That 70s Movie Podcast
A look back at the films that defined cinema's greatest era - the 1970s!
That 70s Movie Podcast
Klute
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This week on That '70s Movie Podcast, Jonathan and Michael press play for the 1971 psychological thriller, "Klute."
We loved everything about this movie -- from Jane Fonda's unflinching portrayal of Bree Daniels, a Manhattan call girl caught up in a murder investigation led by Detective John Klute (played by Donald Sutherland), to Alan J. Pakula's inspired direction and Gordon Willis's magnificent cinematography. We discussed whether Klute is a feminist movie or if it's even much of a thriller. But overall, we had nothing but praise for a film that is truly a landmark of the New Hollywood cinema of the 1970s.
So grab yourself a nice ripe peach, leave your inhibitions at the door, and join us for the latest episode of That '70s Movie Podcast!
I think the only way that you was going to ever be happy is to do it all. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Welcome everybody to the latest edition of That 70s movie podcast. I'm your host, Michael A. Cohen, joined by my co-host, Jonathan Kirschner. Jonathan, how are you doing today? As usual these days, I'm hanging in there. Aren't we all? Yep. All right, so we have a lot to talk about today. We got some interesting comments, not as many as I would have hoped on our last movie, Days of Heaven, and also talking about Robert Duvall. But I want to just highlight one comment we got because I really did enjoy it from Spencer Steele, who is a big fan of the show. And also, also, I should say he's a he's a fellow Detroit sports fan, so we we like Spencer a lot. And he said, the reason you don't understand the greatness of Malik is because it doesn't exist. I like those kind of sentences. Very declarative, not really messing around there. He said he makes beautiful films that cause some critics to confuse that with being great films and liking them as a virtue signal that you're a serious film enthusiast. Midnight Run is ten times better than anything Malik ever did. I'm not going to go ten times. I can't really judge that, but I will say, and I know Jonathan will back me up here, Midnight Run is a phenomenal movie. Huge fan of Midnight Run.
SPEAKER_00Underappreciated film.
SPEAKER_02Underappreciated, a tour de force. I love that movie so much. Maybe someday we should talk about it because it's it kind of has a little bit of a 70s feel, maybe. I don't know. Well actually, who cares? The podcast police going to arrest us? We want to do it. It's our podcast. No, I love that movie. So thank you, Spencer, for that comment. We got a few other comments from people too on the on Spotify. One person actually said the other, like uh Paul Cunningham, who's a seems a big, big fan, um, often comments, said, I um love the great Santini. Okay. We disagree. That's fine. No worries. He also said that he loves Ungolden Pond. So that kind of invalidates you know his view about Green Santini, obviously. Nevertheless, I'm joking. I'm joking.
SPEAKER_00I often appreciate his interventions. It's nice that we were able to give him a shout-out today.
SPEAKER_02No, Paul is great. I'm a big fan of Paul's comments. They're often fantastic. Uh we had another person, uh, James, who said, I like Days of Heaven, however, it's pretty flawed. Agreed. I'm with you on Badlands, not really a fan of it. Also agreed. So there we go. Nice job. We still would like some more comments from people about Malik. If you have strong views about Terrence Malik, one way or the other. We still want to hear them. Bring them on. Um we also got a nice comment from, I think it was a friend of yours, Jonathan, who suggested that we actually do need to do Star Wars.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So we are still debating it. I really do think we should do Star Wars. I think, you know, the idea here is that this is a movie that has been discussed over and over again, but I think it's kind of fun to look at it from like a 70s New Hollywood perspective to sort of talk about its impact on the new Hollywood, which I would hardly say is positive. Um and just in general, just to have a little fun. We had fun towering inferno. We could do Star Wars too, I think. Exactly. So let me ask you, Jonathan, have you seen anything good recently?
SPEAKER_00Well, good's a tricky word. Uh I was watching I was watching this uh mini-series that came out a couple of years ago, uh, Andy Warhol Doc, in six parts, which is maybe more parts than they needed, but it has been holding attention. And I learned things I didn't know, including a couple of years in which he collaborated extensively with the New York artist uh Boscriat. And so following that rabbit hole, I watched just recently the 1996, I think, Boscriot Biopic, which has a really nice cast, including a term by David Bowie as Warhol. Uh but I the movie did not really move me. Uh I I felt I I felt uh disappointed by it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Sorry to hear that. I've heard good things of that movie. So that's the same thing. Yes, all the cool kids like that movie. That's why I was really looking forward to seeing it, because I ha I realized I had never watched it, and so it seemed like a great follow-up to the to the Doc. Yeah, well, um I don't know.
SPEAKER_02So I should watch The Doc and not the film, what you're saying to me. Yes, although The Doc, again, takes more minutes than it really needs. Than it probably needs. Yeah. So I want to mention three things uh really quick. I I started watching a show on Netflix called The Beast in Me, which I actually rather enjoyed, at least the first episode. It stars Matthew Reeves, who I loved in The Americans. That's a great show. Did you ever watch that show, Jonathan? I did not. Or have you? Oh I I would say if you're talking about like, you know, sort of uh peak television of like the last like 10 or 15 years, that is in the conversation for one of the best shows, Tassin, 15 years. Really, really great show, uh.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02I don't disagree with you. There's too much content. Not everyone can watch all of it. There's too much TV content. But I think what is important is that the couple years ago there was less content, and there were like a lot of really good shows, and Americans was one of those shows. So I recommend it. Also, I uh we a girlfriend and I watched Destiny Show, which I haven't seen in a long time. Boy, that's a great movie. Really enjoyed it. I'm reminded again of what a loss it was that Catherine O'Hara passed away and is no longer with us. Well, she's so fun in that movie. But I do want to mention one movie I saw that is nominated for an Oscar. Uh, it is a Spanish film. It is called Surrat. I just want to say I fucking hated that movie. I mean, really hated it. And I want to just mention this because it is of a genre that I'm guessing you're not a huge fan of. I would call this kind of like it's like Michael Haneke to me is the most obvious exemplar of his kind of cinema, which is kind of like shock, uh like really gory, uh um uh difficult images to see that are meant to stun an audience and shock. The one Haneke film that I really love is Cache, which does a little bit of that, but is still a really I think a really great movie. This movie is a movie about one thing for about half of it, and then it becomes, with the shocking death, a movie about something completely different. And I it is a movie that I thought, as a lot of these movies that I mentioned earlier, these kind of shock films, uh they confuse spectacle with storytelling. Um, and I just found this movie to be incredibly distasteful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen the movie, but you have to earn that sort of stuff. And so only you can judge in this particular instance you have uh whether whether the movie earned that turn or not. I think in Cachet, the incident you're talking about, I think it works in the film, although I'm usually a little cautious about that kind of sudden burst of violence, but but I did think it was effective in that moment. And i it is a a fine line to walk, and and Haneke has has walked on both sides of that line, I think.
SPEAKER_02You know, I actually went on Letterboxd just to look at the reviews of it, and it was really, really funny to me because half of the reviews were like, this is a masterpiece, this is the best film I've ever seen, and half of them were like, this is a steaming pile of shit. Like it really was like one or the other. And I, of course, fall into the steaming pile of shit category because I really hated it. Uh but it was uh it was interesting to see people really loved it. But I it it's gotten a lot of good reviews. It got nominated for an Oscar uh for best film. I hope it doesn't win, doesn't deserve to win. I mean, it's just an accident, it is a superior film as a secret agent. Um as is no other choice, but I don't think actually he was nominated for uh in the best foreign film category. Anyway, enough about that crap. Let's talk about a movie we love. Love. Klute, 1971. What's it about? Klute is a neo-noir psychological thriller directed by Alan J. Pacula. We have this is the third Alan J. Pacula film, by the way, that we have discussed on this podcast. Uh it follows detective John Klute as he travels to New York City to investigate the disappearance of his best friend, Tom Gruman, who is I'm sorry, Tom Gruneman, who is linked to a call girl played by Jane Fonda named Bree Daniels. And as Klute digs further into the investigation, he begins a relationship with Daniels and realizes that she might be a target of a killer, perhaps the same person who killed Tom Gruneman. Or maybe it is Tom Gruneman. That's the mystery. Anyway, that's what it's about. It uh stars Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Siafi, hopefully that's how he pronounced his name, um, and a young Roy Scheider in one of his first roles. It's written by the brothers, Andy Lewis and Dave Lewis. I believe the only screenplay they ever had done into a movie, interestingly enough. Cinematography is by the Prince of Darkness himself, Gordon Willis, edited by Carl Lerner, music by Michael Small. It was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Traditional Screenplay and Best Actress, with Fonda winning that award. It is number 70 on the IndiaWire list of the hundred rareest movies of the 1970s. It is not on the BFI or AFI list of top movies. And that brings us to the point that uh everyone looks forward to. I still need to work on the music thing, though, Jonathan. I may uh that's that's really my goal to have some music when I introduce this part of the podcast. But here we go. Jonathan Klute. Is this a good movie?
SPEAKER_00Is this a bad movie, or is this a great movie? This is unambiguously a great movie. It is more than a great movie. It is another New Hollywood landmark. And I feel like I say that often. But the problem with the new Hollywood is that there are so many landmarks, it's almost fluttering the skyline. It's like walking around Manhattan. I don't think most people appreciate the fact that you can rarely walk five blocks in Manhattan without seeing a landmarked building, and deservedly so. And I recommend that you be more attentive to that on your next stroll through the city. And like uh interwar uh and post-war New York City, the new Hollywood is just dotted with these landmarked films, and Clute is among them.
SPEAKER_02I could not agree with you more. I love this movie. This is a fantastic movie. It's interesting you call it a New 70s landmark. I mean, I of course agree with you, but in some ways, it is not really at pace with the aesthetic of New Hollywood filmmaking that we've discussed often on this podcast, right? It is somewhat morally ambiguous, but I wouldn't call that a big theme of the movie. It is very uh plot-driven, uh, in some ways, more so than most films we've done. And I wouldn't really call it bleak. I'd say the ending, depending how you interpret it, could be a happy ending. So why is this movie such a landmark of 70s filmmaking, Jonathan?
