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1995 - Bridges of Madison County
42 Plays2 years ago
Wherein your hosts are shocked by how amazing this film is.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Horse Spanning Time' Podcast
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Horse Spanning Time. This is a podcast in which we explore the films of a particular year. This season's year is 1995. I'm Bud Catino. And I'm Beth Martini.
Choosing 'The Bridges of Madison County'
00:00:43
Speaker
For today's episode, we are covering the bridges of Madison County. What the? Oh, man.
00:00:51
Speaker
I chose this movie because so far we've done a bunch of indie films, more or less, right?
90s Indie Film Context
00:01:01
Speaker
And that sort of exemplary of films from this era, this decade is truly like the rise of the indie film.
00:01:10
Speaker
And you and me being sort of like indie, grungy kids from the 90s, I think we were drawn to a lot of that stuff, like kids in basketball diaries and, you know, 12 Monkeys, City of Lost Children. We love that sort of the aesthetic of those films and the sort of the thematic stuff going on there. And I never, ever would have ever watched Bridges of Madison County. No way, no thanks.
00:01:34
Speaker
Um, probably my parents did, you know, I imagine my parents maybe parked us with like a babysitter and then maybe like put some white wine out of a box into like a glass bottle and went to the drive-in baby.
00:01:50
Speaker
I could see that happening, but yeah, Meryl Streep, no thanks.
Unexpected Appreciation for 'The Bridges of Madison County'
00:01:55
Speaker
Clint Eastwood, no thank you. I don't know, but we're trying to think of the next movie to do and I was like, let's just do one of these fucking slow, staid, big budget Hollywood, just general population films. And I'm so glad that we did this movie. I'm so glad that I chose this movie.
00:02:16
Speaker
It was really good. It was a really good movie.
Box Office and Cameos
00:02:24
Speaker
I have a couple of fun facts about the movie and just reception and stuff like that that I'd love to share. So the first one that blew my mind up was that this movie, when it was released, came in number two in the box office.
00:02:46
Speaker
only behind the live-action film, Casper, The Friendly Ghost, which was produced almost entirely CGI from Industrial Light and Magic. So there's a Steven Spielberg tie-in there. And then also randomly has a cameo of fucking... Oh my God, what's his name? The main-ass guy. Why can I not think of it? It's Clint Eastwood.
00:03:14
Speaker
Right? There's a Clint Eastwood cameo in Casper. In Casper, yes. What? Yes, I didn't know that and it popped up and I was like, that's hilarious. Now I haven't seen Casper since it came out, maybe since it came out on video. Yeah, no. What is old Clint doing in Casper? I didn't, I didn't, I didn't dig too deep into that. I just saw that anecdotally and that was like, which also happens to have a Clint Eastwood cameo in it.
00:03:43
Speaker
That's amazing. Is he kissing? I hope he's not kissing. Oh, okay. We can't talk about that yet. We cannot talk about that. Okay. You want to say that? That's good. We got to say that for later. Sure. Yes.
Script Adaptations
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So, um, some more, some more really interesting information. Um, it went through a series of different script writers because I guess the book, the original book, Bridges of Madison County is kind of,
00:04:09
Speaker
heavy-handed and slightly obtuse, and Spielberg and Clint Eastwood really wanted to not have it be that. And so the writer is Richard LeGravanese, who wrote The Fisher King and also A Little Princess, which also came out in 1995.
Comparing 'A Little Princess' and 'The Secret Garden'
00:04:30
Speaker
Banger of a movie.
00:04:32
Speaker
Little Princess? I don't think I know that one. What's that about? Oh, it's so good. OK, I'm going to really high level this. So magical realism, little girl's an orphan because her father, who was fighting in the Indian colonial war, fucking was supposedly died. That's that's essentially the premise. And then a little princess is this entire story of her
00:05:01
Speaker
you know, trying to build in her imagination a better world than the world that she lives in. It very much was in the same vein as A Secret Garden, which came out around the similar time. And I think that there was even like and like a film to TV movie DVD pipeline where Little Princess and Secret Garden were actually on like a DVD disc together so you could get two movies. Yeah.
00:05:31
Speaker
So like I'm pretty sure I had that when I was like DVD'd age, you know, but like it's it's really beautiful. There's a lot of like then a lot of the story is told through like Indian fairy tales and like so she's like telling this story and it's like
00:05:53
Speaker
It's the imagery is really beautiful. And yeah, it's a it's a banger. But so I was like, OK, those are some raindrops there.
Filming Process and Casting Choices
00:06:04
Speaker
And then really fascinatingly, this is kind of like the last fun factoid is the film was filmed chronologically in 41 days. And Clint Eastwood felt that it was like really important because he wanted he said, we're getting to know each other like.
00:06:21
Speaker
as characters and as people. OK. I'm just saying, oh, and then the last, sorry, I said that was the last one, but this is actually the last one. The other really strongly pushed actress for the role of Francesca was Isabella Rossellini.
00:06:41
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. But the, the final call came to Clint Eastwood and he was like Meryl Streep from the beginning and she was nominated like in seven different awards for her performance in that film. Yeah. She fucking rules. Oh my God. And what a babe. Yeah. She's so hot. Yeah. I cannot.
Emotional Impact of the Film
00:07:03
Speaker
I literally though, like I kid you not, I started crying like probably
00:07:11
Speaker
45 minutes into the movie and then just slowly cried all the way through the end of the film. I cried a lot. I cried a lot throughout this movie. What started it off for you? What happens at 45 minutes?
00:07:23
Speaker
I want to say it was for I didn't actually look at the time, but it's the kitchen scene. It's the kitchen scene where she's like having that realization of like, well, what the fuck is what is this? What is this actually? Like, what do I what am I going to do in two days?
Pacing and Authenticity
00:07:40
Speaker
Like, what is that? What is going to happen? And like.
00:07:44
Speaker
Apparently the people who rate movies wanted to rate the movie a rated R because of her comment, like the line, what, do you want to just fuck on the linoleum? My favorite line of the film, more eggs or should we just fuck in the linoleum one last time? Absolutely incredible. After she takes two completely perfectly full plates of eggs away. It was just like, it was just like such a good, such a good scene.
00:08:13
Speaker
And just so brilliantly done to show really how harrowing that experience was for both of them. I found it so emotionally well balanced throughout. There wasn't any bullshit. When we get to the ratings, we'll talk about veracity, but it was...
00:08:36
Speaker
fucking truthful as hell, it was so honest. I was talking about it last night at a party and someone was like, isn't it slow? And I was like, I think it just pretends to be slow, but it's well paced. It fucking moves. There's not really
00:08:54
Speaker
we're gonna get to the shmooching. But the- I mean, we can talk about the shmooching now if we want to. The shmooching is the only time where I'm like touching the computer and being like, how much longer does this have to go on? It's a long movie also. It's like two and a half hours. Yeah. But yeah, I think the kissing, like the weird love scenes kind of drag a bit. That's what I think. I think that's also because I was just horrified by Washington Clint Eastwood kiss. I don't think anyone should ever have to do that.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, the kissing really, I mean, there was like, okay, so the kissing, the early kissing, like the kissing that they were doing when they started dancing, like after she bought the dress and came downstairs, which was just incredible. And you want to know the thing I loved the most about that moment was that her tits did not look perfect.
00:09:42
Speaker
No, yeah. That was the best part. Like she looked like a actual woman in an actual dress. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She her physicality was so good. It was very specific. Like she's kind of like.
00:09:59
Speaker
clunky curvy middle-aged mother who was a school teacher who lives on a fucking farm like yeah when she's when she's moving around at the very beginning the opening scene when she's like in the kitchen and she's like doing dishes or like cooking food or whatever and like shutting doors with her foot and shit she's like a little clunky she doesn't seem too graceful the way she moves the way that they designed her dresses really show off how broad her hips are and like
00:10:24
Speaker
it really accentuates her big ass and her big thighs and like yeah it's not meant to like make her any more streamlined or graceful or anything it's just like this is this sort of like funny clunky woman from Italy who just now lives on a farm in Iowa. But you know what was really fascinating was how
00:10:44
Speaker
how the costume traces also accentuated just how fucking strong she is. When she was hoeing in the garden and then driving the tractor and then running into the house, all those activities were more graceful than the time that she was in the kitchen. That's right. That's absolutely right. You know what I mean?
00:11:10
Speaker
And I thought that that was like a really nice and interesting and it's just like also it just speaks to like Meryl Streep as an actor and like her ability to own.
