like

[00:05:16] This is, the campion says Like this is like a person that's only known in my part of the world So I did not understand Or I was not resolute that people would respond to her In Europe or in America or whatever

[00:05:29] I also just think to foreground this thing It is interesting like For a movie that was designed to be a three part television miniseries And is literally sort of like broken up into part one, part two, part three

[00:05:43] I cannot imagine this thing playing as well split into three segments As it does as one complete watch Even though I doubt there were any editing changes To screening it that way other than just putting the things end to end Because there's something about

[00:06:00] It's weird how well this works as like A small scale epic of a woman's life Versus this sort of like Long multi-part sort of multi-installment story, you know? Yes, it works great as a movie It sort of undeniably should be a movie I don't know

[00:06:23] That's, I mean that's how it's categorized to this day Which is why I asked if it was ever even televised And it played festivals everywhere It was released in theaters everywhere It's a movie, yeah Well like this This is a movie

[00:06:36] The feature length version of An Angel in My Tent But I do think there might have been a broadcast And now I have to triple check all that Look, we'll solve this mystery But our guest today Who's already spoken because she knows how to be on this show

[00:06:48] She's very good at it One of my favorite guests returning to the show From Slate New book cameraman Buster Keaton biography Dana Stevens Hello, happy to be with you guys And I'm really, really happy that I snagged this movie It was down to this or Bright Star

[00:07:04] And David and I were emailing about it It was really tough for me because I think if I had to just I hate doing this but if I had to put them in You know, Lady Justice's scales

[00:07:12] I maybe love Bright Star slightly more than Angel at My Table They're kind of sister films in a way, right? They're her two biopics about writers Separated by so many years But because I hadn't seen this one in so long

[00:07:23] Yeah, this just seemed like maybe a fresher thing Because Bright Star is one of those movies That I'm always pressing earnestly onto people And talking about anyway Bright Star also has more It's a more recent film You were the only person in the sort of net

[00:07:37] I was casting who had spoken up for Angel at My Table Not that this is a forgotten movie But obviously, whatever You know, it's less frequently watched I guess, you know I was happy that you eventually opted for Angel at My Table The book is out

[00:07:55] This episode is dropping January 23rd, right? Dana, is the book coming out this week? I forget your exact release date Yes, if this drops on the 23rd It's two days away from the release of Cameraman Awesome So yeah, whoever wants to order it at that point

[00:08:09] Is going to have two days until it arrives in their box Amazing So yeah, getting that up top I'm always excited when we line it up like that That was another reason It's so nice It's so nice when that happens And it's such a good book

[00:08:25] I have not finished it yet Because I'm bad at doing things on any sort of schedule But it is so excellent And as a Buster Keaton fan I remember When you were last on the show The book had just gotten announced

[00:08:39] I think, during the When Harry Met Sally episode And you said that You wanted to write the Buster Keaton book That you felt like You've never been able to find And as a big fan of his work Who hasn't read and watched everything

[00:08:53] But has dug into a lot of the more Autobiographical Sort of life-spanning Works that people have made About him and his career I do feel like you're Able to get at a lot of things That I haven't seen really dug into In other people's accounts Oh, thank you

[00:09:13] There's many, many great books On Buster Keaton But the thing I wanted to do with this book And I hope it's working for you Was to pull out the camera To tell not only his life story And not only the story of his work

[00:09:27] But to place him in the context of his time And because he was such an exemplary figure Of the 20th century There are just so many ways to frame his work That are about much more than Keaton And much more than cinema He had this Zelig-like quality

[00:09:41] That was so influentially connected To so many historical, cultural, technological Legal developments of his time And so I guess I'm sort of trying to See how history moves through his life Is a way of thinking about it Well, you said right at the beginning Of this episode

[00:09:57] The thing that's so fascinating about this movie Is by the end of it Janna Frame still doesn't really have A clear sense of who she is As an author, as an artist Like, you know, she has not really figured Out the fact that she is successful

[00:10:11] And established by that point But Buster Keaton was one of those guys Where, like, by all accounts He was so compartmentalized About how he treated his career and his work As you said, he had this Zelig-like quality But it also was like He had an insane work ethic

[00:10:27] But it was just kind of like he would solve things He wasn't a tortured artist You know, it was a job I think that probably comes out of his upbringing And everything His identity was not inextricably tied To the thing he did

[00:10:41] And he was just, I do this thing well, that makes me feel good Then I go home and I drink Well, yeah There were about five years in his life where he had a serious, serious Drinking problem, which I treat in the book

[00:10:51] But then a thing that people don't realize And I think too often he gets talked about as someone who Ah, with the coming of sound His career went down the toilet and that was the end of him And the fact is that one of the most inspirational

[00:11:01] Parts of his story is that he very slowly Kind of clawed his way back to making a living As an entertainer and you know Died doing that and doing that very happily And in a fulfilled way

[00:11:11] But a little bit like the Janet Frame character that we're going to talk about In this episode, he also has this Ineffable, mysterious quality Where even after researching him for over five years And thinking about him every single day In the context of his time

[00:11:23] As a person, I barely understand him at all I think very, very few people did in his lifetime It's something that his sister, Louise Keaton Who lived with him, including in his adult life For many, many years and was very close to him

[00:11:33] Said, I never knew what he was thinking Never. That's a famous quote from Louise Keaton You know, so that mystery to him will remain No matter how many books are written about him It's only his movies that answer it, really Yeah, and it was his whole

[00:11:45] Star quality, like as a performer Was the whole stone-faced thing Of like, what the fuck is going on inside this guy's head Right, right, like how could somebody have That sense of humor and make you laugh so hard Right, and just have such a completely solemn

[00:11:57] And impassive face at every moment Yeah We'll put a link in the bio, or rather We'll put a link in the episode description Of where you can get Dana's book We absolutely will Griff, I Think this did not air on TV I take it back

[00:12:15] As far as I can tell, it was absolutely made for TV And it was sort of made on a TV Sort of budget and time frame And then they screened it At a festival They kicked it up I believe the first festival was the Sydney Film Festival

[00:12:31] And it got such a huge reaction that they took It to the Venice Film Festival Where it famously went over so well That when it won the silver Line, it won the runner-up prize The crowd was like going Angel, angel And didn't want to hear

[00:12:47] Who had beaten it There was basically like I mean, obviously Maybe these stories get inflated over the years But it does kind of sound like there was just A lot of people who were like, oh, this is crazy It actually lost the golden lion

[00:13:01] To Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead movie Which is sort of a forgotten movie With Gary Oldman, Tim Roth But it's like a very enjoyable film I like that movie It's very entertaining It's kind of hard to argue with it

[00:13:17] But I think that was something of a scandal too At Cannes, right? I was reading that it didn't win the golden lion The big prize at Cannes But it was said at the festival that it didn't take both So it was very popular there as well People absolutely

[00:13:31] Whatever, it became this Wow, this is a hot, by the way, Goodfellas was in competition Cool At the Venice Film Festival this year At Mo' Better Blues And some, yeah, this is Martin Scorsese won the directing trophy Anyway Well, it's also, the movie after this is The Piano

[00:13:51] Where she becomes the first woman to win the Palme d'Or That's right So I wonder if also Her getting a special jury prize Instead of the The silver lion Was seen as sort of like A continuing sort of Condescension, you know? Yeah, maybe it was, right

[00:14:13] Like why is it getting shunted to runner up Maybe that was part of it Look, all I can tell you is the people were shouting Angel, angel Angel for 10 minutes And That's what Campion Recalls, basically Just having a great time At the festivals

[00:14:33] And so then it was like, okay, it's a movie We'll release it It was released in Australia in 1990 And it came out the rest of the world In 1991, pretty much I mean, we've talked about this in the previous episodes But to reground it

[00:14:47] She is a filmmaker whose career Is being driven by film festivals Going back to her first three short films Playing all at Cannes And the director sort of like Demanding like to New Zealand You have to give her money to make a feature To come back here

[00:15:03] Because this is, like I'm telling you This is an important director And it's a time when You know, Australian and New Zealand cinema Is still, I think, fairly exotic Like it's still pretty new So it like, that happens Especially back in the day pre-internet

[00:15:19] At film festivals where it's sort of like Trying to identify where new Movie making movements are coming out of And this was a vanguard You know, this was exciting I think that was a big part of it Right, a time when film twitter Only existed in person

[00:15:35] In specific foreign cities Seems fun, right? I don't know Yeah, nice to be able to just like get off plane And leave film twitter after a week Dana, when did you first see An Angel at My Table? Like what's your campion story?

[00:15:51] I'm sure that I saw it when it came out Because I was already interested in Yeah, I was already interested in You know, Australian, New Zealand This kind of cinema I think something that I associated with at the time And I even confused the movies for years afterwards

[00:16:05] Probably was My Brilliant Career Right, the Gillian Armstrong movie With Judy Davis, which is also about A young woman kind of growing into herself as a writer Very different movie But it sort of seemed like part of the genealogy

[00:16:17] You know, or just Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock Which I think this movie has something in common With especially in that early chapter About her childhood You know, something about the mystery And those fades to black And you know, the way that everything is sort of held

[00:16:31] At this slightly gauzy distance Has a little bit of a Picnic at Hanging Rock feel Yeah, and the way she starts scenes in the middle Over and over again Where you're like, whoa, what's happening And then you cut into a meal

[00:16:43] Or kids, and you're like, why are we here now? You know, just to add to the Yeah, the dreaminess Yeah, there's an off-kilterness to that portrait of the family That I absolutely love I mean, there's no sort of expository moment Where we learn

[00:16:57] Here are the kids' names, here's their birth order You know, here's how they each feel about their parents Or something like that They're just this pack of kids who are sometimes mixed in With other neighborhood kids that aren't in the family

[00:17:07] And the work is on you to figure out What their siblings and their relationship to each other And what their family dynamic is like And that's all just done with so much elusiveness You know, elusiveness with an A And it's just a gorgeous part of the movie

[00:17:19] It's almost hard to leave that chapter of the movie for me Because that may be my favorite bit And that little girl I don't know if I'm saying her name right Alicia Keough, who plays her as a child For one thing, extraordinary continuity

