That 70s Movie Podcast
A look back at the films that defined cinema's greatest era - the 1970s!
That 70s Movie Podcast
Looking For Mr. Goodbar
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This week on That '70s Movie Podcast, Michael and Jonathan put on their platform shoes, don their favorite sequined shirts, and turn on the strobe lights for a spirited conversation about the 1977 film "Looking For Mr. Goodbar," starring Diane Keaton (RIP).
In this episode, we heap praise on Keaton, not only for her bravura performance in this film but also for her courageous artistic choices and growth as an actor.
We reached less consensus on Looking For Mr. Goodbar's occasionally muddled social and political messages. We disagreed on whether Goodbar has a pro-feminist slant or is a regressive film that ducks hard questions -- especially in its choice of villains.
But give it a listen and tell us what you think!
Remember? The only one that can think. I am my own girl. I belong to me. Now get out of here.
SPEAKER_00Welcome everybody to the latest episode of That 70s Movie Podcast. I'm your host, Michael A. Cohen, joined by my co-host, Jonathan Kirschner. Jonathan, how are you today?
SPEAKER_01I'm just fine. How are you?
SPEAKER_00You know, I'm doing pretty well. I wanted to mention we always talk about movies we've seen recently or anything we've seen outside of what we're talking about. So basically, what's been happening on my uh Amazon and HBO Max feeds is that I'm getting inundated with 7Ds, you know, uh uh movie recommendations. And so this week, Heaven Can Wait popped up, the uh Warren Beatty movie, and I said, uh, what the hell? I'll watch it. And you know what? It's good. It's fine. It's like it's a cute movie. Uh it's actually the kind of movie that I think Warren Beatty was meant to play. It's sort of a light screwball comedy. But here is the crazy thing about that movie. I looked it up. That movie got eight Academy Award nominations. Eight, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Beatty. Are you effing kidding me? That movie, eight Oscar nominations? I thought that good. It was very shocking to me.
SPEAKER_01Uh, you know, but it's a nice movie, and uh it has such a large party of favorites on hand. You have to remember that the largest contingent in the academy are the actors, and there's a ton of popular actors in there, and just a lot of friends. You know, Buck Henry co-directed, and he's such a welcome presence always. I think Elaine May was either in on the screenplay as credited or uncredited, and the and it's a large deep cast of figures who I think were beloved in the acting, the LA acting.
SPEAKER_00Jack Walton, who's in every every 70s movie, pretty much. Uh Julie Christie's in it. Of course, there were dating warm baby at the time. It's a cute movie. James Mason, who's always great. Uh but it's James Mason. Mr. James Mason. But it's not great cinema. Let's put that in. Uh it's uh so so what have you seen, anything this week that we should talk about?
SPEAKER_01Uh we've been working our way through the brand new uh five-part Scorsese doc, and much to my surprise, it's been excellent so far. Uh uh really, really enjoying it, and it's not a lot of brand new stuff to those who follow Scorsese's career closely, but really well done and does shy away from some of the some of the harder edges of of which there are many.
SPEAKER_00Oh well, I actually have that's uh I look forward to seeing that. I do want to check it out at some point. Uh I I mentioned to you last week my that my girlfriend and I were we've been diving into the German sci-fi thriller Dark. I cannot recommend this enough. It is such a good show. I forgot how good it was. I had forgotten like many of the key plot points because I saw it like five years ago and I binged it. Seriously, the show is so good. You should watch it. It's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Put it on the list.
SPEAKER_00Put it on the list. But to all the listeners out there, check out Dark. Uh, after you listen to the podcast, of course, it's a really interesting show. But keep a notebook with you because you have to take notes. It's very complicated. It's very German, very complicated, but it's great. Okay. So this week we uh now usually we like to do this thing where we connect the movie we did last week to the movie we're doing this week, but we go in a little different direction because uh Diane Keaton passed away last week, and we wanted to do Diane Keaton's film because she is in many ways a um a paragon of 70s cinema. I mean, she did win an Academy Award in 1977 for Annie Hall. She was in lots of 70s movies, including arguably one of the greatest 70s movies, The Godfather. So we were talking about which one to discuss, and we we talked about doing some of the Woody Allen movies that we love, the comedies, maybe Annie Hall or Manhattan, which she is in. Uh, but we decided it maybe wasn't the right feel. So I went to watch Looking for Mr. Good Bar, which is a 1976 uh how would I call this? A thriller slash profeminist slasher movie? I don't know. It's a I'm gonna try to describe it properly. It's not a romantic comedy, I'll put it that way. Uh and I I thought it was fascinating. So I said, let's talk about this movie. And that's what we chose, looking for Mr. Goodbar. Not a incredibly well-known movie, but at the time, a very big movie. Uh this was a this was a movie that was based on a book by Judith Rosner uh called Looking for Mr. Goodbar. It was a huge bestseller at the time. Um, it was directed by Richard Brooks, who also did help me out in Cold Blood, Cat in the Hot Sin Roof, uh Blackboard. Blackboard Jungle. Blackboard Jungle.
SPEAKER_01He was also an affiliate of Bogey and John Houston, who did a couple of pictures credited and uncredited for them way back in the early 50s, including, I think, Deadline USA, with Bogey, I think, as an intrepid reporter, if I'm remembering that one correctly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's an interesting choice this movie because he is a guy who you think of as an old Hollywood director from the 50s and 60s. By the way, in Cold Blood, which I saw recently for the first time, is a fantastic movie. I really enjoyed it a lot. Um, and I I love the book, but I thought it was actually a pretty, a pretty good um take on what is a wonderful piece of source material. And uh he's an odd choice for this movie. 68-year-old uh guy from old Hollywood asked to make a movie uh about sexual awakening of a woman in the 1970s, but I think he pulls it off, but we'll talk about that. Uh it stars, of course, I mentioned Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, who was nominated for uh Best Supporting Actress for her performance in this movie. William Atherton, uh, who we uh have not, I think we haven't seen him. I saw him recently in Sugarland Express, which he's very good in that, but other people may know him better as the bad guy in Ghostbusters and the bad journalist in Die Hard. It's amazing, actually, his transformation from interesting character actor to prototypical bad guy. Uh also stars Richard Kiley and Richard Gere, one of his earliest roles, um, as well as LeVar Burton in his first starring role, I believe, and uh Tom Berenger. And what is it about? Let me I've been doing what I wanted to do as a summary of the movie. I feel like I was tubbing into it, and people don't know what the movie's about. So I'm gonna, I I didn't want to, I'm not good at writing these kinds of things, so I asked Chat GPT to do this for me, and as usual, I had to re-re-re-edit it. But the film is about Teresa Dunn, played by D.A. Keen, a young school teacher in New York City who leads double life, and by day she works with deaf children, and by night, she is deeply immersed in the 70s single scene in New York. Uh, well, the city is not determined in the movie, but I think it's New York, frequenting bars, engaging casual sex, and experimenting with drugs. And she is haunted by her strict Catholic upbringing, physically scarred by a childhood bow of scoliosis, and torn between two visions of sexuality in the 70s, one represented by her sister, uh, played by Tuesday Weld, who is a pill-popping group sex-engaging stewardess. The other is a younger sister who is parentally pregnant. I wrote that, not ChatGPT, just for the record. Uh, her sexual awakening begins in college when she's seduced by her professor, and after she graduates, she moves in New York, where she her encounters grow darker and more dangerous, culminating in, spoiler alert, violent and tragic ending. If you haven't seen this movie, I just gave it away to you, but you know, it came out 50 years ago, you've had your chance to see it. Um, two Oscar nominations, one for Tuesday Well, that I mentioned also William Fraker, who was the cinematographer for this film. And um, while Diane Keaton was not nominated for an Oscar for this film, she did win Oscar that year for Annie Hall. Quite a run in 77 for Diane Keaton. So uh I think we I wanted to show this film. I think it is a fantastic performance from Diane Keaton. But the film itself, I think we have some disagreements. So I'm gonna ask you the question I always ask you, Jonathan. Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Is this a bad movie? Is this a good movie, or is this a great movie?