00:11:25
Speaker
a role, right? Like the frustration that she had, the fear that she had that someone might see them when they were going off for their walk. And she was like, would you like to have, they got to the end of the driveway barely. And she was like, should we just go back inside and have coffee or brandy or something? You know? And just like, even the like,
00:11:46
Speaker
apparent non sequitur of cutting to Lucy driving her belair down the highway to the sandwich shop and then uh then fucking rich robert robert being there and like watching everybody like small town bullshit and all that stuff like at first i was like who the fuck is this lady in this car where did where did this happen
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, that was a really subtle setup. I definitely appreciate that. I loved how grotesque the townspeople all looked. Just disgusting. It's their all teeth and limbs and hair and like nose hair and shit. Just like everyone's like fat and skinny at the same time and just like not in their bodies. It was so good. Yeah, I don't know. I think
00:12:39
Speaker
Yeah, where do you know where Clint Eastwood is in his directorial career at this point? All right, so he had done
00:12:49
Speaker
Um, you know, Dirty Harry, he had done... Oh, he directed all those things. Yeah. He had just kind of come off of, like, Pale Rider and, um, you know, he did a bunch of, like, the Western stuff.
00:13:12
Speaker
that he also was in and shit. But then in 1992, he did Unforgiven and then Perfect World and Bridges of Madison County. And then he had a couple more films in like 97 and 99, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, True Crime. Yeah. And then it wasn't until like, you know,
00:13:41
Speaker
2003 that he really like came back on the scene with Mystic River. Um, and then, you know, he's just kind of consistently directed and all of the movies he's directed are very, um, like big, I feel like, like not big, like not big, like as in like very, very popular, but big as in like, they're kind of expansive stories to tell. Yeah.
00:14:08
Speaker
And, you know, Bridges of Madison County almost feels like the opposite of some of the other stuff that he's done. Yeah. Sorry, something just jumped out to me and an unpublicized affair Eastwood sired. I love the verbiage sired to legally fatherless children. Scott born in 1986 and Catherine born in 1988. What the fuck, really? With someone named Jason Reeves, a flight attendant. Hmm.
00:14:38
Speaker
Weird, so he has two, he has, he has, he's been a part of the birthing of two legally fatherless children. He is the sire of two legally fatherless. Ew. Gross, can we never say that ever again? Addressing my dad as sire. Hate it. I hate it. Sorry, that just jumped out at me.
00:15:02
Speaker
Yeah. You know, he was kind of like, you know, the opposite of all of his fucking roles to like, yeah, like Dirty Harry and upper middle class bro.
00:15:19
Speaker
Like, you know, he did spend some time in the Pacific Northwest. So maybe like Robert Kincaid was like slightly autobiographical. Another, you know, hot moment in the film that I just absolutely love as a Pacific Northwesterner was the fact that they were drinking Rainier beer in Iowa. So I'm assuming the beers can't, like he's, but it's like,
00:15:49
Speaker
You're in Iowa, you drove from Washington State. How long, how many beers did you bring with you, my dude? Like, that's not a short drive, you know? Like. He likes his beers. I mean, Rainier is fucking delicious. Rainier's pretty good, yeah. It's, I bet it was even better back in the fucking 90s too. Yeah. Back in the 60s when this takes place?
00:16:16
Speaker
Well, yeah, but, you know, they would have been drinking 90s. Well, I guess they probably weren't drinking any real beer at all. I don't know if you drink you drink real beer on a film. No, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely wrote. Oh, my God. Why did they kiss like that? OK, let's let's let's run down the plot real quick, because I feel like we just got to get it out. It's pretty much.
00:16:41
Speaker
Uh, Meryl Streep characters, what is her name? Was her first name? Francesca. Francesca, thank you. Uh, Francesca has died. It's the nineties. Her two children. Adult children. Adult children. Um, who are horrible people.
00:16:57
Speaker
They both are horrible people, especially the son's wife. She's a conspicuous, money-grubbing, annoying person. They have come to the family home in Iowa to receive, you know, the last will and testament.
00:17:13
Speaker
the lawyers like, okay, your mother wanted to be cremated and her ashes thrown off. The Roseman Bridge. The Roseman Bridge, one of the bridges of Madison County. And they're like, oh no. And they're so pissed off. I think that's like the most unbelievable part of the film. And it's right up front. It's just like how offended they are that she wanted to be cremated. Okay, but
00:17:41
Speaker
Not really. For religious families in the Midwest in the 80s and 90s, cremation would not have been a thing. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, no. And they don't ever explicitly mention it, but I'm assuming that they were Catholic.
00:18:04
Speaker
You know, there she's from Italy, that cross that she gave to Robert was made for her in. Oh, what the fuck was the name of that town? Like a very famous religious pilgrimage city in in Italy, you know,
00:18:25
Speaker
Catholicism had a pretty heavy hold in the Midwest because of Irish immigrants and German immigrants, although Lutheranism also was really big. So regardless, there would have been like a pretty heavy, like
00:18:43
Speaker
a pretty heavy opinion about cremation and like you're not like you you get buried you have an open casket funeral you get buried you're you know you're fucking in a plot with the rest of your family so your family can all go there like my family
00:19:02
Speaker
including my grandmother, who was cremated, but part of her ashes were put in the family plot in Indianapolis. Like there is a fucking, there's a graveyard in Indianapolis that has like generations of my family buried in it. You know what I mean?
00:19:18
Speaker
So that part weirdly was not that unbelievable to me. Just because of like the Midwest and what it's like here in those families that have like farmed for generations and shit. Interesting. Oh, yeah. As a sort of like we're farmers, like back when we die, we go back to the land, like the land and everything. Yeah.
00:19:46
Speaker
I feel like the adult children are kind of slapsticky. There's such big personalities right up front. And I'm like, I don't know, what is this movie gonna be? So many microaggressions. It was sort of distracting, but I couldn't help but think that I would love to do a stage production of this movie, but just a scene by scene parody of this movie would be really fun.
00:20:14
Speaker
they're like going through like they find a key and they are going through her like chest and it'd be fun if they're just pulling out like you know like a gimp mask and like strap-ons and like you know just all sorts of really like bizarre shit and even like you know cut out the floor so that you can have really giant stuff come out like sex dolls and
00:20:36
Speaker
Because they're, especially the son is obsessed with his mother's sex life. Yeah. Like he's obsessed with sex stuff. Yeah. And what his mother may or may not have done sex. They find out they just keep digging. They're like, why does she, why is she getting cremated? And they keep on.
00:20:56
Speaker
Finding, you know, letters and stuff. And they find the letter from Robert Kincaid, who was played by Clint Eastwood. And they're like, oh, my God, she was having like an affair or something, something, something happened. And then they go into this chest and they find three fucking fully like guilt paged, you know, white leather bound journals. And then they sit down and the introduction is like,
00:21:22
Speaker
I'm sorry, I just need to be seen. You're like, I never told you guys this. You were little kids, you were kids when this was happening. And I know this is not gonna be easy. It's like, she's almost kind of punking her son. Cause she's like, I hope you're reading this with Michael. Cause he can't do it alone. I don't think he can handle it on his own. He's sensitive little guy. Which is great. Cause I already hated the son at this point. And she's making fun of him. Cause she, you know,
00:21:50
Speaker
as we see later on, she kind of finds her children and she loves her children dearly with the with the fierce passion, but she also thinks that they're things that they're fucking annoying. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:00
Speaker
She's like, I love that the opening statement in her first journal is you guys were going to the Illinois State Fair to show off the daughter's prize steer and I found myself literally counting the minutes until you left. I know that that sounds terrible, but I needed a fucking break. Yeah, yeah.
00:22:22
Speaker
It's and she's such a compelling character because she's alone when she is when they're around. Yeah. And because, you know, there's that scene immediately when she she serves them dinner and they just sit down and they're eating and no one's looking at anyone else and no one's talking to anyone else. And she's like she's like looking lovingly at her family.
00:22:43
Speaker
and like intern looking at her children and her and her husband. And she's just like, fuck, she's so bored. She is so lonely. Yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker
But also the inner play of emotions that she goes through, her emotional trajectory that she goes through within just that fucking 90 second scene is fantastic. I had to watch it twice. I had to rewind and watch it over. It ended and I was like, what the fuck just happened? And I had to go back and watch it again. I was like, there's so much going on in this one fucking scene. And that's exemplary of her performance throughout this entire movie.
00:23:23
Speaker
She is doing so much fucking work in this movie. Yes. Yeah. You know what was so OK. So this is like a fun another funny like Midwestern household thing. But like.
00:23:34
Speaker
watching her get the dinner ready, get everybody seated, not come to the table until everybody had started eating was like low key really triggering for me because I was the only person who would wait to eat until my grandmother sat down because my grandmother was exactly the same way. She would have been roughly the same age
00:23:59
Speaker
as Francesca in that time, although by that time my grandmother was already divorced and living on her own, but still. And it's just like watching her watch everyone start eating and making sure everybody had everything.
