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1945 - Staring Into The Abyss
70 Plays8 months ago
The war is over! Movies can go back to being the most important thing in the world! This episode we cover documentaries as evidence in the Nuremburg trials, post-fascist Italian neo-realism, noir drama, and non-linear storytelling! An "Oops, All Features" episode.
You can watch along with our video version of the episode here on Youtube!
You can check out our social media crap here: http://linktr.ee/1w1y
And you can watch and form your own opinions from our 1945 Films Discussed playlist right here!
00:04:20 - Nazi Concentration Camps
00:29:46 - Rome, Open City
00:48:20 - The Lost Weekend
01:06:42 - Mildred Pierce
01:25:23 - Brief Encounter
See you next year!
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Don't know what the country's coming to, but in Rome do as the Romans do. Well, you are an evening aroma.
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello and welcome to One Week, One Year, a podcast where we watch and discuss every year of film history in order, starting in 1895, the dawn of cinema. And this episode is 1945. I'm one of your hosts, Chris Ellie. I'm a film projectionist and joining me as always, across the table from me, who we got over here.
00:00:34
Speaker
I'm Glenn Covell. I'm a filmmaker. Yes.
Podcast Beginnings and Challenges
00:00:37
Speaker
between the two of us we know about how movies get made how they get shown i guess that's our gimmick right
00:00:48
Speaker
I feel like like we've got the very beginning of our podcast down, but not like as soon as we introduce ourselves. We're like, what do we do? I think that's the hardest part. I see that even amongst amongst the pros.
00:00:59
Speaker
They're like, we have our our scripted intro. We have the thing we do every time. And then immediately they're like, I don't know how to talk. Yeah. Well, how's it going, Glenn? It's going well. We're both in the same room for once.
00:01:10
Speaker
That's fun. You're a filmmaker and and apartment renter. Correct. one yeah Yeah, on your camera, a nice view of my kitchen. ah Yeah, I'm in town for a couple days. Saw a concert.
00:01:24
Speaker
We watched Sinners and IMAX. Good, good. Big recommend. IMAX 70mm. Thought we'd record a little old podcast, you know. Yeah, a little old podcast. Why don't we ah we we we got we got We got that down. Why don't we... while we I wonder what happened in 1945.
Reflecting on 1945: Historical Events and Emotional Impact
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, i and know not a lot going on. We gotta to give ourselves a little understanding what's going on. The cultural context of ah what where where these movies are being made. yeah What happened?
00:01:54
Speaker
What happened in 1945? Clint, why don't you tell us? Read us the news. The news of the year, 1945.
00:02:02
Speaker
U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage, leading Vice President Harry Truman to take the reins. Allied victory in Europe. Germany surrenders following the suicide of Adolf Hitler and Russia's invasion of Berlin.
00:02:15
Speaker
Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Japan surrenders following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II is over. the Viet Minh take the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, splitting the country between North and South.
00:02:29
Speaker
The United Nations is established. The Nuremberg Trials for Nazi war crimes begin. lot of cheery news for 1945. In a way. I mean, you know.
00:02:40
Speaker
Important news. I mean, World War II, end. That's good. certainly Certainly some gruesome stuff happened at the end of World War II. Oh, yeah. ah But it's good that it's over.
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah. it's it's ah We don't have to have this awkwardness anymore of doing a gimmick while talking about horrors. Very true. I mean, it's not like the horrors of the world ended in 1945. But yeah, it was definitely rough just to like reading news in a silly voice.
00:03:11
Speaker
has been less fun than normal the last couple episodes. So now the Nazis, the Nazis are over and they will never come back. And, uh, there's no trace of the Nazis anymore. we can, we can,
00:03:25
Speaker
We can stop being feeling awkward about all of that, at least for now. And yeah that sailor kissed that lady, right? Yeah. Even though apparently she didn't know him and then she didn't feel very good about that. Yeah, yeah.
00:03:39
Speaker
ah Sailors don't don't kiss ladies in the street unless they ah consent to it. Yeah, unless they consent to creating an iconic photo. Yeah, and that was really, that was her problem with it.
00:03:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
George Stevens' Nazi Concentration Camps Film
00:03:52
Speaker
No one said you could take an iconic photo of me. Yeah. I did want to kiss him. I didn't want to take an iconic photo celebrating the end of World War II. A boring photo, fine. but Iconic, no thank you. Yeah.
00:04:03
Speaker
Well, speaking of World War II, we have a a doozy, a film ah highly related two yeah to...
00:04:17
Speaker
Horrors, aforementioned horrors. Yeah, no kidding. This is a film called ah Nazi Concentration Camps or Nazi Concentration in Prison Camps, ah which is directed by George Stevens of Shane fame.
00:04:33
Speaker
Right. We haven't really, because he was a director in Hollywood. before world war ii but we i don't think we covered any of his movies on the show i think we might have did we i mean he did i think swing time which we did not watch oh maybe that's it i saw swing time but we didn't watch the show Yeah, but he was one one of a few directors that ah yeah joined up the war effort making propaganda slash documentary, you know, four time pictures whilst in like in lots of dangerous situations.
00:05:04
Speaker
And yeah, George Stevens was not one of the first people, but he was. went to the Dachau concentration camp, I think a couple of days after it was initially liberated and was kind of there, I guess, as like a documentarian, but he sort of had a realization just of sort of how, how horrific this was.
00:05:29
Speaker
And ah he sort of switched, I guess, his approach in sort of how he was documenting things. And so it's less of, it's less of like a documentary and more of a like compilation of evidence.
00:05:45
Speaker
At least that was sort of like the intent behind it was George Stevens was like, someone's, someone's got to pay for this. And so I want to document this less so as a sort of like for newsreels and that sort of thing.
00:05:57
Speaker
And more as yeah like evidence to be used against the Nazis. And in fact, this movie begins almost as if like, like, yeah, this is evidence. This is,
00:06:08
Speaker
It's really more of a court document than a movie. Right. Though it's it's interesting. The movie begins with these kind of like signed declarations. Affidavits. Affidavits at the beginning saying like, I, George Stevens, I, John Ford, I, whoever else from the military, like verify that this is accurate and true. Yeah. And like admissible in a court of law, basically. Like it hasn't been tampered with. It's like, this is raw footage from the camera. Like we're not doing anything to it.
00:06:39
Speaker
This is evidence. Yeah. Yeah, which like, you know, it's some and and part part of it also, which I think is interesting, like metatextually in terms of like the idea of a documentary is like, it is saying there is no, you know, there's no agenda in this footage. There's no, like, we've, it says we've captured 80,000 feet of footage and there's 6,000 feet. And like, we're swearing that this 6,000 feet is representative right of the 80,000 feet.
00:07:11
Speaker
Which I think is really interesting because it's like grappling with the kind of fundamental yeah trickery of selecting footage. Yeah. Right. i but Not to say to be fair to the Nazis, but like, but like they're, they're this mood, this. You do not got to hand it to them.
00:07:29
Speaker
But this is rather plain, right? Rather plain depiction. But it is also just like a, like there is some persuasion, I think, that's built into this. Yeah.
00:07:40
Speaker
I mean, yeah, it's it's pretty hard to like completely remove footage of concentration camps, like from emotion. Right. Like it's, you know, any anything that's this horrific is like, even the act of documenting it is going to come with some amount of,
00:07:57
Speaker
i in intent behind it. I did think about that while watching it because it is, there's so much like upfront about like, this is, yeah, this, that we're not, this is, this has no agenda. Like I wouldn't have thought that if it didn't say like, this is completely, know, but I, I do think it it, I mean, from, from what I know about the the greater historical context of it, it is, it is fairly free of, of like,
00:08:26
Speaker
sort of direct editorializing and that sort of, I mean, it's like, it's one of the things, i mean, it's incredibly upsetting to watch. yeah I would say if you're listening to this and you have any doubt whatsoever, but if you want to watch this, do not because it is, it is just, it's just horrors the whole time. It's just like very plain,
00:08:45
Speaker
I mean, I do think people should watch this, though. You know? like Yeah. yeah I mean, it's not like, you know, I mean, that's not true. It's not true that there are, you know, was about to say, like, people don't know about the horrors of the Nazis. They do. I mean, some people need an education, clearly. But that's the thing. It's like, this movie, I think, is quite effective in its goals, really. Of just, like,
00:09:12
Speaker
confronting you directly with the inhumanity of their actions. Yeah. And the then the scope of it too. Yes. Because I think early on, there shows a map of all of the major concentration camps, not even all, all of the like main ones. And it's so big. And there's so many. And then the actual footage only covers, I think about five,
00:09:33
Speaker
It's like 10 or something. Right, but it's nowhere near exhaustive. And it's like just seeing the same type of horrific imagery repeated in all these different places and knowing that that is only like a sliver Like a piece of a piece. Right, and it's like the scale and magnitude of it is like...
00:09:56
Speaker
mind-boggling but even you know the scale that you see in the movie yeah that's horrific yeah horific and i think that's one of the things that is most ter horrific about it is just like the amount of corpses that are being like piled moved around like thrown together it is like it becomes abstract to a certain degree.
00:10:18
Speaker
Yeah. I think i think that really crucially, though, it, like, is still human. It's still human scale, right? Yeah. Like, you show the map, and you're like, this is happening all over the place. But it's very easy to hear statistics about World War II, and you're just like, six million Jews died, you know?
00:10:35
Speaker
And then you're like, that's a number, right? But then, like, you are seeing the actual people, like, who have, who are just, like, skin and bones, like,
00:10:47
Speaker
barely surviving coming out of these camps or you see these bodies that look almost alien in terms of like how destroyed they are from the human form just based on the the horrific treatment that they got you know it it like and then you look at all these people and you're like there's a pile of bodies in front of me that barely resemble human beings anymore but they were all individual people Right.
00:11:15
Speaker
Like it's, you know, it's not a novel take of like, you know, World War II was horrific and the Holocaust was horrific.
Confronting Holocaust Denial and Historical Truths
00:11:22
Speaker
But I think that this film does a really good job of really just putting that right in your face. Yeah.
00:11:30
Speaker
I think one thing that is kind of upsetting about it is the fact that it isn't like it isn't artfully shot. It isn't like it's never pretty. It's just very plain. yeah And that in and of itself is like upsetting.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah. It makes it feel like a truer document, for sure. That, but also just, like, there' is there's a kind of remove from it, where it's just like, yeah, it's just... But I think that that kind of, like, kind of slight clinical quality does, because it...
00:11:58
Speaker
there's there's such inherent kind of emotion in it, and yet there's no emotion being ah portrayed through the the camera or the editing or like, none of that.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah. um Like, it it feels kind of lipss like watching, like, raw footage for parts of it. I mean, it's almost entirely without sync sound. I think there's one brief kind of... um Like a speech.
00:12:23
Speaker
There's like an interview. There's like like a testimonial almost. But otherwise, it's just narration over like silent. You just hear like the scratching of like the film recording kind of.
00:12:34
Speaker
yeah And I mean, there's nothing in this movie that is that I hadn't seen before. Right. But I think just having so much like it's just a solid hour of just like awful, horrific imagery. Yeah.