SPEAKER_01Well, once again, I'm gonna go off menu and I'm gonna say this is an interesting and ambitious movie. Uh, and I I like that. But ultimately, I was unhappy with it. Uh before I get into my unhappiness, though, I just want to give some shouts out, as my father might say, correcting it from shout-outs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that is correct. That's right. Attorneys General, shouts out. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01There you go. Um to the director of photography, you mentioned him already, William Fraker. I think he is uh his work in this in this film is just outstanding. And if you look at this film and you look at um Steve McQueen's uh Peter Yates directed Bullet and the naturalistic location work and the nitronite shooting, this is just masterful cinematography. I really noticed that throughout the film. And I just have enormous respect for any actor who's taking risks and reaching. And you know, this is an enormously out-of-character role for Diane Keaton, and I love the fact that you she wanted to do it and took it on. And again, that's wildly ambitious and it's daring. It uh it I just love that sort of thing. You can think of uh Meg Ryan in In the Cut or Isabel Huppaire in Elle. These are women kind of taking really, really edgy roles in the case of two of them really cutting against character, and I just I just that's all I'm asking my performers to do, to to try and push the envelope as much as they can. So I I really like that about the movie. I thought Richard Gere and Tom Berenger also took big risks uh with their characters uh uh in 1977 in particular, and so I admire that. But ultimately the movie left me dissatisfied.
SPEAKER_00So this is interesting. I um this film, when I initially watched it, my my My first response was that this was uh kind of a kind of a grubby reactionary film, that it was it was an indictment of the sexual revolution. Because basically the idea of the movie is that this is a woman who has a sexual awakening, she goes to New York, she decides to explore her uh her sexual freedom, she sleeps lots of men, she takes lots of drugs, and ultimately it kills her. And so I it sort of reminded me a little bit of like the Forrest Gump, uh, in which the character in that movie, a movie by the way, that I truly despise, uh, but which the female lead in the movie uh you know pursues a different path than Forrest Gump ends up uh you know living on the edge, if you will, and she gets AIDS and she dies. So, but that was my first take. But then I I read a few reviews, I listened to a few podcasts, I went back and I watched it, and I had a very different take on it the second time around. I think this is a really interesting movie. I don't think this is a great movie, but I think this is a really compelling, you said ambitious, I think that's a good word for it. I think this is actually, oddly enough, a pro-feminist movie. And I want to just begin with uh it's a pro-feminist, it's also sort of an anti-patriarchy movie. And I I as I often do, I want to start off with something that the opening shot of the film. First of all, there's this wonderful music montage at the beginning with all this great disc of music. It's really fantastic, actually. But the opening shot of when you see Diane Keaton, she's on the subway, and there's a man next to her who sort of bumps into her and he is reading Hustler. Now, keep in mind, I was five years old when this movie came out, so I don't know what was the norm on the subway in the 1970s. Were people reading Hustler on the, on the subway in the 1970s? Maybe. I don't know. But what I took away from that was that here she is trying to live her life on the subway, and here is a man bumping into her with a hustler, which is a metaphor in the movie, I think, uh, for the character being assaulted by men's sexual hangups about women. And to me, that's what this movie is about. This is a woman who wants to be, as she says, I am my own girl. I belong to me. She wants to live her own life. She wants not to have children, she wants not to get married, she doesn't want attachment, she wants sexual freedom, wants the same sexual freedom that every man in this movie enjoys. And yet, men keep stopping her from doing that. Men with their hangups prevent her from doing that. Ultimately, kill her. So to me, the movie is really about her effort to have the sexual awakening and the way that the patriarchy or the way that men's image of women, images of women, prevents her from living the life she wants to live. Is that a reasonable take on this film, or am I over over reading it?
SPEAKER_01I think it's a reasonable take on the film, and I want to meet you halfway on that read. Uh, because one of the things I like about the movie is that the men are invariably bad.
SPEAKER_00Oh, all of them are bad. We should have a uh think of ranking. Who is the worst man in this movie? And arguably, I'm not even sure it's the guy who kills her. There's so many bad men in this movie, but go ahead, sorry.
SPEAKER_01I mean, but you go down the list. You know, her father is a problematic figure. Her professor who you know sleeps with her, they have a relationship and she treat he treats her quite shabbily, is not an attractive figure. Richard Gere is a problematic figure. Um, her would-be good boy, Catholic social worker or you know, welfare guy. He's I don't like him. I don't think we're supposed to like him at all. And then, you know, Tom Berenger. I mean, who who do you have? You know, all the men in this movie, starting from that guy in the subway, are rather unpleasant. It's it it's it's the kind of thing that might turn you off men completely, although it obviously that's not Diane Keaton's experience in the movie.
SPEAKER_00Right. Although, yes, you're right. I mean, she it's like she is consistently searching. First of all, I should say the book is very different from the movie. The book begins with the murder and tells the story from there. And my understanding was with Judith uh Rosner, when she first saw this movie, she cried because she felt that uh this baby, her baby had been destroyed by Richard Brooks. She, I think, saw uh uh uh Teresa as a much less sympathetic character and in some ways who has a bit of a a death wish, uh, which which is by the way expressed in the book at the end of the movie when she cuts out the man who kills her, do it, do it. Um, which by the way happens this movie also, but I think she's saying something different in that scene. But we'll get to that. Uh so I I think they're looking for a good Mr. Good Bar, of course, is a candy bar, uh, and she's looking for something that gives her happiness, that makes her that is, that is, I don't say sweet, but something that gets really gives her joy, and she can't seem to find it. And part the reason why she can't find it, I think, is because all the men in this movie are terrible. And not just are they terrible, but their their uh conception of her is not what she wants to be. I mean, one thing I'll say about her character that is important is that she is very consistent about what she wants. Actually, before we get to that point, let's talk about her initial sexual awakening with her professor you mentioned, who I could say is maybe the worst character in the film, but then that would probably be not fair to James, played by William Atherton. The professor seduces her. He is to put it in layman's terms, a lousy leg. Uh, he they have sex the first time. He finishes rather quickly, blames her for it in a way, or says, I'll be I'll do better the next time, right? I mean, how does it was a woman heard that line? Uh and you know, it basically then throws her away when he is when she graduates. And at one point says to her, like, why is she asks, Why are you so talk to me? She says, I don't want to talk to a woman after I fuck her. It's a disgusting line. Um, but it's sort of emblematic of who he is as a character. And I think it kind of affects how she views men from that point forward that she she sees what's interesting. She basically tries to please him. She can't please him. And the rest of the movie is kind of her rebelling against the person she was in that relationship.
SPEAKER_01I think that's possible, but I I want to give space for the fact that that character, that man, that behavior, that relationship might have been a little less shockingly jarring in 1977 than it is today. Today we look at all of those behaviors and we're like aghast and horrified. I think in 1977 we're supposed to think the guy is an absolute gigantic jerk, but I think you know, uh the guys like that were probably gonna dime a dozen. And so I'm not sure it would have leapt out of the screen in 77 in the same way it does today, in which he's like a serial violator of all norms of human decency and interpersonal relationships.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. I mean, maybe, but I wouldn't push back because he when he has sex for the first time, when they finish, he goes, Is that it? Is it over? Are we done? Like, and she's like, did he do something wrong? And he doesn't really blame himself because he basically, you know, lasted about a minute in in their sexual escapade. But um, I saw that at because you see this out the film, she consistently refers back that relationship, right? And actually, actually, interestingly enough, at one point she he says to her, uh, I want to romance you. She says, I don't want to be romance, I want to be seduced. And this is, by the way, a crucial line in the movie. She does not want romance, she does not want a relationship. She, the men that she sleeps with, she basically tells them they have to leave. They don't she doesn't want them sleeping over. She doesn't want any kind of real attachment. She wants to be seduced, she wants to have sex, she wants sexual freedom. That is really who she is throughout the movie.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and I I would embrace your view that she matures as a person after that relationship with the professor. But I for me, she does that really well for the next, say, 30 to 40 percent of the movie. What I don't buy is the the drama of her descent. I mean, you know, she w she transitions toward being someone who's very much in charge of her sexual autonomy. She uh enjoys that lifestyle, and we should praise her for wanting to pursue the life that she wants to pursue. You know, it's I I I'm all for it. But the movie, even before the ending, seems to suggest that there's a certain instability in that lifestyle. And so again, this is the argument we're having, or going to have, or about to have, about whether the movie is permits her to freely enjoy that kind of sexual autonomy and liberation, or whether it's either unsustainable and or she must be punished for it.