00:24:18
Speaker
The stack of white bread and the fucking cottage cheese. I cannot tell you that is a detail. That is a fucking detail that is like quintessentially Midwestern fucking every dinner stack of white bread on the side and like some fucking cottage cheese and then slice tomatoes with salt and pepper in the summertime like like
00:24:49
Speaker
so often that, and it was, it's such a thing for me that like when Trevin and I first started dating, he could not understand why I couldn't eat a meal without some kind of a starch. Like I either had to have a bread or I had to have a potato or I had to have a rice or a pasta or something. I was like, cause like, I don't know how to eat without that. Like, I don't know how to, like, I don't know how. Like the only thing they left out was like buttering the bread and then using that to butter your corn. Like,
00:25:17
Speaker
Oh, is that a thing? Oh, yes, it's a thing. It is a thing. And that was so that you didn't leave corn marks in the butter. Thank you for telling me these details. You know, I struggle with my ethnic identity and it really makes me feel more of a Mexican just to hear this stuff. This is so foreign to me.
00:25:36
Speaker
You're very welcome. Because I also struggle with my ethnic identity and I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that my ethnic identity is Midwest. Midwest. That's great. That's lovely. Nice people out there. Indeed. Yeah, I have a note that says totally hot farmhouse mom body. Oh, for sure. That fucking booty. Yeah, won't stop.
00:26:00
Speaker
Oh, incredible. I love the scene when so she's just on her own and she's like, I don't know, four days. I. It sucks, but it's it's just I need a break from these fucking these swine that I'm here to use American swine that I married you. And then Clint Eastwood just shows up out of the blue and he's like, I think I'm lost. And she's like, are you in Iowa?
00:26:23
Speaker
Are you supposed to be in Iowa? Then you're not that lost. Which is, I mean, the writing is really very good because that's, you know, on one level, she's like, it's easy, but on another level, it's like, well, fucking you're in Iowa. Like one place in Iowa is as good as anywhere else. So what are you, what are you worried about? You're here. You know, if you're supposed to be here, you're supposed to be here. And he's like, I'm looking for bridges. I'm looking for this bridge. And she is like, well,
00:26:51
Speaker
It's this way, then you go this way. And then she's just like mentioning farms by name. And then he's like, and she's like, oh, it's a farm. And then she mentions another one. She's like, it's another farm. And he's like, oh, OK, OK, great. And she's like trying. And you know what was really interesting to me about that scene was that she this was like the first time that I really put together that she was foreign.
00:27:20
Speaker
because she does this brilliant thing of like, she was like searching for the easiest way to communicate the information. And I was like, but at first I definitely, until she said she was born in Italy, I definitely like thought she was Eastern European at first because like her accent was so like implacable, implacable. Is that the right word? I don't know.
00:27:46
Speaker
You I couldn't tell you know cuz she wasn't doing a lot of talking to begin with yeah But yeah, okay continue and she wasn't and and I just I'll touch on her accent real quick. Yeah, it wasn't like You know, it's just like yes
00:28:04
Speaker
not a stereotype Italian accent. It was just very, and she spoke like someone who's been in the country for like, you know, 20 years, but it was there. It kind of fluctuated, I thought sometimes, but it didn't really, it wasn't too bad.
00:28:22
Speaker
But I really love. So she's like, OK. Oh, yeah. I want to touch on boredom. Boredom is also another character in this movie. Yep. And and she almost has more of a charismatic connection to boredom, more of a better connection to boredom than she does to Clint Eastwood speak as an actor. But yeah, she's just like she's bored when she's giving him direction. She's like bored of the fucking shit that's coming out of her mouth.
00:28:50
Speaker
And she's bored with the fact that she has to refer to everything by fucking like she actually says I guess this would be a lot easier if there were actually street names. Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:02
Speaker
And she's from Italy, which is an old fucking country. And like, you know, they probably have better street names and better city planning where she's from in Italy. And she's just like, OK, well, I'll just take you. I'll take you. And it's so funny because you can tell that she's like, cool, like covered bridges like fuck.
00:29:24
Speaker
Is that what you're into? She's like, okay. She's like, that's so boring. But that's even that's just less boring than my boring fucking life. So I you could you could kill me for all I care like I'm going I'm going with you. And then one of my first favorite parts is she walks away, she like swipes her butt.
00:29:44
Speaker
with her hand, and then she looks back sort of like, did you watch me do that? And she swipes her big farmhouse mom ass with her hand, and then she looks back a little self-consciously. There's so many of those little tiny micro things throughout this movie that really just makes it fantastic. Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:05
Speaker
So now they're in the truck on their way to Roseman Bridge, which interestingly enough, interesting factoid about Roseman Bridge built in 1883, also known as the Haunted Bridge because an inmate was being tracked and caught on the bridge in 1892. And supposedly he yelled into the air and then levitated
00:30:34
Speaker
out of the bridge and disappeared, and the jailers determined that anyone who could do that must have been innocent, so they didn't need to continue looking for him. Okay. Yeah. That is on the Madison County bridge fact page. That is canon. Whoa. Uh-huh. I feel like because I just went to Iowa recently, I need to look at where Madison County is actually.
00:31:04
Speaker
It's like really close to Illinois. The second fucking hilarious thing happens when they're in the truck and he's like, I like the smell of Iowa. It's like something like smell it here. It's like the loam. Yeah. And she's just like, whatever, dude. And then what's really funny is she very subtly smells her armpit when he's talking about the smell of Iowa.
00:31:29
Speaker
Oh, I definitely miss that. Oh, my God. Yeah, she's she has her elbow up on the windowsill of the truck. Oh, he's talking about he's just he's staring ahead. He's not really paying attention to her. He's just being like kind of his like dumb, you know, he's an artist. So he's just talking about his dumb art stuff. And he's like, I like the smell here. It's like something in the loam. I guess I guess you're used to it because you live here. And she's just like certainly very subtly dips her head down and turns it towards her armpits.
00:31:56
Speaker
Incredible. Yeah. And yeah, and it's summertime in Madison County. So everyone's a little she's she's very sweaty. She's got giant pit stains throughout this whole movie, which is. Yeah. Yeah. She's a sweaty lady. She's a big sweaty lady. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Did you see where Madison County is? Oh, no, I just thought I got bored and something.
00:32:26
Speaker
This podcast brought to you by two adults with ADHD. If you're wondering how it's going to go. It's like I couldn't really figure out. It's not Madison. Madison County. It is Madison County. Madison County, Iowa. Oh, I'm looking at Wisconsin. OK, I'm fucking dumb. I'm literally saying the word Iowa and then just like I just typed in Madison, Wisconsin. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:57
Speaker
Do you like how it fucking sounds so Midwestern when I say the word Wisconsin? Oh yeah, Madison, Wisconsin. Is that just like an accent thing that you get from your folks?
00:33:14
Speaker
a fucked up accent because like the Midwestern shit definitely is in there. But then also the Southern California shit is definitely in there. And then there's like the grossest accent, which is San Diego, California accent. Yeah. But then there's also like this weird Seattle thing that creeps in. That's like a little country, which mixes really well with the Midwestern thing. So like a lot of people just never can place where I'm from as a result of it. Right.
00:33:45
Speaker
Luckily, I never really like developed vocal fry, which I'm very, very grateful for. And I spent a considerable amount of personal work on trying to lose my, um, upward inflection. Yeah. Yep.
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah, UpSpeak is a hometown trait that we have, I would say. Yes. I'm fucking speaking in UpSpeak right now. It's fucking unavoidable. I had a boss be like, every single sentence does not need to sound like a question. And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? She's like, everything that you say goes up the end. And that's how you ask a question. And I'm like, oh, my God, I can't. I have to stop.
00:34:34
Speaker
And I tried really hard to break myself of it. Like, it's sometimes it happens, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. I had when I was in college studying creative writing, I had a classmate, you know, we would read each other's stories. And I had this fucking classmate who would read everything and up speak just constantly. And I was like, you're shitting on my story. And it's got a lot more gravitas than what you're giving it. Exactly. Oh, so annoying.
00:35:03
Speaker
Um, well, okay. So back to the plot line. Yeah. So then they find the bridge and she's just sort of, she's sort of like, he's setting up and he's like, I think he's just like, well, it's, it's not that good, but you know, I'll kind of get started, you know, today. And then I have to go back in the morning. Um, and she's just as like cute and wandering around the bridge and she's like, Oh, I'm kind of Twitter paid it. Like I kind of like this guy for some reason. And she's like sort of shyly kind of like spying on him. Yeah.