[00:17:31] Among the three actresses who play her Yeah, it's wild To the extent that I almost thought, is this a boyhood thing? Because the little girl and the adolescent girl It's almost like they're sisters, they're so similar And then Carrie Fox also seems like

[00:17:43] The woman that would have grown out of those two girls And I'm always very attentive to that Remember Cinema Paradiso? Like how none of the three guys At different ages seemed like the same dude And that always pulled me out of that movie completely

[00:17:55] You know, and it's a hard thing to pull off Because you can't cast someone just based on how they look Right? There has to be a continuity Of behavior as well, but this movie nails it all It helps that That Janna Frame had a distinctive look

[00:18:07] The big hair, yeah But even so, yes, there is absolutely Continuity of performance And I feel like they look More similar than they probably Would out of costume because They're well directed And well costumed on top Of everything else

[00:18:25] Yeah, the wig room was well maintained for this movie I have some great quotes from Campion On this in our research, because yes For one, obviously, Campion was like The wig is, it was The magic trick And she said when they put the wig on

[00:18:39] Alexia Keo, the little girl She started crying because she was like This is insane Because it is such a You know, the hair color and how big it is It must have just been sort of bizarre To see I feel like the wig is truly transformative

[00:18:55] But she also says She was, that Campion loved The Last Emperor, which has Pulled the same trick, you know, going from Kid to adolescent to grown up But she said like, my problem With The Last Emperor is I really like The middle kid And I got so

[00:19:13] Attached to him that I actually was mad When he grew up into the next kid Into the grown up, into John Lone, I think is the, you know And I was so Afraid of that, like I was basically afraid Like, oh, you're gonna love

[00:19:27] One of them and you're gonna Miss them when they're gone, so she was Obsessed with making the transitions Happen in a moment where you're happy For the character because Then you're a little less sort of Whatever, discombobulated by The switch, especially

[00:19:43] The Carrie Fox one, she was like, she needs to show up In a not bleak moment because Otherwise it's just gonna feel even whatever Tougher to let go of the adult It's very interesting to think about I wonder if Barry Jenkins Like references at all

[00:19:59] Working on Moonlight because it does There's a similar sort of handoff quality To it and a continuity of performance And that's a movie where the three actors Look so radically different And are in such different stages But you do buy the continuity Of them being the same guy

[00:20:15] And even just Structurally it feels similar to this Can I make an embarrassing Admission? I was so Like Moonlight pilled watching This movie that I was like Okay, it's like three actors At different ages and it's three different parts That when we were on part two

[00:20:33] I was like, man, this girl's so good I can't wait to see how hard Carrie Fox Crushes it. Like I in my mind was Like Carrie Fox will be part three Rather than part one Is two girls and Carrie Fox Is part two and three

[00:20:47] So I was just like, I can't even imagine How good the fucking Carrie Fox segment Is gonna be and then like 30 minutes into Part two I was like, oh, this is Carrie Fox That makes sense I mean when you Moonlight

[00:20:59] It's a crazy example where you're like, oh well There must have been so much going on coordinating These performances then you read about how that movie Was made and it's like no those kids You know, none of the actors ever met

[00:21:09] They weren't going off each other's performances at all It's all direction, right? It's all just And Moonlight much like this movie Was made on a compressed schedule Like she didn't even have a lot of time with these You know, like they really were

[00:21:21] Just bringing people in and out because this movie Has so many characters Because it's moving through time But most of them are Brief, you know, appearances That's the other thing I think it was a crazy movie to make This Angel at My Table This movie is like

[00:21:39] Much like Moonlight again But it's like the first segment is So vignette, you know And then it slows down a little Right, it slows down a little bit By the third one you're in More realistic passage of time But this movie just has

[00:21:55] So many scenes, it's so long It has so many locations It has so many different characters at so many different ages Like this is such a step Up as a director In terms of how difficult Or challenging it is just to get this thing shot You know?

[00:22:11] I mean Dana, I don't know if you have any thoughts The girl who played young Alexia Kiyo By the way never appeared in another movie And the teen one never did another movie too So she's like a total find Is that true?

[00:22:23] I think so, and I was looking at most of the siblings also Anytime there was a really good performance From a younger actor in particular I'd be like what did they do after this And it was like just this Which in a certain way speaks well

[00:22:35] Of maybe the cast of Crosses and shit Dana, question because you already posed this Were you a fan Of Janet Frame For watching this movie or were you drawn to this movie Because of your interest in Aussie and New Zealand cinema

[00:22:53] And then part two, did you after watching this movie Read any of her work? I didn't know her at all In fact I think this movie introduced Janet Frame to a lot of people These books were pretty recent

[00:23:03] Is something that I didn't realize until just reading up on her For this show That the three autobiographies it's based on Were published in the 80s and this came out in 1990 So I think there may have even been people In that area in New Zealand

[00:23:15] Who were introduced to her and to her books By this movie So no, I didn't know Janet Frame beforehand I've read some of her poetry since then And I'm hoping maybe we can incorporate some into the show Because her poetry is fantastic

[00:23:27] But I have not read any of these three memoirs Although watching this again made me really want to read them Have either of you read any? No I've only seen this movie, I've seen this movie a few times

[00:23:37] Over the years but I've never read any of her books What's fascinating is I've always wanted to read her books Her fiction you're saying? Her fiction, because the way Campion has always put it Is like she loved those books when she was younger Like Owls Do Cry

[00:23:49] I think was the big debut novel She's written several books And then her thing was in the 80s Reading these autobiographies When they came out And realizing like oh this person had such a tough life I had no idea Like that was what changed her perspective

[00:24:05] On the author herself Like I was like That was what drew all of her interest Because I guess she saw herself In frames Actual life and things like that And here I want to find some quotes But no I've never read any of her frames

[00:24:21] I mean this makes me want to read it She also just You look at her bibliography And it's like she wrote three autobiographies She wrote poetry She wrote fiction She wrote children's literature You know She wrote a lot of different areas

[00:24:39] Oh we talked about it in previous episodes But like adapting some piece Of Janet frames catalog Was a thing she had Like right out of film school It was like You know before Sweetie I mean she had like the early inklings of piano

[00:24:57] The idea to do some sort of Janet frame film And then when She had this early film festival Breakout From her short films She recognized like Okay I have some heat and some freedom now I should make a weird small comedy

[00:25:13] That I probably can't make later in my career But it's like she had her first three Major films kind of planned out In her mind Sort of but like she gets the Approval from frame to make this before Sweetie's been made So frame is really being

[00:25:29] Nice in a way Like she really had no reason to trust me I'd made some short films Like that was it Like for frame to be like Yeah go ahead Apparently frame was like well you should do three films You should adapt each book And Campion was like

[00:25:47] That's too much I can't do that And so I guess talked her into The three part series And then it's this sort of back Back door I guess To making it into one movie She's like well what if we do sort of three long episodes

[00:26:01] And then okay sure And then it actually just all fits together As a feature And I haven't read the autobiography I'm sure there's more to them There's things this book This movie changes about her life Her sibling didn't drown He like fell into some burning trash

[00:26:19] Like there's things that I think they had to massage Because it was like too intense Wait you mean she lost a brother in real life Because in the movie she loses two sisters Well she lost two siblings in real life Okay But I think they were both sisters

[00:26:35] Yeah in the movie they're both sisters It's not a brother I didn't realize burning trash was such a problem in those days We always tell you Ben To be careful before you go rummaging around In the burning trash pile I'm sorry it's from Right okay this is confusing

[00:26:51] Right in Owls Do Cry The fictional book This is what it is The sister fell into a pile of burning trash And died and then right In the autobiography she drowned Okay so they're not massaging that detail It's more that frame had Turned that detail into something

[00:27:09] More lurid and then the reality Was something But this movie is not I feel like it's good At not being miserable and traumatic If that makes sense Even though there are obviously miserable and traumatic things in her life But not like wallowing

[00:27:25] I feel like there's a lot of sort of being heavy handed about that Like you know the scenes in the mental hospital Things like that It is the thing I maybe find Well maybe not but amongst the things I find most impressive About this movie

[00:27:37] Is how sort of matter of fact It is able to Recount everything Because I mean look dumb basic ass Research deep dive I was just sort of looking at Janet Frames Wikipedia page And clicking on a couple links off of that But it sounded like A lot

[00:27:57] She had a struggle in her life After the autobiographies Were published but also even beyond that After this movie came out In that her life and her career became so Defined by her sort of Struggles with mental illness Right because up until that point

[00:28:13] She was like a local Hero cult literary figure Who was kind of Elusive and unknowable And then when people Kind of went like holy fucking shit I can't believe her life This is wild look at all these things she went through

[00:28:29] And that was only like before she was 10 and all that stuff That that sort of like Hounded her and that she felt like There was an authorized Biography Written of her in the final years of her life Which is an odd thing for someone

[00:28:43] Who had already written three volumes Of their own autobiography And then there was controversy after she died About liberties that the biographer Had taken because he was like There are things that she admitted To me that I thought were sort of Too Sensational Too embarrassing

[00:29:03] And would overwhelm the story and I was sort of doing Compassionate biography Removing details that I would I felt like would overwhelm her Narrative but Apparently so much of why she sat down with him And why she allowed someone to do this book

[00:29:17] And she was like I want to recenter my life Away from just My mental struggles That has sort of like so greatly clouded Everything And it is fascinating for her To make this movie at a time where You could imagine especially if you're saying hey I'm doing

[00:29:33] A TV miniseries about this A very sort of sensationalist American Movie of the week sort of version Of the story that is just the like Can you believe everything she overcame Yeah it could have been a girl Interrupted I mean it could have had a lot of bathos

[00:29:49] Absolutely or it could have had some Of that one flew over the cuckoo's nest Kind of I mean all respect to That movie but its portrait of you know Mental illness and mental illness treatment is Is just really really crude And reductionist and I think

[00:30:03] It could have been Francis like there's so Many examples and we're even talking About the high brow examples Of that kind of thing You know but there are like the crappy TV movie of the week versions of it It is Kind of incredible how matter of fact

[00:30:19] She's able to recount Especially for how much is covered And I do feel like The only scenes where she really Kind of cranks it up Are the scenes in the institutions Which are like Appropriately harrowing you know But even like The other traumas across her life