SPEAKER_00You know, I'm not sure I agree. I think that she does enjoy that sexual freedom. I think she does enjoy the sort of edginess of her life, particularly because it's a contrast to the life she grew up with. And we, you know, she has there's a very stereotypical Catholic upbringing. Her father plays a sort of stern Catholic father. I don't actually think I think it's the weakest section of the entire movie, is her home life, because it's sort of an archetype and a very simplistic archetype. But I would contrast her, her sexual awakening, with that of her sister. Well, now Susie Weld is uh sexually liberated. She has uh group sex, in fact, invites Diane Keaton over to I don't think she participates. There's group sex, but she but she is present. They watch pornos together. She's married a Jewish man, which is you know foreboden in her in her Catholic family. Um she's a stewardess, right? So she's lurking, she's out doing something that is um not like a teacher like Diane Keaton. She takes pills, she drinks, she gets divorced very quickly, then she gets married again. Or she no, she she she is married, she gets divorced, then she gets married again, then she gets divorced. I mean, she has, I think in many ways her story is a cautionary tale of the sexual revolution run among. But I don't view Diane Keaton that way at all. I view her as actually relatively secure in the things that she wants. And and unlike her pill-popping uh group sex-engaging sister, she knows what she wants. And she says it. Right? She does the thing when she goes to the doctor, the doctor says, Do you want to are you with a man? No. Are you living with a man? No. Do you want to have kids? No. Why? None of your business. I mean, she's very clear in what it is that she wants.
SPEAKER_01Yes, but there's a there's another way to look at the two sisters, and it's the way that resonated with me. I mean, Tuesday Weld was, you know, sexually freewheeling in all the ways that you described. Also, you know, has at least one, if not two, abortions over the course of the first time.
SPEAKER_00Right. We mentioned that also. Right.
SPEAKER_01But if you look at Keaton and Weldon, Weld is such a fascinating actor in Hollywood and always interesting to see in the movies, her character is not only really punished for her free sexuality, but then she converts. She becomes kind of straight by the end of the movie, and and the movie seems to say she's much better off uh pursuing this more conventional conservative lifestyle than she was in her hippie-dippy, freewheeling, drug-taking stewardess flying, you know, uh orgy participating in days. And Diane Keaton, I'm I'm not sure I agree about how in control of her life she remains. And and for me, it was also a cheap shot. I think the movie hinges on that first time when she accidentally does coke. She doesn't even know what it is, and she does it, and she finds out she likes it. Um and right after that is the scene in which I feel she loses a lot of control over her her life, or at least makes what to me seem like increasingly curious choices, uh, and uh has some sexual partners that uh wouldn't have been on my A-list uh were I in her shoes, uh some kind of older gentleman, you know, traveling through town. I don't know. It didn't seem as you know, you could see the sexual appeal of a Richard Gere, even though he's a very problematic character, or a Tom Berenger who had his own problems, but some of these other guys, they seemed very much kind of unappealing randos off the street, and those coincided with her becoming uh an enthusiastic uh taker of drugs. Uh and again, the movie's a little chastising there, I think, uh, as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a fair point. Although I actually kind of wasn't sure if those encounters actually occurred. I couldn't tell if that was fantasy, if that was reality, because in one of them he she suggests that she's a prostitute and that this man gives her money. Um I Couldn't quite figure out if those things actually occurred. Um, we should talk about Richard Gere, who's Tony, because she meets him the first time and then he leaves with another woman. It's now, by the way, this scene is wonderful because she's in a bar by herself drinking and she's reading The Godfather, which of course she starred in, like, you know, four years earlier. And uh Richard Gere asked out the book and mentions Al Pacino, and she kind of goes, eh. I mean, I I was I was sort of like, I don't know what that was all about, but it was sort of a fascinating little moment in the film because you know she started with the Al Pacino and the God and Godfather too. Um, and I think that that scene, however, is totally imagined. I don't think it actually happens. Then later, because later she meets him and she says, Well, we met before, and he's like, What are you talking about? He doesn't understand what she's referring to, which makes me think that she imagined the first time that they met. Um, second time they meet, she goes back to they go back to his her apartment, uh, in which he they have sex. They seem to she seems to enjoy it. Um he pulls a there's a n she finds a knife, it drops out of his pocket, she she he grabs it, he sort of threatens her with it, but kind of in a weird pantomime way, doesn't think it's immediately serious, which kind of suggests a metaphor I read was that she's like dancing with danger by being with all these different kinds of men. But I kind of get the impression that she likes that, that she enjoys the danger, she enjoys the edginess of what she's doing. In fact, there's a scene, I think, right after this, where she's walking on the street and she sees a prostitute and there's with two prostitutes, and one of them is her dressed as a prostitute, looking at her, giving her a big smile and a sort of a little lascivious look. And I think that she likes the edginess that comes with being this single woman living in New York. I think that's right.
SPEAKER_01And I think that that's important, but it it will make some viewers uncomfortable. I think I think there is a certain thrill of the danger aspect to this that is very transgressive and can and you know, in some ways be dangerous. But again, if I go back to the other movies I mentioned, Meg Ryan and In the Cut, or Isabel Uppaire and L, Diane Keaton here, they're all playing characters who are knowingly taking risks. Uh, and part of that is that there is a thrill-seeking element to it. And the gear scene with the knife basically foreshadows for us and for her the types of dangers that that she is facing. I just want to give a shout-out to that scene. I mean, this is a very early role for Gear, and it's 1977, and he uh uh is performative uh wandering around uh the apartment in a jock strap in a way that I don't think most star actors at that time would have. And I really appreciate the fact that he was willing to go out there. And two years later, he's in uh a Paul Schrader uh film, uh yes, um, and which is also a very gutsy performance. He's not one of my go-to actors, but I just want to give a shout out to the crowd here. He was in Paul Schrader's most recent film, um, Oh Canada. I think he gives an outstanding performance in that movie, which I I recommend to our our listeners.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I mean he's very good in this, but I I think, you know, maybe you pick up on something that is that is I think it's a fair criticism. This film kind of wants to have it both ways. I think it wants to portray her as somebody with sexual freedom, but also portray her choices as being increasingly risky and dangerous. I think there's a there's a conflict in the movie that isn't quite resolved. And and in the sense like you kind of walk away from the film saying she brought this on herself, or you know, this is because men have their hangups and they're and they're and they're putting them on her. And I think you could really read it both ways. I don't and I don't know if maybe Richard Brooks made a decision. By the way, I'll say Richard Brooks, I read this this article, and he um apparently went to hundreds of singles bars and interviewed women to ask them what they wanted. I mean, he really dived into this, to this this this directing role. And I thought gave gave her I look, I I think a 60-year-old guy grew up in old Hollywood or came of age in old Hollywood, you know, would have directed, I would have expected, if you told me that, a very different film from the one he directed here, that I would have expected this movie to be reactionary, to be in some ways a warning about the the perils of the sexual revolution and sexual freedom. And I think you, you know, I think you can read it that way if you want, but I I didn't read it that way. And I thought that he actually gave Teresa's character a lot more room to be a character, to not be a metaphor, to be somebody with individual thoughts and beliefs and actions. And I give him credit for that. I think it actually makes performance more interesting. And I do really think a lot of how you view this film, I don't think there's a single interpretation of this film. I and I think I as rare, I think that we we haven't discussed a film yet, that is too such diametrically opposed interpretations. I think I think you know, I see this as a reactionary film or anti-feminist, I think it's really appropriate. I think it's also appropriate that I do see more of a pro-feminist film. I think either one of those you can make a case for.