00:35:33
Speaker
Um, and then like they just keep on hanging out and they don't, you, you, you missed one really important part. That's one of my favorite parts of the movie. The flower prank. Oh, the flower prank. Yeah, that's pretty good.
00:35:49
Speaker
She just, in a way that seems, it felt so natural that it didn't feel like acting. He's like, oh, you caught me. Picking flowers is something you still do for beautiful ladies, right? And he walks up holding a really beautiful bouquet of wildflowers, and then she's like, yeah, but those are poisonous, without missing a fucking beat. And then he just drops them on the ground, and she just starts laughing hysterically.
00:36:18
Speaker
I totally am kidding, but I can't believe you fell for it, but also that was hilarious, but also I'm a little embarrassed because I just played a prank on you. It was so good. I love the flower prank.
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah, and I think internally what's going on is like she was awesome. She fucking did that to her husband. Maybe never. Right. And so she's feeling like when was the last time he picked wildflowers from the side of a meadow for her? That's probably also a good question. And yeah, so I think she's like returning to something very personal about herself that she probably hasn't experienced for a long time. And that's like
00:36:58
Speaker
Her sense of humor. Yeah, her playfulness, her spontaneity. And that's why I think she's... So in a way, maybe she's like kind of falling in love with the situation, maybe more so than him. Yeah, I could definitely see that. Do you think that Clint Eastwood should have been the actor in this movie? No. Yeah.
00:37:24
Speaker
There's a moment at the, towards the end of the film where I'm just like, man, you look like a fucking, not like an old ass, like sad.
00:37:36
Speaker
like puppy dog but I also am crying so like it's clearly working. There are moments where it's definitely working because you know I think what was important I think that what was critical even for this film was that he be someone who was the same age or slightly older than her husband because
00:37:59
Speaker
They really, there's, I don't know if you caught this, but there's a moment when she's getting her husband ready to leave when she like bumps the sock drawer open and then she like touches his shirt, like adjusts his shirt and like they do like a really quick belly focus.
00:38:19
Speaker
like on his like rotund sort of like dad bod and a button-up shirt tucking his fucking shirt into his jeans. And then they do a very similar shot when she's like sort of hardcore lurking on Robert while he's like cleaning up out at the well, at the water well. And he's like fucking ripped.
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah, he's like he's he's in his 60s when he sees this movie, but he's hunky as hell. Yeah, definitely hunky. Yeah.
00:38:52
Speaker
Um, he definitely is still like old and leathery and like, you know, kind of looks like my grandma, but he's, he's ripped. Yeah. He's got a, he's got a hot hunky bod for a 60 year old for sure. Totally. And so like, I think like that definitely like had to be, and he is very charming. Like he is very Clint Eastwood is very charming and I just, there were just moments where, I mean, the kissing was terrible.
00:39:18
Speaker
The kissing part is really awful. Let's just go there. We got to go there. OK, so, you know, they do the the bridge sighting thing. She invites them back to the house for dinner. It's very cute and like they're weirdly shy. He grabs for the onions over her and he's like, I can trim these two. And she's like kind of taken aback by the fact that like a.
00:39:45
Speaker
He's in her home. B, he's offering to help repeatedly. He's helping cook dinner. He's offering to do the dishes. And that is another so different experience than her day-to-day life. So that's just adding to this allure, this romance, whatever.
00:40:06
Speaker
And, you know, the the dinner goes on. They offer to go for a walk. We've mentioned this a little bit earlier, like she's, you know, they're walking and he's like he's trying to have like innocuous conversation with her and she's doing this thing where she keeps looking back at the house and looking out at the road and then looking back at the house and looking at and she's like, do you want to just come inside and have something to drink? And it's not because she necessarily wants
00:40:32
Speaker
I mean, part of it is probably she wants him to come back inside, but it's also like she has already told him the story, I think, at this point about Lucy and the man that she had an affair with and how the wife found them sleeping together. And now the whole town knows about it and the whole town talks about it. Yeah.
00:40:53
Speaker
And I think that part of that runs through her head a little bit. And so they go back inside, they have coffee and brandy or whatever, and then it cuts back to present day. And the son, the shithead son says something like, well, that's it, he got her drunk, he's there, he's getting her drunk, and he's taking advantage of her. And the daughter already is like,
00:41:17
Speaker
I don't know man. Like he seems like kind of a nice guy and like mom seemed to be pretty fucking down to hang. Like she doesn't seem like she's lost her agency or whatever. Like the daughter definitely ends up being endearing at by the end of the film. The son is still like I could take him or leave him, but I definitely like the daughter has, she grows on me. Yeah. I think.
00:41:43
Speaker
Well, I think they're the only two characters that have any emotional growth because for, you know, it's not a sad, it's not a happy ending for Francesca because she just, you know, oh gosh, I mean, we'll get to the end. Oh God. We could just both cry at each other through our computer screens, but you know, like she just goes back to her old life and you don't really see any like growth and he just goes back to his life and then they never see each other again.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, but the children, they're the ones who have resolution in their lives because they both are sort of plagued by these romantic issues with their partners. You don't exactly know what the problem is with the son, but you were poised to hate his wife because she's just very money grubby and she's kind of flighty and annoying. And then the daughter's husband has been cheating on her also or something like that.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yeah, the daughter's husband just sounds like a royal prick, basically. Yeah, exactly. So then we, you know, we snap back into present day Francesca or into the past in the story and Francesca can't sleep and, you know, all she's doing is thinking about Robert. And so she, you know, gets up in the middle of the night.
00:43:04
Speaker
writes him a note after sitting on the front porch reading Yates. I particularly love the Yates moment where he's like, it makes me feel in touch with my Irish ancestry. I'm like, yeah, Yates does that to me too. But I just love that she like, you know, sat on the porch and read Yates and then stood there with like her fucking nightgown open. And then the only thing that stopped her was the reality of the damn mosquitoes.
00:43:35
Speaker
And she's like having this cool moment and then she gets bit like three times on her tits by a mosquito and she's like fuck and has to go inside. Like it's like nothing could be like there can be no beautiful good sensual things for this woman in her life. Like everything gets ruined by the fact that she fucking moved to America and she moved to fucking Iowa to live on a farm. Like it is the bane of her existence is the setting of this film.
00:44:01
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, she's calamine. She's calamine lotioning her boobs, which is highly relatable content. And do you think was that Meryl Streep's naked body? Like there's such a like really quick, subtle picture that was like the the stomach to hip moment. It was just like middle mid boob to stomach to hip. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't I don't know.
00:44:27
Speaker
It might have been, but I was like, you guys are really fucking up if that is her body because that body did not give birth to two children. Oh, because she's all like smooth. There's not a fucking stretch mark to be seen. You know, I don't know. So I mean, I'm.
00:44:48
Speaker
It looks like a middle-aged woman's body, I would say. I didn't think so. Okay. You know, but maybe a middle-aged woman in the sixties who doesn't eat processed food and does a bunch of farm work. I'll give it that. So, um, let me see here. I don't know. I don't know why I'm going to go down this rabbit hole, but, uh, yeah, I'm real street for 1949. So 50 to 90 45, she's 46 in this film. So she's 10 years older than I am.
00:45:17
Speaker
She's five years older than I am in this film. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:45:43
Speaker
Your body does not bounce back that well at that age. But again, it was a different time. It was a different time. Right. Like, you know, maybe because she was like a very physically active woman and, you know, whatever, whatever. But I am glad that there wasn't more of the body in it because it would have just made it less even less believable. But like Meryl Streep has four children.
00:46:10
Speaker
She's giving birth to four children. Yeah. And I think her oldest kid is like 43 or 1999. So I'm guessing that was in Real Streams. That no, there's no fucking way it was her hot bod. There's no fucking way. Yeah. Like I know what bodies look like after they give birth to children. And it is not that not if you're no, absolutely not.
00:46:34
Speaker
I'm very curious though, I wonder if I can find it online. Was there a body double? Oh, it's actually a standard stipulation in her contracts that there's a body double. So that is a body double in the mirror scene. Yeah, apparently she put on 15 to 20 pounds for the role in the movie. I believe it.
00:46:59
Speaker
to be a more middle-aged housewife, like a body type. But yeah, common stipulation in most of her contracts is that there is a body double being used. Nice. Yep. So my Meryl Streep thing would be like Death Becomes Her. That's kind of where I first became aware of her, which is I think the movie that she does right before this in 1992.
00:47:26
Speaker
Okay. Um, so that's how I know we're all treatment. She was like, so, which is funny cause like, yeah, it's still a total banger. So in 1992, 50, 40, she's like 43. That's so funny cause she plays like some old, like kind of has been woman who is seeking immortality. That just speaks to the hypocrisy of Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:48
Speaker
that the only thing a 43 year old gorgeous actress could get are housewife rolls and middle aged gold diggers. Yeah.
