spk_0:   0:00
What do you do on Sundays?

spk_1:   0:02
We talked about Cate Blanchett, the actors, costumes, the awards, but mostly Blanchard of it all. I'm not acting thing is a mother. You Erica. This is Sunday's escaped and I'm your host Or Todd. I'll welcome to Sunday's Escape, the podcast series about the films of Cate Blanchett. This is your host, Murtada l. Felt. Every week we choose a Cate Blanchett film and discuss It was a guest, and my guest this week is writer and critic Nathaniel Rogers from the film Experience. Hello, Nathaniel.

spk_0:   0:48
Hello, Murtada.

spk_1:   0:50
So, Nathaniel, I actually co host the film Experience broadcast together. So this is sort of like going home to talk to him today.

spk_0:   0:59
Ah, sidebar.

spk_1:   1:01
Yes, I'm excited to have you on the podcast and the movie that we're discussing. We're going back to the nineties 1997 at a time when nobody who loves movies knew who Cate Blanchett, Waas and the movie were discussing is Paradise Road. So this is a film directed. It's an Australian film because it's director is Australian Bruce Beresford. Although it's cast his international, it has Glenn Close, Jennifer Elly, Juliana Margulies, Pauline Collins, Frances McDormand, and Kate, and they play a group of women who are imprisoned in Sumatra by the Japanese during the Second World War. The movie sort of starts with them in Singapore, and they introduce us to all these women. It's an all star cast, so there is Glenn Close as the leader. She is the wife of a plantation owner in Singapore, Kate play than Australian nurse. There is Julianna Margulies, who play is in America, and wife. She's the only American. Pauline Collins is a missionary. Jennifer Ely is sort of the romantic lead as a woman who, a British nurse in love with her husband, who is a dashing British officer. And when the movie starts in Singapore, they're all in a bowl there, dancing too mad about the boy. Kate is actually the first person we see, and then after that Japanese start shelling Singapore. They all the women and Children have to leave on this boat, which is also shelved. And then it's shipwrecked and the women have to then go into this camp and Sumatra. And this is where the bulk of the action of the film takes place. My husband

spk_0:   2:45
is dead. It's late insurance or a Malayan Volunteers You, Susan McCarthy, Sturdy Dominus Cinco Adrian, Part ITER, wife of tea planter. What kind of people will be in this? I'm Irish were neutral. I don't think we've met the English. Don't invite chores. Refugees to the cricket club.

spk_1:   3:04
So, Nathaniel, what did you think of Paradise? Or just General Impression? First

spk_0:   3:10
of general impression, I thought it was mildly diverting, like I watchable, I would call it, but there wasn't especially strong. It felt like watching sort of episodes of, like, maybe a minute miniseries like It didn't seem to have much shape,

spk_1:   3:27
I would agree, and it's sort of a forgotten film, and I have haven't seen it until yesterday, and I saw it just to record this and talk with you. And I've always like, Why is this home forgotten? But I think after watching it, I kind of know why it is because it's it's fine, but it never sort of lifts off to anywhere that's profound or moving or interesting. Have you seen it before? Was this your first time?

spk_0:   3:52
This was not and have had I seen it, it would have been my first Kate Blanchett movie of course, because it came. This was her first procedure film, a noticed. She made a couple, but obviously Bruce Beresford was already a very famous director who had had best picture nominees before. And so obviously this was like one of those movies, you know, World War two drama. But yeah, just sort of shapeless, like, You know, one of the things I first noticed about it is like that just random dialogue where they would be like, what? We've been here for three months, and I'm like, You have it just sort of sort of just like, episodic and without a lot of shape because, like, nothing happens to them because, I mean, that's the wrong thing to say. But they're prisoners of war are so like their lives are very shapeless. They just do well work all day and then wonder about the war, since they aren't experiencing any of it.

spk_1:   4:46
Yeah, I mean the time. I am glad you brought the time because like this movie takes place, I think over three years, and it's never clear how much time has passed, they have to actually have a character say, Oh, it's been three months or it's been three years or it's now we are in 1945 or whatever, which is a little bit clunky and not that great.