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, this is good for the podcast. It's because I think I disagree with everything you just said. Oh my God, wow, I love it. Bring it on. Okay. I think, as we'll discuss, I think it is steeped in a fascinating uh element of moral ambiguity. It's also, even though it's beautifully shot, it, you know, as you mentioned, Mr. Gordon Willis is behind the camera there, and it's steeped in that kind of 70s darkness, but also that 70s location shooting. But also, Plot, I mean, Plot Schmott. I mean, this movie does not care about poor Tom Gruneman, Klute's best friend, and he's missing. And the movie could not, could not give a rat's ass about him whatsoever. This movie's not true. This movie is a character study of Bree Daniels and nothing else. And I will invoke the true master here, Claude Chabrol, in which he said, because I think this is a very Chabrollian film. He said, I love to work in the suspense genre, because if you're making a suspense film, you have the goodwill of the audience because they're going to be interested in what happens in the story. But you don't care about the story. You can then do whatever you want once you've got them hooked on the suspense thing. And this movie is doing what it wants, and what it wants to do is explore the character of Bree Daniels. It's rare in even in the 70s film to have a character study of this depth and intensity. This is entirely uh a movie about this character, and it is just brilliant. And the brilliance of it is that you don't realize this because you think you're not you personally, but I mean the audience thinks they're watching, you know, some some silly mystery movie. And and a giveaway is, of course, f less about a third of the way in. They tell you who the bad guy is. They tell you the bad guy is because they don't care. Because it's a he's tipping his hat. He's saying, you may think this is a mystery story, but it's not.
SPEAKER_02So that's a fair point. I I'm gonna push back a little bit and say that you're absolutely right. This is a character study. I mean, that is first and foremost what this movie I think does. This movie tells the story of Bree Daniels, and it is a fascinating story. And it is a story that I don't think we would have expected to get in 1967 or 66, right? I mean, years earlier, this would not have been a story that I think we would have expected to see. Sure. I do kind of say a little bit that I think the plot of the movie, you're right, plotschmott, I'll give you this. But it is at least a compelling, let's say, uh drape for the movie that sort of keeps you interested. But you're right, you do find out who the bad guy is. But the question then becomes will the bad guy win? Will the bad guy be able to get away with what they've done? Will the bad guy be found out? That's kind of where that sort of plot of the story comes in. But you know, uh it's a fair point. It's not as plot-driven as, say, other movies that we've seen.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's an effective suspensor, but I I'm sticking with my story. The the actual plot is irrelevant. The the mystery of this movie is about whether Bree Daniels, Jane Fonda's character, will tame the demons inside herself.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell I mean, uh yes and no. It certainly there is an element of that, but the whole last, you know, 15 minutes of the film is also will she survive to do what you just said? And that is actually a big part of the story, a big part of the movie. The idea that she is being followed, the idea that there is somebody who's trying to kill her, this is a I mean, a through line for this entire movie, right? The a lot of the movie is presented in a way as her being under surveillance, as her being watched. Yeah. So I do think that there is two, I think there's I look, it's a character study, but I think it's a little bit richer than that, I guess I would say.
SPEAKER_00I guess I'm biased because having seen this movie, oh, I'm gonna say 62 times, you know, after Time One, I know she lives. So I don't really have to fret about that, the the following 61 views.
SPEAKER_02But I you know, your your initial point brings me to a point that I really wanted to get into here, which is that this movie really is about Bree Daniels, played by Jane Fonda. And yet the title is not Bree, not Daniels, but Klute. It is named for the character John Clute, played by Donald Sutherland, who is Tom Grunman's best friend. They live in a small town in Pennsylvania. He comes to New York to investigate. And the movie is it's his name.
SPEAKER_00So I guess my question for you, why is this movie called Clute? That's a great question. And let me just put a marker down that we're gonna have to come back, as obviously we will, and talk about Fonda's role in this movie, not just in her performance, but also in the way in which she shaped some of the material as a very powerful presence uh on set and went full De Niro into the role. I mean, it's it's her film. It's not just Bree Daniels' film, it's Jane Fonda's film, and yet it's called Klute. And so why is this movie called Clute is a question that's been kicked around in a number of ways for decades. Uh initially there was kind of a kind of feminist backlash, oh, they named it after the man. Um I don't really have a problem with that. I think Klute is a good name for a movie. I mean, the alternative would possibly be Brie, uh, which is just a weaker sounding title. That's good. So they did, you know, name the movie, you know, Clute, and he is he is not the character that the movie is most interested in, although he is an interesting fellow in his own rights. But I want to add a a bit of a heterodox interpretation to this because I know the backstory. The backstory is they were sitting around saying, well, you know, what should we call it? And they said, Brie, the people think it's about cheese or something. But and so they kind of I do think Klute is a short, powerful firm name, and and I think it's fine that they went with it. Uh a little self-promotion here. Next year I'll have a co-edited volume uh coming out on the 70s film, yet yet another one. And we're thrilled to have uh uh the film historian David Thompson with us. And you know what the title of his chapter is? It is the question you just raised. The title of his chapter is Why is this movie called Klute? Uh and his heterodox answer is that actually the movie is about Klute, and he has this very off-beat theory that I don't fully agree with, but I like the fact that he articulated it, that Klute is essentially the nerd voyeur, that he watches Bree, that he follows Bree, that he, and this is not trivial, gets to see Brie naked, he gets to sleep with her, and he talks, Thompson is very interested in spectatorship in general, and he talks about how so much of movie going is people going to the theater to look and even ogle at beautiful people that they will never have access to. And so he says it's called Klute in his mind, because Klute is, and this is not uh complimentary to the audience, is almost a substitute for the audience's kind of lusts and desires and baser instincts and their desire for watching and spectatorship and voyeurism. And so this phrase he came up with that I love the nerd voyeur, uh, to speak to a certain type of person who goes to the movies to to look at the beautiful people on screen. And so he says it's called Clute because that's what it's but that's what this movie is really about. I don't I don't agree with him, but I love the way he made this argument in this forthcoming volume.
SPEAKER_02Well, I look forward to reading that. Now, one thing I thought I had, and I'm not sure this relates to the title, but I think you could probably shoehorn it in, is that his character's name is actually John Clute. And the men who Bree Daniels sleeps with are, the last term often used, are Johns. John Clute is not a John. That's actually one of the big points of the movie, that he is not a John. He is a Clute. He is somebody with a personality, somebody who she engages with on a much more uh let's say robust emotional level than she does with her Johns. So to my mind a little bit, like the Klute name, it's telling, because it's sort of telling not just who he is, but also who she is responding to and who she is engaged with, not engaged to be married, but engaged with in the movie. I don't know that's that's what the intention was, but uh you know, that's sort of my take on it.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell I think all of these theories we can run way too far with, but I think you've raised a super important point, uh, which is Clute is not a John, but that's the only way she can understand him for the first half of this movie. And Exactly. That journey, but uh I don't want to be a broken record here, is really what the movie is about. Right. But let's let's just step back a second.
SPEAKER_02I want to so the movie does start with Klute, right? We begin the movie with this dinner, um I think it's a Thanksgiving dinner. We see a bunch of people sitting around, right? We see Tom Grunerman on one side, we see his wife on the other side, but they have a knowing glance at each other, they seem to be in love. And the next shot after this scene is an empty chair where Tom Gruneman had been sitting. And we discover that Tom Gruneman has disappeared. And we see Clute, played by Tom Shaudlin, in a police uh uniform. He's a cop, and they are and there's another detective who is who is interrogating Doug Gruneman's wife about what could have happened to him. And in this conversation, they bring up the fact that he wrote a letter to a prostitute named Ree Daniels. It's a rather graphic letter. I mean in uh uh as described at the time, they almost won't don't want to show it to her because it's so distasteful the things that are written in this letter. So that's how it opens. We owe so we open by seeing Clute. He is sort of we we think he's the key protagonist. But it is the next scene where we meet Jane Fonda where we see that she actually is the protagonist.
SPEAKER_00Wait, once again, you're doing too many things at the same time. So let's let me pause and just give a shout out to the No, no, no, you know you're right.
SPEAKER_02I'm sorry, before I get into Fonda, you're right. Talk about that scene with the opening scene. It's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Please I just think it's such beautiful cinematic storytelling. It's a tiny piece of business. But you have the crowded room, the party, and you have Gruneman sitting in this chair, and then you cut to the empty chair, and there you're told what's motivating the story. That chair is empty. Gruneman is missing. It's just is you know, it's all we're asking for is visual storytelling. And and that is just, you know, forget about let's go back to days of heaven. Forget about all the beauty and the vistas and the gorgeous shots. Tell me a story. And it was and it was done in a with a quick cut and it's a beautiful little shot.
SPEAKER_02No, and I couldn't agree with you more. The b the I love the contrast of this crowded scene where you have dialogue overlapping and people, you know, everyone talking and having a good time, and it's it's a it's a communal sort of setting, and it immediately cuts to a scene of isolation. Yes. Right? This the scene of with the empty chair. And it is, I agree with you, it is brilliantly done. An another example, by the way, I uh we can talk we're talking a lot about this film. We're gonna praise a lot of people in this film. But before we get too deep into it, let's just say a word about Alan J. Pool. Okay. Sure. This is a man who who directed uh I don't know, maybe fifteen films in his career or something like that. Um but he did uh Uh from 1951 to 76, he did four films. Three of them were Klute, uh The Parallax View, and All the President's Men. Stone Cold Classics. All shot by Gordon Willis, right? All shot by Gordon Willis.
SPEAKER_00The Paranoid Trilogy. Yes. Right.