00:48:01
Speaker
That's my hot take for the night. No, my first introduction to Meryl Streep was in the controversial now, but not so controversial at the time role that she played as Woody Allen's love interest in Manhattan. Oh, I love this one. She was a literal fucking 16 year old. She was in high school in the movie. Oh dear.
00:48:29
Speaker
It's like the Annie Hall before Annie Hall, basically. It's the movie that, yeah. And it's, I loved the movie. Diane Keaton's fucking fits in Manhattan are so much better than her fits in Annie Hall. Sorry, all you Annie Hall stands out there, but like not me, my dudes, my old. I don't know his movies. He's never been like a guy for me. Consider yourself lucky.
00:49:00
Speaker
I just don't care. I'm like, oh, I have to watch this guy. He's annoying. He's so fucking annoying and he's so fucking gross and like he's just like annoying and gross. But like, OK, is this is the one where she's in high school? OK, so I think that this is the one where she's supposed to be in high school, but she also looks like she's 24. It is a very confusing role, but she is a maximum hottie in this movie, like.
00:49:29
Speaker
So fucking gorgeous. She has like such a bad, oh no, sorry. Meryl Streep isn't the teenager. Mariel Hemingway is the teenager. That's right. And she actually looks like an actual teenager. Yeah.
00:49:49
Speaker
But yes, no, Manhattan, such a good, such a good movie, mostly because all of the women in the film are just absolutely like, you're a piece of shit. But Diane Keaton still kind of like gives in and like ends up being somehow romantically involved. I just don't, I'm just like, I don't get it. I think, yeah, I just don't get it at all. Maybe I should watch it just because I live in Manhattan now.
00:50:19
Speaker
I know. Yeah. I'm going to be like, do I recognize any of this place? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, dating a young woman named Tracy, although she's only 17 and still in high school. Oh, wow. What do y'all in character is just Woody Allen naming. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah.
00:50:42
Speaker
And then his ex-wife is Jill Davis, who is played by Meryl Streep, who is also apparently a lesbian in the film. I would just love to see how that's played out. Oh, it's really probably not that great, because I haven't seen it in a really long time, but... Probably annoying as hell. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, so we're back to Bridges of Madison County. Sorry for that divergence.
00:51:10
Speaker
Um, so she drives in the middle of the night to the bridge. What do you say? Oh, I just looked at down on a note and it just says some fucking bullshit about Africa. Do you remember this? Do you remember some fucking bullshit about Africa? What scene is that? Is that a dinner when he's just talking about like,
00:51:29
Speaker
No, it's when they're laying on the floor with a fire going in the middle of a Midwestern summer night, which does not make sense to me, by the way. That is strictly for ambiance. Yeah, so they're sleeping on the floor in the living room in front of the fire. And she's crying.
00:51:53
Speaker
And she's like, take me somewhere else with a story, basically. This movie is an emotional roller coaster. It really is. It really, really is. It really is. OK, so she drives to the bridge, the Roseman Bridge, in the middle of the night. And she leaves them a note. And the note has a little Keats line on it. And it's basically like, if you want to come to dinner again, that would be awesome.
00:52:22
Speaker
And he's taking pictures of the Roseman Bridge in the morning. He finds the note up there. He's like, what is that? Even though it's really obvious and I would have been the first thing I looked at. He's like, what is that? And he runs up there and he gets the note and then he sticks it in his pocket without reading it.
00:52:37
Speaker
And then he drives into town and these scenes are intercut with her going and running her own errands, including but not limited to going to buy herself a new dress. And she's really having a hard time justifying it to herself, because she's like, I haven't bought myself a new dress in like forever. But the...
00:53:00
Speaker
The cutscene is a woman with dark curly hair driving a 19, I think it's like a 1957 Chevy Bel Air, which was my weird rockabilly dream car when I was like in seventh grade.
00:53:16
Speaker
And with the fins, right? With the fins, yep. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I was like, that's not a pickup truck. That's not Meryl Streep. And so then we come to find out that it is not. It is a character named Lucy. And Lucy was having an affair with a man in town, which we had heard the story of earlier. And she was effectively a pariah.
00:53:38
Speaker
So Robert, he witnesses this firsthand. He goes out of his way to be like, hey, there's a seat down here. The waitress is a real bitch. And he's like, so are you going to order something or what? And so gross Midwestern, that's the bad side. That's the gross side of the Midwest. She's got a Midwest face too, which I really appreciate. Everyone has Midwest face in this diner where he's having lunch.
00:54:06
Speaker
Yeah. And then she's like, you know what? Actually, no, I don't think so. I've changed my mind. She sets down the menu. She goes outside. He doesn't think much of it. He's leaving the he's leaving the restaurant and he sees her sitting in her car like crying, like weeping into her hands. And he kind of has this like moment of like realization
00:54:33
Speaker
He goes across the street and he calls Francesca and she runs in off of her tractor to answer the phone She's like sweating and panting and everything and he's like, you know, I just met I just I just found out about Lucy
00:54:48
Speaker
see the fucking grocer was more than happy to tell me the entire story. Uh, and I just don't want to put you in a precarious situation where this could happen to you. And she's basically like, uh, keep your laws off my body. I'm going to do what I want and I'll meet you at the barn. She's like, I don't give a fuck what people think.
00:55:13
Speaker
Basically, yeah, for better or for worse, even though she probably definitely does give a fuck what people think. She just like in that moment is like, I don't care. So they go to the they go to a different bridge. She goes and meets in there and then they go to. They go back to the house and he takes a shower and she smells his clothes like a like a creep, like a creep, a creep.
00:55:43
Speaker
And then she goes downstairs and he's like, can I do anything to help? And she's like, no, dinner will be ready in 30 minutes. I'm going to go take a bath. And then like, you know, there's a little bit of first person narration that creeps in from the story about how she's realizing like this is the first, this is the last place his naked body was and how she's starting to feel all these kinds of sexy feelings.
00:56:04
Speaker
And then we cut back to present day where the fucking son is like, I've had enough. I can't do it anymore. I have to go for a walk. And the sister's like, OK, whatever, bro. Like, why are you such a fucking weirdo? And then she just goes straight back into reading the story, which I love.
00:56:26
Speaker
you know, Francesca puts on her new dress. She comes down like she just looks like a regular ass woman in a nice dress like and they start dancing and then they smooch and then it's like the weirdest. Okay.
00:56:44
Speaker
The initial I don't know if we've told you guys, but we think that the smooching in this film is really bad. But the the first the first smooching, it like makes sense to me, you know, it's like
00:56:57
Speaker
When's the last time she kissed a new person? Probably wasn't since she was in her 20s in Italy kissing the man that she was gonna marry and come back to the States with. And she didn't care where she was going as long as it was America.
00:57:14
Speaker
Quote, unquote, because we have to remember Italy was fucking fascist at this time. They were literally in the grips of a horribly oppressive fascist dictatorship. And so Italy fucking sucked in the 30s and 40s. I learned that in my design history class. I actually I mean, I knew that, but I learned a lot more about it anyway. Did you say Sicilian history class?
00:57:39
Speaker
No, my design history class. Design history class. Yeah, the architecture from that era is really interesting.
00:57:46
Speaker
They started co-opting these neoclassical designs. And really, they kind of took a lot of the futurist manifesto stuff of coming out of World War I and constructivism. The new modernism sort of made its way to Italy.
00:58:12
Speaker
a group like a design architecture art group called the Futurists released a manifesto about how you know design needed to disrupt society and the
00:58:29
Speaker
like the woman shouldn't be relegated to just being like a housewife and like the nuclear family doesn't need to be the way that it is and all these things and so modernism was then really heavily co-opted by fascism and they took a lot of like the modernist design principles but appropriated it into like
00:58:51
Speaker
really gross shit. And because of the political situation in Italy, they sort of ended up creating a space that was
00:59:04
Speaker
Like the only safe way to be a designer or an architect or an artist is if you were participating. And so a lot of the graphic design of an architecture of 1930s, Italy was designed by people who were basically actively anti-fash, but they like kind of just had to buy in. It's the same thing that happened in Germany with a lot of
00:59:33
Speaker
a lot of artists and designers, um, they didn't actively become Nazis. Like they didn't join the fucking Nazi party, but they also didn't like, for whatever reason, couldn't leave Germany or like, you know, they, like, they kind of were forced into participation because it was the only way that they could get art supplies, you know? Um, but schools like Bauhaus and the Ulm school and all these other places were, um,
01:00:01
Speaker
you know, branded as being deviant and promoting deviancy among German youth. And so Hitler like had all that shit shut down and all that was put on lockdown. And yeah, it was really wild. I learned a lot about
01:00:20
Speaker
who supported communism and who supported fascism through that class. And it was really interesting to see those individuals who kind of continued
01:00:37
Speaker
the charge against brutality and against like totalitarianism in that regard, like specifically in the face of like Hitler and Mussolini and those who just effectively became class traitors. Like, you know, um, but yes, so the kissing was really awkward and uncomfortable at first, but it kind of felt like it had to be, but like the fact that it just continued to be like this like weird, like mouth smooching thing, like they were mushing their faces together a lot.