00:12:47
Speaker
And I feel like i don't know. I think I'm pretty... good at like stomaching, looking at awful things. And yet like at a at a certain point in this movie, I kind of had to like look away from it because it was just like, just the amount of it.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah. i've like I've seen so many corpses in the last 40 minutes. I like, I don't want to see another one. Yeah, yeah. When I was watching this movie, like, my mouth was, like, open the entire time. Like, like you know, it was... like Again, like, you know, I've... Yeah, I've also seen a lot of this style of footage or maybe some of this footage itself already. But, like, seeing it all together, it is like, a real feeling of horror yeah that you're experiencing. Also, like, i can want I can watch the most, like, horrendously, like, gruesome but shit if it is...
00:13:37
Speaker
like fictionalized even lightly because like as in like like documentary footage that is no but anytime something is like you're looking at like a real corpse or like real whatever like you know medical procedure whatever it might be it always it always hits me a lot harder oh for sure yeah um And so even though like i love I love a a gruesome horror movie like it's so it's so different to watch like actual suffering. And I mean, I think this underscores how different it is. Yeah. right Yeah. ah Like how movie violence is really just nothing like real violence.
00:14:17
Speaker
Right. Absolutely. I think even like watching, you know, Schindler's List is a very upsetting movie, but there is that level of kind of remove from it that it is, you know, in the back of your head that it's being staged.
00:14:30
Speaker
um And so just to see like documentary footage is always there's always just like it. it It feels more like visceral to me anyway. Yeah, it for sure. It's like. Yeah.
00:14:42
Speaker
Like, i feel like I don't often have as much of a, like, gut, like, almost involuntary reaction to seeing... anything the way that I do to like watching something like this.
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah. Like I'm not like watching a fiction movie, like with like my mouth hanging open and, and just like in abject the horror yeah like the entire time. Uh, I was talking to, uh, Alan who was on our, uh, 1937 episode about this.
00:15:12
Speaker
And um how me and him, when we were 15, we made a trip to ah Washington, D.C. And we went to the Holocaust Museum. And...
00:15:23
Speaker
ah I wasn't – when we went to that museum, we were talking about our memories from that museum. And one of the ones for me was that um I was not certain.
00:15:38
Speaker
i Like, I couldn't remember truly, but, like, I was not certain that I had never seen – like, my impression was that I had never seen a depiction of a true museum. dead body before. Like I've seen dead bodies in in movies, obviously, but like, I think when I was 14, 15, whenever that was, like, I wasn't certain I'd ever really seen like a picture of an actual corpse before. Yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker
ah But I remember making the choice. In fact, in the Holocaust Museum, they have, ah you know it got you know, of course, it's full of horrors, but they they had um this section that was like behind a wall where you could kind of play. was like you can peer over this wall if you are making the choice to look at the most gruesome stuff that you possibly can, you know.
00:16:27
Speaker
And I remember being 15 and going like, I think I need to look over this wall, you know. um Like, I think I need to confront this stuff directly because, ah like, this is this is what I'm here for. This is something that I, that you know, it's a horrible thing that everyone has to experience at some point is is so watching something like this movie.
00:16:48
Speaker
And Alan was talking about how an image that he remembered very clearly on those screens was of a ah bulldozer pushing a pile of human bodies yeah in into a pit.
00:17:03
Speaker
And it was right. It was in the end of this movie. It was the same footage, I think, from the end of this movie that he'd seen. And that was like the image that stuck with him. One of the points where I like I had to look away from it.
00:17:14
Speaker
Hmm. Because it it is, it's like, yeah, i know. It's, it's rare to be confronted with something that is like too awful to like look at for more than like a couple of seconds. Yeah.
00:17:25
Speaker
So yeah. Um, this movie, um, so yeah, this movie was not for like public consumption really. Like, right. Probably parts of this ended up in newsreels, but I mean, one of the, one of the things we're looking at in the news segment was how like, uh, newsreels of concentration camps was like,
00:17:45
Speaker
theaters would refuse to show it because it was too graphic. Yeah. Which is why I was saying, like, I feel like this is a movie that like people need to see. know i I think there are probably like other documentaries and things that use a lot of the same footage that maybe are a little easier to watch.
00:18:03
Speaker
I think because this is so kind of like plain and shouldn't be easier to watch. I mean, yeah, I guess that that's a fair point. But yeah, it's, it's ah right. It, cause it's like, it's un, unvarnished. It's just like staring directly into the abyss.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah. the abyss of like human behavior. Yeah. yeah yeah Like you were saying, this movie kind of covers a number of different concentration camps and like, it kind of highlights a unique aspect of each one as it goes through them.
00:18:35
Speaker
So like, you know, there's a lot of similar stuff going on, but it's like, yeah, this one, like we, like we treated them this way at this one. ah they were, they were gassed in this way, you know?
00:18:46
Speaker
And so it also kind of leads you to think about like the variety of horrors that they, inflict. Well, that's like kind of part of why this like document exists also is to like have hard evidence of like here are all of the methods of murder that were being employed.
00:19:05
Speaker
So like it does feel it doesn't really feel exhaustive in terms of like the enormity of like what the Holocaust was, but it does. There's real effort being put into it of trying to kind of capture all of the different crimes.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah. We want to get as many crimes on camera or like the evidence of those crimes on camera right possible. Yeah. Yeah, do is it is evidence for sure.
Portrayal of Nazis and Civilians' Roles
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah. Another thought was like, you know, how could anybody deny the existence of the Holocaust when they see this movie? Right. I mean, a question I have always had. I'm just like, what but what are you talking about?
00:19:42
Speaker
but This happened pretty recently. Yeah. And and right. there are There are museums. There are survivors. There are there is no shortage of physical verifiable evidence. Yeah.
00:19:55
Speaker
One of the kind of um really interesting parts of this movie, too, are the parts scenes where they're showing either Nazi officers or run-of-the-mill Nazis or German civilians.
00:20:10
Speaker
Like in the camera, the documentary is capturing these people going on tours of the concentration camps, like within the days after the war and seeing the varying reactions of people as they walk into these places.
00:20:31
Speaker
Particularly like at the beginning, you see like the the Nazis who like ran the camps, they're like walking them through and saying like pushing their like pushing them into hu that's full of dead bodies and it's stinks horribly um and then like the narration talks about how like the officers had like no emotion on their faces at all right like they knew what they were doing right but i think this movie like confronts a lot of this idea of like how complicit uh various people are um so there's that scene with the officials who are like
00:21:10
Speaker
it's very clear that you're like from their lack of expression, they know what they're doing. They don't care. Like they are evil. Yeah. I mean, it also like the narration points out that like they tried to burn all the paperwork.
00:21:23
Speaker
So like, they also knew they knew that like it was bad and needed to be covered up. The narration also points out that like at, at one of them, there was like at a certain, at a certain point of like, however many people were killed, they held a celebration.
00:21:39
Speaker
And like that isn't there's none of that is shown is kind of mentioned offhand, but as right and as as like evidence of like that this wasn't done under duress, like that the the people in charge definitely knew what they were doing.
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah. But then like there were people who lived nearby who, you know, probably many of them supported the Nazis, but did not fully grapple with the horrors.
00:22:09
Speaker
It's one thing for people in your village to be like taken away and arrested and like, you know, that they're being sent somewhere or that they're probably dead. I think it's another thing to to like be forced into a shack full of their corpses. Yeah.
00:22:25
Speaker
I think that like one of the most stirring and interesting parts of this movie is they they there're they take I don't know, probably a couple thousand people from the nearby village next to one of the concentration camps.
00:22:41
Speaker
And they're like, we're going to show, like this is shortly after the war ended. And they're like, we're going to show you what the concentration camp looks like. And the camera catches these people like laughing and joking and having a good time. there They're all kind of like cheerful and smiling. And then and then they show them like, here's a lamp made out of human skin.
00:23:03
Speaker
And then they're like the the emaciated like like survivors who are like missing limbs from Zs. And you see the narration talks about this and you see on their faces, they just drop. And these people become so like, oh my God, what have we done? Yeah. know yeah You see their like souls leaving their bodies. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's it's kind of incredible. And it's also it felt like, you know, in a way, it's like sadistic to do this, but it's like necessary. i don't you know think like, I don't know, like, I i get it. Like, i I think it was important to do that in the immediate aftermath to like, force people to confront it.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. um And it Yeah, like, there's, there is a lot of really interesting, just like, very brief glimpses of people's faces that I think are you They just say so much.
00:23:56
Speaker
Like, I think there's a lot of footage of, like, the the British and the American soldiers also. Like, there's one of just them, like, interviewing some of the guards, and you can just see on their faces the, like...
00:24:09
Speaker
the like boiling rage they feel that like, you can, i don't know. You can see just like the way that they're like looking around and like when they're like leading people, like the civilians through how much they're like, no, you have to look at this.
Films as Tools for Historical Understanding
00:24:23
Speaker
Yeah. It's a real, watching this is a real sort of just, yeah, like glimpse into like, the the depths of of ah and the worst of humanity, I guess.
00:24:35
Speaker
But I mean, it's it's thankfully a rare thing to like to see, I guess. And I do think it is it is important to be able to have kind of be exposed to that in in somewhat of a ah safe manner of like, you're not living through it, but you're watching it. You're understanding the...
00:24:56
Speaker
severity of it i guess yeah i mean um in a way i experienced that too because i have visited one of the concentration camps that's featured in this movie i've been to the dachau concentration camp outside of munich and it was one of the most like extreme experiences i've ever had in my life yeah i'm sure i've never been to one like like you just step onto that ground and something feels like feels haunted yeah yeah you know it's like on the on the we were taking the bus on the way there and it's like no we're not joking right now like you know we're visit we're visiting germany we're having a good time visiting germany and but like today is the day that we're not today is not a fun day yeah did you see ah a real pain no jesse eisenberg movie no
00:25:48
Speaker
um It's very good. um And like a big part of that movie is trying to kind of unpack and grapple with like that exact feeling of like we're on vacation, but this is supposed to be fun, but we're like going here to kind of not relive, but to sort of like and remember and to like understand like this horrific thing.
00:26:12
Speaker
It's very good. I highly recommend that movie. I'd like to see it. Because it is also a very funny. And it is like, there is a lot of that saying, like, should we be joking now or not? I see. Yeah.
00:26:24
Speaker
think people have talked, people have talked a lot about the Nazis. Right. And, and so it's like, it's kind of hard to like come up with something that hasn't been said, I guess, but like watching this, it really does like inspire some just sort of general questions about,
00:26:40
Speaker
the existence of the Nazis and all that kind of thing. Like, is there some kind of systemic thing that like allows people to become the sadistic or are sadists just like drawn to becoming this kinds of people? Right. I mean, that's, that's a big question.
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah. That's like a lot to unpack. I think it's like there, you know, something about the Nazis is that they were a system of, right of rather than like, you know, in an instance of evil.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah. Or it's like, you could go up in the ranks and be rewarded and go to parties and everything all yeah based on these people who, whose whole premise was, you know,
00:27:22
Speaker
murder yeah right yeah i mean that's the i think people are still trying to like grapple with that and like understand it and just be like how like what what leads this to happen because like it should it shouldn't it shouldn't it shouldn't be allowed yeah hot take Definitely bigger questions than we have the scope for. Yeah. yeah ah but yeah but Like another thing I was thinking is like, especially as people were looking at it, it's like no one in the history of humanity had seen horrors like this before. Right. Yeah. Like it is kind of wild to think about like nothing in medieval times was like,
00:28:01
Speaker
on that scale or like that horrific and like, right. Cause part of it is the kind of like the, the kind of mathematical, like clinicalness of it. Whereas like a big battle in medieval times would just be like, yeah, there's probably limbs everywhere, but it's like somehow worse when it's like, so it's not random. It's like very methodical. Yeah.