[00:30:39] Or it as you said David I think especially The first section the childhood section It's such a good Sort of capturing of the way You recall childhood Memories yes in a way That almost at moments Recalls Terrence Malick I mean that very

[00:30:57] First shot of the baby's feet walking through The grass and that wonderful point of view Shot of her mother's flowered dress kind Of looming over her the way that a baby Would perceive its mother Was just it's such an unusual way to begin

[00:31:09] A biopic and that was one thing I was going to say at the top When we talked about this versus bright star How those were the two movies I was between choosing To do with you guys is that It's just kind of striking that the same person

[00:31:19] Jane Campion directed what I think are two of the best Literary biopics ever made You know there's neither of those two biopics For a moment indulges in the sort Of classic furrowed brow at your desk With crumpled paper in a wastebasket

[00:31:31] Next to you you know just dumb biopic Clichés they completely sidestep them In really elegant ways You've just spent the last couple of years Writing a biography on An artist but in a medium where you Can just sort of like unfurl And tell the whole story

[00:31:47] And so often With film biopics especially ones Of artists who go on to do great things I almost Always struggle with ones that try To bite off multiple decades If not an entire life You know I think my favorite biopics are

[00:32:03] Usually the ones that aren't even really biopics And are movies about a real figure That hyper focus in on One specific conflict or one specific period Of their life or element Like Wild that fantastic Oscar Wilde biography That's only about the trial you know

[00:32:17] That's only about his trial for homosexuality And it's a beautiful portrait Brookline it It's hard to what Dana's talking about as well Is like it's so hard to represent Creativity on screen Yes You know because it's such an internal process

[00:32:35] You know you need to do the thing of like They look at a flower And then you see them writing a poem Called The Flower You know just something like that right That would be unbearable And That's not what she She never you know can't be never remotely

[00:32:53] Succumbs to that it's all about trying To understand a person's interiority Not the thing They're eventually going to create I guess if that makes sense I also think It's she's sort of focusing more on This person's Journey to be taken seriously As a writer rather than

[00:33:13] Focusing on her creatively Developing as a writer which is The thing that is very hard to Dramatize you know And in the process once she's Taken seriously as a writer It's the first time she's taken seriously as A human being it's like The craziest irony about this

[00:33:31] Person's life it's completely Bananas that she was like Days or hours from a lobotomy Right and then they were like oh you want A prize oh maybe we Shouldn't like hammer anything into your brain Right now right I mean could there be a more

[00:33:45] Suspenseful turning point in a biopic About a writer like you're going to get A lobotomy in moments if you don't Get a literary prize but even that Happens in this oddly tossed off way Where it's almost unbelievable that that happened

[00:33:57] To a real human being in life in the movie Does not if anything I think that The movie almost doesn't quite make that clear enough It was because I had read that in another context That I understood that that was what Was happening at that moment but wow

[00:34:09] What a strange turn of events It is unbelievable that that A is so tossed off and B is the Halfway point of the film and the movie Is not Putting some sort of Modeling focus on Her overcoming right You know I mean there's something

[00:34:27] That performance of the doctor In that scene is so good In terms of her coming in And being like excited There's that weird thing of like I mean we're jumping around here but I think A thing this movie captures really well Especially in the Institutionalization scenes is like

[00:34:47] There's that glib thing that often Gets said that I think is not Fully true that like If you're worried That you're crazy you're not crazy This notion that like You know the most mentally ill people are the people Who think that they're completely fine

[00:35:03] Which is reductive and incorrect But when you watch this movie Anytime she is hospitalized There is that Sense you get and so much of it is Carrie Fox's performance of like She is A lot more coherent and self aware Than everyone else she is surrounded By

[00:35:23] She is struggling But she has more wherewithal than they do And This is a time in which Mental health is not really understood And especially for women It is a thing that is sort of just thrown on them

[00:35:37] As like they're crazy I don't know what to do about them And so much of The sort of rise of lobotomy Which also a fucking insane thing To read is that like The guy who invents the lobotomy wins Like the Nobel Prize Or the 1949 And by like 1951 lobotomies

[00:35:57] Are outlawed Like the turnaround was so fast I mean I don't think it's quite As fast as you're saying but by the 50s They are abandoned Yeah it was like started In the late 40s he wins this prize At like 49 and by the early Mid 50s they're

[00:36:15] Done and a lot of The thing was that like the more and more they got Into it the more they realized like They don't actually know whether this helps Anyone's condition it makes it easier For people to take care of them That so much of lobotomization was

[00:36:29] Like well now people are going to be less Erratic and difficult and violent because they're just Sort of like docile And the fact that here's this woman Who is like cognizant Enough to understand That she's struggling with something And that admission that vulnerability

[00:36:45] Puts her in a position where they go like I don't know What do we give her the standard Carve a bunch of her brain out And everyone just sort of assumes that she has to be Like an invalid And then that scene with the doctor he comes in

[00:36:57] And he's just like well la de da Like he's suddenly impressed by her You know and she says like so Am I not getting the surgery and he's like of course not You just won this award

[00:37:07] And it's like the first time they viewed her as a human being In like years It's one of those life details that is both So unusual And it's also so unusual that it is Basically the hook of a movie Just saying that about her is sort of a

[00:37:21] Startling fact That would get a movie producer interested And it's also so Bananas that it's almost impossible To put in a movie without Clarifying for the whole audience like this really Happened because it seems implausible It seems which is you know We're defining what makes a movie

[00:37:39] Biopic sort of happen a lot of the time Right it's like well You know in real life you couldn't write it It's absolutely crazy They should have cut to Margot Robbie in the bathtub Saying this really happened That really it freezes and it goes like

[00:37:53] My biggest complaint about the movie Yeah Can I say one thing about since we're talking about mental illness And how it's shown in the film I think maybe my favorite shot in the entire movie

[00:38:03] And I watched it a few times so I could count how long it lasted Is when she looks at that piece of chalk in her hand When she freezes at the chalkboard You know which is sort of the moment

[00:38:11] Kind of her break with you know reality in a way It's the moment that she sort of realizes I can't do this teaching career thing I can't appear in front of other people You know I feel like the trajectory That eventually lands her in the mental hospital

[00:38:21] Happens there beginning with the chalk And that is just such an unusual Way of treating that moment And it's so cinematic To decide to look at someone looking at a piece of chalk For I don't know I think it's like An eight or nine second long shot

[00:38:35] With no sound you know There's nothing sort of put in place to make us Know what we're supposed to think about it We're just staring at a piece of chalk You know and sort of that to me so put me in that moment

[00:38:45] Of you know being in front of an audience And realizing that you just simply cannot do The thing that you're there to do Well and the irony too of like That sort of obsessive hyper focus Sort of Capturing And Sort of I don't know

[00:39:03] Understanding of details and moments Is the thing that made her such a skilled Writer But for the first 50% of this movie It like almost exclusively Operates to her detriment as a human being In terms of how people view her I mean the fact that like the thing that

[00:39:19] Gets her institutionalized for the first time Is her teacher Praising This sort of autobiography assignment She wrote in which she Admits to a suicide attempt And then he sort of like calls the authorities On her and he's The first person to tell her that she's a good writer

[00:39:37] He compliments her We go back to her home She's in the mirror repeating His compliments to herself Like it was the most validating moment she's had And then I'm sure this is like a little bit of Cinematic condention But the fact that then

[00:39:53] That's interrupted by the professor showing up With two guys to bring her to the hospital You know and it's like Even I don't think he was being insincere In complimenting her work It speaks so much to the time where he was just like

[00:40:05] Yeah but Alan she's a crazy lady you gotta send her to the hospital And he would admit this kind of thing Even if she writes it well Obviously can't take care of herself And it's like the fact that she had the wherewithal The honesty, the transparency, the self-reflectiveness

[00:40:17] To write about that And write about it well only punishes her In her life Yeah well which is a very feminist kind of observation too In a very low key way But it's mad woman in the attic stuff You know what I mean?

[00:40:31] And if she's going to be that frank and raw And write something like that You know she's off to the funny farm And there's nothing specifically in there To sort of show that that is men deciding for a woman Whether she is mentally competent or not

[00:40:43] But you know it's what's happening They also I mean she's writing the whole time that she's there She's getting published works Right? Like people are showing up with her Published hard copy You know books in hand Presumably the staff of the institution Knows that Beyond that

[00:41:03] The fact is she just behaviorally is so different Than most of the other patients in there Who are screaming constantly Or non-verbal You know she is clearly very fragile But she's got a coherence To her And it's only once it's like

[00:41:19] Whoa wait a second we didn't know you were important You won an award? Now you're serious It's like they knew she was functioning at that level The only thing that saves her Is the sort of recognition Of oh fuck this is an important artist

[00:41:33] We knew she was writing but who gives a shit Like if she's an important artist We're going to look like idiots and cut her brain out Well right But it's also The importance It's that there's vastly different communities At work here

[00:41:49] The importance is being conferred by a community She can barely see Right? Like a sort of academic literary You know like And she's just been dumped into I mean the thing about the facility Which Campion says like the autobiography Doesn't really even get into

[00:42:05] What those places were like So they had to ask Janet Frame herself Sort of like hey what was it like here But like It just seems like it's just sort of like Well put them all in there and whatever There's not a lot of distinctive care Going on

[00:42:21] It's just kind of like well they can all kind of rattle around together There's a moment really early in the movie When she's riding in the train with her mom And she sees the mentally ill man outside the asylum Right? I mean

[00:42:31] That's a really powerful again sort of Malickian moment Right? Of this kid kind of starting to understand Starting to glimpse that there are things in the world That are you know wrong and bad And frightening that she doesn't understand And the mom covers up her eyes

[00:42:43] Right? But all that becomes This great foreshadowing For her being essentially misdiagnosed Or completely over diagnosed And slapped into a similar facility Over diagnosed She's anxious She expresses her emotions And she struggles in front of people And that is basically diagnosis Like well Your schizophrenia She's incredibly

[00:43:09] Insane like specific diagnosis Yeah and it's like the lobotomy Was like a five year fad cure all As you're saying There wasn't like attentive sort of Specific Patient to patient treatment It was just sort of like what do we do to make them all calm down You know