01:01:07
Speaker
Well, Eastwood doesn't have good lips, and I'm really glad that we're kind of breeding the bad lips out of our lead actors these days. I don't know if that's a horrible thing to say or not, but I think like, you know, call back to Terry Gilliam talking shit about Bruce Willis's butthole mouth.
01:01:29
Speaker
You know, it's like, that's kind of a thing. Like you would see these old fucking, it's like watching Cary Grant make out with anyone. It's also disgusting. Like these old fucking white guys with their no lips, like I just can't. And they're like their girlfriend who's like 20 years younger than them and they look like a catcher's mitt trying to smooch a cantaloupe. It's just like fucking terrible.
01:01:50
Speaker
I think that another big difference is that the impetus and acceptance of
01:02:06
Speaker
outpatient plastic surgery among men too. Like men get fucking lip fillers just the same as ladies do. Like they get like jaw fillers and all the shit. So like, I'm sure that there's still a lot of actors in Hollywood that in between films don't have good looking lip situations. But you know, if the role calls for a lot of like mouth action,
01:02:35
Speaker
I wouldn't be surprised if they're getting fucking fillers, you know? So I had this epiphany. I was riding my bike over the Williamsburg Bridge last night and I was like, you know what? When I get older, I'm going to get like a fucking like neck lift or whatever. Like I'm just going to spend the money and I'm going to take care of it because like, do not talk to me about neck lifts my day. I want one. I look around my family and I'm like, look, we got big old gobblers in this family.
01:03:02
Speaker
and you know I can like keep the weight off and I can do my best but like also I'm a bed reader I'm a hardcore lay-in bed just like that yep sure anybody who's wondering I just did the grossest chin tuck double chin maneuver
01:03:17
Speaker
Put your chin as close to your larynx as possible while you're reading for 12 hours a day or whatever. Yeah. And, you know, one thought is I'll just have like very expansive neck tattoos and that might do the trick. But also maybe I'll just get like a fucking like whatever. If it's like 15 grand, like I could save it for that shit. Yeah. Maybe I'll start, you know, set aside a little investment account for plastic surgery for like 15 years from now, 55.
01:03:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I have like the almost like the opposite problem. Mine is like it's like semi related to tech neck, but it's very much like.
01:04:01
Speaker
because I had such shit posture when I was a kid, I stuck my chin out so far over the rest of my body that this muscle under my neck is disproportionately shaped. It's very tight, and so it creates this really intense lack of contour curvature situation.
01:04:24
Speaker
And so I've been doing a lot of research about it and I, I, to get that fixed would not be a traditional neck lift. It's called a deep neck lift where they have to like go in under your tongue and actually like reconnect the muscle in like a different pulled back way to like get rid of this fucking thing. And I want to do it so bad. Like how much is it? They're fucking so expensive.
01:04:55
Speaker
It's like 50 grand or something like that. I think they're like 30 in the US, but you can go to Brazil and get them in Brazil for like fucking $7,500. Plastic surgery in Brazil is cheap as fuck, and most of the doctors are very good. Like very good. Someone's like, do you hear about what Beth and Bud did? They're like, no, what happened? They became bank robbers.
01:05:23
Speaker
Oh my god, this is dog day afternoon. This is pretty much dog day afternoon. They became bank robbers to get fucking necklifts. I mean, why not? In their late 40s. I literally told, I told Treven a suit, like the moment I get a big girl job.
01:05:43
Speaker
Like the moment I'm making more than 70K a year, I'm getting a fucking neck lift. Like it's happening. I'm glad that we're both on board with this. I just had it in 50 because like I would always be like, Oh God. Like, like I've known people who had a lot of plastic surgery and I kind of always, I'm ashamed to say I always kind of like look down on them for it. Yeah.
01:06:02
Speaker
And I'm just like, wait, what? Like, yeah, I have I have a big boy job now. I have money. It's like if I want to spend fucking like 20 grand on like making my neck look fucking tight, like fucking fuck cares. Yeah, literally. I just want to draw a line in profile, which I do not have because of these muscle groups. And even when I'm like fucking too skinny to be healthy, which I have been several times in my life, even when I'm too skinny to be healthy, I fucking
01:06:30
Speaker
still have the like taught that taught like parabolic curve of a fucking front neck. And like, I don't think that there's any amount of physical therapy in the world that can get that to not do that. I'm going to talk to my physical therapist about it, but I'm pretty sure like I I'm fucked like I let that muscle grow and develop in that shape. And it's never going to not want to be in that shape. Yeah. But
01:06:59
Speaker
Well, you're a beautiful woman and I'm a beautiful woman as well. And we are perfect just the way that we are, but. We are both very, very good looking people. And also, yep, that's right. I said it. But also we're like good people too. Yeah. And so that really makes up for it. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to get a little work done if it means that you're going to like look at yourself in the mirror and be like, fuck yeah. Yeah.
01:07:29
Speaker
I'm all about things being squared away. Whatever can settle the constant mutterings in the back of my head just a little bit, I'm all for it. I pluck my ear hair when I'm drunk at the hotel and that makes it good for another four days and then don't have to worry about that.
01:07:57
Speaker
I come home after a few jins and I do the nose and the ears with my pink tweezers in my hotel room. Amazing. All right. Let's try and get back to this fucking quick plot outline, which is absolutely... That is what it says in our show notes. Quick plot outline.
01:08:19
Speaker
You want to know what the quick plot outline of this is? A bored housewife gets seduced. There it is. Yep, pretty much. We can kind of wrap it up. I mean, I think I think we've kind of covered what happens, which is that they don't end up together. Unfortunately, they have a romantic, like, like, romantic moment in time. And, you know, the film effectively ends.
01:08:45
Speaker
by him asking her to come with him and she almost does. She packs two suitcases, she comes down to sit at the table for one last dinner and he looks at the look on her face and he says, you're not gonna come with me.
01:09:03
Speaker
And he's like, well, we don't have to decide right now. Like, what if we just don't decide right now? What if we see each other and then you decide? And that that like, I was like, OK, man, he that could have gone real gross, you know, like he could have sat there and like tried to convince her. And like her point was that like, if I go with you, the pain that I'm going to feel about leaving my family is going to turn into my resenting you because you will always be associated with that pain.
01:09:32
Speaker
And so she stays barely. She barely stays because there's a moment. Oh my God. My God, I was crying because this moment came immediately after the moment that I was like, was Clay Ace with the right person for this character? He's just standing in the rain staring at her looking like a wet,
01:09:59
Speaker
Soggy, sad puppy dog with his old ass hair looking all crazy, strooped down his face.
01:10:09
Speaker
And he goes and he gets in his truck and her husband comes in and they pull up behind it and they do this thing where she's watching him in the background in the rearview mirror. And the husband says something, oh, that must be the photographer that they're talking about. And she puts her hand on the door and she's like,
01:10:30
Speaker
about to like start unlatching the door and she said like the voiceover is like I had this moment that he like really didn't want me and he was just gonna drive away and then she watches and put her necklace on the rearview mirror and she's like about she's literally about to unlock that door and go get in his truck when the husband hawks the horn.
01:10:51
Speaker
And he honks it a couple times and and Robert is just sitting there blocking traffic Yeah, he's like he's sitting like this is it come like come with me Let's do this and she tilts the fucking door lever like she's almost going for it and then he turn and then he drives away he turns onto the street and she just starts crying and
01:11:13
Speaker
And her husband is like, what's wrong? And she's like, I just need a minute. And he's like, okay, can you tell me what's wrong? She's like, no, I just need a minute. She's just like weeping in the car. And then she's like, I was grateful for the silence at the dinner table that night. And she's just like sitting there in silence, like mourning the loss of this thing that she had for just like a moment and mourning like the, the like, monacity of her life to come. And then,
01:11:41
Speaker
And then we fast forward in time to her husband dying. And he says to her, I know that you had dreams of your own, and I'm sorry that I couldn't fulfill them, but I love you with all my heart. Yeah.