SPEAKER_02The Paranoid Trilogy. Now I have some issues with Parallax View, but it's a great movie. All the President's Men, one of the best. And Clute, also phenomenal. This was, by the way, his second movie that he ever did. Okay. The first one was called The Sterile Cuckoo. Yeah. And actually, uh I don't know if you if you know you know this, that um the lead in that, Elizabethan Nelly, was nominated for uh Best Actress for that uh that performance in that movie. Um so the I mean I think these all three of these are fantastic films. He also, by the way, did Sophie's Choice, which I'd never seen and probably won't because I can't handle the subject matter. Right. And a movie I actually kind of enjoyed called The Velican Brief. He did 1993 with um Denzel Washington, Julie Robertson. Not a bad film, not a great film. The rest of his career is not as anywhere near as strong as these three films. But again, this was the second film that he did. He was previously a producer. He actually produced, among other things, To Kill a Mockingbird, which he referenced last week with Robert Duvall. So he had some experience in the film world, but had not directed until uh he did this film. And I think uh, you know, uh the choices that he makes in this film, the way this film is shot, the fact that he uses Gordon Willis, um, is just phenomenal. But it's also what makes him great, and this will be a pivot to to Jane Fonda, is he gives his actors and actresses a pretty wide berth. Right? We we uh he lets them sort of take the lead a little bit on he's not an o an auteur in the sense that he demands things have to be the way he wants to do them, or he has a certain vision. He he seems like somebody who's very collaborative in his filmmaking. Yes. I was struck by listening to something made the point that when All the Presidents men is not not not um Bill's Alan J. Pakula film, it's Bill's Alan J. Pacula Robert Redford film, because the two of them did work very closely to bring to bring this to the screen. So on this film, he is, I think, collaborating with Jane Fonda, and it produces a performance that I think you and I would agree is one of the best performances by an actress of the 70s.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and let's let's share a lighter note here. You know, Fonda really screw herself into this performance, and she was a little uncertain about it. She was emerging into her very serious, radical feminist phase, and so there was some discussion among her friends as to whether she could even portray a prostitute, but they decided the part was just so special that it was worth pursuing. But she struggled with it mightily. She investigated the part, she did lots of interviews, and at one point she had a crisis of confidence and made one of the greatest 70s cinema jokes ever made. And so she didn't mean to be mean about this, but it's just so funny that she said, I can't do it, I can't do it, get Faye Dunaway, which is one of the greatest Faye Dunaway jokes ever to hold. And I'm a huge fan of Faye Dunaways, but when you think about what she's saying there, it's just it's just to me, it always tickled my funny bone.
SPEAKER_02Trevor Burrus, Jr.: She's Henry Fonda's daughter, of Henry Fonda, a legend in in in Hollywood. Um she had made a number of films before this movie, and she had I mean a pretty extensive maybe a dozen films, including uh Barefoot in the Park, I think probably one of the most famous ones she did, uh, and Cat Baloo, uh, which talked about with the uh the Lee Marvin episode and point blank. And also she did um Barbarella. Yes. Which she wro which she did with her first husband, Roger Vadim, French filmmaker, in which this is a very kind of I don't know, silly science fiction movie. It's not a serious movie, right? And I don't know that people thought of Fonda as she's a very good thing.
SPEAKER_00She plays a sex kitten from outer space. So you know exactly it's a very it's a real transition in in her career.
SPEAKER_02Right. But this movie is uh is a much more serious performance. One, as you said, she really went she jumped into with both feet. Uh she spent a lot of time talking to prostitutes, talking to madams, spending time with them, understanding them. Um and she, as I said, she had a real influence in how this film was made. One one thing that, for example, just stands out is that in the film she is seen talking to her therapist on several occasions. Uh initially, the the therapist that had been cast was a man, and Fonda said, no, this has to be woman, she's not gonna open up to a man. And Pakula was like, Yeah, you're right, good point, let's do that. And so he, as I said, like let her have a lot of pretty wide birth and how she did this role. Can I want to talk all about her performance a lot because I think she is phenomenal. But can we just get into the opening of the movie? Because that really tells us so much about her character.
SPEAKER_00Yes, but the opening is the there in between the family Gruneman scene and the opening you want to talk about is the is the title sequence, I believe, if I'm remembering this correctly. Correct. And we f and they play the recording of her voice at work. And that is also telling us something very important about what this movie is about, because that recording and the active recording comes up over and over again. So it's Grunerman recording, and then we get into the in being introduced more properly to Bree Daniel Stefan's character. So these are there are almost three steps of introduction here, and I think it's extraordinarily.
SPEAKER_02Actually, you know, you're right. It's a great point. It does and I think once again, going back to praise of cooler, it it these three beats, right, Gruneman household, we we find this, as you said, lovely piece of work telling us a story about what's happened to Tom Grunerman. You see the surveillance over the title cards, which tells us that that is going to be a key theme of this movie, and then you're introduced to her. And what you're introduced to her is this casting call for models that is just a brutal scene in which these casting directors it's great. Wait, also just again, the way it is shot, where the camera shows each of the models as these casting directors are walking past them. You don't see the casting directors, you see the sort of parts of their bodies, but you see behind them the models, including Jane Fonday, and they are basically dissecting each of these models. And in and I would not say in a positive way, right? They are very brutal in how they are discussing these models. Um and it's, I would say, kind of a humiliating moment for Jane Fonda and for all the women who are in this scene.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and it's crucial. I mean, it it in retrospect it becomes a little obvious, but uh initially I find it quite beautiful. First of all, it's widescreen, so you have all these women lined up, and they are all asked to do degrading things. Show your hands, lift your head, do these things. And they are there, all these women uh selling their bodies for money. Uh but it's it's a legitimate business enterprise. A legitimate seller. Yes, and then you know the movie is saying, you know, what are you approving of and disapproving of here? Because Fonda, after that humiliating experience, goes rushing off to the telephone to get a to get a quick commuter, uh, a gig, and and sh and as she talks about with her therapist, and her therapist is pretty tough with her. She says, you know, you're successful as a as a hooker, you're not successful as an actor, right? And so what's the difference? Which is, I think, one of the key themes of the movie.
SPEAKER_02Her response is that she is an actress and she thinks she's the back best actress in the world when she is working as a prostitute.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell Yes, but she also you says this line, you know, when you're when you're a hooker, you control it. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Uh so that's interesting. So what I thought I thought it was very telling that after this scene in which she's rejected, uh humiliated, her first thought is to go pick up the phone, call um not her pimp, I guess call as a woman she took, she called to ask if they have somebody commute or somebody she can she can do a quick trick with and get some money. Yeah. Now one way you can interpret that scene is that she needs she didn't get the job, so she needs some money. The way I looked at it was that she's been humiliated and she's she has she has no control over the situation. So hooking allows her to control the situation.
SPEAKER_00I think that's right, but but both are probably true. You know, cash comes in handy as well. But yeah, she races she erases from that that failed audition to the phone. I mean, it's right.
SPEAKER_02Uh but I really did see it as like this was she needed to her ego demanded that she do this. Yes. And then you get this incredible scene where she goes to the uh hotel room of this John, who is from Chicago, and she, for lack of better term, upsells him. Yeah. Uh she offers him fifty dollars and we can do, you know, this and that. But then if you only want to get to have a real party, we can do for a hundred, and he whispers in her ear, and she says, That's great, and and they do it. And there's an amazing moment, of course, in the scene where they are having sex and she is screaming and yelling, oh, this is the best thing that's ever happened. Then you suddenly see her look at her watch, and you know that she's all an act.
SPEAKER_00Yes, but also there's as she describes it later, you know, she's she talks about how the Johns that they're usually nervous, but she's not because she knows exactly what she's doing. And then she has a uh another line later on in which she says that you lead them where they think they want to go. You know, and again, and I think she then says literally, and you control it. And so she has she has such power and autonomy in that in that setting. Although she then kind of talks with her therapist about how there there are limits to that satisfaction as well.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02I mean, she says that she has she never really enjoys it physically. Right. It's it's all about the psychological enjoyment that she gets from it. Because as she said, like that one hour I'm the best actress in the world, I can convince these men to do what I want them to do, or or I can or I can t convince them what they that what they want is what I want, which is also to pay me more money. Um and I guess something that's interesting is that I don't the movie you from that perspective, you could almost see it as glamorizing what she does for a living, but I don't think this movie glamorizes it at all. I'm curious for your your particular take on that.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell I think this movie does a spectacular job of not glamorizing the prostitution. I think that's a good thing. And I think the way it does it most viscerally is that so over the course of the investigation, again, Clute comes to New York, he's trying to find his poor friend Tom Gruneman, and she's the last link that that he can find about her. And he sticks with her longer than he has to, something that we're gonna, I think, talk about in our in our conversation today. But in the course of that investigation, they need to track down two other women that she that were essentially her co-workers. And so they slow and one of them has fallen on very hard times. And there's a one of them died, one of them says, yeah, junkie. And so sh they she works her way, to put it crudely, slowly down the food chain of kind of the prostitution scene in New York City, from a relatively high-class joint to a relatively okay joint to some really, really seeding and disgusting uh outfits. And so we see the real, dark and ugly side, the brutal side, the painful side uh of this industry. And I think that the movie doesn't flinch from that. And there are two scenes in particular, one uh in which she has to go to a morgue and kind of flip through a bunch of photos of of women who had been murdered. I mean, that's that's pretty hardcore stuff. I mean, this is I I don't think anybody can walk away from this movie and say it glamorizes um prostitution. On the other hand, I don't think it it moralizes either, which is which is two very different things. Uh but you know, compare it to, say, the the moral obscenity of the movie Pretty Woman, uh, and and you can see a real contrast there in the treatment of sex work, which is uh this film non-judgmental, but but takes a long, hard, honest look at the darkest side of this work.