[00:43:27] So even though she's at a wildly different place Than the people she's sharing rooms with They're still about to apply the same thing to her I mean It's that thing that I think the first chunk of the movie captures so well Is like This is the kind of

[00:43:43] Brain And sort of view of the world That makes a good writer But the fact that The thing is So you get these brief vignettes You jump around in time Things aren't really explained to you It feels like a collection of memories

[00:44:01] Where especially as anyone looks back on their childhood There are things that stick out And stay with you with weird detail And poignancy And sometimes they are the big defining moments of your life And sometimes they're very small incidental things The example That's so

[00:44:17] It was really potent for me Was like the scene Of them finding out that the First sister dies of drowning Bookended by the two scenes About the photographs And all three scenes are kind of given Equal weight and importance You obviously have her mom reacting in grief

[00:44:35] But the scene is not overpranked And the scene before that The guy delivering the news is just like I am a doctor your child has died Is there anyone I can call Like he's not really blunting Or the information anyway And the scene is pretty brief

[00:44:51] They cut out of it pretty quickly But the scene before that is like We see them all at the lake Then we see them receiving the photos And that sister is missing From the photo This bizarre observation That feels like is that some weird Artistic Flourish

[00:45:11] And then there's this news That she dies And the scene after that We're sort of like past the worst of the grieving And it is the mom showing Her friends all the photos they have And they're saying that's so nice

[00:45:25] You have a good photo of her from right before she died And she's like yeah you know The photographer did this weird thing Where he cut her out of this photo And made her her own photo And then added her arm there And so it's like oh no

[00:45:39] She was missing from the earlier photo But of course if you're her You remember like that's a weird thing That she was missing from the photo And then she dies that soon after And then this photo exists as this weird memento But those photo observation scenes

[00:45:53] Are like as important as The news of the death itself Right well and there also that scene where The women confer over the photo That's been restored is framed Really fantastically where you see the women And the photo only sort of from an over the shoulder

[00:46:07] Framing but you see little Janet You know the fantastic Alicia Alexia Keeog sitting there And it's really a scene about Her listening and observing Right I mean I feel like that's the scene About her coming of age as a writer and if I remember right

[00:46:21] She's holding a book too she's kind of clutching a book To her chest and to me I sort of saw that as Just like the scenes where we see her you know Writing in her poetry notebook that her dad gives her That's kind of a bildungsroman moment

[00:46:31] Of the writer in the making you know sort of Putting together like how is my sister being remembered How weird is it that her arm Is being restored in a fake restoration How am I going to remember her There's so much at work there in terms of

[00:46:43] What must have been happening in the little writer Mind as she tried to absorb That moment And the sister has That same sister has one of the Few sort of like direct writing process Scenes where she's like editing her Right and tells her to change a word

[00:46:59] Right that's a great Moment The story of mental health In Australia and New Zealand had not Really been told much as well And Campion was sort of like She didn't want it directly But like it's such a thing Especially post war The strange ways our

[00:47:19] Countries tried to deal with The mentally ill and like you know Institutionalization and all that And so like I do think she talks About basically after Reading Janet Frames autobiography And like any time she would see A mental institution She would just think like it's Janet in there

[00:47:37] Like you know like she suddenly became These sort of like prison like places to her Versus I guess things she would just Ignore before that's just kind of An interesting well right I mean That's the right it's the thing of like Okay so she survives by

[00:47:51] The skin of her teeth how many people Right didn't get that Outside validation that halted a lobotomy At the last second And lobotomy is where I mean I don't want to pull a number out of my Ass but like Disproportionately performed upon women

[00:48:07] In that period of time. Absolutely A friend of mine Posted this on Letterboxd Was like the other thing with this movie And starting with the child And the most sort of impressionistic Section is crucial to Like any time anyone is mean to Janet Or unthinking or

[00:48:25] Insensitive you just kind of like Raise your hackles or like It's so good at placing You in her corner without Ever you know Doing the sort of cliched I don't know childhood bullying stuff Does that make sense like she's just such a Maybe it's

[00:48:43] The new parent in me or something I have no idea But like doesn't you know like I just was like I just wanted to protect Her in this sort of first half Of the movie once she's a grown up It's a little different but you know Young Janet

[00:48:57] Watching her you know that Was something I sort of kept Thinking about. There's also something To the fact that she like looks like a Cartoon character right? Or like a doll like yeah Exactly like it's just like yeah She kind of looks like Australian Little orphan Annie. Yes

[00:49:15] There's a later scene where she's wearing a red Cardigan and I was like that's what it is It's Annie. Right. It finally Clicked for me. Annie a crucial figure For young David Sims I should say I was a big fan Of John Huston's insane

[00:49:29] Annie movie. Yes. And I would Watch it all the time so maybe that's part of my Connection to Eddie girl with Red curly hair. Was Annie like your first Crush? No It's not a crush. I think it was it's famously The first movie I ever saw. Right.

[00:49:43] For some reason. My parents were like yeah We took you to see some like revival of Annie and then I had it on video And I would just watch it. It's in I haven't seen it In years and my memory it is like sort

[00:49:53] Of a famously bloated movie With these like huge Sets like and it was sort of like John Huston's Crazy Swan song but it's not like It's not like well regarded per se Right. It's more just kind of bananas That is not that is

[00:50:07] Not a successful adaptation of Annie I mean I have to say my own history With Annie is that I saw the original Broadway production with Andrea McArdle As Annie when I was 12 years Old basically the same age as Andrea McArdle and it was my first trip ever to

[00:50:21] New York City which you know I immediately fell In love with. My parents say that they remember Me saying on that trip possibly as we Were coming out of Annie this is where I'm going to live When I grow up. You know that was just like a huge

[00:50:31] Huge thing for me so when the movie came Along it was sort of like of course nothing can live Up to it but objectively also That is just simply not a well cast movie. The little girl Who plays Annie god bless her hate to criticize

[00:50:41] The child actor but she is not Up to par. She's in Her 50s now or whatever you can take her down She's fine. She can handle it I mean Finney Albert Finney Is one of my favorite actors I won't hear a word against him but

[00:50:55] Weird choice for that role. Insane casting Carol Burnett is a very good Miss Hannigan I will say that. She's good. Right Right right right. She makes sense. Tim Curry Makes sense. Bernadette Peters makes sense like That stuff probably makes more sense. I haven't

[00:51:07] Seen it since I was a kid. I want to rewatch it But what I mostly remember is that It is insanely grandiose Like it's more just that like the sets Are so obviously Huge and it's just kind of Bizarre to imagine Like 80 year old John Houston

[00:51:23] Like you know barking with a cigar At like kid actors doing Hard knock life. I don't know. Anyway We'll do we'll do John Houston One day right. We'll do 85 movies. Yeah we'll do a mini series On like the four different versions of Annie Including TV versions

[00:51:39] Um I was gonna say that my I'm sure I watched Annie As a as a kid but my sister Uh Romley who's a bunch younger When she was little she went through Like an obsessive Annie phase watching it over And over and over again. So like

[00:51:53] I saw Annie a bunch as a teenager But in this sort of like walking In and out of the room. Right That was the movie that she watched She's got Annie on right. So I remember Being like people think this movie's bad

[00:52:05] Like it was like a flop like this movie seems pretty good But I was only ever watching it in segments I feel like if I had to sit down and watch That movie from beginning to end As an adult captive I'd be like this thing's A fucking mess

[00:52:17] Whereas it's broken into individual pieces It is. It's got some numbers It's you know. It's compelling But I also remember the DVD she had had Some special feature that was like the EPK from the movie and they had The press conference that was like John Houston

[00:52:31] Being like we found our Annie Here's our little orphan Annie They did the classic like cattle Call right like kids around the country Want to be Annie. But it was the first time I really clocked like oh that's weird That this guy directed this movie

[00:52:45] Like having to watch John Houston In front of a camera with Carol Burnett Doing the faces and tugging the ear And this little girl and a dog And being like it's gonna be a musical Throw ride for the whole family It's the only musical he ever made

[00:52:59] Like it makes no sense that they Hired him. It's about a little girl It just doesn't I mean it doesn't do That very difficult thing that lots of movie musicals Don't do like it does not achieve lift off It does not make you believe that those people

[00:53:11] Are spontaneously bursting into song in those Situations. Right a huge A huge ask. He may have felt a little Too cynical to ever pull off a musical In that way but He wanted to make Annie she's a little orphan I do think that factors into it

[00:53:25] I think the fact that Janet Blaine Looks so much like Annie Makes the fact that you're watching her get bullied Like I need sympathy you're always gonna root for a kid But you're just like this is like a fucking Like it's Annie what are you talking about

[00:53:37] They also like I feel Like she's costumed in far more Color than any other character Like Sweetie is such A sort of we talked about like in That episode that it's like An adult film that has the aesthetics Of a children's film and

[00:53:53] It's like so bright and saturated And stylized and then This sort of retains that only in the Janet Blaine character and even that Performance being a little larger you know And her look being larger than life And all of that that she's such

[00:54:07] An obvious target because she like pops in the Frame so much but you even have Scenes of her observing like other people Getting bullied you know You know her parents Judging other people Like I think she's just very very Attuned from a very young age to Alienation both

[00:54:25] When it's happening to herself and when she's Seeing it happening to other people And all of that depends on in the early Scenes where there's so little dialogue and it's Again Malick like in the Absolute spareness of dialogue in those scenes About childhood so much depends upon

[00:54:39] The kids performance all the kids performances Right the sisters and everyone You know just having this natural observed quality As if we just by accident happen to be Observing their private behavior And just in the framing I mean There's just not a shot in that early part

[00:54:53] Of her rural childhood that is not Exquisite like those trains moving Against the sunset and you know the kind Of nature spaces that they move through And even the interiors like the color Palette of these kind of washed out Wallpapers and the house dresses

[00:55:07] That they wear everything about the family's Kind of class affiliation and you know They're kind of the fact for example That you can tell she comes from a household that's pretty Much without books right it's a very working Class uncultured kind of household that doesn't

[00:55:19] Need to be set up with any exposition It's just what we get from the Texture of their daily life and that's One of those things where I mean as just A dog this past year where production Design is a huge part of what informs Campion's project. Yeah I