01:11:59
Speaker
I was just like, this is too much. And then we find out that like, and then we find out that every year on her birthday, she'd go to the places where they were. And then she gets a letter in the mail three years after her husband dies that says that Robert Kincaid died and it has all of his stuff in it. And the book that she suggested that he gets published and his bracelet that he wore the whole time and the letter from the, um,
01:12:28
Speaker
The letter from the lawyer says that he wanted to be cremated and spread at Rosen Bridge, and her kids are reading this shit, walking down the river, and they get to this place where they're like, she literally
01:12:46
Speaker
They were simultaneously angry. Before they got to the end of this part, they had a moment where they were angry because they were like, well, we wanted to fucking do this shit. I'm staying in a marriage that I hated because that's what I was taught to do. And there's even a moment where she's like, what do I tell my daughter? I have to show her that when you do something, when you say you're gonna do something, you're gonna do it.
01:13:13
Speaker
And if I leave, what's that going to tell her about life? And then they get to the end where she says, you know, all those times you asked me to wear that pretty dress in my closet that I never wore, it felt like you were asking me to wear my wedding dress to prom or to a party. And so, you know, like, there's just like all of these moments that we realize that were in their lives growing up,
01:13:42
Speaker
that were just like these like painful reminders of like a sense of freedom that she had never experienced in her life. A sense of freedom and a sense of love that she had never experienced. And then she lost both of them, both her husband and Robert within a very short period of time of each other. And then the banger for me was that she was like, you know what I did?
01:14:06
Speaker
As soon as he left, I went and befriended Lucy. She became my best fucking friend and everybody in town talked about us together. And you know who didn't care? My husband didn't care because he was a good man. Like. Yeah. It's a good resolution because I think she does find happiness with her.
01:14:26
Speaker
her life. I have a note that says I love the messed up bangs when he drives away when he drives off her farm. When when she was like, she follows him out and her bangs are all fucked up. And it's like, that's such a choice. Yeah. So like, she was like, just like doing this motion. Yeah, it's like, yeah, no, that was good. So yeah, and there's like a nice resolution with the you know, the son, he he goes and tells his wife how much he loves him. And then I think the daughter
01:14:57
Speaker
She tells her fucking husband that he can get fucked and that she's not mad at him, but she's not coming back. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of thought like after the son shows, the son goes away and turns out he went to a bar and he was just like drunk and he comes back. He's like way more relaxed because he's drunk now. But like, I have to say, I kind of felt like the son and the daughter had stronger sexual charisma than
01:15:24
Speaker
Robert and Francesca. Yeah, that was weird. I definitely had that moment where like pulled the bottle out of his pocket.
01:15:33
Speaker
I was like, what the fuck is going on here? So in my state, in my parrotic, my satirical stage production. Oh, actually, this is what I was going to say is in my satirical stage production of this movie, the son and the daughter also play Robert and Francesca. Oh, that would be weird. I don't know. That's a little transgressive, I guess. Yeah, it's too much. Make me feel uncomfortable.
01:16:02
Speaker
That's good. That's, you know, it's not hard if it doesn't make you feel uncomfortable as we saw with all the smooching. Oh, God. Terrible smooches. Yeah. More eggs or should we just fuck up the little linoleum one last time? That was just absolutely a fucking outstanding, outstanding line. I kind of think that in a weird way, because Clint Eastwood
01:16:27
Speaker
I don't think they have like strong chemistry together and and a lot of times you don't really see them in the same frame too often. Right. A lot of it is like I mean the camera is frequently just featuring Meryl and she is doing fucking amazing work 100% of the time and then like crushing it.
01:16:47
Speaker
Fucking just killing it and then you know when it's on Clint. He's just totally Twitter painted with her He's obsessed with her and that's like kind of charming. I think his presence is definitely not as strong although I you're kind of turning me around when you're describing him standing there in the rain like some shitty old dog that just complete soaking wet and maybe that final scene and
01:17:07
Speaker
justifies his presence in this entire movie. But yeah, I do think there is more charisma between the son and the daughter, unfortunately, which is a little creepy. Yeah. I just think that the actor they got for the son was just not a good pick. I think that's right. I think that's right. I really didn't like him as an actor.
01:17:31
Speaker
I started to think that maybe this is like a weird meta critique on cinema and like filmmaking for Clint Eastwood, which is why he put himself in like this. It seemed like a very personal role for him and how he played it. It did happen. And it's it's sort of like she's like, what, you just like you don't have a connection with anyone. You just travel around. You don't have a home.
01:17:58
Speaker
you take your fucking pictures and you talk about your journalistic art shit but like you're never actually really living a true life and it sucks because the way you are just in the way you live your life is like so attractive to someone who's really boring like myself and it's almost unfair it's unfair of you to just show up and like routinely like what you just like seduce housewives all across the country when you're going to take pictures of your
01:18:24
Speaker
Boring fucking shit and like in a way it seems like a meditation on Cinema itself and film filmmaking itself. It's like and I'm like cuz I and I was thinking put I was put in this mindset because I was watching Clint Eastwood kissing and I was like, maybe he's not maybe he's not a human being maybe he's from outer space like he doesn't know how to kiss I did like he does he's not a real person and then like that's why he is an actor and that's why he's a filmmaker because he's always striving to like
01:18:51
Speaker
come into contact with normal human beings. And that's why he's trying to connect to people through making films, which are inherently false, no matter how much true veracity they impart through their work and their structure. That's just a thought that I had, that this was a weird meta critique on mid-century American cinema.
01:19:18
Speaker
or cinema through, you know, cinema's effect on mid-century American culture, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I think that's possible. That's been handed down to these Gen X kids, these Gen X kids who are struggling with their mother's sexuality. Right. And discovering that their mother had like an internal personality and wants and needs and that sort of stuff. I did really appreciate, though, the moment where the son was like,
01:19:46
Speaker
I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me. Like why do I feel like she's cheating on me? Like that's fucking weird. Like he, I mean that like there was like a level of like self awareness that I really appreciated. You know, what I just realized, okay. So I looked him up and what I just realized is he's a fucking TV actor. That's why he's so fucking weird. And that's why I like, he seemed so out of sorts. So I think we can safely say our least favorite character is the son.
01:20:16
Speaker
Michael, I think that's right. Francesca, obviously the best, obviously. We talked about our memorable scenes, certainly. I did love the line and it definitely made me cry where it was like moments like these are what is the exact quote? I got a.
01:20:40
Speaker
I gotta get it right, can't fuck it up. This kind of certainty comes but just once in a lifetime. I was like, how rude of you to speak to me like that in my own home. How dare you, sir. Yeah, yeah. That's a little outrageous, I would say.
01:21:02
Speaker
Yeah, just absolutely outrageous. Oh, shit. This is another really hilarious thing about this movie. Factoid. So Robert Kincaid was not a real person, but that did not stop a lot of people on a global scale from continuously calling and writing international geographic to learn more about Robert Kincaid.
01:21:25
Speaker
career as a photographer and that regard and even though they realized that the story Bridges of Madison County was fictional they still would like to see his catalog because people were convinced that this was real. That this was based on a real actual National Geographic photographer named Robert Kincaid. Like they had to write a form letter to mail to people because that's how many people
01:21:53
Speaker
were fucking sending in letters asking for the 1994 edition of the Madison, the Bridges of Madison County National Geographic that they pulled out. Apparently that one was originally the Golden Gate Bridge episode or edition.
01:22:12
Speaker
Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah. And they're like, we don't know how to tell you this, but he is fictional character. He does not exist. He does not have an over of photographs. And the story about Africa, that was like, that was dumb. I was like, yeah. He was like, people just like exist there. You know, it's just like, they're just.
01:22:40
Speaker
the light and they just know the lives, you know, no like centuries of like leftover fucked up in this from colonial oppression. And, you know, we're like, which Africa have you been to sir? Yeah, exactly.
01:22:58
Speaker
So yeah, that is that part. Let's fucking you want to rate this. Let's fucking rate it. I mean, I'm honestly like I low key just like except for like the kissing and the fucking. Annoyingness of the sun, I want to give this movie 10 out of 10, like just.
01:23:19
Speaker
I fucking loved it. It's a scale between one and 500. Okay, sorry, 500 out of 500. That just doesn't roll off of the fucking... I mean, I'm gonna say 500 also. It was so enjoyable. It was so good. It was so good. It was so believable. The way that Meryl Streep played this fucking housewife was just incredible.
01:23:42
Speaker
I mean, I've had moments in my life where I've had like love affairs that lasted a day, you know, like that is fucking real and it hurts and it sucks. And it's just like, yeah, it was really good. It was really fucking good. Yeah. For SD 500. Yes. 100%. Yep. Immersiveness.
01:24:04
Speaker
I was in that fucking small ass Iowa farmhouse for every minute of the time that we were in that house. I could feel the heat. I could smell Meryl Streep's armpits. I could smell fucking... The fucking flies? Yeah, the flies everywhere.