00:28:22
Speaker
Uh, yeah. It has, it has you thinking about like, who who are Nazis? Like, what is going on in their minds, you know? yeah And it's like, Yeah, it's still a thing that like people are still just like, I've who knows? Yeah, like it's still, I think, a big question.
00:28:39
Speaker
And yeah, it's just like hard to kind of wrap your mind around.
Roberto Rossellini's 'Rome, Open City' and Italian Neorealism
00:28:43
Speaker
I guess one other quick note that I had was like, there's a point where it's talking about a mass grave and the narrator saying like talking about them and saying he says profession unknown, nationality unknown. And like thinking about how it really like draws into into view that like these are people and in death they have become anonymized they were people and they became human corpses in a mass grave and it is part of that kind of like systematic violence that is able to do something like that and it's also like ah
00:29:23
Speaker
One more thing that is like extra horrific about it is that it's like removing someone's like personhood. Yes. Yeah. In addition to their life, which is like, yeah, just adding, yeah adding even more horror. on Yeah.
00:29:37
Speaker
But on that note, I mean, should we shift gears slightly from the Nazis to Nazis? Yeah, exactly. That movie being, of course, Rome Open City.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yes. By ah Roberto Rossellini. Yeah. AKA, is it was Isabel Rossellini's dad? Yeah. Yeah. Go on to marry. What's her name?
00:29:59
Speaker
Ingrid Bergman. Ingrid Bergman. Thank you. Only someone very famous. Yeah, and I think this this movie is immediately very interesting in that it is an Italian movie made in the immediate aftermath of World War two that is i mean very thoroughly anti-fascist and is very much kind of about...
00:30:19
Speaker
like resistance toward the occupying Nazis. Yeah, but there is like a lot in this movie of kind of picking apart like the like fascist mindset, I think also, which I appreciate about it.
00:30:32
Speaker
um It was definitely a very sort of unintentionally uncomfortable watch in that it's like about a movie about living under fascism made in 1945. And I'm just like, I wish this didn't remind me of the news as much.
00:30:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It was like, Yeah, I was watching this movie thinking like, are we going to have to develop this level of grit in in the near future? I hope not. But it is like I'm watching that. I'm watching Andor again. And it's just like, o it's it is it is hitting me hard.
00:31:05
Speaker
um yeah if if you're a fan of the tv star wars tv show and or maybe give rome open city watch it's got a lot of similarities yeah yeah this is i mean i think you you kind of mentioned it but like this is um uh notable also for being our first italian neorealist film that we have very true yeah right at the start of that as like i a movement yeah well it makes sense because i mean Italian film.
00:31:31
Speaker
I don't think we watched any Italian films made under Mussolini. Not that I can think of, but it, yeah, makes sense to have this like immediate, I guess this happened a lot of places in the world, like the kind of post-war boom of, of filmmaking. Right. And and also like, you know, you'd think of Germany after world war one, right. With like, like German expressionism as an expression of world post-war,
00:31:56
Speaker
troubles and anxieties and then the Italians kind of channel it into this like their own kind of grim and gritty like thing less fantastical and more ah kind of going in the opposite direction yeah um which also is interesting i don't know what that like says about like the national character of each of those countries or whatever but it it it and also at like different times naturally yeah but like yeah i hadn't thought about it in those terms where it's like yeah all the post world war one german movies are like crazy expressionist fantasy things and and then yeah the like italian boom is like what if we made everything way more real yeah
00:32:37
Speaker
It's different and gritty with horrors. Yeah. i I think I'd heard of this movie before, but I wasn't that familiar with it. It does feel pretty influential on like, I think especially like how war movies like it feels it feels very modern compared to like yeah any other World War Two movie that we watched from the forty s For sure.
00:32:58
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think that like Italian neorealism in general had like a pretty, yeah, a pretty sizable impact on, on filmmaking. It's interesting the way that because it was so influential, it's like this movie feels right. More contemporary than like other things made in the same time period.
00:33:18
Speaker
yeah um Just cause it's like, it's the use of film language now is like, is taking from a lot of I think the same kind of places as this movie is like, there's a lot more handheld camera stuff. There's a lot more location, right? It's all location stuff like shot in Rome, which I guess is typical of just Italian realist stuff. Yeah.
00:33:39
Speaker
Also just like seeing, I, I think there's about a lot of movies, but like, I just think European world war two movies always feel so different from American ones because it's like happening happening. they Like, you know, the characters in this movie live in Rome. Yeah. And there are two separate at times competing fascist armies that are like kind of fighting over it because it's the end of it's like towards the end of the war and so it's like the germans are occupying rome but there's still a lot of you know italian military there also think the movie doesn't go into that much detail about like what that situation is i had to do a little bit of like extra reading up on it just kind of like fully understand what the even like what the concept of an open city is which i didn't write know about which is like a city that is
00:34:30
Speaker
occupied but undefended like is sort of like if you come invade this city we won't fight you i think to preserve like in in rome's case like to preserve rome like please don't bomb rome like if you want to just invade that's fine like just don't bomb us please because we we need have so many fountains here better I assume that that it was mostly to preserve it as like a landmark city.
00:34:59
Speaker
um the The seat of Catholicism and all of that. I mean i guess that you know ah certainly is useful as far as the Nazis go because we know that they had no trouble wiping out cultural...
00:35:12
Speaker
like institutions, right? yeah ah Americans too, if we're talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, like or or at least the A-bomb, there were concerns about like wiping out culture with with those, and then you know they didn't really listen to that. Well, I mean, there's ah sort of some inherent racism, I think, on America's part towards Japanese, if there wasn't towards Europe, but yeah. Yeah.
00:35:38
Speaker
I mean, they they, you know, the Allies destroyed a lot of cultural landmarks also. Yeah, yeah. ah This movie is, I don't know if there's really a synopsis that we can give. It's really more, it's like a bunch of just kind of resistance people engaging in resistance activities.
00:35:56
Speaker
There is sort of an arc where it it starts to kind of build in that them getting more organized and sort of like fighting back a little bit more against the occupying Nazis.
00:36:08
Speaker
And then there is definitely the third act of it is more of a descent where it's like, oh, no, they're not actually like this movie doesn't necessarily end on a super positive note. I guess it is an overall i feel like the overall messaging of this movie isn't pessimistic.
00:36:26
Speaker
I mean, because you know because this movie is you know made after World War it is a movie that like you have an awareness that the Nazis are eventually going to lose. yeah But, ah you know, spoilers, that doesn't stop all of the main characters from being slaughtered. Yeah. like ah torture horrific Tortured and slaughtered horrifically. But it is like, there is definitely a feeling in this movie that I did find very compelling that even...
00:36:52
Speaker
even some of the nazis are like yeah we're we're doomed like this has all been a huge like clusterfuck and we're we've just done all these horrific things in the name of nothing because we're gonna lose in like six months right i mean yeah and they're like in particular i think you're talking about there's like a scene where there's a kind of drunk nazi officer who who was a veteran of world war one also so he's just this He's this guy who's just like, this guy who's like so disillusioned and so over it all. Yeah. You like talking about thinking about the interiority of Nazis, right? Like this guy's like a decorated high ranking officer who's been in two of the world wars and he like has no illusions about the idea that the thing that they're doing is wrong. Right.
00:37:42
Speaker
Like he's basically like, yeah, of course, like, of course what we're doing is wrong. Like how, how could you defend what we're doing? yeah But like, I'm here cause it's my job, I guess, you know? it's Yeah. That's very interesting.
00:37:55
Speaker
you know, you talk about like the kind of the pessimism, optimism of this movie. One of the main characters is a Catholic priest. ah And there are some like fun scenes with him.
00:38:08
Speaker
Right. yeah He has the most fun scene in the whole movie. Yeah. But, like, there's, like, a part where it's, like, you're watching, like, a Catholic priest trying to, like, carry around, like, a bomb and, like, a machine gun, which is kind of an interesting image. Another thing that I think is, like, really interesting about, like, World War II stories from Europe is that, like, yeah, that happened. That, like, Catholic priests were just, like, I guess I have to go bomb this place now. like Yeah.
00:38:36
Speaker
That's the only way I can sort of like live with myself as like a good Christian. Yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, I think it's the, because this guy, it's like he, there are points where he's basically saying like, I think it is the good Christian thing to do to fight you and kill you yeah basically i'd like to, to stop you from doing what you're doing. Like I'm, my job is to help people and like,
00:39:02
Speaker
yes, if there's somebody fighting against fascism, like, I will help them, you know, ah even if it means that people will die. you know, he's the moral center of the movie, surely, but but, like, as a priest and as, like, a resistance fighter and everything, but...
00:39:18
Speaker
um And so it's really just drawing this contrast between like these Nazis who treat him like garbage and kill him, who are supposedly Christians, you know, the Nazis, and and just like him just saying the correct right thing and then being executed for it.
00:39:34
Speaker
it's ah It's a powerful image. Like, yeah, seeing like a firing squad, like aiming straight at guy with a, you know, with the with a priest outfit on. Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:46
Speaker
And then they like they don't want to shoot him. Right. Yeah. some Some slight moral compunctions. But there's there's a part also where, um you know, one of the main resistance fighters is being, like, brutally tortured. And the the priest, like, visits him.
00:40:06
Speaker
And the way that he's cut up, it's like it's like a very, like, Christ-like imagery. Right. Or like, like he is a hero who is suffering for the good of the world.
00:40:18
Speaker
And then like, he's like shown off into death by this, ah by, by this Catholic priest. Well, the, the priest has a line where he says you wanted to destroy his soul, but you only destroyed his body, which is, ah yeah that seems pretty apt in terms of what torturing someone to death tends to,
00:40:38
Speaker
Well, especially they're interrogating and they're trying to find out where the other resistance members are and he's not giving them up. Right. um Which is always ah any sort of narrative about resistance movements. i'm It's always like, oh, God, like to be put in that position is like the most awful thing.
00:40:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. There's another line where ah the priest is about to die and he says, like, it's easier to die ah good death. Yeah. It know says it's not hard to die a good death. It's hard to live a good life, which I i do think that is a very good quote. Yeah. yeah That one really kind of stuck out.
00:41:13
Speaker
And I think that that does almost kind of feel like a bit of a like a thesis statement for this whole movie. Yeah. It's it's definitely got some some heavy stuff on its mind, but I think it navigates it pretty well. Like I don't I didn't find this movie to be like a huge bummer to sit through.
00:41:30
Speaker
It's grim, but yeah it's not... like it's it's I think it's grim. For me, anyway, it was scary just because of how kind of like timely it felt. but um i it I think it does a good job of like also just being very watchable and having a lot of... like little victories kind of pepper throughout until it eventually like you know the the heroes do not i mean they they they achieve a ah moral victory right they don't give up the rest the resistance like say they they knowing that they have lived as good of a life as they could hope for depicting heroism yeah but like quietly it's not like
00:42:10
Speaker
You know, this is not like an overly heroic movie, and it isn't like music swelling. Yeah, it's not propagandistic. It is just like earnestly looking at the glory of doing the right thing in the face of evil.