[00:55:33] Will say I have been Like holding back from watching Power of the dog a second time because I know we're covering it soon But it has been hard not to just Watch it a couple more times Because it is one of those movies when you're

[00:55:47] Like a couple weeks out from it Your appreciation's only grown and grown And grown and you're like man I want to dig back Into that fucking thing. For me just Because of the way it buckles at the end right Because of that ending that is a true ending

[00:55:59] I absolutely love the ending of that movie It's the kind of movie that makes you want to watch it again immediately It's like Moby's strip movie and I know When I saw it in the theater and it was

[00:56:07] Before it had opened so I realized it would be a while Again before I could see it in the theater it was just One of those rare movies that I walked out of with this kind Of feverish drive like I must

[00:56:15] See it again when can I see it again Because you want to see how it's all put together And I think of all the movies that came out in 2021 It rewards the second viewing More than any other It hugely does Right the second viewing I'm excited for my

[00:56:29] Third viewing because right the first viewing You are the whole time On the edge of like where is this Going you know like I'm trying To parse all these mysterious Intentions and then the second viewing Is much more interesting in retrospect but

[00:56:43] Yeah I'm very interested to now just sort of To sort of feel it emotionally If that makes sense I mean not that it wasn't emotional The first two times but just to sort of like See that she Creates such full characters like

[00:56:55] Empower the Dog it's an ensemble of full Characters this really is just It's just Janet like everyone else Is sort of moving in and out right like Her parents are unnamed Her friends are often You know sort of temper you can't

[00:57:09] Even keep track of them right exactly you know like And so that this is It's impressive because this is like A two hour 40 minute movie that Obviously it keeps you in One character's frame of mind the Entire time without dragging Does this I mean this movie doesn't drag

[00:57:25] For a long movie No no and it's two hours and 40 minutes Long you're essentially watching three episodes of Television just played back to back To back it is The quality of her Work and I still you know I'm Looking forward to several of her films that I've never

[00:57:41] Seen before I get to watch for the first Time in this series but in all The work of hers I've seen She has a fascinating ability To keep you engaged in a movie Without employing any Traditional narrative thrust Like it's not even like she's A filmmaker who is

[00:58:01] Like purposefully Creating a sense of mystery or withholding Information for a reason like You know in sort of a twist way But This is a movie that doesn't follow standard Biopic themes and as you said Like does not explain itself Is the kind of thing that done poorly

[00:58:19] Is so overwhelming And confusing that you're just like I'm out I can't even follow This you know right it could easily Be overwhelming right what am I supposed to be Following here essentially right two friends has this Weird backward narrative how the dog

[00:58:33] Isn't explicitly a twist movie but Certainly a movie that builds towards A sense of like what is going on and Who's in control of this whole thing And whatever and in all these cases It is just like She's making movies that don't Totally operate the way we're used

[00:58:49] To movies operating But yet they still grab you as If they were Functioning with a traditional narrative You know there's something She's able to sort of like Latch onto I don't really understand The magic trick Because it's employed in different Ways Another scene that is just like

[00:59:11] Heartbreaking this I mean you're talking about Sort of her working class Background in this which is another thing that like You know In the hands of a more Modeling filmmaker could have been turned into Like Angela's ashes or something You know which is like also

[00:59:27] Not what she's interested in doing But that she's trying to Elevate not elevate herself but she's trying To enter this Literary world where Her Social status Her class is sort of Jarring to people you know not only Does she not know how to carry herself Quote unquote like

[00:59:49] A writer but Also she just has all These signs of her Upbringing That she cannot shake And it's like much like The scene of her Her autobiography With the professor Being used against her to institutionalize her There's the scene where she like comes with like

[01:00:11] Full vulnerability to that woman Begging to get her teeth removed Not just because they like so Immediately Kind of reveal her but also because She's just in fucking searing pain Like she cannot get out from Under the struggles of poverty of her childhood

[01:00:27] That are just continuing to haunt her In her young adulthood and that Is immediately posed as like okay yes I can help you I can remove all your teeth But also you have to promise me I'm going to send you Back to the institution

[01:00:39] You know anytime she sort of comes to someone With some sort of vulnerability With some awareness of issues Of things she wants to work on Of changes she needs to make in her life It's almost always Interpreted by people as

[01:00:53] You lack autonomy you don't know how to take care Of yourself we need to hand you over Right and I think that's why In the third section of the movie the part based on Her third memoir about you know the more successful

[01:01:03] Part of her writing life when she's deinstitutionalized And she's connecting with all these kind of Arty types you know people who like her Are engaging in the creative life I mean there's just even though as you Say those characters are somewhat indistinct

[01:01:15] You know I couldn't exactly say who Each of those people are and how she knows them And what role they play in her life I'm sure if you read The memoir you'd be able to sort them out better But there's just such a sense of

[01:01:25] Joy and liberation that there is a world That she discovers of people Who understand that off kilterness about Her you know and I'm thinking of that character I think his Name is Frank the shirtless guy typing In his shed you know who she lives

[01:01:37] With for a while at the end and it's Not really clear what their relationship is I was Full of horrible trepidation that he was going to turn out To be some sort of like handsy exploiter Or something like that but that Is just a really wonderfully drawn relationship

[01:01:49] And in particular that moment I mean This movie really earns it it could have been so Corny in a worse literary biopic But the moment where she goes to the mailbox And gets out the letter that I presume is saying

[01:01:59] Her memoir is going to be published right I'm not Exactly sure what acceptance she's getting then But just you know following her to the shed And celebrating with the guy is just such a moment Especially for a person who just finished a book myself

[01:02:09] Under far less trying circumstances It's just such a moment of pure liberation And joy and I love that little passage Far less trying circumstances But also give yourself credit during a pandemic Pandemic yeah Let yourself feel proud of fucking right I stared at some chalk during the process

[01:02:25] You guys I stared at some really traumatic Chalk I believe The Frank character is Frank Sargison Who is a fellow New Zealand novelist That she knew But what I like about what we're Talking about is there's never the point At which some guy comes into

[01:02:43] Her life and kind of steers it in a direction Right there are men who come in and out But like there's never like The mentor or the lover Who kind of is so Transformative yes I think Campion avoids that I want to

[01:02:57] I want to go back to the red hair For a second I found this quote From Campion I do think New Zealand is It's hard I've never been there Have you guys ever been to New Zealand? I know Griffin you've been to Australia

[01:03:09] Dana have you ever been to New Zealand? Australia yes New Zealand no And obviously because of it's Sort of reputation on screen It can be a little easy to literally think of it As like a magic place filled with wizards Sure But the way

[01:03:25] Campion talks about it is she's like Green is the color of New Zealand so I wanted The movie to be green like you know especially Early and I wanted to contrast It with her red hair To give that sort of like big bright clash

[01:03:37] And then she just keeps Talking in this quote and I just want to say I just want to read this quote because it's so Good the first European Painters who brought back paintings of Their voyages to New Zealand were met By incredulity from their compatriots

[01:03:51] Because everyone thought the colors were exaggerated They didn't believe them Because the light in Europe is soft and Diffused there's a lot of wind In New Zealand and it sweeps everything You can see the air is transparent you can See mountains of 400 kilometers away The shadows are black

[01:04:07] This industry captivates me Sorry this intensity captivates me And the contrast is so strong that it's difficult To shoot basically like she's saying Like New Zealand feels Everything feels more heightened There anyway like yeah it's Sort of sort of magical

[01:04:23] I mean I just want to think about like How feeling and artistry Is almost like easier to convey Because everything is so bright And so clear And like that's like some sort of Natural advantage she had As an early filmmaker like she's bringing these

[01:04:39] Movies to people that just sort of look different I don't know To bring power of the dog back into the conversation I mean that was shot in New Zealand right New Zealand Passing is Montana and a huge part Of what makes the landscape of that movie

[01:04:51] Interesting is it doesn't look like anywhere You've ever been right it has this very Lonely stark I mean if it looks like Anywhere it looks like Lord of the Rings Landscapes right also shot in New Zealand That's also famously Like the cornerstone of Jackson's Pitch for you

[01:05:07] Should let me do Lord of the Rings and you should Let me do multiple movies is like A got this country that has Not really been fully Utilized as a filming location With an industry here that's ready And he's just like I got like

[01:05:21] 80 locations in my back pocket that no One has ever filmed before that all look Fucking insane and look Totally different from each other You know like just wildly disparate Climates and landscapes that are Going to blow people's minds And add so much Production value

[01:05:39] It is yeah that's interesting We've talked about just sort of An interesting sensibility That like New Zealand and Australian films have that maybe That sort of hyper reality That not just visually but tonally That maybe sounds like a reflection of just Living in a place that looks like

[01:05:57] That did you seen Sweetie before this movie it was this Your first campaign do you think when if you Saw it like in theaters or whatever I Can't remember what order I saw them in what year did sweetie Come out sweetie came out the year

[01:06:09] Before came out in America in like 1990 it was like the New York Film Festival in 89 or whatever you know they came Out quite close yeah I think I would Have I think I would have seen both those movies so

[01:06:19] Long ago I can't remember what order but I think I would have Seen both of those when they came out I mean that Was sort of the period in my you know very Early 20s where I was just madly Stuffing movies especially anything that was

[01:06:29] At all you know a sort of highbrow or Arty movie into my brain so I probably Saw them both in order and like when the piano Comes around it's sort of funny like Are you sort of like it's Just funny to think about the piano sort of

[01:06:41] Swinging in as a major Player on an Oscar state you know what I mean like for a lot Of people must have seemed like it was out of nowhere Right right but obvious but There was people are there was Excitement for like okay Jane Campion

[01:06:55] Has made a film again You know Michael yeah sorry Stuart Dryberg shot you know like obviously like she She did have a fairly burnished Reputation I suppose on the piano it's just sort of Yeah sure but but it's like Film Festival Darling with

[01:07:09] Limited releases and then you have a movie That's like you Know Oscar Darling being Parodied in pop culture starring American movie stars like there is a Shift there it's a big shift Yeah I know to me when the Piano came along I almost had a feeling