SPEAKER_02You know, uh and I'll g I'm gonna make some one other point that that brings this up. You know, there she at some point she joins forces of clue to investigate um this so Grunerman basically had written her this letter. Or had she we conclude she he he may have had uh an interaction with her, but she does not remember. She says he had a John, tried to beat her up. She can't remember if it was Grunerman. It turns out it wasn't Gruniman, it was somebody else. But as it becomes clear through the film, someone is following her and someone is surveilling her. And so she and Clubes were work together to try to figure this out. We'll get back to that in a second, but I want to bring up this really quick point. In the scope of that investigation, they meet this junkie who it's a very sad scene. Yeah. Uh, and they end up unf uh unwittingly scaring away their drug connection, which leaves the the j uh the woman, the the junkie prostitute and her boyfriend destitute. And so they leave this clue scene, Clute and and Brie, and she leaves the car. She runs, she went they're driving away, she runs out of the car, she is clearly affected by it. And the next thing we see of her is at this club where she sees her her um her pimp played by Roy Scheider. Her former pimp. And her former pimp. But you see Frank is his name. But you see her in a place where she has clearly been using drugs, or she's something has happened to her. Yes. She goes into this club, she begins making out randomly with somebody, she crawls up with Frank, and you see so what's interesting to me about that was that the early parts of the films sort of show her it it kind of a little bit of glamorization, right? They show her when she goes to meet this John, she's in control of the situation, she she's the one who decides what she wants. She's, you know, sh she's I I don't want to say a liberated woman, but she's someone who seems to be making her own choices. Yes, right. After that, you see her go home to her apartment, and she doesn't seem like this in this awful place. But in that scene, you understand that the line between where she is in the beginning of the film and where she could be is of it's a very thin line indeed. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And that that scene is doing so much, and I'm I feel like I'm almost like an open fire hydrant here, just bursting with stuff to say about this movie. But that's, you know, Roy Scheiders a small role, he has three scenes, but he has a real charisma. And the first scene is when he has a very calm conversation with Klute, throws out the beautiful 1970s New York City line: listen, I could stand better with the cops than you do, which is probably accurate. Um he says in that conversation, I don't go after a girl. They come to me. And so that really tips the hand of when she freaks out, when she panics later on in the movie, he he's vindicated in that claim. She does go rushing to him for safety, and then you you get the sense she's sort of drugged out in some way, and you see him and you see her, and they exchange kind of glares or you know, Klute's kind of disbelief or dismay. It's very subtle at that point. But it also is a payoff again later on in the movie, in which Bree is processing this with her shrink, and she talks about all of the unflattering ways in which Klute has seen her, and and includes uh a reference to that scene, and as she processes her challenge in understanding their relationship. So once again, my goodness, there is just so much going on in these little tiny moments where there's just gobs and gobs of of character information being given to us efficiently. And I do, you know, it's a good chance for us to give this little hat tip to Scheid. It's a very small role, three scenes, and it's early in his career, but but hi I think his charisma really shines through. I agree.
SPEAKER_02And I but I just think that scene particular, where she goes to the bar and she and she's you know, she's uh hanging out with Frank is is one of the more imp powerful scenes in the movie. Because it really does how do you put this? It uh there is an element to her where she is trying to present uh to herself and to the world this notion that she is in control. Yes. Right, and she's does this to the therapist, I'm in control, right, with when she's tricking. Yes. And you realize that that, and again, this is great visual storytelling. You realize from this scene, she's one or two steps away from being like the woman who is the junkie or the woman who later ends up dead. Like you you un that's that's your point about it not glamorizing prostitution. That scene, more than to me, any other scene in the movie, does that. It also tells you a really important story about what is really happening inside of Breed Daniel's head. She's trying to tell you through the therapist, and she has a narrative, and there's truth to it, obviously, but you see the disturbing reality in that scene. It's brilliant filmmaking. And so it makes this movie so good. Um, but let's head back a second because when we uh it's the interaction between her and Clute that is of mo of greatest interest, of course. He goes to her to Klute, she um Clute goes to her, he tries to talk to her about the the case, um, she's initially dismissive of it, but she lets him in in a sense, like lets him in. I mean that in the sort of metaphorical sense, but also like literally lets him into her apartment. And you see Klute as this very stolid, unemotional character. Slash annoying Boy Scout to some extent. Yeah, 100%. He's totally annoying Boy Scout. And by the way, he plays that annoying Boy Scout for much of the film until a very pivotal scene near the end when he when you see the non-boy scout. Um but in the pro the scope of these of this of these conversations is we um they're in her apartment and he says to her, There's somebody on your roof. Yes. Right? Am I jumping ahead too much here?
SPEAKER_00No, no, no. This is but there's a lot you're you know, in that scene, she's trying to manipulate him. Yeah, yeah. And talk about that. And and you know, he she uses a lot of the tricks we see her already have using with that previous John as she pivots to that because she realizes that she ha that he has taped some of her conversations, and she is anxious that it could be used against her legally because she's been kind of knocked around a bit, not physically by the cops, because they were trying to shake some information loose from her. She was in jail literally. Yeah. In the early parts of the movie that we don't have access to visually, but they tell us that they kind of shook her down to try and see if she would tell them anything, and she had nothing to say. So she's trying to use her wiles to convince Clute, you know, hey, quick roll in the hay with me, we'll trade that for the tapes. And she uses all her all the tricks of her trade that we see, which he is impervious to, but then he takes her physically and guides her toward the bed, and she thinks he's kind of rolling over, but he says, you know, quietly to her, sit down on the bed. There's someone on the roof. And it's a really pretty shot where we see her hands clenching, I think, the back, his lower back or something, is her kind of emotional reaction to it. It's just all such nicely done. And then he goes off, and and that kind of starts to forge the reality of their relationship, in which it's not just that she's going to be able to, you know, turn a trick and get the tapes. And she also is aware that there is a present danger in her life, that it's not really something that she's been imagining. You know, she lives uptown in New York City in 1971. It's, you know, you can imagine a lot's going on. And so she kind of wrote off a lot of these things to that, but now she realizes, no, there's a possibility I'm in real danger here.
SPEAKER_02By the way, that apartment is fantastic in this movie. And I my understanding is that she actually lived in the apartment during the making of the film. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.: Yes, the real Folder Nero. Right, exactly. Right, exactly. Um But that scene is interesting on a number of levels because you're right, you do see the the the dance between her and Sutherland of him her trying to manipulate him and him trying not to be manipulated by her. But the plot gets in the way here, right? Because the guy on the roof tries to track it down. And it is in this moment that we actually discover who is stalking her, that someone is stalking her, and likely the person is who killed Tom Grunerman. And it is a guy named Charles Cable. We see him in the beginning of the movie because he lives in the same town that Grunerman and Klute lived in. Gruneman and Cable worked at a chemical company. Yes. And this is a one I love the way this is done because it's a really suspenseful moment where Clute goes up to the roof, he tries to follow uh where he thinks this person on the roof has gone to. He sees this open door, and very briefly Bakula shows who is behind the open door, and it is Cable. Yeah. He is hiding. And as it turns out that Sutlin gets distracted by these kids who are smoking pot, and he ends up hanging out seeing them, and he doesn't he misses Cable altogether. And but of course, we see in the next scene Cable listening to these phone calls that he had recorded with Danny. And that's when you know that he is, in fact, the bad guy here.
SPEAKER_00But I think it's that same tape, by the way, the same and the rap she gives about how great it is to let go of one's intentions. And this beautiful shot. You know, but in the background there is the World Trade Center under construction that you have that nice kind of vertical, you know, vertiginousness uh going on there as well. It's it's all so beautiful.
SPEAKER_02And they show cable throughout the movie, they show him in this office, often just looking out the window. And this wonderful shot of looking out the window, from they show it from obviously from another building across the way, and then the camera pans down to the ground. I mean, it is a which by the way is a nice little bit of foreshadowing what happens at the end of the movie. We'll get that later. But it is uh I just love the fact that in this moment the Bakula just reveals to the audience this and it's only for a second. You only see a cable for a second, but you can tell it's him. That he's Although not long after, as you say, it's it's totally unambiguous. Right. It's it's there's no ambiguity after that point. So I I that's where sort of the plot gets a little bit in the way of the character development. But we have to talk as we talk about the manipulation between uh Bree Daniels and Clute, we have to talk about the scene where they see together for the first time because that is a crucial also scene in the movie. Before I get to that, let's be clear Klute is living in an apartment in the basement. Of Bree Daniels' building. So he is taping her phone calls and he is living there. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And it's got some shots. It's got her mugshot on the wall. Got her mugshot on the wall. It's a very small apartment. It's got a little cot with a trundle bed underneath it.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus So let's talk a little bit more about this before we get into that scene that I desperately want to talk about because Sutherland's Klute says to her, he gives her her tapes and he says, your part of the case is done. And then before you know it, he is kind of reconnected with her. He is. The next scene. The next scene is her at a rehearsal and he is watching her. Again, that's about the third time we see her trying to get a job in the business, either acting or modeling. Pakula wants us to take her talent seriously, but she struggles in the straight world to get work. But we see Sutherland watching her, and this is where the movie gets a little weird because I understand that Cable is a psychotic murderer, and I understand that Klute is a Boy Scout, but there are some fascinating parallels in their attitude toward Bree. They both kind of stalk her. They both record her conversations. They both are fascinated with her. They both are drawn toward her in an almost kind of organic way. And we see Sutherland following her, watching her. There's that scene that I know you're very fond of when she sees the old man in the garment district and she kind of performs a striptease for him. And it's very early in the film, but Klute observes this. And in the apartment, he mentions that to her, and she is absolutely furious that he watched that, and he said, You watched that, and she kind of defended the man and the act, and she says this key phrase which is true in the movie, which is goddamn hypocrite squares. And it really, again, has to do with the behavior of so-called legitimate actors, and and and cable, you know, is the is is a is a high up in this corporation. Right. And the behavior of of Bree Daniels and her cohort and and the idea that just under the surface of civility are these are these uh less attractive behaviors. Yes, be honest about that. Yes, perverts. And she really so and as Pacula said in interviews, you know, Donald gave the impression of obsession at times. And I think that's absolutely correct. And and and a beautiful part of this movie. We have and you know, if you want to get simplistic, Klute and Cable are two kind of five-letter names that start with the quesa. Uh they're they're they're they're they're they're each manifestations of something, and I think it gets us towards the struggle going on within the Bree Daniels character more than anything.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think it's also interesting that so uh the night that he um he sees the man on the roof, he stays in the apartment, she sleeps, and he sits in a chair. That scene is recreated later in the film, after they slept together. Yes. And what's interesting about it is that to me, metaphorically, she has brought she has invited him in here. She's let him come in, but she's kept a distance between her and him. He is, like Cable, uh observing her, staring at her the entire time. And the breakthrough comes when she he stands up and goes to her and she lets him in, and that's when they begin to have this real relationship, right? That's the point when it happens. I mean, to me it's all sort of metaphoric.