00:42:24
Speaker
here But like, don't know, there's like a whole like kind of street urgent street urchin uprising. yeah i found really fun and and another just like kind of wild example of like don't resistance movements or like and living under fascism is like all these like homeless children are now like bombing train yards yeah yeah which um like they they are participating they are um yeah it's like i mean don't don't fuck with small italian children i could tell you that like don't yeah get you
00:42:59
Speaker
As this movie is a good example of that. That one, yeah, like sort of probably biggest moment of like levity in this movie is that the priest goes to like, that the they he's going to like a secret meeting in an antique shop.
00:43:11
Speaker
And as he's waiting, he sees ah two statues, one of ah a lady, one of a man, and they're both very kind of scantily clad. Yeah. And so he turns the lady around so that guy. doesn he turns a lady guys He's looking at them and he's like, I don't want to look at that, that naked lady because I'm a priest. So turned the lady around and then realizes that he's made it so that the stat, the man statue is like staring right at her butt. Yeah. So it turns the, he turns the other statue around and also. They're just facing away from each other.
00:43:40
Speaker
um And that's like so kind of, you know, that's not part of the plot. That doesn't lead to anything. It's just this little moment of this guy sort of like turning statues around. it's But it is like, it's a good example of like levity kind of lightening the mood just enough to kind of keep you watching.
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah. And also, don't know, it's just like tells you about this guy also and kind of his his very, he has very clear morals and they're very kind of like,
00:44:08
Speaker
church-like, I guess. He's also you know hiding money for the for their resistance the woman who like betrays the resistance for like a nice coat that like she doesn't even get in the end yeah and it's like just because like that's definitely a thing that like really happened a lot maybe not a lot but like there's definitely lots of true stories about that kind of thing happening and it is like you like sold out someone that you've like known for years and like supposedly are like in love with for a coat
00:44:43
Speaker
Yeah. And it's just like so petty and so like... ah Not just like a coat to stay warm, but like a fashion coat. Right, yeah. And like, you know, you were there while I was watching the last couple bits of the movie and...
00:44:57
Speaker
ah there's that moment where like the Nazi, like the the the Nazi lady, like the the the person who sold them out, she like faints when she sees what she's done. She sees honestly some of the biggest, like the most graphic brutality that I've seen on this guy's body of any movie that we've seen so far in many ways.
00:45:18
Speaker
And so she sees it and she faints. And then the Nazi, like, it's like, I'll be taking that coat back. And I'm like, oh, that is so cold. Yeah. Right, because this is Italian movie, it's not there's no Hays Code.
00:45:30
Speaker
So like the stuff he like the depictions of death and torture are a lot think a lot ah yeah more graphic. You see like um like the the flame that they're like sticking these like pliers the hot flame to like like rip out whatever. um And then, right, it's like a movie where like the bad guys...
00:45:51
Speaker
kind of win at the end i mean it is like right it's kind of implicit that because it's made post-war that like well they're gonna lose in like a couple of weeks after the end of this movie but like it's still right like the haze code thing is one thing that i find so kind of limiting about that and we'll talk about it more with some of the other movies but like um like you can't have people like get away with crimes in haze code movies Which is like so the ways that people get around it is sometimes really interesting, but it it's like such a it's such a hard stance to be like no Coen Brothers movies can exist like under the Hays Code. Like you can't have people succeed at you can't. Well, I think one of the big ones is like murder. You can't have someone murder someone and then not be like punished. Yeah.
00:46:38
Speaker
tell that to the people who only catched, uh, what, however many percentage of murders. Uh, yeah. But so, yeah, so it's, it's nice to see a 1940s movie that is not Hayes code and is allowed to sort of grapple with some kind of more, ah heavy material, I guess.
Billy Wilder's 'The Lost Weekend' and Themes of Alcoholism
00:46:56
Speaker
Yeah. That movie a bit of a bummer, but you know, what's a bucket of sunshine, ah movie about an alcoholic who ruins his life and everyone else around him.
00:47:09
Speaker
Unless you have anything else on this. No, I mean, don't know. One thing that kind of stuck out to me, and I don't know if this is purposeful to sort of portray the that sort of waning days of the war and how much kind of disillusionment there was even amongst the Nazis. But I feel like all of the highling in this movie feel feels very half hearted.
00:47:29
Speaker
That's interesting. and i don't know if that is a deliberate choice to kind of show, yeah, the lack of morale, or if it's just because all the actors were like, World War II ended like three months ago. like we're not We're not putting our all into this highling acting.
00:47:42
Speaker
This kind of reminds me of that the the Titanic movie that we talked about that was starring the person. Oh, yeah, who was on. the Titanic? Yeah, yeah. She survived the Titanic.
00:47:53
Speaker
And then we didn't get to see the movie because it's lost, but like they they made a titanic movie a movie about the Titanic that was released like six weeks after the Titanic happened. And they're just like, an actress was on a Titanic. We're going to take this obviously highly traumatized person and put her on stage on on the sky right now right It made me think about the like circumstances which the movie was made.
00:48:19
Speaker
I guess kind of in a similar way to that. But yeah, lost The Lost Weekend. The Lost Weekend. Another bucket of sunshine about a, not a guy who drinks, but a drunk, as he says.
00:48:32
Speaker
Yeah. And this is the Academy Award winner for 1945. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah. fine yeah
00:48:40
Speaker
Like it's the pedigree is, I mean, it's ah co-written and directed by Billy Wilder, who also did, ah we already watched Dublin Demnity. Yeah. Was that the only one of his that we've watched so far? and Yeah, but also famous for Sunset Boulevard, some like at Hock, one the other stuff.
00:48:57
Speaker
Considered like one of the best Hollywood directors of all time. Yeah. For good reason. and There was some like poll or some article or whatever that I think like amongst screenwriters, he was like voted the best screenwriter of all time.
00:49:11
Speaker
This is not my favorite of his works. yeah I think you can see you can see a lot of the ways in which he... is a really skilled filmmaker in this movie. But I think, don't I think there are a couple of things about this movie that really kind of don't really sink it, but just kind of keep it from feeling like transcendently good. It's not even particularly good. Right. Yeah. I agree.
00:49:36
Speaker
it it has good ideas that I don't necessarily know are, uh followed through with in the best way i guess yeah mean the quick plot synopsis yeah there is a guy named don who is an alcoholic and everyone around him knows that he's an alcoholic and his brother who he lives with and his brother pays all his rent also is like all right we're gonna go away to the country for the weekend we live in new york city but we're gonna go into the country and you're gonna you're like on the mend you're you're sober like
00:50:09
Speaker
This is is going to be good. um I'm packing five shirts. And immediately, Don is just like the most suspicious guy. He's like hiding a bottle outside of his window. He's like planning all these ways to like hide booze in his brother's luggage to like sneak away on the trip.
00:50:28
Speaker
Yeah. And so eventually, i mean, very quickly, his girlfriend and brother are like, hey, you're sneaking liquor, aren't you? You lied to us like we're trying to trust you and you're not giving us any reason to. And he's like, I'm not even going to go on your stupid weekend.
00:50:44
Speaker
I'm going to go to the bar instead. And the movie is his weekend of instead of going on a nice trip upstate, he goes on a bender and only succeeds in sort of like ah making his life fall apart further to the point where he's going to shoot himself at the end, but is, you know, saved by his girlfriend coming back and convincing him that life is worth living.
00:51:09
Speaker
Yeah. Which I think on its face is not a bad premise for a movie. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that I was thinking while watching this is that I that i appreciated about it is that old movies are a lot more willing to be about one thing than new movies are. Yeah. Like this movie is just like, let it let's focus entirely on like the experience of alcoholism.
00:51:36
Speaker
And what's going on for him. yeah like Like how he deals with these things. the like the The way that he's capturing his desperation. yeah ah It's just that I don't think that it ends up feeling that deep.
00:51:51
Speaker
yeah It does feel fairly kind of surface level. I wish there was maybe a little bit because there is like kind of a whole flashback structure within the movie of like showing how he how he met his girlfriend and like weeks or months leading up to the kind of event events of the the titular weekend.
00:52:11
Speaker
I think that I really appreciate about this movie is that ah he's not like a violent or like particularly mean drunk. He's just like a mess. Yeah. And he's just embarrassing to be around. And like, everyone's just like, like God, man, like, pull yourself together. Yeah. he's He's out of control himself. I think yeah that's like what it's depicting is like, he can't like, he wants to fix himself. And he just can't.
00:52:33
Speaker
I like the movie's like pretty clear stance that like, this is not a moral failing. on his part this is a disease and like the characters call that out they're like he's sick this is sickness if he had a like a physical ailment you wouldn't treat him this way yeah right um yeah and so i appreciate that definitely about it i because i think a lot of there are a lot of like anti-alcoholism movies from the silent era that are like so over the top and like alcohol makes you like absence right they're like oh you'll become a murderer if you like have a sip of absence
00:53:06
Speaker
and as always That was in the kind of temperance times. Yeah. Like this doesn't feel like a temperance movie. This feels like ah a legitimate movie trying to kind of like grapple with the effects of alcoholism and like, but I, I also think it doesn't, there's ah so little reason to root for this guy.
00:53:25
Speaker
i feel like because even, even when he is sober, he is a huge asshole to everyone. And I feel like maybe that is more realistic that like he isn't,
00:53:36
Speaker
you know, this like shining beacon of light when he's sober and then he immediately becomes like a monster. Like that's boring and like not nuanced at all. But like, I just feel like from the get go, this guy is so kind of just like repulsive is a strong word, but he's not like Lionel. He's like, v he's not like even unlikable in like a compelling way. Like he's, I just found him hard to root for even in the sense of like, I want to see him get better. i want to see him like,
00:54:03
Speaker
right have a victory. like like part of the I'm just kind of like, fuck this guy. He's such a jerk. um Part of the thing representing his better life that he could have, it's like Don the Drunk versus Don the Writer.
00:54:17
Speaker
ah He's like working, he wants to write a great novel or whatever and he's like, but he drop out of school or or but yeah quit his job or something like that because he's like, I'm going to write a book and then he doesn't.
00:54:27
Speaker
And i I look at him and I'm like, I highly doubt your book would be any good. Yeah. You don't want to read the bottle? Yeah, it's like so blunt. He's like, I'm going to write the great ah like good the great novel examining alcoholism and it's going to be called The Bottle and it's going to be about my life. I'm like, yeah it's not I don't think it's going to be very good.
00:54:49
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. i just I do feel like this movie starts with him already in such a like rough place and people are already so kind of like against him.
00:55:01
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I, I, cause I, I feel like a, a move, i didn't think about this while watching it, but like kind of a similar type of character is like, uh, Adam Sandler in uncut gems where you're like, I don't necessarily love this dude. And he's making a series of bad decisions the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. But there's like this, this quality about that character you're like, I can't help but root for this jerk. Yeah.
00:55:27
Speaker
And I, I feel like the, The character of Don in this movie is like not... He isn't a compelling jerk. He's just like a sad like gross dude, kind of.
00:55:40
Speaker
Yeah. I think also like, you know, while I was watching this, I was thinking like there are a lot of things that could work about this movie that I think just slightly don't. like Right. That's kind of...