spk_0:   5:10
Yeah, just about the only way you know that is that, like certain characters you know, die throughout the movie. But even that is like, very sort of spaced out. And it doesn't directly, usually directly follow, like an action that takes place

spk_1:   5:24
and one of the things that I also know this. Like, you know, we mentioned. Like who? It's a who's who of actresses, right? So there's Kate, who at the time Waas a Phanom in Australian theater, and this was maybe her second film. And then there's Glenn Close, a bona fide star. Frances McDormand. This was actually the movie released a month after she won her Oscar. For Fargo, there's bullying callings who was famous at the time for Shirley Valentine Oscar nomination. Jennifer Ely Gas is the other Andrzej New Escape, young promising actress at the time. And then there's Julianna Margulies, who was very famous in the U. S. For a few years when this movie was made and released for being and the number one show E. R. So It's kind of a star, a mix of stars and upcoming actresses. But like the short hand of the characters, they're not given anything to do. It's just like, Oh, Blake closes the leader and she's a plantation, the wife of a plantation owner and Pauline Collins, the missionary. And she is tired. Sometimes

spk_0:   6:30
I love that description of a character. You have to hand it to Pauline Collins. So given that that's the description, she does pretty well in this

spk_1:   6:37
movie. Yeah, she does. She's great. But like the character is, she's not giving anything in the screenplay except that she writes music. And then we have a couple of villains. These air, the lesser known actresses that we whose names are not famous. But there is one woman who sort of implied, like she's the spy who gets her cigarettes from the Japanese by giving them information about the other inmates. And there is the older British woman who's a little bit racist as usual in these movies, and so, but they're all have a shorthand, and that's it. It's as if it's like one of those things. Let's just describe this character and then do you get nothing beyond that. Kate actually is one. I thought she plays this Australian mayors, and it's one of the more developed characters because she has a little bit of a narc. So her character's name Mrs and McCarthy. She's Australian. She's a nurse. She does talk about how she grew up in a sheep station back home in Australia, and that's where she is gonna go back to help her dad with sheep station. But then she meets the German doctor who is a Jewish refugee, played by Frances McDormand in the strange German accent. And Kate and Francis sort of formed this relationship of mentor and mentee because Francis plays a doctor. Kay, please, in Paris. And she's like, You know, you can be a doctor. No, I want to go back to work with my dad. And so if you add the movie, she sort of her arc is that she gets a backbone and maybe she will be a doctor. Or she will just forge her own way instead of doing what her father is selling her. Based on this mentor relationship was the Frances McDormand character.

spk_0:   8:19
It's also Kate herself. I do think that she's actually very good in this movie because you can feel like a whole character, even though she like everyone else. Just it's a sketch to play it. But you can feel sort of her naivete in the beginning. How how, like she defines herself in this very simplistic way, like this country girl and who's a nurse and and then you can feel her sort of developing as a person. So it's like, actually given the script. It's quite a performance, I think.

spk_1:   8:49
Yeah, even though it's a small part. And so, like I was watching her and you know, I love her so much. And it was so nice to see, like her baby phase and her old teeth. And it's like she's so young in this movie.

spk_0:   9:03
Yeah, definitely, for sure, I was like, Oh, it's baby Kate. I haven't seen that face since. Like Talented Mr Ripley.

spk_1:   9:11
Yes, and this is the one before that. And one thing we failed to mention so far because the movie itself fails to mention it is that this movie is not just about women being in a Japanese internment camp. It's about them coming up together and making a acquire even so they they don't have instruments. It's a voice choir. So pulling Collins plays the woman who writes music, and Glenn Close is the leader who, maybe in another life, if she wasn't the wife of a plantation owner, might have been a conductor. So more than 40 minutes into the movie, no music is mentioned. And then suddenly Glenn Close stands up, looks around, and she's like We should have a voice choir.

spk_0:   9:56
She knows she does get the idea from falling Collins humming, humming with her yet, but I refused to believe that was the point of the movie because it took so long to show up that I was actually a little surprised during the credit. You know, like many a war movie, the credit have the after credit to tell you something about what happened after the events or just comment on the events that you've just seen. And so they mentioned that this choir performed this many times and like the music, survived the war and and all that, and I was like, Oh, it was supposed to be about that. It was like a subplot, So I was surprised that the end was like mentioning the music again because it really did feel like a some plot.

spk_1:   10:41
But it is about that. I think this is why it's based on a couple of books of memoirs from the women who wear in this Japanese interment cat in Sumatra and who did formed his voice choir. So I guess that's why they made the movie. But yeah, it's It's such a Toby plot. It's not the main thing.