[01:07:25] I think I was excited enough about Campion and about These two movies that it was almost sort of like Oh yeah now you're discovering Campion and I think I thought it was one of the weaker Entries in her filmography at the time

[01:07:35] Looking back I now love the piano and recognize Its importance I still think and this is I think a major problem with the piano The music I don't like the music Is it by Michael Nyman Michael Nyman well the music is so

[01:07:47] Imposing in that movie it is like So yes it's kind of like A Philip Glass score something where it's like If you don't like it you're in trouble because This thing is not going to be quiet Or subtle like it's going to

[01:07:59] Be clanging away I love the music Of the piano but it maybe I haven't seen it in a while I'm interested though I mean I'm thinking now I'm thinking of the music Right now like as we I mean the imagery in the piano you know

[01:08:11] Holly Hunter Harvey Keitel all of that stuff The storytelling it's a great movie It's a great movie it's a great script There's something a little bit over upholstered About its use of a score and especially In a movie that's all about music

[01:08:23] And playing the piano right I think I just I wanted music that I was happier To listen to for every single second Of the movie and this is maybe Just a problem of the score being a little bit overused But this is again this is my critique

[01:08:35] Of the piano from you know 20 years ago It's been a long time since I saw that movie This is a thing I just remembered that I cannot Let this episode end without me Acknowledging perhaps The biggest discovery of this film For me I think that

[01:08:51] I don't think it's hyperbolic to say Will probably forever change my life Fancy free Means single Fancy free means single Well I mean it's one of the possible interpretations Doesn't fancy free just sort of mean unencumbered Sort of tootling down the lane That's how I always thought

[01:09:09] Oh like footloose fancy free fun and fancy free Like someone who's just fucking frolicking Or whatever and then that one guy She's like boarding with Multiple times in the movie Keeps on like warning her about guys Trying to sleep with her

[01:09:23] At one time in a very racist way And keeps on saying like you're still fancy free Right Like he says it in this very serious tone He's still fancy free right Interesting that almost makes it sound like it's New Zealand slang for being a virgin or something

[01:09:37] But I don't know why that would be called fancy free Since it seems less free Than going out and doing what you want to do I don't know It must be a regional difference We need to get a New Zealander to weigh in on what it means there

[01:09:49] Well cause I looked it up I had the same definition in my mind Dana and I looked it up and it says free from Well okay so this is what it says It says two definitions I would say that Free from amorous attachment Or engagement

[01:10:05] Free to imagine or fancy I'm just saying all the many times in my life When I'm single and feeling like a sad bastard about it I should refer to myself as fancy free You are fancy free I'm very often fancy free Is that what it is

[01:10:19] Like a sort of British terminology I fancy you You're unfancied by anyone Yeah it sounds so much less self pitying I'm fancy free baby An angel at my table I'm trying to think about We haven't I guess talked about the Europe section so much

[01:10:35] And it was the first time Campion had shot Outside of New Zealand Australia And I think she was nervous about it This movie was shot in 12 weeks That is bananas And two of them were in Europe So I think the European section They had to do really fast

[01:10:53] Like that was That was the most pressurized part of it Carrie Fox I guess we should talk about her Like she is a phenomenal actress I believe this is her first She's just a New Zealand Like drama school person Like she'd never been in a movie before

[01:11:09] But she's had such a long interesting career It's an unreal performance I mean we were talking about like The continuity between the three performances And how well portrayed Framius is as a character But her in particular It's just like Especially when you're dealing

[01:11:27] With a real person like this This is the kind of movie that an actor could make The kind of role rather That an actor could make way too much out of Right Because there are all these sort of very mannered Ticky twitchy aspects Of her being

[01:11:43] You know she Is telegraphing her emotion on her face at all times She's holding all this tension This awkward energy in her body at all times And it's She never ever veers into cartoonishness Despite the fact as we said She looks like a cartoon character

[01:11:59] And behaves so strangely Especially in this last section Which is so much about her learning How to function in social settings Right She's Yeah she's only in one other Campeon movie which is Bright Star Which does Dana I really do feel like you're right

[01:12:19] Like it is a weirdly Twinned movie with this one I guess just because the literary Sort of aspect of it But it does feel like she brought Carrie Fox back in that for a reason Wait who is she in Bright Star She's her mother She's Fanny's mother

[01:12:37] It's like a you know She's sort of the fourth lead Or whatever you know She's a significant supporting role Isn't Sweetie also back in Bright Star She's in Power of the Dog Sweetie is in something else I can't But I know Carrie Fox best

[01:12:57] Or I knew Carrie Fox best from Shallow Grave I don't know if you guys have seen Shallow Grave I've never seen that I guess I'd have to see the picture of the cast again To picture her Wow It's funny because you know Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston

[01:13:13] Sort of break out of that movie It's funny that she didn't In the same way because that was this sort of Super cool Brit movie of the 90s They all kind of like Have their moment because of it And she was maybe coming in a little more

[01:13:29] Established than the other two She got a bunch of awards and nominations For this movie over years Of it playing at festivals So it did really feel like This performance was treated as the emergence of someone Significant Yeah It's an incredibly good performance And this section with her

[01:13:49] Having like her first Romantic relationship I mean it was The quote I was fucking butchering At the beginning of the episode but then she goes Into the thing of like I never even thought of myself As erotic Like I thought of myself as a piece of wood

[01:14:07] Like it was not only Was it like I didn't think of myself As being desirable but I just Didn't even think of myself as having that That drive even There's something sort of so heart breaking about Watching this relationship and Knowing it's not going to

[01:14:25] Last and seeing her get so caught up As like a semi adult Woman in this sort of like Very childhood sort of crush You know The guy breaking off Their sexual encounter And then seeing him read his poem to her in bed Yes

[01:14:43] It's also just a very classic Sort of mansplaining moment And I love Carrie Fox's performance In that scene and just watching her sort of Draw back into herself You know just the openness You see in her body just seconds before that Just drains out

[01:14:59] And she's kind of rolling up into a ball I mean you mimed it Dana but she literally Starts covering herself with the bed sheets again Yeah I love that like women can be seen Topless in bed it is so dumb

[01:15:11] How often we have to see like sheets up to armpits In sex scenes The L shaped bed sheets Right right the sheet at the guy's crotch And the woman's neck is the funniest thing Right But also Jane Campion this and Sweetie both very good at those sorts of

[01:15:27] Doofy men Where they're not even villainous sort of But they're just sort of like painfully Awkward or Kind of obvious I guess In their interactions with like you know All the boys in Sweetie are also Sort of similarly you're kind of like

[01:15:43] You know two dimensional in a funny way I guess where you're just sort of like oh Yeah they feel like dumb Americans Especially yeah the way they're like Horse roughing with each other You know That actor what's that character's name Bernard Am I getting that wrong but

[01:16:01] He's very Good and he's A New Zealand actor doing an American Accent like pretty impeccably Right But it's he also just gets the American energy right And beyond like the Mansplaining element of it the thing that's so funny About that scene where he's Interrupting fucking to

[01:16:23] Read her his own work Is just like that is so Alien to her the idea Of needing to like reassert Your identity as a writer above All else at all times And needing that sort of validation From other people like even in this moment of

[01:16:39] Intimacy he has to circle back and go like But tell me I'm a good Writer right I mean It's especially it's especially sad In contrast to the way she relates to her Own identity as a writer which is so much

[01:16:51] Of what this movie is about right I mean This is not so much a movie about watching her Write we don't see many scenes of her You know sitting around typing and scribbling And thinking about things as she puts them In notebooks not if she's a little girl

[01:17:03] What we see is her learning to believe That she's a writer right whether it's her talking In the mirror to herself when she's All alone or you know speaking to Her mentor in school who takes her writing seriously It really is so

[01:17:15] Hard for her to just have that authority Right because of her shyness and her mental Illness and all those things it's so hard for her To just have the authority of saying this is what I Do this is what I am and so the contrast

[01:17:25] Of her being with this guy who's just perfectly Comfortable you know just sitting there Naked just you know reading from his latest Opus is uh it's just It's a great little sort of comment commentary That again is a feminist moment in the movie

[01:17:37] And we haven't talked about all the ways That this is a movie about coming of age As a woman specifically right like her mom Teaching her how to put on his Really really raunchy sanitary pad That's made of like a folded rag That you pin to your singlet

[01:17:51] Right or her If I understood it correctly like being so ashamed Of her her bloody rags That she hides them in that little graveyard Space right so her landlady won't find Them I mean it's also kind of a coming Of age of the female body you know which

[01:18:05] I'm sure in 1990 especially was not A thing that you saw on screens a lot More visceral right and her mom The early reaction her mom has Where she's like I'm sure you've messed up your bed too Right like we're here like Sort of wincing at the

[01:18:19] The lack of sensitivity in that moment but Also like that there's that practicality From the mom of like okay Pin on the old rag Right yeah it's because Like right I mean back in the day There was no consideration To making the Making this private Or easy right

[01:18:39] Or like less consideration At least like when you hear those Earlier methods of High you know feminine hygiene Described they just seem like Ridiculously impractical Embarrassing like I don't know She's so panicked Her mom's consolation is like Look you're lucky most people it starts at 12 you

[01:19:01] Didn't get until 15 like it's just Like making her aware that it's Like and now look forward to the next Several decades of this I mean I forget whose bit it is but some Stand up has a Bit that's As true as funny that's like If men got periods

[01:19:19] 100% of stand up comedy Would be about menstruation Like it would be the only thing that Men ever wanted to fucking talk about You know especially in that format And you do think about like how Little sort of Menstruation does come into like our

[01:19:35] Narratives and our art and shit like that A because like men By and large are like I don't want to fucking think About that and women are sort of shamed Into feeling like well this isn't like a thing You talk about in public

[01:19:47] But it does result in things like this where Like she starts bleeding and her mom's like Oh yeah okay here we go And she's like how has no one told me that this is A thing no one warned me You know like it's just sort of

[01:19:59] Like now it's time for the rag and here you go This is the rest of your life It's yeah it's such a good Scene Going back to sort of the Her identity thing sort of her Learning to feel comfortable And confident as like an author