00:55:53
Speaker
my whole feeling about it is like, it's it's like, this feels like it is like a couple of degrees off from being really good. Right. Like, it yeah, it could be really good. And it's not, it's, it's, ah it's not even something specific that they just, just said wrong. It's just like, make the movie better.
00:56:08
Speaker
um but I think that one thing that like really got in the way for me is that the acting feels so stagey. It feels yeah so theatrical and in like a kind of,
00:56:20
Speaker
close-up character study it just feels fake and so i like did not i felt like if the acting were more naturalistic i might have been able to like get on board with the emotionality of the story better but like i felt like the the style of acting really kept me at a distance it's real like strong nineteen forty s like over the top stuff but also you're right it feels like the act feels like it is for a giant yeah stage yeah uh like a like a close-up character study yeah right so it's like same screenplay with different actors i wonder if that would if it would have worked better i don't i mean there's lots problems you sure yeah i think there is a lot to talk about this movie but i don't know how much of it is like fun to listen to
00:57:11
Speaker
I took a lot of notes during this movie, which I guess, I mean, for me is usually a sign I didn't like it very much. yeah yeah um But I do think there's there's some interesting things going on in it, even if I didn't overall didn't like it that much. Like there's a lot of theremin in the soundtrack, which feels notable. How did I not notice that? Yeah. One, just because I feel like the theremin isn't a super common instrument in film scores at this point. But also, I associate it so much with science fiction movies. Yeah.
00:57:39
Speaker
And this is like, ah you know, a very like dark look at, you know, alcoholism. And it's like, you know, it's like, got this like wacky theremin soundtrack. Right. It's like, it's not... bad but it is like, I don't know if that was the right choice for this. you know Once again, the Academy kind of consistently making the wrong choice. Of course, yeah, always.
00:58:00
Speaker
There's a character who talks a lot in like abbreviated slang, which... Don't be radic. Don't be radic, but also says natch, for short for naturally, which i I don't think this is the like first instance of that, but it's definitely...
00:58:18
Speaker
I did not realize that Natch was like a 1940s thing, I guess. you Because they'd looked it up afterwards. I was like, is this like where that comes from? And it's not, but it's like around the same time people started saying Natch.
00:58:32
Speaker
Natch. Yeah. That felt notable to me. There's some ah weirdly conspic... For a movie from 1945, some weirdly conspicuous anti-Semitism in this movie. Is there where...
00:58:47
Speaker
but Like, so there's a point where he is, like, trying to get the last possible money to, like, get, like, just a little bit more alcohol. And so he's just trying to pawn anything that he can. And he's walking around to like, every single pawn store in New York City.
00:59:04
Speaker
And they're all closed. Oh, right. And as if and and he's just like, well, he finally finds someone. He's like, why are all the pawn shops closed? And he's just like, we're all Jewish. It's all, it's Yom Kippur. Right.
00:59:16
Speaker
And it's like, okay. Like, did you need to put that in the movie? I guess that didn't strike me as anti-Semitic, but I guess there's an argument that it could be. don't know. Like, every pawn shop being, like, or more or less every pawn shop being owned by, like, like...
00:59:31
Speaker
observant jews feels a little pointed maybe yeah yeah that does remind me this probably like maybe the most notable thing about this movie is it is as far as i can tell the origin of the character walks towards camera as uh street signs sort of uh fade in and out behind them yeah as ah in particular to show them on a drunken bender um which is like 100% a thing that I learned about from The Simpsons. Yeah. Like I think Homer does that at least four or five times on that show of like in various instances where he, right. It's like walking towards camera and there's like usually neon signs. They're more like street signs in this movie.
01:00:13
Speaker
But I went off on like a whole rabbit hole, like looking up like, is that where this comes from? And I, i as far as anyone can tell, it seems like it is. This is like the origin of that as I like visual trope. Yeah. um There are some like kind of nice style touches in this movie. It's a occasional.
01:00:30
Speaker
Yeah. and all But like, i mean yeah it's still a Billy Wilder movie. It's still like very competently made. I think like one like really subtle little thing is like it's showing time passing while he's at the bar and it shows that by like showing how many like little rings of like of liquid are are are from his shot glasses or on the on the counter. Which he refers to as his vicious cycles I think.
01:00:52
Speaker
Or his vicious circles. That's what it is. There's also just a moment where he's trying to pickpocket someone's purse at like kind of ah a slightly fancier like cocktail bar um because he needs money to pay for more liquor and they catch him in the act. They're like, hey, you stole this purse. And he's like, you got me.
01:01:08
Speaker
And then the like the the person playing the piano starts playing a song going, going somebody stole a purse. And everyone starts joining in. And i that's just such a great, like nineteen forty s thing that they immediately start improvising a song called Somebody Stole a Purse.
01:01:28
Speaker
So it's like everyone else at the bar is like having a party and he's forced out because, you know, he's a thief. There's there is one scene in this movie that I think is very cool.
01:01:39
Speaker
Like, like I was kind of like, there's a lot of this movie that I'm just like, okay, after school special rolling my eyes. There's one scene that gets pretty surreal. Is it the bat scene? Yes. Yeah. Um, and, uh, I was very glad for it in the movie because basically like, you you know, there, there's a point where he's sort of checked into and like a ward of of some type and then he's like detoxing basically. the drunk ward at Bellevue Hospital in New York, which I, apparently they filmed in the real drunk ward of the hospital. And that was like, I had never been done before. And I think was then, i don't know if because of this movie, like was not allowed again for like decades.
01:02:22
Speaker
Oh, really? So it was like a pretty, um I guess, like unique or or a rare kind of glimpse into like what an actual one of these like drunk wards looks like.
01:02:37
Speaker
yeah and they're letting people dry out and hallucinate yeah they establish like the sort of things that you'll see as uh as you're you're hallucinating from withdrawal and it's never big it's never big stuff it's never pink elephants it's small things it's bugs it's it's mice it's like little things that creep up on you yeah and you just see like so many people just like screaming at things that don't exist yeah ah But then like yeah there's a scene where it happens to him. He's in his apartment. yeah yeah he escapes the drunk ward yeah first. He has this whole like escape scene. where is like That is a very like tense
01:03:16
Speaker
good scene of him like sneaking out of the hospital uh but yeah no he starts seeing like creatures crawling out of his walls yeah like a bat eating a mouse wait well because he sees like the mouse in the wall and then a bat flying around and the bat flies to the wall and eats the mess there's like blood dripping out of the wall and it's really intense sick nice yeah mean, that's what I said. The character was like, i is to start screaming. Yeah, no. it ended is but that's That's a part where I really did like his acting, where he's just screaming at like the horror in front of him. Well, it's ah it's an instance where it's like him being really big fits the the scene. I guess that's true. Yeah. yeah um I think I need to shout out ah Bim, the very catty nurse at the drunk ward, which is...
01:04:01
Speaker
I think, I think this movie does pretty well as like all of the side characters that he meets all feel like pretty, all feel like people. Like there's no reason why the the nurse at the, at the drunk ward needs to be like an interesting character, but he is.
01:04:19
Speaker
And so just like, or like the bartender or like and the some of the other like bar patrons that are there when he's like at the bar at 7am. Um, yeah, um That I do think that stuck out to me as like all of the kind of ah not the extras, but like, yeah, the the kind of smaller side characters all feel really well realized. Yeah. Like they each have real character to them.
01:04:43
Speaker
Speaking of the kind of... You're all super well cast. It's really just the lead actor kind of feels maybe a little miscast. you think You think a lot about, while watching this movie, of the um the bartender himself.
01:04:55
Speaker
ah Because... he is enabling it. Enabling this guy's alcoholism. But he's like... doesn't clearly does not feel good about it right yeah they're like he wants he wants this guy to he doesn't like that he's taking advantage of him and like get getting out credit for drinks all the time but he also like wants to treat like a human being who is suffering but also he's just like you asked for a drink i'm gonna pour it i'm a bartender there is kind of a lot in this movie of like how much how much a leash do you give someone who's clearly struggling yeah like how much do you kind of respect their autonomy and how much do you be like no man i'm cutting you off like you're a mess and like what different people in different roles in your life like yeah what they what responsibility they may have right now because as your regular bartender have a like different style of responsibility than your girlfriend or your brother yeah but and the the brother like very immediately is like i'm doing this for decades like i'm not i'm not holding his hand anymore like i'm going upstate to the to the country like
01:05:55
Speaker
Fuck this.
Joan Crawford in 'Mildred Pierce' and Economic Themes
01:05:56
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like, it's hard to argue with him because clearly like they live together and it's like, it's been something he's been dealing with, like be being responsible for his alcoholic brother for a long time.
01:06:10
Speaker
So it is like, it feels kind of cruel in the moment, but it's, I don't know. I was also like, yeah, I mean, it's hard to argue with him. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I do think there's, there's good stuff in this movie, but overall I wasn't that crazy about it.
01:06:25
Speaker
Yeah. Last weekend is directed by Billy Wilder, who also directed Double Indemnity. Okay. And Double Indemnity was based on a book James M. Kane, who also wrote a different book called Mildred Pierce.
01:06:44
Speaker
oh Oh, look at that. You walked us over there. Yeah. Yeah. Mildred Pierce. Famous movie. Yeah. I knew nothing about this movie going in. which yeah mean was which was great.
01:06:57
Speaker
I had read the, like a short synopsis and it said, a woman is trying to raise her daughters during the depression. And I'm like, okay, ah sure. And that that does not, does not communicate what this movie actually is very well at all. No. Yeah. I think I get the sense in my small amount of reading on it. That's like more like what the book is about.
01:07:21
Speaker
And the movie is sort of like, juiced up with some hollywood drama it's got that hollywood juice for sure yeah um notably there is there is not a murder mystery in the book and that is like entirely what this movie is structured around so yeah this movie begins in medias res with a a man falling to the ground shot and he goes mildred and
01:07:52
Speaker
A mystery. We had this whole framing device of her telling her life story to some cops. Yeah. Also, just like, what a way to open a movie where there's like murder and shadows on the wall and it's like all dramatic. She tries to jump into the ocean and then yeah very 1940s cop, as there tend to be these movies, says, hang on, I wrote down the line because it was really good. Yeah.
01:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, I have a breakdown too. Just because you want to bump yourself off? I got to get pneumonia? He's like, you jump in there, going have to jump in after you.
01:08:30
Speaker
it's It's quite an interesting way to ah stop somebody from killing themselves. You're like, this is really inconvenient for me you kill yourself right now. Yeah, she's like hanging on the railing and he just takes his nightstick and like, ting, ting, ting, on the railing. It's like, hey lady, go home.
01:08:47
Speaker
you he doesn't He doesn't make sure she's safe. he's she's's He's just like, not today. Go home. He's just like, get out of here. I don't have the time. But yeah, so this movie is not exactly about a woman um ah raising her daughters during the depression.
01:09:05
Speaker
It's more or less like the the main thing of the movie is a woman has an extremely narcissistic evil daughter um who compels her to do all of this stuff, ah including become rich and create a business empire.
01:09:24
Speaker
ah Partially she does it to provide for her family, but then she does it to cater to her ah increasingly awful daughter's ah increasingly expensive tastes.
01:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, I had progressive notes while watching this movie of like how bad the daughter is just as a person. Vida is her name, V-E-D-A, which I didn't get the spelling.