SPEAKER_01I think you can make the case for either one of those, but uh my problems with the movie are not kind of what I expected. I expected to want to have an argument about was this a feminist or an anti-feminist movie. I really think the movie's a little incoherent and ultimately uh pulls its punches uh at the end in terms of avoiding making a major statement. And I I put this uh blame at at Richard Brooks's doorstop. Um I don't expect a reactionary movie from him because he is a he is a liberal humanist. I mean, this is the thread that runs its way throughout throughout his career. You mentioned in Cold Blood, which is a very humanist movie for a movie about brutal murderers. And there are other movies in in his career that you could point to in which he really wants to do good. And you can see his instinct to do good i in this movie, that is to speak to liberal humanist kind of causes and comments along the way. So I don't think Richard Brooks is the kind of fellow who sets out to make a reactionary picture, but I do think it is marred in many cases by his good intentions. And my problem is I think the movie had to I I I already expressed that I do think the movie she descends into to uh to a loss of control as opposed to a control. And I think in that sense, more than the end of the movie, she is she is chastised for her freewheeling sexuality. But also, there are a number of possible bad guys who could have been the ultimate bad guy. And if it was the gear character, I think you read the movie one way. I think if it was her good boy Catholic boyfriend, then you're really locked into the idea that it's all the patriarchy. But the character they ultimately choose, I think, comes out of left field and comes uh in a way that I found deeply problematic. And I also, but aside from being problematic, I think it left the movie with a muddled message. If you walk away saying, where does this movie stand on women's sexual autonomy and freedom, uh, I'm it's not obvious to me when you get to the end of it where it stands.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I want to get to that, but I want to digress for one second because you mentioned Richard Brooks. Uh In Cold Blood is actually a movie I recommend for everyone listening to watch, because it is one of the most humanizing portraits of a mass murderer that I think I've ever seen. Not ever, but that I've seen, certainly for that era, that happened in the mid to late 60s, is shocking. And it's a very humanizing portrayal of the two killers in that movie, and it's what makes the movie I think so powerful. Now, back to your point about the the digressive, it's sort of regressive to have Carringer as the, for lack of better term, the quote unquote violent homosexual. And he is the person who ends up murdering uh Teresa Dunn at the end of the movie. Now, I'm gonna just step back here and I think that there's one way to view this, which is that they couldn't they had all these different characters who could have killed her, who threatened her, but they chose this kind of regressive character of this violent homosexual. Now, mentioned Richard Gere, who at various points in the week threatens her. But why does he threaten her? Because he wants her to be available to him whenever he wants to have sex with her. And she doesn't want that. In fact, the speech where she says, I'm my own girl, get this through your two heads, she says, which is you know, because the one that actually, you know, defines you. I belong to me, and I'm not gonna do what you want me to do. Again, I felt that was a very powerful scene, which she basically says to this man who is violent and who threatens her and who she is sexually attracted to, that I will choose when I have sex with you, and I will choose what I will do with you, and you're not gonna make that decision for me. Because it's actually one of the more powerful scenes as far as her expressing her autonomy in the movie.
SPEAKER_01So I first of all, let me give a shout-out to Tom Berenger. Um, he plays a homosexual, and in the middle of the movie, we see him in the bar, and there's a very full-on lusty kiss between two men. That is not something you saw in 1977 in a lot of movies, and I thought it was again a daring choice by the character. But then the movie really, I think, descends into the worst forms of stereotyping of that decade that I was just making me swear in my seat. And I'm not a scrubbing my seat kind of a guy. So I was just, you know, so if I was made uncomfortable by the portrayal, I think that that that that is notable. But I do want to get to our disagreement about, although maybe we're not disagreeing about this bit, about the muddled part of the movie. You had mentioned the book. I'm one of those who doesn't believe in comparing books to movies, uh, as John Le Care once said, you know, when he participated in these things, he said, you know, it's like watching your prized cattle being made into a bullion cube. I mean, this is the deal you've made. You have the book, you sell the property, and they do with it what they will, and those are two very different things. But one of the things that source material can tell us is the choices that the filmmakers are making, because when they deviate from the book, I don't think it's a crime against the book or anything, but it tells you what they're trying to do. And I have not read the book, but I looked into it a little bit, and I don't think the I think the killer is more the Richard Gere type character in the book. I don't think we have this Dewey Machina of a yet a third kind of person who enters the story very late to be the murderer. And so that's a choice they made. They avoided having Gere be the killer. The other obvious choice. Or James. Or James, the voice of the thing. Who does it?
SPEAKER_00Who, by the way, does who gets violent and does sort of threaten her.
SPEAKER_01Those are your two plausible killers for the movie to come to some closure about what it's trying to say. In my view, if it was Gier, then the movie is saying this is the price you pay for free sexuality. And if it was Atherton, or then then the movie is saying, look, the patriarchy will not let you be free, they will kill you. But if it's kind of late entry random person, I'm not I think it's a little more muddled, and I think it's uh uncomfor discomforting that that it would reach for that it's not just a homosexual, it's the self-loathing homosexual. And he go, he he he picks her up in the bar or she picks him up, I forget which one, uh, because he's at a moment in which he feels the need to prove his own masculinity. I mean, the and the self-loathing and the the anxiety about masculinity and all of these things, it just really struck me as very lazy uh for its time. But also, that's a separate complaint from the movie then not having the courage of its convictions. I think the movie would have had the courage of its convictions if it was Gere or Atherton who was the murderer, and then the movie would have been closing on on the closing on the sale, as my mother would say. And choosing one of those would have told us what the movie's point of view was. Having the killer come out of left field as a very minor character who wasn't there all along, I d I I I'm gonna use the word disapprove. I disapprove of having the murderer in my movie come out of nowhere as a minor character.