SPEAKER_00Not yet sexual.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The the second time it happens.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah because I thought you wanted to get into that scene, which is the scene which is perhaps the pivotal scene in the movie. Well, I'm gonna get to that in a second.
SPEAKER_02That but what I just described, where she he's across the room and she basically he comes to her and she lets him in. That is after they slept together for the first time. Got it. The first time they sleep together, it is, how shall we say, perfunctory. Uh and one would argue, one could argue, that she manipulates him.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about. I want to know how you're interpreting this scene. All right. So here's what happens, sports fans. We're with her in her apartment, and we do hear a noise. And then she comes downstairs to his little basement apartment. So that's an interesting thing to show us because we we do have reason to believe she's sincere when she comes at the door uh and says, you know, I was a little afraid, I don't I uh uh I don't want to be alone. And he says, Well, I can come back upstairs. And so she then she says something a little fishier, says, No, I'd rather stay down here. And then they have a little tete as to who will sleep where, and he pulls out the trundle bed, and they both go to sleep. Uh and then at her initiation, uh they have sex. And then after they have sex, there's a lot of interesting one-shots. Her, him, her, him. She is looking extremely satisfied in the first shot. He is sitting on the edge of his bed looking. I'll give you the word bereft, actually.
SPEAKER_02I would say, I would say confused, unsure of what to make of what just happened.
SPEAKER_00But then she but then the then the look on her face turns, she hardens, and then she she lays down some real hammer blows.
SPEAKER_02Um, don't feel bad about that. You did a great job, Tiger. You were great. Like what you would think a prostitute would say to a John.
SPEAKER_00No, no, but she says, uh are you upset that you didn't make me come? Right. Then she never come with a John. That's right. She does say that exactly. Yes. Then she gets up at the end of the and walks to the door. She's very confident and she says, I always knew you'd lose your virtue. You know, they always do. And then just out the door. Okay, here's my question to you. And I I I think this is an open question. So I'm we're just in discussing it to get into the right answer. What was that always the plan? There are I think there's there's two ways to interpret this. One is that she goes down there to do this because she wants to do this and she wants to assert her dominance over him and she wants to humiliate him, and I think that that's very plausible and it holds up. My interpretation, I think, is a minority view, and it has to do with the shot, shot, shot thing. I think when you see the first shot of her after they have sex and she has a very satisfied look on her face, I believe that's a genuine look of satisfaction. And then we cut to him, and he is, if anything, overwhelmed with regret. And I think that this triggers in her the aggression and the hostility and the defensive mechanism, and then she gets up and she cuts him down and she leaves. Uh, that's just a different series of motivations in the two versions of what might have happened there. I think my view is a minority view, but I liked I I'm curious to know what you think. Was did she go down there in advance planning this, or was there something that happened along the way that changed the way in which her disposition uh uh unfolded?
SPEAKER_02I think there are three things that happen here. I think she went down there with the intention of sleeping with him as a form of dominance. That's the first thing. The second thing is the crucial shot, the tell shot, right? I shouldn't use that expression, but the tell. Sorry, is when they're having sex and they show her on her back and she is uh seems to be enjoying herself. Right. Which is uh directly mirrors the scene in the opening of the film where she's with the John and she is enjoying herself and it checks her watch. It doesn't check her watch in this scene, but the way that I read it, and I again this is just my interpretation. I mean, I only saw it a couple twice, so maybe if I say it 16 more times, a little different view of it. Exactly. I felt that she in the process of having sex with Sutherland, she felt a connection to him. This was she was not a John. She felt something different with him and it scared her. Yes. And she decides at that moment. I use the exam the analogy of Peyton Manning. Work with me here. Oh, Peyton Manning, very famously, was a a quarterback in in the NFL who gets a line of scrimmage, look at the defense, and call a different play. Call an audible. I think she calls an audible. I think she she feels she feels that this was emotional. This wasn't a John. She feels vulnerable. So she decides that I need to cut him down to avoid him developing an emotional connection to me, but also me developing emotional connection to him. So she does what she says to him is really humiliating. Yes. Right? She compares him to a John, as you said. She says, You didn't make me come, but then she sort of belittles him by saying, You were great, right? You did a great job. Like, you know, I have sex with all these men, and you were you were pretty good. Like it's it is what you expect a prostitute to say to a John. And so I think that's what's happening there. Um, I think you could interpret it, that was her intention all along when she went down there, but I really think the tell is the is the parallel of her on her back, you know, uh with with Sutherland on top and her appearing to enjoy what is happening and to not check her watch. Unlike what she does in the opening.
SPEAKER_00I don't disagree with anything you just said, but now I want to race ahead to uh the next session with her therapist, and in which she kind of expresses to the therapists ideas like, you you must know what this is like, you know, to have actual feelings for someone. But I don't. And and she has this crucial line, that that, you know, she's wrestling with these true feelings she has for him, which are new to her, and she's baffled by them that that again, she says something coming from me is actually, you know, attractive to him, and it's not an act, and it's not a put on. And then she has this crucial line, but all the time I want to destroy it. And that's the struggle. And that's why I'm sticking with my story. This movie does not care about the mystery. This movie cares about fond of Bree Daniels' internal struggle. And it's that that is why I think that lovemaking scene and those shrink scenes are the linchpin of the entire movie. It is her challenge to process the idea of having real feelings for someone and what that might mean for her.
SPEAKER_02But I think we agree that she is so dismissive of him on purpose because she is afraid of having a real emotional connection to him. Yes, or her having it to him, or or him having it to her. Well, I mean, I'm not sure about him having it to her. Maybe she doesn't object to that as much. I think it's more of she wants to diminish him because it will create some distance between them if that's what she wants. Yes, because that's a more comfortable space for her to live in. Where there's exactly between her and the men.
SPEAKER_00And again, she talks about this with her shrink that, you know, at least before, you know, when I was numb, I didn't have to feel anything. And again, she invokes that key word of the film, you know, that she could control it before. But to have genuine feelings for someone is something you cannot control. And it's it's a it's a loss of of autonomy and a real challenge to her, and it's a novelty for her. And so I I think that more than anything is is what this movie is actually about.
SPEAKER_02So I want to then I want to fast forward to the scene where they uh the second time they have sex, which is in her apartment, and she again, she's on the bed, he's on the chair across the room, right? He comes over to her and she allows him in in the sense of like allows him to to kiss her. And what interesting, and I hadn't thought about this before, but you made the point that the shot in the in when they have sex the first time, it's w it's uh it's all told from different perspectives. You just have a shot of her face, a shot of his face. You don't really see the two of them in the same shot. But in the scene where they kiss in their in the apartment, you see both of them together. And after they finish having sex, you see him on his back and her basically on his chest. Again, uh a moment of vulnerability, you would say, for her. So it's a complete 180 from where what happened the first time they had sex to the second time they had sex.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell, and she has that great line, which is you're not gonna fall for me or something, are you? Right, which is obviously speaking of the Trevor Burrus, she's given up control, right?
SPEAKER_02She's let him in, so now she's like almost like pathetically saying, Well, don't fall for me now, please, but even though clearly he is falling for her, and clearly she's falling for him.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell Now I want to I want to call a half-audible here, and because we have so much more to talk about with uh their relationship, just to pause, we haven't really talked about Sutherland's performance here, which is a minimalist performance. I mean, he has a fairly flat affect for most of the movie, but I think his work here is is wonderful, and so I just again I just wanted to pause to call attention to it. And what uh one of the things I wanted to say is Sutherland I think is a very gifted actor, but I think he is especially strong as a voice actor. And I think that even though it's a voice is very distinctive. Yeah, that there's a lot of flat affect from his character. He's sort of a blank slate and he's often very emotionless, but he does use that instrument of his, his voice, I think extremely effectively in modulating it very subtly in different different parts of the film.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Can I say something else in praise of him too? He's a this is a very generous performance. And what I mean by that is that she is the focal point of the movie, not him. And he delivers a performance that allows her to be the focal point. Yes. To your point about him, it's I don't want to say it's one note, because that's not really fair, but it's very you said Boy Scoutish, right? I mean it's very much like he is the same sort of a very similar character for most of the film. And in a sense, what he's doing is he's not overacting, he's not trying to do too much, because as you suggest, it's her evolution that we really care about. It's her as a character that's what matters the most. And he really, in his performance, gives her the opportunity to to have that evolution. And I and I know this, I mean, I don't know if you get a if you get an Oscar for like most generous performance, but I do actually think, and I don't say this very often, I just think that he does a lot in this movie to flesh out what she is doing. So I give him a lot of credit for that. But I want to say one thing, because the scene that I think is the most interesting with Sutherland, it's about, I don't know, three-quarters of the way through the film, when they are after this is after they they make love the second time, and they go to this outdoor fruit stand. Yes. And I mean, first of all, there's so much happening in this scene, but the thing that's most important, this always gets to something. I think we talked about it in the first episode about costume. And you see in this entire film Sutherland wearing a dark suit with a tie, right? Uh that's like his uniform, if you will. But in this scene, he is wearing a windbreaker, casual pants, casual outfit, and he is much more um I don't know, flirtatious or just uh uh tactile with Fonda, and she is with him. Yes. And you see that again, you said earlier about visual storytelling, and and I I mean this the the way that the two of them interact with really almost no dialogue is tells you so much about what has how their relationship has evolved in the movie.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and it's it's a beautiful scene. It's it's in a way, it's almost like a scene from another movie. Although again, I I'm pretty confident it's it's night for night. It's very attractively shot. They're buying produce, they're gonna go home and cook a nice meal, I presume. He kind of being from rustic Pennsylvania has a little more experience in choosing the the best uh items of the produce to select. But she kind of grabs onto, I think, maybe the loop of his belt or she rests um her head against his back. It's it's it's very Hollywood romantic. There's even a softness to the music. And then absolutely crucial shot. She kind of glances up at a father holding a child on his shoulders. It's the only child that appears in the movie. Um she looks at the father and the child. Maybe I'm reading into this, but I see a woman who is suddenly thinking for the first time that she could possibly have a child. And and that's a percent. But but then they go home. So sh this is this is why I don't think this movie has anything to do with the mystery whatsoever. So we we have this moment, this uber romantic moment, and even the contemplation of gasp motherhood, and this impossibly romantic scene with the music and the tugging. They go home, and what do they find? Her apartment has been utterly ransacked and despoiled by the killer in an icky way. And then the phone rings, and who's on the other end of the line? She Daniels, right? We play the recording of her talking about how great it is to release your inhibitions. And so this is the central struggle of the movie for me. If she's really going to go that intimate, that deep, that loving with Donald Sutherland, then the other part of her life, the life she controls, the life she built, and we may, you know, it may not look like a fabulous life to us, but it is invested in her autonomy and self-construction that is destroyed both physically and who is doing it, some version of herself. Yes. She's like conjured up uh on the phone call. It's the whole sequence, this the juxtaposition of the supermarket the outdoor market scene and the destruction of the apartment, and then the phone call, and then it's her on the end of the line. It's you know, you it just better than that.