01:09:49
Speaker
i thought it was V-I-T-A. Yeah. But ah that there's birthday cake, which spells it out. Yeah, she's a nightmare. She's just like a ah real ah real nightmare person.
01:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And, and you know, they they draw this into comparison very much because she has a younger a younger daughter. and that you cool daughter. Yeah, she's got cool daughter, bad daughter is this movie. Yeah. um um Yeah, and the younger daughter is is ah so cute and and so good.
01:10:25
Speaker
And then, of course, ah tragedy strikes. And ah Mildred almost, like but after losing one of her kids, becomes almost like obsessed with like serving the other one.
01:10:42
Speaker
she's still acting like a real person it's just she's desperate to help her kid and so like but she has like ah an awareness of how horrible her kid is becoming and she's just like I know but like what am I going to do like say goodbye to my only kid who's left it's a it's a tough situation this movie is just like there's a lot of there's a lot of people going through rough stuff in this movie for sure Yeah, yeah.
01:11:11
Speaker
But not like... It never feels... i mean, this is a very 1940s movie, so it is there is some some melodrama to be had. But I feel like it's... um don't It doesn't feel as kind of over the top.
01:11:26
Speaker
It certainly doesn't feel as over the top as Lost Weekend. No, no. it Yeah, it is more... i mean, it's entertaining. and It's not like grueling like some other kind of like movies about the human misery. um But yeah, and like like you were kind of touching on before, like this movie is like really stylish and it has like a really good pace to it.
01:11:49
Speaker
And I think we can credit that to Michael Curtiz... Yeah, good good director. Hot take.
01:11:56
Speaker
Also, I think this is first this is the first Joan Crawford movie that we're talking about on the show, I think. Yeah, and this is her comeback movie. Pretty good in this movie.
01:12:07
Speaker
i would say Yeah, prowford no yeah she's she's great in this movie. And like she had she fought hard for this role. Michael Curtiz didn't originally want her. And also she was one of the stars listed as box office poison with with these horrific magazines.
01:12:23
Speaker
It is because there was an actual list of actors that they were just like, no, we hate them. Yeah, it was like a like a trade magazine for like movie theaters and they're just like, don't make movies with these people.
01:12:37
Speaker
They don't sell. We're taking out a whole page saying like saying screw you specifically. Yeah. Yikes. So much of this movie is kind of success or failure I think rests with her because she's just in pretty much every scene.
01:12:54
Speaker
Yeah. And she gets a lot to do. Like there's a lot like I think this is a really i mean, probably because it's based on a novel and it feels like a very fully formed character.
01:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, a rich character. I think that there was some criticism at the time that this came out that she was like one dimensional that like, in her efforts to please her daughter, she kind of like, doesn't be isn't like a person anymore. But I really disagree. I think that she's like a really interesting fleshed out character.
01:13:27
Speaker
Yeah. and And of course, yeah, Joan Crawford like really sells it. Yeah, I think a lot of the other characters in this movie can feel kind of one note at times, including that is true. yeah the daughter and then like the kind of rich suitor. Yeah, it's a bit of a like stock rich asshole guy.
01:13:45
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like Mildred never does. And my I guess one of my takes on this movie um that I do not really think was intentional, especially reading about this. The story is presented in the book.
01:13:58
Speaker
is since this is i i would consider this to be a film noir movie even if it doesn't fit all of the criteria and it starts with like a murder and like a mysterious woman fleeing the scene their shadows like being glamorous and mysterious and it's so it's starting with this very kind of like stock noir kind of setup of a femme fatale And then flashing back and showing you like all of this backstory and all this interiority of that person.
01:14:28
Speaker
they no longer feel like the same character once we're sort of caught up to that point again in the movie. That's true. Yeah. It brings like such a new context to those original scenes. Yeah.
01:14:39
Speaker
um And I think that is a really cool, interesting, like, I don't know, it's not really a deconstruction of, like, noir or, like, the femme fatale archetype, but it's, like, there's enough of that that I think make it it makes it stand out as, like, a really interesting noir movie because it is, like, taking what could appear in the first scene as a stock character and, like, revealing all of these layers.
01:15:03
Speaker
Yeah. and kind of Particularly because in those moments where, you know, in those recontextualized moments where you think that she is this femme fatale, you end up finding out that what she's doing is kind of like a selfless act.
01:15:20
Speaker
of heroism quote unquote or like I don't know abuse victim of her own daughter in another way um but like she's doing so she's trying to do something good in in all of those those actions and yeah it's just oh Vida Vida's really terrible so detestable
01:15:45
Speaker
I think it's like it does kind of It speaks to how terrible that she is that, don't know, like, I guess besides, you know spoilers, besides the murder, she doesn't do anything that's really particularly, like, a crime, I guess. it's It's just that she's just mean to everyone all the time and is, like, so entitled.
01:16:07
Speaker
And shallow. Yeah. yeah Really, like, it is amazing how, like, detestable, Vita is as a character despite kind of just acting like a child for most of it Right, yeah.
01:16:22
Speaker
I mean, I think that it's helped a lot because there is this... but There's a lot of kind of back and forth of, like, who wants to be with who in this movie. One of the suitors for Mildred is this fading empire sort of, like, rich son who has never worked a day in his life. There's a lot of stuff in this movie about, like, whether you're working, if you're a worker, or if you're, like, a someone who sits back and is rich.
01:16:50
Speaker
And... But like a lot of Vita's behavior is enabled by this also horrible in his own way. Mildred, you see like Mildred fall for him for a second. And then she is just, she kind of gets her sense and she's just yeah like, nevermind. Like I'm just using him for his money. I'm just using him for his beach house.
01:17:10
Speaker
ah Like I, ah this guy is clearly horrible. And yet like she was with him enough time for, for Vita to kind of get involved and they, they play off each other badly.
01:17:21
Speaker
I had read that like there the book is like very really leaning to the idea that like it takes place during the depression and it is like mostly about that and there's like lots of reference to it whereas the movie doesn't make I guess as much of a direct for reference to to the depression or like the stock market crash or anything but it does talk a lot about ah Yeah, like people having money and having lost it and time times being hard, I guess.
01:17:51
Speaker
Yeah. Economic hardship. Yeah. And yeah, one one of the things that i is like particularly, I think, really unlikable about Vita is that she's like so contemptuous of the idea of like working at all.
01:18:06
Speaker
Like when her mom gets a job at as so as a at a restaurant. She's like horrifically embarrassed. yeah Yeah. She's like, that's like the most like offensive thing. Like I can't look at you in the eyes anymore because. Yeah. It's like how shameful that you work at a restaurant. like this And yet like this. know.
01:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, and this movie but then this movie is also kind of like depicting you know the American dream, quote unquote, right? like She starts, she's like, I can't find a job. And then she like you know it goes to a cafe and then sits down. She's like, the this the waitress says, what do you want? She says, ah job.
01:18:42
Speaker
and And then she works her way to the top, baby, and then starts her own restaurant chain of called Mildred's. Mildred's. And yeah, I also appreciate how like this is like a ah oh low key like food service industry movie.
01:18:59
Speaker
and It's interesting seeing like the food service industry stuff in this movie. People saying like, don't, don't, don't. ah enter or leave the kitchen with an empty tray.
01:19:11
Speaker
That's something that people still say. you know like Always pick up glasses or be serving something. Always be serving. There's a great line of someone serving. It's like, I'm anxious. and they like no it's the Don't be anxious. It's rough on dishes.
01:19:28
Speaker
That is a very good line. It's got Butterfly McQueen in it ah once again the I mean, I'm sure she's a very nice person, but I just can't stand her voice.
01:19:41
Speaker
There is. Yeah. I mean, she sounds like a a cartoon, which is a little bit goes a long way, I suppose.
01:19:51
Speaker
I've never i don't think I've ever heard this movie mentioned ah as like an influence on Steven Spielberg or any of his works. but I feel like I got really strong Spielberg vibes from it.
01:20:07
Speaker
How so? He has definitely, I think there has been sort of like, he's definitely mentioned Curtiz as an influence, but I mean, don't It has this sort of like Californian suburban,
01:20:19
Speaker
Yeah. So urban life stuff going on, which is sort of reminds me of Spielberg. It's a it's a divorce movie. That's kind of the big one. Oh, true. The like depiction of a like household kind of mid divorce, I think, reminds me a lot of of especially like early Spielberg stuff.
01:20:38
Speaker
the The younger daughter who dies reminded me of ah Gertie, um Drew Barrymore's character in E.T. Also reminded me of the kid in Meet Me in St. Louis, too.
01:20:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah, little bit, little bit. I'm curious now if this has ever been brought up as one of Spielberg's early influences or not. can definitely see how it could have...
01:21:05
Speaker
how it could have influenced his his stuff. um But maybe I'm just projecting who's to say. I think those are legitimate points for sure. ah that's Yeah, that's interesting.
01:21:18
Speaker
I guess the final image of this movie, I thought it's hard for you to know what to make of it. um It's like a very constructed final image. I mean, it's hard to, without getting into all the machinations of the plot, like talk about like everything that is happening. But like basically...
01:21:35
Speaker
Vida has been arrested. Mildred is kind of free almost from her evil daughter and is reconnecting with her ex-husband who are both kind of commiserating about their evil daughter. And...
01:21:51
Speaker
And then the movie is sort of ending and it's this very like kind of visually constructed shot where they're like walking out of the police station into the light. But what I found sort of notable is that they walk right past some people scrubbing the floor below them.
01:22:07
Speaker
And like, I'm not sure if there's some supposed to be some sort of like weird irony of it's like these like they're walking above and past these people.
01:22:19
Speaker
And like this movie is so concerned with like who like the value of like working hard and and jobs that like are, you know, thankless and that kind of thing.
01:22:30
Speaker
And then it just like breezes by these people in a way that it's like, it's hard for me to know exactly how how it works. Yeah. It's, I mean, that went over my head. That is a really interesting point about, yeah, like because that is, the last shot feels very, because it is so kind of constructed, it's like, it's very deliberate.
01:22:54
Speaker
You know, it wasn't like, it does not feel like that's a sort of like, you know, incidental detail. um Yeah. There are three characters. There's like the, there are three, there are three things in that shot. It's like the, the characters, the door and those people scrubbing the floor.
01:23:12
Speaker
And it's like, it's, I mean, you could say that they're like, i don't know, cleaning something like something has been cleaned. uh, far as crime has paid, you know, uh, uh,
01:23:24
Speaker
crime has been defeated or whatever but it's yeah i don't know i don't know it's a tricky it's it's a weird image to invoke like right at the last second and not directly comment on yeah yeah i don't know if i fully fully grasp like everything i think this movie is maybe like trying to impart or trying to say about the american dream or like the value of work and like wealth and stuff.
01:23:51
Speaker
There's a lot of that in there, though, and I think it is, I think it's it's at least bringing up interesting kind of questions, and especially about yeah parenthood. How do you how do you be a good parent to ah awful child.
01:24:04
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah. I don't think it, like, i don't know if the movie, I think the movie has probably an uncomplicated view of the American dream, an earnest view of the American dream, but it has a very complicated view of, like, relationships and being a parent.
01:24:19
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah. It is kind of interesting, I think we talked about this a little bit in the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington discussion, of how how many of these, like, nineteen forty s directors are, like,
01:24:31
Speaker
They love the American dream so much. And it's usually because they are European immigrants who like were fleeing something, either like poverty or yeah oppression or whatever it was going on in Europe.