SPEAKER_00So I I I take all of your criticisms, I think are fair about the this sort of villainous homosexual who comes in and kills her at the end of the movie. Uh, but I view this as his character as kind of like the progression of men who she encounters. Okay, so as I said this before, all the men in the movie are trying to impose upon her their views of what a woman should be, but also what they want her to be. Okay, so the the professor uh wants her to go away and shut up once he's done with her. He says that actually in very clear terms. He doesn't want her to be independent. He wants her sexual awakening as far as it services his needs, which is to basically sleep with a young co-ed. And by the way, there's a scene later in the movie where she sees him at a bar, which I think is a completely fantasy scene, where he's now divorced and she kind of rejects him. And I think it's a fantasy scene of him of her rejecting that person that she was who fell for this professor early in the film. So the next person is Gear, who wants Tony, by Richard Gere, who wants her to be available to him, whenever she he wants it. And she doesn't want that. And as I mentioned earlier, she says to him, I'm my own girl. I think one of the the predicates to that is that she she makes dinner for him, thinking he's gonna come over, and he stands her up. And she's obviously very annoyed about that. And I think it also relates to her experience with the professor. She's not gonna be at the mercy of an of a man as she was with this professor. The third man is James, played with William Atherton, who is maybe the most annoying character in the film. He wants her to be a good Catholic girl. He wants her, he he is he is at some point says to her when she talks about being sexual, how to be using drugs, like, that's not you. That's not who you are. Like, no, you don't know me at all, actually. She doesn't she he he he imagines her as something, as this good Catholic girl, and she's not that person. And so he she he would make a good boyfriend, I suppose, but she's not interested in what he is selling. And at some point in the movie, he tries to trick her to have sex now. They don't have sex for like all these dates, and she comments about the fact that they that he never tries to kiss her. And then he makes up this story about his his uh father killing his mother, uh, by the way, in a way that, you know, in a manner that is completely foreshadowing of what happens during the end when she's killed by Tom Berenger. And then that right after that, they have sex with her. Like it's like he says this because she he thinks that she'll feel sorry for him, and then she'll have sex with him, which seems to work. But it's not just even them. I mean, there's a scene where she picks up this older man, she brings him back to her apartment, and I can't tell if it's fantasy or if it's real, but in the scene, he says to her, like, oh, you're not, you don't have really large, you have small breasts. Like he kind of criticizes her for not having or not criticizes her, but kind of mocks her for having small breasts. Like again, he wants her to have large breasts. He doesn't, he doesn't who she is is unimportant. He wants, you know, big bazoongas. That's what he's looking for. I mean, it's again, it's all men trying to impose their sexual hangups, their views of women on her. Even like the guy, there's another scene where she meets up with this man and she has sex in a hotel room. He's watching a porno the whole time. I mean, again, like it's not even about her, it's about what this guy wants. And then so put it's all of this to get to Berenger, the homosexual villain at the end. And I feel like he wants her to make him feel less guilty about being gay, which he clearly feels unguilt about. Or he wants to rape her because the only way that he can get off of the woman. It to me, it's like a logical progression of all of these characters that she encounters who keeps trying to impose upon her. And I take your point that her choices become become worse, but I could also make the case that her clarity in what she wants is also clear. Like she says to Adam, I don't want what you what you're selling me. I don't want this kind of relationship. You you think I want romance. I don't want romance, I want to be seduced, right? So I do think that she is becoming more and more clear on what it is that she wants. And as she gets clear on that point, it's what leads to her death.
SPEAKER_01At least that's how I read it. So I think again, we I think we fully agree on the men down the line. We agree that the men are awful. So there's no there's no problem there. And by the way, I want to just put on the table that Atherson's story about his parents, uh, I want to leave space for the possibility that that was a true story and that he recants it because he had kind of been humiliated by her, and so he's kind of say kind of saving some face as he walks out the door.
SPEAKER_00Oh, by humiliating her.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So, because that would have I don't know if that I don't know if I buy that, but I want to leave I want to entertain that as one possible way of of reading that that exchange. But what it boils down to, and I also I also love the fact that she tells men what she wants and kicks them out of the apartment. I mean, kicking them out of the apartment, you cannot spend the night, you know, which is such a stereotypically masculinist perspective, but you know, she doesn't want them there, that's fantastic. That's you know, that's the the clearest expression of her asserting her sexual and emotional autonomy from these men. Yes, but but the big question is what is the movie telling us about the necessary consequences to pursuing that kind of lifestyle or not?
SPEAKER_00Well, let me let me interject one thing here, because to your to th this this thing about her evolution, there is a scene early in the movie where she gets this apartment that her sister basically gives to her, and she is lying in bed and she takes the pillow that is next to her, she puts it between her legs, which I sort of read as a metaphor that she is missing having a man in her life. It's a way of saying there's something that is unfulfilled for her is as she begins this this single journey in in New York, whatever city she's in. But near the end of the film, there's a wonderful scene where she's alone in the in her apartment and she lights uh a joint and she's smoking it, and she is seems at peace and seems serene. And I view this very much as her evolution as a character from somebody who is the beginning of the movie, feels like she needs a man or needs something else in her life or cannot be alone or or is still sort of searching for what it is that she wants. And by the end of the film, she's figured out exactly what she wants. She wants to be her on her own.
SPEAKER_01So I read the pillow scene differently. I just thought it was uh a masturbation scene. And again, I thought it was a real ballsy out there thing because female masturbation in 77 or before was kind of a taboo subject. And I thought it was supposed to be that, and I thought it was supposed to be an expression of the fact that she had a rather robust kind of sexual appetite, and so that's what she was pursuing at that particular moment. And it was the kind of scene that a female actor in the 1970s would be extremely reluctant to perform. And so I'm sitting there saying, wow, you know, she's really going out there. Boy, I love that kind of thing when an actor takes chances like that. And so I appreciated it, but I didn't read it as as something missing. I just I did read it as a masturbation scene. But I agree with you.
SPEAKER_00See, but what how is it a masturbation? She puts a pillow between her legs. That's an odd I uh it's I mean, I just to me it's like the other pillow is the man, could be to metaphorically a man, and she wants that, she misses that man. I mean, I'm between her legs, whatever. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to say there. That's why she puts it there. That's how I see it. I it's funny. I thought that initially too, but I'm like, that's a weird kind of way to masturbate if you're a man or a woman to put a pillow between your legs. It just doesn't take a lot of sense. I I take your point that it could be read that way, but but can but okay, let me think a different way. She comes across as very lonely in that scene.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And contrasts it with the scenes at the end where she's in her apartment by herself. Doesn't feel lonely at all. She feels at peace and comfortable.
SPEAKER_01I really think a lot of this, and this may be where kind of Brooks' age comes in, turns a bit on the drugs, and which is why I think it makes the movie a little muddled. I mean, pot smoking Diane Keaton seems really at peace with the world. She's in her apartment, she's smoking pot, she's chilling out, she's living her life, she, you know, has this autonomy. But kind of coke-sniffing, you know, Diane Keaton is really, I think, just spiraling completely out of control. And this could be perhaps Brooks' age 68 kind of kind of checking in there a little bit for us. I mean, it's really her first time is accidental, and then before you know it, she's, you know, she's out there uh buying it from the bad guy in Live and Let Die. Uh that's right.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Um by the way, wasn't he also in Taking a Pellet 123?
SPEAKER_01Yes, Inspector Daniels in Picking Pellet. That's Andrew Daniels, yeah, exactly. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Uh uh, a very notable guy. He has a really good face. Uh it looks like that.
SPEAKER_00Great voice, too. Great voice.
SPEAKER_01It's a nice character actor for that, for that sort of thing. But I do think I do think she spirals out of control. And again, this really wants this really gets back to the thing I must know, which is yes, men are the men in this movie are, you know, portrayed, it's very appealing just how despicable they are. Um and yes, she has a lot of autonomy, and it's really I really appreciated the way in which she expressed it, especially in the middle third of the movie. But what is the movie saying about her pursuit of that independent lifestyle? And if you're murdered at the end, then the you know, there it you have to leave open the door that the movie is saying you're being punished uh for what you've done. Uh it doesn't have to be that interpreting it that way, but it is, you know, you you talk about the importance of beginnings in movies, which I share enormously. Uh, you know, endings are, you know, endings matter too, right? This is what the movie is about, and this is where the movie ends. So that is the closure of the story.