SPEAKER_02I the way I read that scene, like this is you see in that scene an idealized uh version of their relationship, of what her life could be. And your point about seeing the kid on the on the pa on the father's uh uh shoulders, you know, we have this conversation many times, but nothing happens in a movie by accident. Right. Right? It's not accidental that that kid with his father walk in the scene. Yeah, it's not accidental that she looks at the child. Absolutely and and has a moment of, I wanted to say, happiness on her face, or at least she sort of smiles a little bit, if wanly, but certainly smiles. And then this idealized future comes home to her disc her past. Yes. And I mean it's look, uh we can just say what it what it is that he does, that the cable does. He goes into her apartment, he trashes it, and then he masturbates on her underwear. Yes. Right? And again, like this is the juxtaposition. You're absolutely right. I I actually had not picked up on the phone call part of being her voice. That's a great point. Really good insight.
SPEAKER_00It's she it is she is calling, and it's that sense of the rap she gives about how great it is to let go of your inhibitions, let go of your inhibitions. You know, do it. Um it's it's and you know, she's she's in a way haunted by herself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, exactly. And haunted by, you know, I think what you'd say is two different visions of what kind of person she could become or she could be. Yes. Um So I want to take this moment to just digress for for one second. We didn't talk about this in advance, but um is this a feminist movie?
SPEAKER_00A feminist movie? I don't know. It's a movie about a woman. Um and a lot of it will depend on how we read the final scene, but I don't want to go all the way to the final scene yet. So that it divided the feminist community at the time. I don't know if it's a feminist movie, but I think it's a movie that is heavily invested in exploring a complex female character, and it is entirely about that character. And in that sense, score one for kind of team female-centered film, uh, you know, I'm I I think that's good. And I don't think it is a paternalistic film. So I mean, it may not be, I don't know if it's a feminist film, but I don't think it's a a a reification of the patriarchy. So I'm I'm agnostic about this. Uh, and there was a debate about it at the time of its release, and I know that a critic that I admire enormously, Molly Haskell, was somewhat dismissive of the film who she could not really get past what she called Jane Fonda's grubby prostitute. I think Haskell's thinking about this film uh has evolved over the years, but in the time of in its moment in the 70s, it was debated in the community as to whether uh this was a feminist film. And and and women uh writers on both sides took strong positions.
SPEAKER_02I look I don't know if I think it's a feminist film or not. I mean, I I raised the question in part because I don't I don't have a good answer myself. I mean one thing I will say uh that my best answer on this question is that if showing a the internal struggle, the internal deliberations of a female uh uh protagonist you know is feminist is that is that in itself is unusual and feels sort of vaguely feminist to me. Because what it's doing is it's portraying a female character in a way that I think is incredibly well-rounded and incredibly uh um rich and doing it around sex. You know, I mean I think it's sort of interesting in that respect. It it's not treating it as though it's um something grubby, right? It's treating it as though her choices uh to be a prostitute are not because uh she enjoys sleeping with men, it's because there's something deeper going on. I mean it's very empathetic to sex workers, it's very empathetic to her character in a way that I think is a really fascinating portrayal. Now, you could say it's not fascinating because the the the protagonist is a prostitute, and that is a little bit like oldest profession, right? But I do think that the extent to which it really bakulates like makes the Movie about, as you said, her internal struggle and why she and explains why she does what she does. There's something very enlightened about it. Maybe I could say that.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, I agree. I think that's right. And I guess I would phrase it this way, which is I don't really have a strong take as to whether it is a quote-unquote feminist film, but it is female-centered filmmaking. I mean, again, as we've said several times. That's exactly what this movie is about her. And not only that, but the performer herself had, as we've discussed, had tremendous power and autonomy over the film process. So, I mean, you know, you can't to be dismissive of this film's feminist bona fides is to somehow be dismissive of Fonda, the actor, her own power and autonomy, because she was really in charge of making a lot of key decisions for the films. And so she, in her own agency, also made many of these choices that I I would not be I would not minimize just how important she was. As you said, I think at the very start of the podcast, you know, this was this movie is almost can be seen as a partnership between Pacula and Fonda as the two most important kind of principles. And I think that's correct.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think the reason I would I wouldn't say it's a feminist film is that we we've talked about films on this on this podcast in which they portray that portray the internal struggle of men. Right. I mean, I think you could argue the conversation is a lot about the internal struggle that that Gene Hackman's character is going through in the movie. And so just because you show a woman having an internal struggle doesn't mean that it's necessarily feminist. Right. But I think we both would agree for the time it's maybe a little more unusual. Yes, definitely. And and and the and the way they do it, by by having her character be a prostitute. So I I think in that sense, I don't know if it's a feminist film as much as it is just a really enlightened effort to understand the psyche of a woman. You know, and again, in 1971, that feels like somewhat revolutionary. Maybe. I don't know. You tell me, but I feel like it is a little revolutionary.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I can understand the mixed emotions that people had in reaction to it at the time. Again, just the fact that she is a prostitute, you know, raised the backs of some people. Uh sh he does kind of save the day in the end, and so this kind of has a white knight in shining armor kind of element to it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there is that.
SPEAKER_00There also is how you read the ending, also kind of speaks to that. And so I could understand how people debated this. But I think especially in retrospect, you know, this is such a profoundly complex and thoughtful female-centered film. Um, you know, there are prostitutes in this world. We I don't think we should pretend that they don't exist, and and the character is just so interesting. And the depth of study of the character is uncommon. Uh even even, you know, male characters that we study closely in movies of this time, I don't think most of the time we really dig that deeply into their psyches, even in even in thoughtful male-centric films.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell I also think it's not the portrayal of men in this film is also, I would say, negative, to put it loudly. And I'm just gonna relate two scenes, final scenes, which will get us to the end of the movie. So there's a wonderful scene about it's near the end where she gets a call from I assume it was a John, and the shot, it's a incredible shot. This is again why Pacula is so good in this movie, and why also Gordon Willis is so good. So it's a shot of two windows in in Breed Annell's apartment, and we see her through the window, and she is sort of she's basically saying to this John, like I I don't you know, maybe we can party another time, but I'm not sure this is right for me. And then as you then when you see is this like as this camera kind of pulls back a little bit, you see this fence and you see a hand. So the man who has been watching her cable is watching her. And I just read that scene as like she's trying to get out, and here are men who are trying to bring her back to being just a prostitute, right? To to to to minimize her uh um I don't know, or agency to some extent. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00No, I think that that may be m may have been underappreciated at the time. This is a point that I often make uh in debates about the portrayal of women in 70s films, and they say, oh, that wasn't really an attractive portrayal, and then my counter is always, have you seen the men in this movie? I mean we've got kind of you know, Berger, who's the the the junky, you know, paramour of the prostitute. We've got Cable, the hypocritical, maniacal murderer, we've got Roy Scheider, you know, yeah, the cranky, the pimp. But and also the three men uh that she has to deal with in the straight world trying to get jobs are all you know, all are not appealing characters. And then we have, you know, uh Clute the Boy Scout. Okay, so yeah, maybe he's you know pretty decent. But he also has the one you didn't mention. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But the no, the thing you didn't mention, which is the she goes to this dressmaker, and there's a scene early on in the film. She goes to his his office and she's she basically strips for him. And she tells the story, and he it she tells later he never touches her.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02It's all just you know, it's it's he's getting off on on her taking his clothes off in front of him. The end of the film, she is in trouble and she goes to him, and she's the only per I mean, I guess the only person that she thinks she can reach out to. He says, Come over. She comes over to his office. He's not there. And what does he do? He gives her like fifty bucks. Yes. I mean, it's behind. Right. It's so diminishing. It's so diminishing, which is like I don't care about you as a person. You are just a transaction to me. Right. And I I found that scene devastating, actually, that that's how Because he is portrayed early in the film as being an upstanding individual, but he just sees her as a transaction.
SPEAKER_00It it is a rare instance in which she overestimated the intimacy of her relationship with one of her clients. She thought that they had a certain connection, even though she was performing for money, and they did not. And then there's even another male character, his his son, that's a family business, is kind of lingering there, and uh he's kind of takes a look at Bree and and looks her up and down, and and the a secretary played by um Jean Stapleton, you know, says shouldn't you be taking the train home, Mr. Jones, or whatever the heck is the name is? Right. But yeah, so yet another and a long line of men who were not uh appealing characters uh in this movie.
SPEAKER_02So let's talk about the end of the movie, because we we have gone this is this is I mean, I feel like, Jonathan, we could probably do three hours no problem on this movie since you love it so much. And I I do love it too, but not nearly as much as you do. Uh well, I shouldn't say nearly much, I don't know it as well as you do, I should say that. I I do love it. But the end of this movie, she goes to this trick the dressmaker's um office, and everyone leaves and she's left alone, and you know, you see enough movies, you know what's going to happen next. The guy who's following her cable is gonna be there.
unknownI I Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love this force. Before you even get to that part, and and you get that last vertical construction of the of the elevator. There's been a kind of elevator ride thing going on with these vertical. It's it's a widescreen movie, but there are a lot of these fascinating verticals. And this is the last one with the elevator coming up and not.