[01:20:15] The fancy free guy there's that thing Where he'll keep on like Disparaging artists You know saying like you don't want to hang out with those types of people They're like you know they're struggling artists They're not substantive this and that

[01:20:27] And she has that moment where she like builds Up like bravery for maybe the first time in her Life and says like I'm a writer And he goes well yeah but for the time being You're not gonna do that forever Like he just immediately barely knowing her

[01:20:39] Shuts her down you know Which is this thing like Even when as you said Dana She's not like you're not seeing scenes of her Like laboring over a typewriter You mostly find out she's written a book By another character showing Her a published copy or someone

[01:20:55] Telling her that she's gotten a good write up Or something you know we don't even know How much she's writing until you hear the Response to the results or things like That and even still everyone's Kind of like but that's obviously you're not gonna do this

[01:21:07] Forever with the exception I do love that one party scene where she Actually impresses everybody right all Those young student types and there's a moment Once again I mean this is kind of like this building Sort of monster structure where you see her slowly gaining

[01:21:19] In confidence until she's twisting to Chubby checker at the end you know which is a really Really great kind of image of liberation To leave her on but yeah That moment at the party is also really viscerally Satisfying given that we've seen

[01:21:31] For so long her kind of feel like Do I count am I a writer you know being put Down or being ignored you know Just having this moment that a bunch of literary Wannabes at a party are impressed because She has two actual books out

[01:21:43] That moment feels very quietly triumphant Which is great the moment of her That's sort of on the poster you know Sort of as she returns to New Zealand Feels sort of indescribably Triumphant in a different Way right you mean with the arms up raise

[01:21:57] Yeah like you know and just The sort of The silence of you know like the emptiness Of the frame just The fact that she's sort of back in the Country but it seems to be more on Like you know she cannot it's on her

[01:22:11] Terms or she can sort of Understand the beauty of it again you know there's A reason I think they made it that Kind of like big stark image Of the advertising And then that funny thing At the end of the guys taking pictures

[01:22:25] Of her like that she that They actually like she wants to be Like they want to Perceive her as this sort of like legitimate Professional success right like she's Settling her father's estate And like yeah standing on a hill Like farm animals and them

[01:22:41] Like climbing up the hill is such a Crazy image like where They're like literally like we gotta get at you You know like it's it's it's such A funny ending In a lovely way do you Remember how it's a callback to earlier in the movie

[01:22:55] When her first book comes out remember and she Gets presented it and she's asking where's my picture And there's this kind of sweet pathos Really wanting her face To appear on the book you know and Knowing that you know what her relationship to her body

[01:23:07] And you know her sexuality Has been all along it's it's such a moving Thing that she's a little bit hurt you know that she Doesn't get to have the glamour of an author photo So then of course when it happens much later It's it's anything but glamorous

[01:23:19] Yeah it's a it's a really excellent movie That I'm very Pleased to watch for the first time I'm trying to think if there are any other Like specific scenes we want to call out Yeah before I do the box office game Is there anything in your notes Dana

[01:23:33] That we haven't hit on yet Do you want to talk about the very ending I mean I guess we sort of did with her with her dancing But something happens after that Well you have like the guy's taking the photos Of her on the mountain and then

[01:23:45] It sort of like fades to black and then It fades into this little girl dancing To the twist and you almost wonder if the movie Has jumped backwards in time and gone back To childhood stuff because there are a few

[01:23:55] Earlier moments where it sort of like cuts back To her glimpse am I wrong Yeah yeah so it feels like it's doing that And then the camera sort of turns around And you see that she's writing And sort of just like Hosting this girl and

[01:24:09] It's there's this nice element to Is that supposed to be her Niece or am I wrong Is that just like a neighborhood girl I suppose so maybe you do You do see her sister's daughter Earlier in the movie so maybe it's her But at any rate

[01:24:25] Oh it is okay It's just it's kind of Nice this full circle moment where you wonder If you're flashing back to her childhood Which is so difficult At a point where she's gotten to like Finally feeling a little bit triumphant And then it's like no she's like

[01:24:41] Actually created a place Of comfort for herself but not Only for herself where she's sort of like Supporting a young girl More than maybe she ever was You know she's sort of like encouraging And housing the weirdness of like Just come into my like weird writing

[01:24:57] Trailer and do the twist No one's gonna yell at you For being too loud you know Right that she has found a place And a way to exist and to let another Young girl exist is a great Way to end the movie and I thought

[01:25:11] Too a lot about the fact that Janet Frame was still Alive when this movie came out you know That she was still around and that this was an important Turning point in her life in terms Of bringing much much more attention to her work You know it's just

[01:25:23] If she had already died at the moment that we We left the fictional her On the screen it would have a very different feeling And there's something wonderfully open-ended about knowing That there was a real person still writing books You know watching that movie and

[01:25:35] And having their reception In the world change because of it Yeah right and she lived For many more years I think she died 2004 is that how we look It up somewhere in the 2000s Yeah yeah 2004 it's the age of 79 I think she had Leukemia yes

[01:25:55] Actually sort of crazy but Yeah and that's right around when The final Biography had just come out and all But she you know she's a Huge figure in New Zealand she Has the order of New Zealand or whatever You know the big

[01:26:11] Sort of civilian honor and all that Let's do the box office game Griffin This film came out I'm gonna Go back to the movie The box office game Griffin was released in America 19th of May 1991 this is a wild Box office game Griffin Okay I assume

[01:26:35] Angel at my table number one at the box office 35 million Opening weekend No Angel at my table had a limited Release in New York City but There is a new movie Starring one of your favorite actors One of my favorite Is it a Michael Keaton movie

[01:26:53] One of your favorite comedy actors not Michael Keaton Is it a Steve Martin movie No Is it a Bill Murray movie Is it What About Bob Great movie A real Ben movie Yeah Griffin you a What About Bob fan Dana Do you care about What About Bob

[01:27:13] I don't think I've ever seen What About Bob Dana you gotta see it It's sort of a cable guy vibe Right like Murray is the annoying patient And Dreyfuss is the doctor Right I mean the thing Look I've never liked What About Bob

[01:27:29] As much as I thought I should Because I'm just like it's a Frank Oz Bill Murray black comedy Like that feels like so in my wheelhouse I like it but I always feel like It should be my favorite movie whenever I watch it The twist in that movie

[01:27:43] That's kind of good Not like twist ending but sort of like the angle on it Is that right Like Richard Dreyfuss is the therapist And Bill Murray is the patient Who just becomes a problem and follows him to his country house And invades his life

[01:27:57] But the thing that increasingly goes on Is that like Everyone else is like I kind of like Bob You seem like an asshole Like the more that he's like Bob is ruining my life People are like you're Maybe losing your mind What's the character Frank Grimes It's like

[01:28:17] It's the Frank Grimes He's the only one who understands that this person is intolerable Right but you start to question Whether he's the villain I mean the two big things about What About Bob That I always think about are One, like Steven Spielberg was so weirdly obsessed

[01:28:31] With Bill Murray's performance in that movie And whichever studio it was Columbia did not take that seriously as an Oscar film That like Steven Spielberg Disney Touchstone Steven Spielberg like paid out of pocket To run a best actor campaign for Bill Murray

[01:28:47] Because he felt so strongly about that performance Yeah This is like a thing Like he held screenings and he like bought print ads That's nice I mean is this the year before or after Groundhog Day Before? Groundhog Day is 93

[01:29:05] Right so it's not even yet that moment where I think people are sort of like Oh is Murray like sort of like Beyond just funny Like is he like a super talent Yeah anyway That's the year he should have gotten it

[01:29:17] The other thing I was going to say about What About Bob Is there's the story of Richard Dreyfuss and Bill Murray getting into a fight Two people who are famously very chill And normal to work with on movies But Bill Murray had one of the

[01:29:27] Most incredible insults of all time To Richard Dreyfuss Where he said You are not liked You are not tolerated Wow Which is up there with Bill Murray saying to Chevy Chase Calling him medium talent Right Number two At the box office Griffin Is a sequel

[01:29:51] One of those sequels It's a sequel to a sort of surprise mid hit There's no way they should have made a sequel Although it looks like it made about the same amount of money As the first one It's an action thriller It's got a very specific Sort of

[01:30:07] Hook Is it another 48 hours No It's like smaller Than that It stars like two character actors It did okay But it feels like maybe making a sequel Was gilding the lily I just feel like the first one It was sort of Surprise everyone by doing fairly well

[01:30:31] And the first one still has a good reputation I take it maybe the second one is a little memory hole Neither of these are memories Neither remembered They're just very The first one is just a very 80s Relic-y kind of thing No one talks about these movies anymore

[01:30:47] But I know they exist And there's only two of them They attempted A spin off tv show that went nowhere Is it just two character actors Who are in it Or is it just a group of protagonists It's two character actors As cops I think they're cops

[01:31:07] Oh no no I'm sorry I take it back One of them is a cop The other one Is a craftsman It's not another stake out No But that vibe That's what I'm thinking in there What are the least essential sequels ever made I'm sure you have

[01:31:29] This sounds like my kind of shit Well let me tell you the stars of this movie Brian Brown is the star of this film It's FX2 Subtitled What is it The Deadly Art of Illusion So these are the movies I've never seen them Brian Dennehy is a cop

[01:31:49] But Brian Brown is like A special effects guy And he's like using his knowledge Of special effects to solve crimes I don't really know I've never seen them I just know of them as like Sort of silly forgotten crime relics I just remember like the studio

[01:32:07] Like the filming studio at the film school I dropped out of very quickly After six months had a framed FX2 The Art of Illusion poster And I'm not saying that's the reason I dropped out But it was one of those moments where I was like They framed it

[01:32:21] And they hung it at the wall at the school Is Did someone who make this go here Or are they just putting that up there In the pantheon of important movies Dana have you seen either FX film Uh no That rings no bell whatsoever Well they were moderate

[01:32:39] Hits at the time that's all I can tell you Like I said those Were the years when I would be much more likely To be there seeing a Jane Campion movie in the theater Or whatever high brow thing I possibly could

[01:32:49] I mean I was fresh out of Texas And I could not you know See anything great on the screen And so I was pretty much only seeing Fancy smart movies not FX2 Meanwhile I'm going to watch the two FX movies Tonight I cannot believe I've never seen them