SPEAKER_00Well, let me give you a different interpretation of that because you know, it is interesting. You you're right, there is a spiraling that kind of happens. Her choices seem to get worse, right? You have this imagine situation where she is uh basically acting as a prostitute, right? Sleeping with men who are paying her money. But you could but then by the end of the film, she is you know really standing her ground with Richard Gere, and he wants to come in, and she says, No, you're not. Going to come in, right? This is my apartment. This is I, you know, I am who I am. I'm a woman. You're not going to come in here. I could see this some ways for beginning to spiral, but by the end of the movie, beginning to come to some sort of um appreciation, understanding of what she is she wants. And you could contrast this, by the way, with the drugs that she uses, right? Cocaine is a drug that maybe would cause you to make worse decisions. By the end of the movie, and by the way, there's a scene where she throws away all of her drugs, so she thinks she's going to get busted, and she's just smoking pot. And so you could contrast this with a character who is using coke and making terrible things with men, somebody who is smoking pot and is like laying down her boundaries of what is she willing to accept, not accept. Of course, this is where the muddled part gets in. Then why does she take Tom Barrett home with her? Now, one thing that's interesting about that scene is that he act she actually turns to him because she wants him to protect her, oddly enough. Protect her from Atherton, who is uh well, James, who is followed her into a bar. And if you were to be believed, and again, this could be fantasy, this could be real, he is basically stalking her for like a good part of the movie after he re after she rejects him. Um, and so maybe that's the mistake that she makes, is that she decides, I I all this entire movie, she's expressed her independence, she said, I don't need a man to protect me, I need a man for this. She suddenly says, I need a man to protect me at this moment, and that of course man ends up killing her. I guess you could read it that way as well. I I mean I think this gets to your point that there's a little bit there's a that Brooks is not one of a lot of choices in this film. So he throws a lot of stuff against the wall to see what sticks. And I think you are you do make a fair point that it would have made more sense in the movie for Gear or for actually really for James to kill her rather than this random person that she picks up. It does, it does feel a little bit like where's this come from? And by the way, one thing also about that scene, it's very strange, is that the entire movie is seen through her perspective, except for the scene right before she picks him up, where you see it, you see him with his gay lover, uh Tom Barringer lover, and the perspective on the movie changes. And that is a very interesting choice that is made, and one that I don't think works. The scene is very stereotypical, and it's almost as if you're suddenly taking this movie away from being about Teresa Dunn to being about this guy, very briefly, and it's Behringer, and it's not quite clear why. I do want to mention one thing though. What is Behringer's character name? This is fascinating. It's not mentioned in the movie. It is, I looked it up, Gary Cooper White, which I guess you could read Gary Cooper as a like, this is a guy who is destroyed by the patriarchy's vision of what a man should be. You know, the strong, solid Gary Cooper type, right? We talk about the Sopranos, right? With the last name of White, like he's this white guy who like he can't live up to this idea of what a man should be, and that's why he kills Sergea at the end.
SPEAKER_01So this is really fascinating. You've seen this movie more often, more times than I have, and I just want to double check. So that's the only scene that takes place in which she's not present. I think that is correct, but I I don't remember it as vividly as I do. But if so, then I think that that matters, and I also think, again, you know, Brooks is getting on my nerves here because that's just a gratuitous gay bashing scene. And what happens is there's this kind of gay bashing, and then Tom Berenger freaks out and and his own self-loathing kind of comes to the surface, and there are some really lame, very stereotypical elements of their relationship between him and his lover that come out, and then he dashes off. And so I do not think that is in the book, and again, it's not because I'm not saying be true to the book, I'm saying so the director put that into the narrative of his own accord. And so again, I'm kind of I'm kind of picking on Brooks here a little bit in terms of the charm making.
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure it's the only scene that's that's not that doesn't have her in it. I have to think about this for a second. It's definitely the only scene told from somebody else's perspective. Um, I think that's the difference, right? She's she's not this is basically trying to sort of do backstory backstory on Behringer's character, which again feels a bit forced. I remember when I watched it, I was sort of confused by what was happening with that scene. It didn't, I did I had to go back and rewatch it twice, and I'm like, why I saw Behringer earlier in the movie making out another man in a gay bar, but you don't and but she's in that scene, if I remember correctly.
SPEAKER_01I think she's in that she's she goes to a lot of clubs.
SPEAKER_00Right, she's in that bar. Um so it's a very it's a bit of a shift by presenting it from his perspective. Um and I think it's the only way is sort of maybe explain his hang up, explain what his issues. I mean, he's he is he is humiliated, uh embarrassed about being gay. And and she says at one point, like, you know, like you need to you don't need to prove something, or she mocks him to prove something, and that's when he loses it on her. Because this idea that she wants him to, I don't know, validate him and she, you know, or validate him as a as a as a heterosexual man, and and she can't do that because he can't do it. He can't the reason, by the way, they're having sex, they stop, is because he can't perform. He's not able to get you know aroused. Um, except for what it's worth, at the end scene when he rapes her. Um he rapes her at the end, and that's when he kills her. Now, the rape scene is by the way, this is a horrific scene. I have to say, like I I watched this a couple times just to sort of understand what's happening, and it turned off. It was so unpleasant to watch. It's a terrible scene because they use this sort of strobe light to capture her as she's being raped, and then it shows her face and sort of getting further and further away from the camera until it disappears. But one thing I noticed when I'm watching is that she seems to say to him, do it, do it. Now in the book, apparently she says do it, do it. She wants him to kill her. But she says, Dankeen says, do it, do it, as if she is enjoying the sex that they're having. Now, I maybe I read that incorrectly, but that's at least how it came across.
SPEAKER_01It is there for you, and it gets back to the question of you know, the is there an element of the thrill of the danger? I I mean it's again, this is very risky, it's very transgressive. I like risky and transgressive, but you have to entertain that possibility. Let me do a double reverse on you here. I thought that the rape scene was deftly handled. I thought that the strobe light interfered with your ability to bear too much witness to the violence. And so in that sense, it was I mean, it's a stretch to call it tasteful, but nevertheless, it it allows you not to linger on the gratuitousness of what the violence would have been if the room was better lit. The strobe light really blocks you from from getting too caught up in the in the brutality of the violence. And so I I thought that was actually restrained and effective. I just wanted her to be murdered or not by somebody else.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I think that's fair. I mean, look, I think that is a fair criticism that you're you're making that the the braver choice would have been to have her killed by somebody that she would that by character that we is not introduced and late into the third act of the movie. Um but I don't know that it doesn't work. I I don't I think it I think it actually makes sense in some respects for as an indictment of men, as an indictment of men's vision or understanding, or not understanding, vision of and stereotypical views of women. And so I that's how I viewed this movie. And again, I mean I think that from that perspective, it makes a lot of sense that the person who kills her is somebody who is so conflicted about his sexuality because he believes that he should not be gay and believes he should be a heterosexual man and should be like Gary Cooper, like the strong silent type who is a strong man who stands up uh and protects his woman. I think that that is it makes I think it it it makes sense, even if it is is a bit muddled in the telling in the movie.
SPEAKER_01Sure, but let me let me pose a question to you. You're often posing questions to me, I'll I'll toss one at you. I mean, uh one could describe this movie as you know, an appreciation of the Keaton characters kind of feminism and sexual liber liberation and autonomy, but there also is kind of women woman asserts her sexual freedom, woman engages in increasingly unstable behavior that reflects increasingly poor choices, woman is ultimately put in risky and riskier situations, woman is ultimately murdered. I mean, what are what is my take home?
SPEAKER_00Uh uh your take home is that, you know, women should probably get married and have kids like her like her younger sister, and they shouldn't be going out there and sleeping with lots of men. That's definitely one takeaway. I mean, I think that was my initial takeaway. Um, but I think there's a deeper takeaway from this movie as well, which is that women who want to be, who want to uh have the same kind of freedom that men have to have risky sexual relations like Tony, Richard Gere's character does, um, they can't do that. They can't get away with that because ultimately men will stop them or or will punish them for wanting to live outside of the norms that that uh exist in society.
SPEAKER_01So you can lock that in by having James be the killer. I mean, I agree that's I agree.
SPEAKER_00I agree. But I think it's um yes, I think that's fair.
SPEAKER_01And then it really works because then it's the the the patriarchy saying, you may not do this, and we will stop you from doing this.