SPEAKER_02It shows it shows basically it's one of these old, old uh uh elevators where you can see inside the elevator from the top, and the vision you the view you have is is of that. By the way, I just want to mention this because it's it's it's there's another scene where she's w there, she included her visiting these various junkies, and there's a shot of them going into an apartment building, and a shot like from almost across the way.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02Uh it and like again, there's like a that sort of verticality of this film, but also just like this idea that and same thing with the elevator scene, that you're being watched. Yes. There is this there is this almost uh very subtle but but consistent theme in the movie that she is being watched. Um and in fact, even shots where she's walking down the street, you see her from afar as if somebody is following her. I mean, they're really they really Pagula pushes this theme throughout the movie, this idea that she is being surveilled.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they don't call it the paranoid trilogy for nothing.
SPEAKER_02They do not. They do not. So she gets to the office, everyone leaves, and there is just a shot that I mean, l we have done the best in our 27th film that we've done. This is one of the best shots of any film that we have done so far, in my opinion. Because what it is is that you you see you know Cable is there, right? You see a shot of him, a close-up shot of him, sort of almost almost like in a plastic bag or behind a plastic bag. So it's you don't see his entire face, you can see most of his face, but you know he's there. You see her in the office, you see her walk out of the office and walk down this basically the camera is portraying her as she is walking toward the camera, but she never looks at the camera. But you know that the camera is actually cable. And the way she walks down there, the tension the way that he builds the tension at this moment is extraordinary. And then what's so great to me, and why this is a movie that would could not be made today, right, is that when she gets to the uh end and gets to the camera, she never actually looks up. The camera just cuts and you know what just happened. She saw him, he saw her, he grabbed her. That is I just find it to be such bravora filmmaking and the kind of filmmaking that you just don't see in movies anymore.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then there are two two distinct spectacular things that happen in in that scene. I know you have one in mind, so I'll I'll let if you want to take the lead on that one, because I have a different one I want to take. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02You go first. You go first.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, I think you want to talk about, you know, so Oh well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, okay, so sorry. No, what I so basically it cuts to Sutherland trying to find her, and he's calling to try to figure out where she is, and the next thing we see is her in the office with cable. Right. And cable is doing this entire monologue. Um uh exactly.
SPEAKER_00Well, I want to I want to do the monologue, I want you to do the tape, but I could switch. I could do I could do either of them.
SPEAKER_02Oh right. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00He's like, I know you love the tape.
SPEAKER_02I do love that, but that but the point I love about the tape thing, it's is her is her acting in that moment. Because she re- Exactly. Oh no, sorry. I'm carry. We're confused here. Sorry. In the tape, the tape is him actually there's another prostitute, there's two prostitutes we talked about early in the film, who who Clute and Bree tried to track down because they thought that those prostitutes had recommended this guy who tried to beat her up, turned out to be cable, right, to uh to to Bree. And so one of them was a junkie, one of them ends up dead, Arden, I believe her name was. I can't remember her last name. And what he plays for her is the scene where he kills Arden. Yes, yeah, he's a kills Arden.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. He tapes it. And you hear the audio tape, and and this is what you and this is what you want to tell us about. Her performance. It's what her performance. Thank you. Remind me what it is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, but thank you, you're right. He she oh my god. I mean, she starts crying. And I never understand how actors can do this, by the way. I don't I don't understand how they start crying on cue like this, but this is why you're an act I'm their actor and I'm not. Yeah. She isn't just crying, she is sobbing. She is the the tears are dripping down her face because why I assume she realizes she's going to die. And she is crying about this. And I I just thought Well, it's also pretty disturbing to hear the murder. You know, this is a lot going on there. Of course. But I sus but I my sense of it is that she realizes this is about to happen to her. And I just think that what she does in that scene is absolutely incredible. Having said that, Cable, actually, Charles Siaffi. I don't know if I've ever seen anything else. Yeah. He is extraordinarily.
SPEAKER_00He is wonderful. Wonderful. All right, I've done my shtick, you do yours. All right, but I I don't think you've done justice to your side of the shtick. I mean, her reacting to the playing of the tape. You use the word sobbing, and I would want to back away from that because there's almost a restraint. I mean, she's weeping and she's coming apart. It just is so it is so real. It is so powerful. It's probably her strongest work in the entire picture.
SPEAKER_02You say that she's not you're right. She's not like, you know, screaming. She's not like having like a uh uh tantum is the wrong word, but you know what I mean? It's all all of the emotion is coming out through the tears.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Yes. And not to be too crude, you know, when her nose runs a bit, and there was some discussion as to whether that was even something you could show uh in a movie. But that's what would happen to you if you were if you were crying like that. The whole physicality of that moment, it's extraordinary work. And and that's beautiful, and then and then Clute comes uh here, he comes to save the day. But before that, the reason why they're all converging on this spot is that Clute had figured out that Campbell was the bad guy and concocted this plot that there'd be this appointment book and he had to buy it back because that appointment book had to be a good one. From one of the prostitutes, right? Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. And but Bree doesn't know about this plan. And so she starts to talk with uh cable, trying to talk him down a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I can get that book for you. Yeah, yeah, I know all about it. And he says to her, No, you don't. She says, You're obviously lying. And he says, you're obviously doing that thing that you do, right? And and he indicts her for that thing that she does, which is, and this is a fair shot because she says she does it, manipulates men. And then he says something which is morally profound. He says, you know, you're all about getting men to explore their fantasies and shed their inhibitions. And that's what she says in the tape, right? I uh that we hear over and over again. I love inhibitions because they're so great to shed, you know, words to that effect. And he's he makes a counter-conservative case, which he says something along the lines of, you know, I'm the living embodiment of maybe there are some areas of the psyche that are better left untouched, you know. That your stock and trade is to kind of manipulate men and unlock these things in them to the good advantage. And yet, you know, it's uh it's kind of there's a hint of conservatism here in saying maybe, maybe better off not scratching every itch than might emerge. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02You say it's an indictment, in a sense what he's saying is you're playing with fire. You're playing with emotion. You're using emotion to get men to to pay you for sex, but that emotion can sometimes, and it's self-serving, of course, to say this, that emotion can get out of hand and can lead to men, you know, acting badly. And the case, in his case, killing three people. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure that would hold up in court as a defense. No, I don't think it's a legal argument, but by any means. But the but it gets back to this tape that we hear over and over again about her articulating the thrill of shedding your emotions and her pride in her ability to lead men where they think they want to be taken. And yet and here's again where I find it an interesting parallel. Klute and Cable are two men she is unable to control. She uh, you know, unleashes in them emotions that are beyond her capacity to manipulate. And that's why I find some fascinating parallels between them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a great point that I had forgotten about, actually. And I'm glad you reminded me because what she does try to manipulate him, the way she tries to manipulate every man in the movie. Like that's what she's and I'm not I'm not passing judgment. That's what she says she's good at and what she likes to do. And she tries to manipulate him and he doesn't fall for it. And if anything, he calls her out for it. Right, exactly what you said. And I it's interesting because I didn't thought about this before, but can you make the the claim that that's why she's crying? That she's all of a sudden she's realized that like what she has been so effective at her entire life or her adult life in controlling men, she cannot succeed in this. And it's devastating for her.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr. I don't know. Uh to me, that would be running with it a little bit. What I like about it is, again, when you challenge me saying why is the 70s film, is it really morally ambiguous? I think it is morally ambiguous. I think it's playing with that, that we have her pride in her ability to control and manipulate men, but then we kind of probe at that a bit, and and we're dealing with cable, the deranged killer. And there's just a lot of there's more debate going on. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I mean, is that really morally ambiguous because the fact that like her manipulation of men leads sociopathic men to try to kill her and that is not no, no.
SPEAKER_00I I I did not well articulate what I was trying to say. What I meant was the movie is interested in challenging and exploring her character. And that's where I find the ambiguity interesting. That the movie the movie is constantly wrestling with choices that she's making, with choices that she's made, with attitudes that she has, that it's not giving them a kind of a free pat, that it's kind of digging at them and exploring at them. No, no, no. You know, Cable is an evil psychotic killer for whose behavior is inexcusable by any stretch of the imagination, is not a manifestation. He is not a manifestation of moral ambiguity. I mean, he is he is a manifestation of the hypocrisy of civil s civilized society. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02But is her ambiguity moral? I don't know that it really is. I think her ambiguity is more it's sort of m more personality driven. I mean, look, we don't know her backstory. I would assume that b based on what she says to the to the shrink and based on what she does, that there probably is some abuse in her background. I mean, I uh you know, obviously it's not something that we ever that ever get explored in the movie, but I there's a sense there where what has driven her to have this obsessive need for control? What is it about turning tricks that gives her a sense of empowerment? And I, you know, there's clearly something there's some void in her that leads her to do this. I don't mean void as in like there's something uh in a negative way, but there's clearly something some whole sheet that's a poor analogy of what I wanted to say. No, no, no. There's some some something that needs to be filled in her personality. I want to think that's what's going on.
SPEAKER_00I want to concede the point and retreat to a different one because I think you know you're right that you know there's no moral ambiguity with regard to the good guys and the bad guys in in this movie. But I think what there is is character complexity, that these are that our protagonists are complex and flawed people whose motives and behaviors and beliefs can be kind of explored in a way that doesn't just say, this is the good character, they do the good things and they have the good beliefs. And that's why that's what I think invests it in its kind of 70s-ness.
SPEAKER_02That's interesting. I mean, I guess that's my thing. I look, there's ambiguity in her character, there's contradiction in her character, but I don't feel it the same way.