[01:33:03] Uh I'm going to push to do them on Patreon Also David you said they tried To do a TV spin off They did a whole fucking TV network Well well Isn't that channel based on Yeah sure yeah That's what that is

[01:33:19] I'm not going to say f on Hulu But give me f slash x on Hulu Cause right now you have to pay to rent those movies Number three at the box office Is a documentary A hit documentary In that it is about a famous person

[01:33:33] Is Madonna truth or dare That's right Right cause that was the highest grossing documentary For a while I think I believe you're right until bowling for Columbine Or something like that Have you seen Madonna truth or dare Oh yeah I've seen Madonna truth or dare

[01:33:49] That was the same time as the sex book right Wasn't the sex book basically a packaging Packaging deal with that Yep I remember when that was the sort of hot thing The sex book The blonde ambition tour You know it's all happening

[01:34:03] She's you know this is when she's Doing a lot of Fincher I think Fincher was supposed to make this movie in fact That would have been wild That would have been wild You know and she's You know playing with her sexuality And all that I've never seen it

[01:34:19] Who directed it? Alec Kashishian Alec Kashishian who then went on to make With honors Keshi and Brendan Fraser And Ratchet Dempsey and all that Anyway I've never seen that movie I've seen so many of the Warren Beatty clips And the Antonio Banderas clips

[01:34:39] Which are just so fascinating the way that movie sort of catches Like the weird final stages Of this legendary movie star And the emergence of this new guy Through the prism of her being sexually bored With one of them and obsessed with the other one Number four Griff

[01:34:53] Yeah Is a movie I don't think I've ever heard of It's a Blake Edwards movie Like a late Blake Edwards movie One of his last Switch It's switch It's switch with Ellen Barkin And Jimmy Smith I've never heard of this movie Ellen Barkin is like a pig man

[01:35:15] I forget who plays her In man form And he gets the ultimate punishment He wakes up in the body of a sexy lady And has to see what it's like And then I think Jimmy Smith is her love interest I guess so yeah Jo Beth Williams Lorraine Bracco

[01:35:33] Tony Roberts Catherine Keener A young Catherine Keener I think some podcast covered this recently Like Bechdel cast Or someone covered this Would it be fair to say Griff that body switch comedies Were having a moment then or are they always having a moment

[01:35:49] They were definitely having a moment Right When was the Steve Martin Lily Tomlin one That's the great one That's a couple years earlier All of me is 89 maybe 84 This is maybe It's a little bit after It's always bubbling Just on the surface What's the Dudley Moore one

[01:36:13] This is where I get confused Because there's 17 again There's vice versa There's like father like son Like father like son is the one I'm thinking of There's those three and then big is the fourth one to come out And there's Freaky Friday in there somewhere Yes Freaky Friday

[01:36:31] Yeah you know But you're right that it's always a well they'll go to Freaky Friday is in the 70s so that's a while ago Right and then there's There was a 90s TV Freaky Friday And then the 2003 Low hand Freaky Friday I think Some podcast

[01:36:49] We're friends with did an episode on Switch recently Bizarrely enough and I knew this film existed I remember just seeing it as a video cover And going like what is this How was there a point in time where this all came together But I

[01:37:03] Think that I was digging back Into it. I feel like Roger Ebert Was pushing that Ellen Barkin should have gotten An Oscar nomination for this movie She got a Globe nom Golden Globe nom so she did have Some traction on that front

[01:37:17] You know it's Blake Edwards when he's You know it's near retirement I think it's the second to last movie so He's his last theatrical Film is son of pink panther with Anini and then he does the TV remake of Victor Victoria

[01:37:31] That I guess isn't even a remake it's the film Performance so yeah it's the second to last film And Jimmy Smits is in it And this of course is a pro spits podcast Um Number 5 at the box office is a new film this week

[01:37:43] I have never heard of it This is why I was David I'm sorry can you just be a little more impressed By the fact that you said Blake Edwards movie I've never heard of and I said switch Switch! Further! Never heard of it Clues!

[01:37:57] Very impressive. You're not going to get this one This film is directed by Craig R. Baxley Hmm Uh who Yeah I don't know Hasn't really made anything else of note and stars A football player Is it a Brian Bosworth movie? It is a Brian Bosworth movie

[01:38:15] Okay so I was looking this up recently too Uh What the fuck is this movie called It's his first movie I know the Hulk Hogan movie is no holds barred Right I don't know Is this called Point of No Return? No

[01:38:33] Fuck but it's got one of those generic Very generic It feels like it could be like a Rainier Wolfcastle movie I'll tell you he's playing Yes absolutely He's playing a tough Alabama cop who's frustrated with a system that handles criminals with kid gloves Okay Uh

[01:38:49] Is it called uh Tough Alabama Cop It has the name of a famous wrestler Funnily enough Oh um Jake the Snake Roberts It's called Stone Cold Okay Okay The title is even more generic than I was thinking Yeah a cop who Uh Enforces his own brand of justice

[01:39:15] That is the tagline Oh that's an interesting twist I haven't heard that before in an action movie This film was rated NC-17 originally Because it's so violent They cut it down To get the R rating I bet you it's a pretty nasty movie But I've never seen it

[01:39:33] Uh I've never seen any of Brian Bothra's work Famously like he was like He was like a college linebacker who Flamed out in the NFL But I guess was just such a big deal anyway That he pivoted to like a Shitty acting career I don't know

[01:39:51] It's been a year since like the peak of Jim Brown I think people were just sort of Like that should happen again right Like one of these athletes should be able To be a movie star on this side I'm also just looking here his look on the

[01:40:03] Poster is unbelievable Is it fair to say that he's styled like Boy George or not Boy George I'm sorry George Michael He's got like the one earring And the bleach blonde hair The one earring the blonde tipped pompadour Yeah and like this fucking

[01:40:17] Jacket looks like it's got like a snake skin Pattern It's just very funny to think that this Was tough You know in 1990 Anyway some other movies at the box office Griffin Oscar the Sylvester Salone comedy Wow which I've never Seen I've never seen that movie

[01:40:35] Alandis fuck John Landis Uh you've got the silence of the Lambs good movie which Is still playing after many months this is Its fourth or fifth month You've got something called one good cop That's just funny That's a Keaton right Yeah I've never seen that one

[01:40:53] Yeah that's a Keaton cop Dad drama this is May 19th this is late May and there's just nothing Like the summer has not yet started Now this would be all blockbusters May really wasn't there's a mannequin Sequel in the top ten on the loose

[01:41:09] On the move on the move I always get The fucking title wrong Oh boy Yes no may it took so Long for me to be part of the summer Movie season it's bizarre that They didn't branch out sooner considering How robust summers

[01:41:25] Were at this point yeah I think It happened in the course of my my film Criticism career I don't think I think The May creep started to happen you Know basically in the post Marvel years I think I think it was more like post Spider-man yes spider-man

[01:41:39] Is a big part yeah it Wasn't because gladiator I think comes out first Week of May or second week of May and That's one where I remember in 2000 people Saying like I guess this is like a time you can Open a movie and then two

[01:41:53] Years after that spider-man has the biggest Weekend of all time in May and then I think officially may becomes the month You want to release it I'm dog sitting right now and this dog definitely just Took a shit indoors

[01:42:05] My father's dog I can smell it so I think this Is a great time to wrap up the episode I agree And it's yeah it's time it's time to say Goodbye to Dana and an angel at my table But this has been a lovely discussion

[01:42:17] Can I make a request so that we don't end On the image of Griffin's dog yes Dog sitting poop can we Hear a little audio on the way out of Janet Frame reading one of her own poems and her Amazing New Zealand accent a Perfect place absolutely absolutely

[01:42:31] Dana thank you so much For being on the show You're the best always such a pleasure to have You on And everyone should check out camera man A great book that I'm enjoying thoroughly Oh yes by the time this episode Drops it can almost be in your hands

[01:42:47] In a matter of a mere 48 hours So I would be thrilled for people to preorder Look forward to people getting To read that look forward to having you on the show again Soon hopefully if March Madness Goes the way I'd like it to

[01:42:59] Maybe for a Buster Keaton miniseries Come on vote for Buster people Come on what are you thinking let's bust those votes Um And and your podcast of course Oh I'm sorry is this a place for me to promote my podcast Absolutely okay

[01:43:13] Yes if you want to keep on hearing Me podcast I am at Slate I'm the film Critic at Slate and I have two podcasts there The Slate Culture Gab Fest which is a weekly Discussion of culture including but not limited To movies and the Slate Spoiler Special

[01:43:25] Which is basically just Wading way into the weeds on a movie Of the week fantastic Check those out you're the best Yeah you're the coolest thanks for doing the show again It was an absolute pleasure And an honor it was really really fun

[01:43:39] Have me on again very very soon And thank you The listeners all for listening Thank you Please remember to rate review and subscribe Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media Joe Bowen and Pat Rounds for our artwork Alex Barron and AJ McKeon For our editing

[01:43:57] JJ Birch Nick Lariano For our research Lay Montgomery and the Great American Novel For our theme song you can hear their new album Extremely Loud and Incredibly Online Wherever music is Found go to patreon.com Slash blank check for blank check special features Where we do franchise commentaries

[01:44:15] Like the Ghostbusters Quadrilogy right now One of the most disjointed franchises In history But also On Patreon for February And March we are doing The two top of the lake seasons We usually try to avoid TV But it felt like we could this time

[01:44:35] Two important piece in the campion Philography so if you want that missing piece Of her career gotta go over to Patreon Blank check And go to blankies.rehab.com For some real nerdy shit Tune in next week for the piano We're talking about it The breakthrough

[01:44:53] Checks clearing baby And as always Dana's suggestion Now we're gonna play an audio clip Of the real Janet Frame Reading her poetry So you don't have to think about the fact That I am now immediately Going on a goose chase To try to locate where the shit is

[01:45:17] In this house Every morning I congratulate The arseicles on their severity I think they have courage backbone Their hard hearts will never give way Then around ten or half past During the steady falling of drops of water I look up at the eaves I see the enactment

[01:45:35] To the same old winter story The arseicles Weeping away their inborn tears And if they only knew it Their identity