SPEAKER_00But I guess the way that I yes, I think that's right. I mean, again, I go back to what I said earlier, and I hadn't thought of this until we start talking about it. That I do think you could really look at her evolution in the movie as somebody who could sort of when she movie begins, she's this very young, insecure, inexperienced virgin college student who is basically seduced by her professor. And she takes away from this experience, she's scarred by it, but her takeaway from this is sort of interesting, it's that I I am not going to rely on a man anymore. And you kind of see how that evolves throughout the movie, and she makes she makes some risky choices, uses lots of cocaine, you know, gets involved with men she shouldn't get involved with. But by the end of the movie, you know, and again, I go back to the scene with with both with William Affinity and Richard Gere. In both cases, she lays down a marker and says, like, you know, you're not says to William Atherton, James, you're not who I want. You're not what I that that's not you what you want is not what I want. You think I want romance. I don't want romance. What she says to to Tony, who is a violent person, who threatens her with a knife in the movie, she says, I am my own girl. I am not yours. Yes. And so you could argue that like the third act of the movie, she really does sort of lay down these lines and says, this is who I am, what I want to be. And I can, again, I go back to the scene with her sort of inner apartment alone, smoking pot. She seems comfortable in her own skin. Um, and I guess, again, I think it, I think you can make a case that that's who she is, and then she ends up getting killed by this man who represents like sort of the twisting of the patriarchy. I mean, one thing away to, by the way, to read this movie is that all the men in the movie are as damaged by this sort of image of the patriarchal, you know, uh or traditional women, male-female relationships as the women are, right? They're all hurt by it. James Athminton's character is hurt by it. He shouldn't want to be with her. She doesn't want to be with him. This is not this is not the right person for her, right? Like you're not gonna you're not gonna change her. You're not gonna be the per this perfect like Catholic wife that you want. And, you know, even to to Berenger's character, like, you know, you can the way you can be a homosexual, you can be gay if you want to, but the patriarchy won't let him, and that sense of shame is what causes him to act out the way that he does. Uh maybe I'm maybe I'm giving too much credit to Brooks and to the movie, but I do think there's an interpretation of the film that actually makes where the ending makes sense, and the ending is a logical progression of where the film has gone for the previous the two hours preceding it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I do want to stress there's a lot to admire in this movie. I already mentioned the performances and I already mentioned the cinematography. You have mentioned several times that there are fantasy sequences in the movie. Uh one of our standard disagreements is is in defining them. I think that the fantasy sequences are very well defined, that you know when you're in a fantasy and when you're out of one. So I I was not struggling to interpret was this real or was this not real. But I I thought all of the fantasy sequences worked really well. And I thought they were clever in that the first one you don't know that it's a fantasy, but once you've given once you're given the first fantasy and she comes out of it, then two or three more fantasies down the road, you're you're able to say, and this is the filmmakers kind of taking you by the hand and helping you, that, you know, oh, this this this is probably one of those projections. And so the really cool one at the end with her the exposure of her lifestyle. And that's an element of them the movie we haven't really talked about, which is and this is pro-female autonomy, which is for the 1970s or coming out of the 1960s, the idea that the good woman wouldn't have this sort of voracious sexual appetite. And so the movie kind of plays with that dichotomy because you're a do-gooder school teacher type in in her own life in the movie, because of Brooks, I think, dwells on that more than it has to. But then the no the very notion that a good woman would have that kind of appetite was was also supposed to be saying something, I think, very productive uh in the in the movie.
SPEAKER_00Oh, there's something very pedantic uh or even condescending about the way that that he you know talks, shows her in the school where she's this incredibly generous and giving teacher. Yeah. And then contrasts it with who she is when she's alone. I mean, I this is like a Madonna Whore thing, a little bit, right? I mean, uh and I I it is a little overdone, in my opinion. It's also sort of funny to me that the only redeeming male character in the film is played by LeVar Burton, black man who's who's who's, I guess it's his sister, who's one of the students at the um at the uh uh school where she teaches. And he defends her at one point as Richard Gere. And I I couldn't figure out if like he is the one redeeming character because he doesn't want to sleep with her, or because this is sort of like liberal dugism on the part of Brooks when I went into presenting the black man as the as the only redeeming character in the movie. There's something that feels a little bit I mean, it I wasn't trying to read that, but it is sort of ironic that like you know he's the only good person in the entire film.
SPEAKER_01I suspect it was not in the source material, and therefore I suspect that Brooks is just interjecting this this little this little socially progressive lecture uh on Lamar Burton's character.
SPEAKER_00That's how I read it too. Um I look, I think, you know, I I think there's a lot. I look I think this is a film that is open to a lot of interpretations, and I think one of the things that we just want to talk about it was that I think it's sort of an interesting movie that you can really just look at different very different ways. I mean, I think you listen to our conversation here, lots of different ways to read this. I think the fantasy sequences, first of all, are great, and they tell a lot about her sort of inner turmoil, if you will. I mean, the first fantasy sequence is her getting basically run over by this professor, which which I read as a way like she's trying to win him back, like she's trying to, you know, get him to like, you know, feel sorry for her, get him to want to be with her again. And, you know, you're very far from that sequence by the end of the movie. Like she's very far from who that person is in the beginning of the movie. But I do think there are lots of scenes in the movie that are open to interpretation as to whether they actually happen or not. I do think the scene where she imagines Girl picking her up the first time, I don't think it really happens. I think the scene where she sees the professor in the bar and he tells her he's divorced, I don't think happens at all. I think she completely imagines it. I think it's her way of getting some kind of come-uppance on this person who had hurt her, at least or had used her in the beginning of the film. Um, but I want to give that as a as a as a way to pivot talking about Diane Keaton in this movie because that's really why we chose this movie. Yes. I think she is fantastic in this film. And I, you know, love her in Annie Hall. I loved her in Manhattan and all the love and death. This is for me at least the best thing I ever saw her do. I I think she is amazing. And one thing that's interesting about her, you talked about uh actors going against the grain. In some ways, she is Annie Hall. She's the same person, she is as engaging, she is as uh cheerful as that character is, but there's this like sort of different edge to her because she's more sexually aware and sexually uh uh uh uh free. Um but I don't feel like this is a huge shift from who she is, it's just that she is taking on material that is very different from I think what we associate with Diane Keaton.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I mean, but the thing I love about it is that it is a very daring choice. It is a a role embraced by someone who either wants to cultivate the image they've established or who wants to be loved by the audience. And so those are you know two things that I really appreciate. And then if you look at this movie in sequence, right, you've got Annie Hall and then this movie, you know, right on top of that. Then don't overlook the next two Woody Allen films, right? Interiors in Manhattan, or that trip from Annie Hall, Interiors in Manhattan. These, if you want to talk about the range of Keaton as an actor, those are three very different performances. Absolutely. Gets a little bit outside of our period, but you know, then she goes on from there to Reds, which is a a beloved performance. Uh, you know, people have mixed feelings about the movie, but her performance in that movie is just outstanding. And so, you know, she really was an impressive actor, and the I think in many instances, the ease of her performances has allowed some people to overlook the the strengths of her work. And I want to give a little shout out once again to uh a later film, uh a late Woody, or mid-career Woody at this point, 1993's Manhattan Murder Mystery, in which she's a play role. It's a I love that movie too. I think it's underappreciated, but her work in that movie is is just outstanding. And again, we talked about how comedy is harder to do than drama, and her her comedic timing in that film is is is quite impressive. And you know, so uh it's it's you know bittersweet, but it's great to have the opportunity to celebrate the work in her in her career.
SPEAKER_00So one thing, so uh the thing about Diane Keaton, I'll say, I I think she is a brilliant comedic actress. I think she's one of the best comedic actresses of the last sort of five decades or so. I mean I think about I mentioned Love and Death. I think she is phenomenal in that movie. I think she is I think she is in some ways better than Woody Allen in that movie. She is just she nails the comedy. Um she's great in bananas, uh sleepers. She's in bananas. No, she's not in bananas. Is she bananas? No, no. Play it against the sleeper. Play it against Sam, that's right. Sleeper. She's wonderful in Sleeper. I mean, look, Manhattan, I I love that movie. And I think she's so good. She plays such a jerk in that movie, and she's great.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, but that's that's great. It's not the same character. There were so many actors who kind of play versions of the same character. That is not Annie Hall.