SPEAKER_00She does almost stab Clute with a pair of scissors, you know. Wait, when does when does that happen? The third Frankie scene when she's rushing again to for Frankie to save her, and Clute says, Please don't do this, I don't want you to do this, and he gets into a fist fight with Frankie, and then before you know it, she's got a pair of scissors and takes a wild swing at Clute with these scissors, rips his clothing, which means it was pretty darn close to actually stabbing him with those scissors. And all I'm saying is that's a complicated character.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean that's fine, but you know, the fact that he didn't remember that, I don't think, like, I don't think what makes her complicated is that. I think what makes her complicated is that she you know, is she vulnerable, she's afraid of commitment, she she gets gets off on manipulating and controlling people. I mean, in this case it happens to be men, but I don't think it has to be men. You know, I think that and I also think she's somebody who is, as we said earlier, she's very close to the point where she c where she can really fall apart. You almost see her fall apart. But I think that's the interesting ambiguity.
SPEAKER_00When she says that key line, but all the time I want to destroy it, the scissors the scissor swing is the ultimate manifestation of that.
SPEAKER_02I guess. But I think destroy it means I think destroy the the idea that she has to give up control. I think I mean look, you could argue she's like, you know, there's like a narcissistic element to her personality. It doesn't want us under control, and she resists it constantly. I mean, I think there's something probably to that.
SPEAKER_00All I'm saying is that Klute and I were pretty shocked when she wielded those scissors. I think Clute was definitely shocked by that.
SPEAKER_02Uh let me just also, you know, and the final thing is that in that scene with the with cable, and and so what happens, of course, is that Sutherland comes in. And I by the way, I love again how that's handled. I think in a in a modern Hollywood movie, you would show that you'd have some scene of Sutherland running through the streets, like trying to get there on time, you know, dodging cars and you know, whatever it may be, but instead you just see him show up and he shows up. And what happens? Do you have a fight with cable? No. Cable jumps out the window. That's what happens. Cable basically jumps out the window. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Jumps falls. It's it's it's uh I don't know how to I think he jumps.
SPEAKER_00I think he jumps. I mean he has good reason he has good reason to jump. So I think I think it's shot in a way that lends itself to multiple possibilities.
SPEAKER_02Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's interesting. Okay. I mean I don't think we don't we agree that Clute doesn't push him out the window, though, right? That's not what happens. No, to your point about uh the the connections implicit and explicit between Cable and Clute. I mean it's like he sees Clute, he sees some version of himself. You know, maybe. Uh or it's like this is the good and this is the bad, this is the yin and this is the yang and the bad is the jump. I don't know. There's interesting sort of it's interesting he locks eyes with Clute and then basically kills himself. So let's get to the final moment of the scene of the movie, which is which is they are in her apartment, which is now completely empty, except for telephone, and they are leaving, and somebody calls, a John, it appears, asks her if she is, you know, available, and she basically tells him, I'm going out of town. And then she grabs her bag and they they her and Clute walk out the door.
SPEAKER_00Now give me your interpretation of what D I did I miss something there, or did I did I was just But again I get to I get to wave the flag of ambiguity here. Right? We have the physical. Physical behavior, and we have the voiceover, which is presumably another session in her shrink that that we don't have access to, but she's reporting, you know, we are hearing it. Physically, she's moving from New York and she's going to move to Tuscarora or wherever the heck it is. Tuscarora, Pennsylvania. Yes. Right. But the voiceover is profoundly skeptical of the prospect that she could possibly have a life there. And so, you know, you you in the audience get to decide what's going on here. I mean, uh obviously, physically, they're going to go to Pennsylvania. Do they have is there any hope for a life for these two people? I don't know, but I can tell you what the principals thought. Pakula said 50-50. There's a 50-50 chance that they will make it. Sutherland and Fonda said there is no chance in hell these people will make it. So I give it a 10% chance. 10%? All right. That's a that's a sliver of hope. Sliver of hope. Her voiceover is pretty compelling, though. It's really, you know, she would really have to and that's where you get into this whole feminist question. If the if the closing of the movie is the notion that she's going to go to live in i i in in Bucollic, Pennsylvania with Donald Sutherland, that's not that's not a big feminist move there. Trevor Burrus, Jr. No, it's not.
SPEAKER_02Although, I mean, maybe look, you know, women should have ch full have choices, and that's the one.
SPEAKER_00Of course, of course, if that's her choice. But she doesn't articulate that as a choice that she thinks is plausible for her in the voiceover. And what I like about I don't think we know, I love the fact that the that the visual presentation of what they're doing and her voiceover of what they're doing are completely at odds with each other, and they walk out the door, and it, you know, technically speaking, it's an open ending. We do not know uh what's going to happen. However, it's hard to believe that she settles in in Tusca Aurora.
SPEAKER_02Okay. But I will say that I found this ending to be much more hopeful than most of the movies that we have discussed on this podcast. I mean, I think there is a sense that she is uh comfortable in this relationship, that she is willing to take a chance on this relationship, although she may be skeptical about it. And that um there is a sense of her that she I mean, I guess the way to put it, there's a sense that she has evolved as a character.
SPEAKER_00I think that's right. She has evolved. And again, that's so different. Right. Most of our movies end with the protagonist defeated and abandoned.
SPEAKER_02And in the conversation, shampoo, all the jabs, the guy's dead. I mean, yeah, it's like it's there's this there's a lot of uh bad endings for characters, not in this movie.
SPEAKER_00Yes. No, here is exactly what you said. We have a character who has evolved, but it's a character who we leave in a better place than than we met them. Uh again, that's kind of rare for the for most of the movies that we watch. And so in that sense, it it is a very hope-filled ending for the character. And maybe we have to stop thinking in terms of whether the question is not, will she end up indefinitely with Donald Sutherland? We have to simply take pleasure in the fact that that she as a character has has taken tremendous strides as a person uh over the course of the film.
SPEAKER_02You know what's really interesting about this, that it never even occurred to me to ask the question, would they be together? Uh-huh. Like I listened to a couple podcasts, and one of them spent a lot of time talking about like, were they together? And I thought that's not the point. Right. The point is that she has her character has evolved so dramatically in the film that she is willing to go somewhere with him. That she is willing to try something different than what she's been doing. And and it's not to say I I'm not the one saying what she's up, what she's done before is bad. I think that's her sense of what she's been doing before is bad. I mean, at least from her conversations with the therapist. And you see her evolving as a character. Now, maybe this isn't gonna work out for the two of them, but you see that she's willing to take chances that she wasn't willing to take earlier in the film, that she's willing to show a certain level of vulnerability that she wasn't willing to show earlier in the film. That is a that is progress. Yes, I think for her character. And so that's why, to me, whether they end up when they walk out the door, whether they're together, go separate ways, is irrelevant to me. What's relevant is that she is a different person at the end of the film than she was at the beginning of the film.
SPEAKER_00I you know, I understand why people are curious about what happens to that, but I th I I think you're exactly right. I and you've we we well articulated this notion. It's it doesn't matter. It's not what the movie is. It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02Right. It doesn't matter. I don't I it never occurred to me to even to that it mattered. And in fact, I just watched that scene and I thought, wow, this is a hopeful ending because of what you where you see these two characters. And again, not just her, by the way, also him. He's not really this Boy Scout anymore. Right? The Boy Scout is not going to shack up in wherever it is in Pennsylvania with a former prostitute. That's not Don Son beginning this film was not going to do that. Trevor Burrus, Jr. No, he was very displayful. Disney's gotten to the New York and all that stuff. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Disdainful of New York, disdainful in summer I felt of her, judgmental of her. Yes, very judgmental. So I I just see the movie as a very hopeful movie, which is the only reason why I say, like, you know, maybe I'm being simplistic here, but a lot of the movies you talked about have not hopeful endings, and that's kind of like the, you know, Chinatown being another good example of that. This movie to me is a very hopeful ending.
SPEAKER_00Well, and so that just proves that just proves the new Hollywood rule, which is there are no rules. And if you want to do the most wildly radical thing possible in a new Hollywood movie and have a hopeful ending, you're allowed to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's actually right. So listen, we could go on for a while. I think we probably have to finish it up here. Anything else that you would like to add about this film, just a, you know, that they think that the viewers should think about.
SPEAKER_00No, I do think we've covered the stuff that's the most important to me. I just want to close by where I started reinvoking Claude Chabral, right? The idea that here's a suspense film audience. You can enjoy yourself watching the suspense film, and I'm gonna go do a bunch of really interesting things to me personally, which is dive into this character and study it. And you're gonna stick with me because I'm telling you a story.
SPEAKER_02But don't you think that's like I mean, the best suspense movies do that? I mean, I I guess maybe not. I mean, French Connection is a suspenseful film, and I don't feel like we get a real exploration of Papa Ido's character. So maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong about that. But I do think that you're right. The suspense element, the psychological thriller part of it, is really just like the the vehicle for what is basically a character study. Yes. That's my story. I no, I think that's right. I think I agree with that. Um let me just finish up by saying, you know, I watched this movie a couple years ago and I really liked it, but I was like, uh, it's pretty good. I I wasn't like in love with it. I saw it again, and I just was like, wow, this is the benefit of seeing a movie more than once. I think also it's the benefit of seeing a movie in a theater. Yeah. It's a different experience. It's a better experience, it's a more immersive experience. You know, you're not gonna be distracted when you're in a theater, ideally, looking at your phone. Like you're just gonna be in the moment, and that's important. And I just, you know, I I love this movie. I think it is I think it is an absolutely phenomenal film. Could not agree more. Could not agree more. And we will say finally, you know, last thing I'll say, Jane Fonda is not somebody I've ever thought of as a go-to actress. Maybe because the two films I think of when I think of her are Nine to Five and On Golden Fonds, which are not great movies. Actually, 9 to 5 is kind of fun, but you know, uh it's it's slight on Golden Pond either. Uh but this I came away from this just blown away by how good an actress she is. And I cannot wait till we do Coming Home. Yeah. She, by the way, also won an Oscar for Best Actress for it. We're gonna do that at some point in the future.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02But it's for next week. I don't know. We we have a lot, we have a lot to do to uh decompress after this one. We'll figure it out. But until then, thank you so much for listening to that 70s movie podcast. Please leave a review, give us a thumbs up, leave ask make make a recommendation. We'd love to hear from you. It's what makes this so much fun. And um we'll see you next week. All right, bye bye.