01:24:42
Speaker
And they come to the U and they're like, I'm going to make pictures. And then they get, and they make it big in pictures. And so they're all like, yeah, American dream. It rocks. Let's make movies. about that The American dream rocks.
01:24:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. ah Well, this movie has like a very, you know, an in-medias-res beginning that like it ends up like, you know, being mysterious and then the rest of the movie kind of fills it in and and recontextualizes it and in a well a good use of that mechanism.
01:25:18
Speaker
And our last movie is another one of those. It was encounter. A lot of nonlinear storytelling this True.
01:25:29
Speaker
Yeah, very much. lot of Nazis and a lot of nonlinear storytelling. Yeah, the the two big trends of 1945. Nonlinear Nazis. ah ah Yeah, brief encounter. What what a picture.
01:25:42
Speaker
Yeah. um This is honestly incredible. This is like ah like one of the... This is probably one of the best movies I've ever seen, to be honest. Yeah, I mean, don't know. I've seen a lot of movies. It is very good.
01:25:54
Speaker
Yeah. It's up there. It's up there. Yeah. It's up there. Yeah. I think that like more than more than many movies we've watched lately, I'm like, this is pretty... like There's something special about this movie. Something a little transcendent about this movie. Yeah.
01:26:12
Speaker
This movie does sort of, it feels like ah it's bottling something very, ah very kind of powerful. o Which is also, i think, one of the strengths of this movie.
01:26:24
Speaker
It's funny because of how big ah how emotional this movie gets, I think, is in part due to how restrained it is also like, yeah, this is like very much the flip side of the lost weekend, which is like attempting to tell this very powerful story. And it's, it's just like hammering it into the audience like too much.
01:26:45
Speaker
Yeah. And i feel like brief encounter is like so understated, And that makes it all the more like like heart motion, emotionally devastating. Yeah. Yeah. Like this is a movie I think, you know, you bring that up like this is a movie that is all about the kind of interplay between restraint and letting your emotions yeah go. Yeah.
01:27:08
Speaker
Yeah, very much.
'Brief Encounter': Emotional Complexity and Sound Design
01:27:09
Speaker
This is ah the first David Lean movie that we're talking about. Not his first movie, but it won't be the last one. And a brief ah plot synopsis, I guess, is that... ah Well, opens, right, with men and women sitting at a table, and then um one of the women's friends sees her and, like, comes over and, like, is trying to make conversation.
01:27:30
Speaker
And they're like, oh, no, like, we're just... where We were just, you saying goodbye. And so they they sort of leave... And then the woman is sort of thinking about it and flashes back to having met this guy who just left.
01:27:43
Speaker
um And the movie is... The the the story of them having... a a mostly emotional affair over the course of a couple of weeks.
01:27:55
Speaker
Yeah. Before it then returns to that same scene at the end. yeah um Yeah. Once again, kind of like recontextualizing it. And it is, it is so like, it is so like frustrating watching it the second time, especially it is like, Oh, it is like, I want to pull my hair out.
01:28:13
Speaker
It's like, shut up, shut up, shut up. I know. Yeah, because it's like, right, it's the that scene the beginning is their sort of like final goodbye. have like they've had this like incredibly emotionally charged, like very, very strong ah romantic relationship that is defined by its it being restrained and kind of bottled. Mm hmm.
01:28:36
Speaker
And this is like their final goodbye. Like, we're gonna not going to see each other ever again after this. And then like this woman just comes in. It's like, but um how are you? be And it's just like ruins it. Ruins their like heartfelt goodbye.
01:28:48
Speaker
And it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it like something like that. I think it's so interesting, right? It's like it's a movie that it would be this kind of thing where it is like just really leaning all the way into these big emotions. David leaning.
01:29:04
Speaker
David. Yeah. And um what is it doing with like like just cutting it short? Right. It's like yeah it's it's like it's like.
01:29:16
Speaker
You're getting ready to feel these feelings and then something like mundane gets in the way. It's ah in a way it's like de-romanticizing a little. well I don't know if that's true.
01:29:28
Speaker
feel like I had a thought about that, but I lost it. But anyway, yeah. But i think like, don't know, my biggest takeaway from this movie is how how much the like restraint and the bottledness of it like just makes it feel so much more like intense. Yeah.
01:29:44
Speaker
Like, this is such a, like, quiet, very British movie also that there everyone's like, oh, oh dear, I i cannot possibly canno not possibly speak what is in my heart. And, like, there's... I think that is... I think the movie is somewhat kind of ah critical of that, like, that, like, British instinct to kind of, like, keep your emotions in. Yeah.
01:30:07
Speaker
Because it is, like, yeah we see how much... I don't know. Another thing that I think is really good about this movie is that it's like you definitely, i as an audience member, like I want to see these two people like be happy and find some way of like ending up together or something like that. But it is like they're both married, not unhappily. Like they both have like pretty good marriages that are maybe like a little a little bit boring is like the worst you could say about them.
01:30:34
Speaker
But I also I like how it's like when they show ah Laura, the main character's husband, think his name is Fred. here's just like good nothing He's fine. Yeah, he's like a normal dude. He's very nice. He's like they get along really well. There's like no it seems like there's no, you know, ill feelings that either have towards each other.
01:30:52
Speaker
It would be so convenient and it would be so easy for them to make him a bad person. Right. But like having him be a decent guy who she just is not like didn't even realize until she was head over heels for somebody that she wasn't head over heels for him.
01:31:13
Speaker
Right. It makes it so much more complex. Like, yeah. And that's the thing with this movie. It is like one of the most like emotionally complex movies I've ever seen.
01:31:24
Speaker
Like, like what is like all of the dynamics that are going on in people and the decisions that they're making. It's like, there's a lot of there's a lot of factors in like inter like fighting like feelings and um yeah like going on in each person, but it's all kind of like hitting on similar themes with each person. It's like how they react to this, like,
01:31:50
Speaker
you know, do you follow your feelings? But like following your feelings is kind of wrong, but is it wrong to like hurt yourself to not follow your feelings? But like, yeah yeah is it wrong to like, and then you flip it over again. It's like, do I, is it worth it to follow my feelings and like blow up everything around me?
01:32:13
Speaker
like for to only be happy but how wrong is it to like just live not my best life just because i ended up in the wrong circumstances and like it's it's yeah yeah there's so much going on in this and there's there's like there's no there's no like right answer to any of that right it it's all none of it's easy it's all it all feels very kind of messy in the way that life so often can.
01:32:43
Speaker
um It's a lot of ambivalence. Yeah, and it's just like i the the subtleties of it, where it it it feels like every every little like moment and glance feels really impactful because it's so kind of like...
01:33:00
Speaker
Yeah, charged, but also like very, very downplayed. Charged is the word. Yeah, like there is a... And with those characters, there's a charge between them, you know?
01:33:11
Speaker
And like it takes a long time for them to... It takes a ah very long time... For them to admit they have like romantics, but specifically romantic feelings for each other. But also just like it's like we see they're sort of there.
01:33:24
Speaker
They ah they meet each other. Right. Like he's a doctor. Alec is the guy. um And they meet when he he like pulls a piece of ah like dirt out of her eye the train station.
01:33:36
Speaker
um Which is already like a very intimate way to meet someone is that they're like touching your eyeball. Yeah. And it's like they kind of by happenstance kind of keep running into each other like at the train station or like in town and things like that. And it's like they're it starts off. There's just like this very friendly like, oh, like this is just this person that I know that like ran into randomly.
01:33:57
Speaker
But it's like they have so much chemistry. That it's like, I mean, you know where the movie's going to some degree. but But it's like, I like how long it takes for them to kind of like admit it to each other and to themselves.
01:34:10
Speaker
I almost kind of wish the movie stretched that out even more. Because I like that i feel like that's kind of my favorite stuff. is like They're like, oh, these just a kiss already.
01:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Along those lines, as it's like teasing into like what their life could be together, it it it does something which I'm realizing now is a direct, was pretty much a direct reference from La Land.
01:34:37
Speaker
Which is, that but but in a different direction where it's like, yeah she has like ah an incredible like fantasy sequence where she's staring off through a window and she is imagining what their life could be together.
01:34:52
Speaker
And it's it's just like that end scene of La La Land, but it's like filled with... filled with hope, but also dread, rather than, like, wistful, you know, like, wistful what-if-ness in La La Land.
01:35:06
Speaker
And I just love any of those, like, kind of fantasy scenes. Right, yeah. Where it just goes off into, like, a non-literal black space and people are frolicking around. I love that stuff. Yeah.
01:35:20
Speaker
I mean, same. Yeah. Also, like, this movie does have a lot of dread in it for being... ostensibly like a romantic movie. Yeah. I mean, especially towards the end when ah Laura almost throws herself in front of the train, that scene really stuck out to me of just like the, the, the way that scene is shot and directed and cut together is like really, really effective.
01:35:46
Speaker
It's doing things that are not like the most cutting edge in the 1940s, but I do you feel like they kind of stand out of like, Oh, they're like trying stuff. Yeah. Especially like when you can kind of see like the gears turning in Laura's head as she's like contemplating jumping in front of the train.
01:36:01
Speaker
And the camera is like slowly tilting to the side into a Dutch angle. And it's like it's such a great way of just it's like visually showing the sort of like shift in her thoughts, I guess.
01:36:17
Speaker
Yeah, and there's like a lot of um like internal monologue in this movie. Yeah, with the sound design. Like there's a lot of internal monologue in this movie. And I think it's like used really well in these moments where like you're in Laura's mind like the entire time in this movie. And like...
01:36:36
Speaker
the the movie follows her attention as well, where like when things are just like when she's kind of drifting away into fantasy, ah like there's something that she's not really paying attention to, like the the film itself like loses focus along with her. And then like the sound kind of fades out and then it goes into her monologue.
01:36:59
Speaker
or like her internal monologue. And I found that to be like, so effective. Like there are, you know, there, there is a way that people do like thoughts portray thoughts in movies.
01:37:12
Speaker
And it's usually with like a slightly echoey version while the person is like sitting and thinking. But like, we haven't seen that done much.
01:37:23
Speaker
ah Like it's not, it doesn't seem like it's that common. Exactly right now. I think we've seen it done before, but like, I think it's done very gracefully here. I think like, um, it's integrated really well into what's going on in story or in the moment.
01:37:41
Speaker
Um, It is interesting how how many of these, like the last couple of years of movies that we watched, have been kind of flashback narratives. Like they have a framing scene in the beginning and then it's, right, it'll flashback and show sort of how how we got here.
01:37:59
Speaker
And that's usually the thing motivating the narration. Either in this case it is just like her own thoughts, thinking back about like the previous weeks and sort of like how this relationship has developed.
01:38:11
Speaker
right In Mildred Pierce, it's like it's the police interrogation in The Lost Weekend. I think Double Indemnity, he's like talking into the the dictaphone. Lost Weekend, he's talking to the bartender.
01:38:22
Speaker
They all have some sort of like voiceover narration going on in them, but it's all motivated. None of it's just like, and now there's just voiceover. Yeah, i that was so shocking to me. like I had kind of always thought that it's just like, oh, the way this works is that...
01:38:38
Speaker
You know, the person is telling the story to the character is telling the story to the audience with voiceover. But like all so many of these movies, it's like, no, we need to have a justification for why there is voiceover. We we haven we haven't reached. You might be wondering how I got to this situation.