01:24:21
Speaker
Guys, I loved it. I noticed it from the jump. I was like, oh my God. And the crack of the screen door shutting, I could smell the grass. I know that summer. I know what that summer feels like.
01:24:38
Speaker
The light was it was like, you know, when you're outside in the bright sun for a long time without sunglasses and it's just actually feels kind of dark because like your eyes are actually being a little damaged. It felt like that. And like everyone's like squinting all the time because it's so fucking hot and bright. Yep.
Personal Reflections and Humor
01:24:53
Speaker
And it's a little dusty. Yeah, I was. Yeah. Five hundred for a person that said it was it was there. Mm hmm. Definitely accomplish its purpose, which is to make me get a Bridges of Madison County tattoo to its suite.
01:25:08
Speaker
Yeah. Would you watch it again? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say, yes, I mean, obviously revival theater, a hundred percent, but like streaming on purpose, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm definitely, I'm not going to play this for my wife because you know how we always talk about the main theme of the show that Rachel has bad, you know, bad filters when it comes to movies. And this might be a little too sad for her.
01:25:37
Speaker
She'll just cry. She'll just cry and cry.
Would You Watch It Again?
01:25:41
Speaker
The moment that she realizes exactly how this is going to play out, she'll just start weeping and never stop. Exactly. Yeah. So fucking 500s all across the board. I don't even know what that is. So let's see. How many topics are there? One, two, three, four, five.
01:26:01
Speaker
Twenty five hundred perfect score. Perfect score. Holy shit. Of all the fucking movies, I never in a million years would have said, oh, you want to know what one's going to be the best fucking one we watch? Bridges of fucking Madison County. Like, are you kidding me? It's so good. Are you kidding me? I'm pretty sure my grandmother loved this movie and tried to get me to watch it with her. And I was like, that's not going to happen, my dude. Like,
01:26:32
Speaker
That sounds boring as fuck, but I wonder if this is accessible to young kids or I wonder at what age this is impossible to enjoy. I may have liked this when I was a kid. I was a little romantic boy. I also was, but for some reason I was just like a movie about bridges.
01:26:59
Speaker
That's what I thought it was, a movie about bridges. And I even- Go ahead. Even when I told Trevin we were gonna do this one and he was like, fucking have fun with that one. And I was like, I know, right? And then I watch it, I'm like, just like cry. I'm just like.
01:27:13
Speaker
on the couch and he's like, you just over there crying and farting and just crying. And I was like, yeah. And he's like, how was it? I was like, it was really good. Really fucking good. I cannot. Unbelievable.
Alternative Casting Options
01:27:27
Speaker
Do you have alternates for clip for Eastwood? Other actors that other actors that could have done that role at that time? Because that's really the trick, right? It has to be somebody who's the right age.
01:27:42
Speaker
I kind of thought Harvey Keitel, although it's a bit of a stretch. No, absolutely not. The way he wears high-waisted pants, I'd die. I mean, he's done something similar. He plays that, like, manic pix- I mean, this, uh, Clinius wins a manic pixie dream girl, a little bit, right? Yep. No, a hundred percent.
01:28:02
Speaker
Um, I feel that I was, I was a manic pixie dream girl for my own wife at the time when I met her. Yeah. And played that role. But, um, I mean, he did the, uh, Harvey Keitel did this very similar role in the piano, which is a Jane Campion novel. It takes place in New Zealand. Um,
01:28:20
Speaker
I think he might have been more present. I think they might have had a more compelling connection. But they were getting that fucking final scene in the rain. I think he just sticks it for me.
01:28:34
Speaker
I'm like looking at like popular actors in the 90s. Paul Newman would have been way too old, like young, like young Paul Newman in that role. Are they, are they not the same age? Cause uh, this was 90. This was still alive and he's 90. Okay. What year was, what year was Clint Eastwood born in? 30, 1930. Paul Newman was five years older than him. Could have done it.
01:29:00
Speaker
That would have been a fucking banger. That would have been good. I would have watched the shit out of that. And you think that he had to be older? I do. I absolutely do. I definitely think he had to at least be the same age, if not a little bit older, than her husband. Okay. Not younger? Do you think conspicuously younger would work as well? It wouldn't have hit the same way, I don't think.
01:29:30
Speaker
Cause for some reason I'm like, oh, Nick, Nick Cage would be kind of fun. He, he plays a similar role in Corelli's Mendel and I've actually not seen that movie, but I read the book. Here's the thing. Francesca was so, she was like, she was such a, um, she was such a reasonable woman.
01:29:50
Speaker
that it couldn't have, it couldn't have had frivolous written all over it. You know what I mean? Like she had to, she had to be
01:30:01
Speaker
She had to be like drawn in by the possibility of another life, which she only could have imagined with someone who was closer to being her peer than someone younger than her. She's not the kind of woman that would have ever been turned. I don't think her eyes would have been turned by a younger man. I mean, I can only think of funny ones like Dennis Hopper would be like really funny. Dennis Hopper would be funny. I was thinking maybe Anthony Hopkins,
01:30:30
Speaker
But he's so serious. Yeah, too serious. Because, yeah, Clint was a little silly. He knew how to kind of relax a little bit. Yeah. Hmm. It's bad. Gary Oldman? Oh, I don't know. I mean, Gary, I'm so fucking weird and I can only see him as the villain from the professional.
01:30:58
Speaker
Oh, my God. Wait, how old is Ralph Dennis? No, he's too young. I was like, he would have been. Yeah, way too young. Him and I are like the same age, I want to say. I think so. No, he's younger. He's younger than Meryl Streep. He's like in the 60s. OK. Honestly, like there really were not many just like in that right. That right age.
01:31:28
Speaker
like sort of elder statesman of Hollywood at that point. Yeah, they also were like charming and handsome and fit. Christopher Walken could have maybe done it. He did. You know, he's going to be the fucking emperor in Dune to. Oh, is he really? Yes. Yeah. He's too young for it. It's hotty, though. Donald Sutherland is kind of like of that age.
01:31:57
Speaker
Liam Neeson now. Well, Liam Neeson is like. He was born in 1952. He would have been the same age as her husband. I mean, like just a little bit older. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, Liam Neeson kind of played older. Yeah, yeah. Um. Max von Saito, who the hell is that guy?
01:32:27
Speaker
Alan Rickman maybe? Oh, okay, I love this guy. And I don't know if he could have done it because he's British and he's very British, but Pete Postlethwaite, do you know who that is? Let me look him up. He was in the usual suspects.
01:32:53
Speaker
He has a very bulbous nose, but he's very charming. He was also the priest in Romeo plus Juliet. Oh, Ed Harris. It could have been Ed Harris. Ed Harris definitely could have done it for sure. Ed Harris for sure. Yeah, he brings that gravitas for sure, but he's sexy. He's got the right body. Uh-huh.
01:33:18
Speaker
It's not that I tuck my shirt in. I wear old jeans. I'm skinny because I work so much sort of situation. I can see him driving around with beer in the back of his truck for sure. 100%. 100%. Ed Harris would have been a great cast.
01:33:40
Speaker
He's sort of like the darker, slightly scarier version of fucking Clint Eastwood anyway. Like, the man in black from Westworld is fucking terrifying. Uh-huh. Definitely. Like, love.
01:33:55
Speaker
So, you know, there's a couple people that could have done it, I think, but I don't really think anybody could have done it in the way that it was done to get it to do what it did.
Film's Success and Conclusion
01:34:06
Speaker
Like Clint Eastwood had like he had a name. He also had money. He also had clout in Hollywood.
01:34:14
Speaker
Meryl Streep hadn't really done anything in a little while. So like, this was like a really big role for her. And this movie was huge, huge. Like it brought in like $75 billion globally or some crazy shit like that. Not billion, 75 million. Yes, it was, it, it, okay. Hold on. I looked it up.
01:34:42
Speaker
Box office, 182 million worldwide. But overall... It's wild. Budget was 22. Not surprising. At the end of its run, the film grossed 71 million, but it did a worldwide total of 182 million. Like, that is a lot of fucking money. Yeah. Especially in the 90s. That's a fucking earner, because it only cost 22 million to make, which is wild.
01:35:10
Speaker
There's not, I mean, there's not a lot of people in this movie. No, no, there's not. There's not a lot going on, just a, you know, Meryl Streep fucking owning, owning it, the world. So, amazing. All right, should we close her out? Thank you again for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to rate, review, subscribe, and in case you need to be reminded. This kind of certainty comes but just once in a lifetime.
01:35:42
Speaker
Beautiful.
01:38:09
Speaker
There's such a meaning where the feel goes Darling strings to make us whole You can see it too