SPEAKER_00And I'm gonna give a shout out to a movie that's sort of random, but I think I know a lot of women love this movie, and a lot of I mean, I saw it as a kid, was Baby Boom, which is a really fun, sort of mid-80s kind of movie, but she is wonderful in that film. There's a great it's a great scene where where like her house is falling apart and she's yelling at the guy who she's like, I haven't had sex in like two months. It's a wonderful sort of comedic moment. She's a great comedic actress. But I think what this movie shows is that she her acting shops ran way deeper than just being a great comedic actress. Like she can really nail drama, she can nail characters that have a lot of nuance and complexity to them. You know, I this isn't her best performance, but of course she's in both of the Godfather movies when she was young, right? I think in the first one, it's I don't think it's the strongest performance. I think the second one, the scene where she and Pacino, uh, where she tells him that she's leaving him and that she had an abortion. I look, I'm just gonna put it out there, I think one of the best acted scenes I've ever seen. I think Pacino is so good in that in that particular moment. I everything about that scene, go watch it on YouTube if you haven't seen it. It's the way that he has this like coiled up anger, the way that he just represses, you can see the repression of his anger and then it comes out. It's just a fantastic scene. But she goes toe-to-toe with him. And you see what what her acting chops. But if you go back and look at the 70s movies, they're all mostly comedies. She mostly was a comedic actress. And I think even like movies that came later, I didn't I've never seen Father of the Bride. People love that movie. I have not seen it either. I've not seen it. Supposedly, she's very good in that as well. I mean, she's she's has a you know reputation as a comedy actress, but I think what this movie shows is just it's is how broad her talents were. And you know, if she won the Oscar this year in '77 for Annie Hall, I would have given it to her for this performance. I mean, looking at Mr. Goodbar. I think she's better in this in this performance.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and uh so while we're celebrating her career, I I think you made the observation about the Godfather films that is very notable. She's just fine in the first Godfather. Yeah. She's so much more mature as a performer, I think. Just two years later, though, that's kind of fascinating. Uh absolutely characterizations there. It could just be that the role was much more richly written, perhaps, in the second Godfather. I think so. Uh I haven't seen this film, but I have heard a lot of praise for, I think it's called The Good Mother, which I believe was directed by Mr. Leonard Des Moy. Uh and uh my understanding is her performance in that film as well is is quite outstanding, and it's also a dramatic role. So just to call attention to the the the breadth uh of her uh of her career and the various types of roles she took in it.
SPEAKER_00No, I you know I love the point you just made. Uh the the the you're right about Godfather one, Godfather two, it's such a different and and meatier performance in two versus one. And part of that, again, I think it's you're right, it's it's how the role is. Written. But I mean, there the scene where she had where she goes to visit her kids and she sees Michael and she says to Anthony, like, give your mother a hug. I mean, it is heart-wrenching the scene. And I I think she is wonderful in this movie in that movie. And what I but I would just wanted to say though, again, you go back and look at her 70s movies, she made almost all comedies except for the Godfather films. And I just think I give a such a shout out to an actor, any actor, who was willing to go against type in such a dramatic way. And then she's not a well- I mean, look, I know she won the Oscar for Andy Hall, but she was not a top-tier actress at this point in the way that she would become, I think, after Andy Hall, after the movie, after Manhattan. And she just absolutely nails this performance, but also has a lot of courage to take this kind of performance on. This is a risky role. Not an easy role for a while. Actually, the 70s. Like now it might seem like it's not this risky, but then hugely risky role.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And if she had people, I don't know if people had people back then, but if she had people, they would have strongly discouraged her from taking this role. And you know, I think you're right. That's what I admire about it.
SPEAKER_00I yeah, I I just think it's I think you know, we we we we we we did this in part to to remember Stan Keaton as a as an actress. And I think, you know, she's a good, she's a look, her she was making movies, you know, last few years before she before she passed away. She has a a pretty rich filmography, but I think a lot of people associate her with with as a as a 70s actress. And I I think that, you know, if you look at like just look at her performances in this decade, this movie, you look at Annie Hall, you look at Manhattan, I think Love and Death, you look at Godfather 2. I mean, her resume as a 70s actress is as good as anybody. Uh, I mean it's it's a pretty it's pretty damn impressive. And again, I think you see the range of her abilities, and it says a lot about her. Again, I I have a lot of respect for her for taking on this role, and I think I think she she nails it. I really think she I think she is the best thing in this movie. I think we can agree on that at least.
SPEAKER_01Yes, definitely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, this is again, I think we have different views in this movie, but I think she absolutely um she kills it. So I don't know, is there anything else we need to hit on? I think we've got to hit the main points you wanted to talk about today. Um, I I think this is a movie I cannot, I highly recommend watching this movie. I think even though we told you what's gonna happen in the end, it doesn't really ruin it. Again, in the book, it did tell you in the beginning of the book. And I think, you know, it it's it's it's not hard when you read about this movie to figure out what's gonna happen in the other movie. I think it's it's worth watching. And I think how you interpret this film, uh there's no right or wrong answer. I think one thing we've talked about a lot is you can you can view them any way you want to view these movies. But I think this movie is really rich in that gives you lots of different ways that you can assess it. And like I said, you you and I don't agree on this movie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but there are good reasons to watch it. I mean, I didn't I I have a longer list of complaints, then we're not gonna rehearse them here. But as you said, the family life is not really well portrayed and the characters kind of stop to give rather annoying speeches. But again, what do you have? You have this outstanding central performance, and if you're an admirer of Keaton's, this is just a must-see. I also think that the several of the men give uh really gutsy performances as well. And you know, to close where I opened, I want to give a big shout out to Mr. William Fraker. I sent you a screenshot uh of this beautiful shot on the street with the taxi, and there was some neon lights that are reflected in a puddle in the sidewalk, you know, this kind of night-for-night shooting in the film. It's just, you know, he he had me with that shot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this film is beautifully shot. I understand why I got nominated for Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Did not win, uh, but it was a wonderfully shot movie. And there's, you know, a lot of a lot of the a lot of film shot via a lot of scenes shot via candlelight uh with low lighting, um, a lot of sh interior shots in in in bars and so forth that are really well done. Um there's a lot about something to love. And I I will say this too, by the way, it's from somebody who who I was alive when this movie came out, but I have no memory of it. It is really funny to sort of think about some of the stuff in this movie, like singles bars, right? That was a big they don't really exist anymore. Um, you know, like the disco thing. That was, you know, it's well portrayed in this movie. The music in this movie is great, by the way, which is one of the things one of the reasons it did you it's been hard to find for years on on streaming platforms because of the music. Uh it came out, I think, yeah, permissions. It came out a couple of years ago, it got a re-release on Blu-ray. I mean, I actually ended up watching it, uh, a rip on YouTube, which is not really the best way to watch a movie like this. I would like to I should watch it again. Uh, you know, maybe I don't have a DVD player, maybe I should get one and I should buy or buy a Blu-ray player and watch it some Blu-ray.
SPEAKER_01Protect digital media.
SPEAKER_00Uh you're right, I should. I should. I I almost never I know, I know, I know. I don't ever I don't ever do this, but we don't make any money off of this podcast. And so, you know, spending money on giving giving Jeff Bezos my $4 to watch a movie feels sort of regressive. And I just I don't know. This is my rebellious element. Uh anyway, I think we've kind of hit we've kind of done everything we need to do with looking for Mr. Good Bar. Uh this is a good movie. You should check it out. Dan Keaton, great actress, rest in peace. Uh she's wonderful in the movie, check it out. And uh let's know what you think. I we I think all both of us are curious for your takes on this. If you agree with us, if you view it differently, if you have a more negative take on it than I do, a more positive take uh than Jonathan does, we want to hear it. So come and tell us. Leave us a review, send us a note, uh, tell us what you think. And um, if you know you send us a note, we'll read it on next next week on the episode. Uh so that's it for this week, and we'll be back uh next week with a new movie. I'm not sure what we're gonna do yet. Maybe a Diane Keaton movie, probably not. Uh maybe a William Athlington movie, probably not. We'll see. We'll figure it out. Anyway, thanks a lot, everybody, and we will see you next week. Bye bye.