01:38:57
Speaker
ah Right. Like, yeah, yeah. Like, look it's almost I forget if I made this. I forget if I said this, like last with the last episode or earlier or whatever. But like, it reminds me of like when close ups were being used in early movies and right like they needed to justify the existence of a close up.
01:39:18
Speaker
It's like it has to be someone looking through like a telescope or something. Yeah. It was like this. It was like this formal technique that was breaking the kind of like continuation of reality as they like understood it through the lens of a camera.
01:39:33
Speaker
And yeah, yeah. And so like. And something like a like like a close-up is not exactly something that you can do with a human eye or a camera like naturally. And if you're looking at the screen as just like a window, like it wouldn't think you wouldn't change sizes of things.
01:39:52
Speaker
And yet, and so like to to ease their way into it, they needed like a diegetic reason. just like the The kind of artifice of a voiceover, like they need somebody narrating it to something. they need to show someone narrating it. Right.
01:40:08
Speaker
Or like early animation, they have to be like, this is pictures that someone drew. And there's a lot of them. That's how it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ah Yeah, that's, that is like, i hadn't really thought about it like that. And that is probably like, right. Movies now just have narration in them all the time for whatever, like just, you know, with, with no justification whatsoever.
01:40:27
Speaker
Yeah. And I, there is like an element to like, as I guess, like film literacy, like, not necessarily improves, but just like it, it like there's all these sort of techniques and sort of like storytelling devices that sort of become commonplace and people don't even think about them anymore.
01:40:44
Speaker
And yeah, I guess that is probably just naturally what happened with like voiceover. um But I do, I like voiceover being contextualized and motivated. don't I think it like it adds something to it of like, why are we hearing this narration happening?
01:41:06
Speaker
Record scratch. Yeah, right. But it's like, we're not seeing, they're not playing a record. um Maybe they should, Deadpool should, we should always see ah him in in the the sound booth at the end.
01:41:19
Speaker
Cause he knows he's in movies. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, another kind of like, like film language technique, which, you know, ah it felt fairly modern in a way was like when her friend is like yammering on at the beginning and like, and yeah she's just like, Oh, i but she says, I wish you'd stop talking. And she's saying like, she also says, isn't it awful about people trying to be kind?
01:41:44
Speaker
ah But yeah, um And this scene where like it's putting you in her annoyance, it does like an extreme close-up on this person's mouth, like talking and blabbing on.
01:41:57
Speaker
And it you know it feels like something that a modern movie would do of just like, this person's talking so much, like we're going to emphasize this by just zooming in on their lips. just but but Yeah. but but Yeah, there's the this movie shows like subjectivity really well. like it It really yeah does a good job of like putting you in in into Laura's head and like her mindset and what's how she's feeling.
01:42:22
Speaker
I mean, how she's feeling is really the main one because it's like she's pretty miserable throughout the whole movie, unfortunately. Yeah, she's tortured, definitely. Tortured, yeah, is probably a better word. because right they're like Most of Act is like really like...
01:42:37
Speaker
pleasant because that's like when her and Alec are spending the most time together and are actually able to kind of like, you know, feel like they're, they're mutually kind of getting something out of their affair. Yeah.
01:42:50
Speaker
I also like how this movie is not at all. Like it doesn't feel judgmental towards either of them. Like it feels very, it feels very much like this is kind of what both of these people like needed in their life in this moment a little bit. Yeah.
01:43:04
Speaker
While also being, like, both of them definitely feel a strong kind of, like, moral ah guilt around it also. Yeah. I think, like, that whole, like, dynamic, like, it's really summed up in this part where Alex says to her, I love you so very much. And then she responds with, I want to die.
01:43:23
Speaker
Which is, like, whoa. Like, what a moment. What a moment. That sums up this movie so well. Okay.
01:43:33
Speaker
She's tortured. She's tortured by how much she loves him and what a horrible situation it puts her in. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's also just like so many like really well observed, like nuanced portraits of existence.
01:43:51
Speaker
i' Like, like, I think for sure With that scene in particular, like, like there's that scene in the beginning, what we keep talking about with like her friend, like, like, just destroying this moment right like that feels very real it feels very possible um but then like there there's a you know there's like danger lurking over every part of happiness right there's like what if we're found out is this okay all this kind of thing and like there are all these things that feel kind of true to life in that like
01:44:26
Speaker
There's like maybe a moment where like you cross a line just like a little bit. You dip your toe over a line and then something bad happens. This happens a couple times in the movie where it's like she dips her toe just a little over the line. And then something kind of unrelated bad happens and she takes it as like a warning. It's like a cosmic like punishment or or warning for what she's done.
01:44:51
Speaker
And it's, like, that kind of, like, interpreting things around you, I feel like it's such, like, a natural way of of existing in a way, you know? Mm-hmm. Well, I suppose, like, right, that, the like, that opening scene that is then revisited later is, like, that's such... I mean, I think, yeah, even at this point, that could be, ah you know, such a sort of, like, cliche, like, movie moment of, like, the...
01:45:14
Speaker
You know, the the forbidden lovers have to say goodbye to each other. And it's like this big, you know, emotional, you know, tearful scene. And the movie denies you, denies the characters and the audience. That's like, no, there's this shitty friend who doesn't know anything about what's going on. It's going to come in and start yapping.
01:45:32
Speaker
Read the room, lady. Ruin this whole moment. And so they just have this, like, the tiniest little, like, he, like, puts her hand his hand on her shoulder and then leaves. And it's like... ah Yeah, this is a movie about like unfulfillment, right? And like when that happens, like their even their fulfillment of their teary goodbye is is is not fulfilled.
01:45:56
Speaker
Yeah. there's there is There's like a lot of... There's like so much stuff in the script that is just like constantly like referring back to itself and like enriching itself. And like there's a couple of like other kind of little side things in the movie.
01:46:10
Speaker
Like um there's like a movie that they go to that's called Flames of Passion. oh yeah. Yeah. what like i love I love a film within a film. Yeah.
01:46:21
Speaker
And they they spend a lot of time in this like um like convenience store cafe thing in train station. And like there's like all of these like kind of background contrasting relationships happening with like these side characters in the train station that like kind of comment on the the central relationship in the movie.
01:46:43
Speaker
Yeah. I really want to read – this is based on a play by Noel Coward that I think is set entirely in the like the train station cafe that I'd really like to read because it is like – I think it's a much sort of – since it's all in the train station, it's kind of much more contained, I guess, than the movie is.
01:47:00
Speaker
and i'm I'm curious how like this evolved from that play um to the movie. so It also it just is like such a great setup for a movie.
01:47:10
Speaker
I think i initially... When I first heard about this movie, I think I probably heard of it, and then i maybe about a year ago, i was at Nighthawk Trivia. Shout out to Nighthawk Trivia.
01:47:22
Speaker
And they showed a clip from it that I think was one of the points where they're like not for the final time but they're like saying goodbye at like at the train, like as the train is pulling away, that classic sort of like, it does have one of those scenes in it of like the train is pulling away and I'm like, no, I know what to say. Yeah. And they showed us like a little clip of,
01:47:44
Speaker
one of those scenes. um And I was like, holy shit, what is this movie? Like, I need to see this. Because it was like, it was one scene that felt so, again, charged of just like, it was, i don't know, like a minute, two minutes of the movie. And I was like, whoa, like this really like hit me.
01:48:03
Speaker
And I think that when I initially sat down to watch it, I thought it was, I thought it took place over like one night. or it was like a much kind of like smaller scale movie. And so I, I'm like, I'm, I don't think the play is one night either, but I, I do love ah stories like that where it's like, Oh, whatever. Ships passing in the night, whatever. We have just like, ah, there's like, they, they, they didn't have, they didn't, they didn't have long, but what, but the time they had was, was lived to its fullest.
01:48:33
Speaker
Like, there's like, there's something very compelling in that kind of setup to me. Yeah. I think this, this movie takes that sort of like that feeling, whatever that sort of like mixture of like frustration and gratitude and hope and despair.
1940s Film Trends and Storytelling Techniques
01:48:50
Speaker
It's like, it's, it's like cramming it all into this like pretty small ah box and just letting it all stew into it into a lovely, ah lovely soup, a lovely, warm, very English soup.
01:49:05
Speaker
what's What's the most English soup? I don't know. Like a beef stew? so Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. A beef stew.
01:49:16
Speaker
Incredible movie. Incredible. yeah So good. yeah Do you have anything else on this? I mean, I think this is the earliest... David Lean movie that I've seen, and it is... I've seen it's like big 60s, like Lords of Arabia, Bridge on River Kwai, those movies that are like so big in scale and so like...
01:49:36
Speaker
you know, masterfully directed. And I think this is like much, much, much smaller scale movie and it still feels so well directed. It feels like so confident and sort of precise and all of the adjectives that are used to describe good direction in movies.
01:49:55
Speaker
ah So it's I guess sort of like watching um the Kurosawa movie where it's like, oh, yeah, there was like these guys had a of a good handle on how to make movies.
01:50:06
Speaker
ah Although this is like not that early for day I think David Lean had already directed a good, good bunch of pictures. He'd done he'd done three before.
01:50:20
Speaker
Okay. ah One of them was Blythe Spirit, which is a comedy by ah from a Noel Coward script that came out the same year. good ah Good collaboration, I guess.
01:50:32
Speaker
I would like to watch Blythe Spirit at some point, but I guess we figured two David Lean, Noel Coward movies in one episode was too much. Yeah, I saw Blythe Spirit some number of years ago at the Nitrate Picture Show, and I remember enjoying it ah good amount.
01:50:49
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. Which was better, this or Blind Spirit? This was better. It's a high watermark. Yeah, yeah. High bar is set by this movie.
01:51:02
Speaker
Yeah. Very good. Very, very good. That transitions nicely into favorites of the year, which we have already recorded. So what was your favorite, Glenn?
01:51:13
Speaker
Let's say it together. One, two, three. Brief Encounter. yeah we can We can say things easily at the same time because we're in the same room right now. True. yeah um but Anyway, yeah. Brief Encounter.
01:51:26
Speaker
ah I mean, clearly the best movie. it's Well, clearly. I also really liked Mildred Pierce. Yes. Yeah, Brief Encounter. i mean, we've talked about it at this point. Good movie.
01:51:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. A pretty clear favorite, I think. It's yeah. It's just so good. Yeah. It's like, so yeah. Go watch it.
01:51:49
Speaker
I highly recommend, but yeah, that'll do it for, for this episode. um Thanks for joining. Yeah. Follow us on, on platforms. Are we, are we a platform? We're still on ah Instagram, I guess. Yeah.
01:52:04
Speaker
I mean, I think technically we're still on Twitter, but like either of us have opened that in many months. Yeah, no, i don't think so. Get off Twitter. Yeah, yeah. Should make a bluesky.social? Maybe, don't know.
01:52:20
Speaker
Yeah, sure. But i yeah, I mean, we post things on Instagram usually. Yeah, Instagram's the spot. Meta. ah We love meta. I don't, but sure. um i don't want to put that out in the world. Thanks for listening. Appreciate appreciate y'all. Good to see you in person, Glenn.
01:52:38
Speaker
Great to have an in-person episode. Yeah, that'll do it for this one. All right. Glenn. See you next year. See next year.