spk_0:   11:01
Yeah, I could have. They could have introduced it earlier, for sure. Yeah,

spk_1:   11:05
because we spend a lot of time at the beginning of introducing all these characters and then sort of getting into, because there is basically the English speaking group, which is the main characters in the movie. So they are Australian British. One American is Julianna Margulies. And then there are the Dutch women who are sort of the six secondary characters, and there is a little bit of friction and conflict between the two camps, and they're making fun of each other. And it's like and I was also like, Is this comedy because the toning those scenes is kind of a little off it, with a little bit humorous? There's even a dick joke. And I was like, What is happening?

spk_0:   11:52
That the tone is very strange in the movie and also like because if you load up, I never liked those things that are about, like class divides or race divides or or border, you know, country nationality divides because they always load up the stars in one group on. So then it's always like it's imbalance. So, like even that it's like, sort of implicit taking sides, like these poor Dutch women, that they're making fun up like that. None of them were famous. So it's like it's this horrible like, Why are they being so mean to these Dutch women? You know?

spk_1:   12:26
And none of them actually get even the shorthand that all the English speaking women get big on Lee. One

spk_0:   12:32
of

spk_1:   12:32
them gets a little bit in. That's a plot with Jennifer Alien that Jennifer Lily's teaching her English. And that's the only one of the Dutch woman who even has any screen time than just appearing to make jokes in the background.

spk_0:   12:47
Yeah, there's not. There's not even like the film has this, like, one of the characters says. It's really rude thing about, like we've been here this long, you know, one of the many one of the times they bring up how long they've been at the camp. And I was like, Oh, you've been there a year, Okay? And how have they learned? No English words yet, And I'm the film didn't did not present that there was nothing in the point of view of the film to suggest that, well, maybe you should have learned some Dutch if you're imprisoned with these women, and that's what I was thinking. But it's very much always on the side of like the English ladies.

spk_1:   13:18
It is for sure, and there is only one non white characters. There's only one Asian woman with speaking lines. There are a couple of other Asian women who are in the choir, but they're in the background. You never actually see them or hear them speak except in group shots where they sing. But there is one nonwhite character and, as usual like it's the cliche of like in a horror movie who dies first. It's the non white character, and of course, she's the one who dies first. And also that is such a whiplash in tone because she delivers the dick joke, and then in the next scene she is tortured and murdered in front of everybody. And this is supposed to be like the big emotional scene where all these women are watching her being burned alive and sort of realizing maybe that this is serious.

spk_0:   14:06
Yeah, I have no comment on the other than I love that heard her whole horrific death with sort of used us, a character development for the racist old let White Lady. Yes, who then became non racist because she realized that woman died because she was trying to help her.

spk_1:   14:23
Yes, she died because she went to get her medicine from the other side of the cab. Oh, yeah, it's one of those. It's like a mid nineties minute. He's that way. So you talked about Kate and you said that you really liked her performance and anything. She I don't know, because the movie is sort of like humdrum, so I don't know if I would have noticed her if I am not watching this movie just for her. But one group did notice her, and the only sort of award this movie one was the Chicago film critics gave Kate most promising newcomer, so they saw the potential.

spk_0:   15:16
Well, good on them. Some foresight there.

spk_1:   15:19
Yeah, would you? If you have seen this movie in 1997 would Kate have been the one to jump at you and be like, Oh, this is gonna be somebody we're gonna watch for years?

spk_0:   15:30
No, I think it would have been Jennifer. Really? Actually, yes. Because I was having that feeling like when Kate's introduced first. And I think Jennifer Elise second, yes. Ah, nde. When I saw Kate, my immediate reaction was like, Oh, it's baby Kate. And then when I saw Jennifer, Really, I had this reaction and I remembered how I felt the first time. I the first couple of times I had seen a generator really in a movie, and I was very excited and like there was something about her. And it's interesting because both of their careers were starting right around Then they think they have both made one movie before this. She is the one that I would have picked out as like Future Star. And I was actually really surprised over the next few years that her started Not like she had a couple of lead lead roles, and she got them right around the same time. Kate started getting lead roles, and it just didn't really happen. But I love her. I didn't think very magnetic.

spk_1:   16:26
And she does in this movie sort of get the engine new part right. She's the one who's the romantic lead. She's in love with the handsome officer. She's pining for her husband. She gets to be compassionate with her Dutch friend as she teaches her English, so she gets the sort of role that usually makes a star. While Kate, while she she has her own story of like getting a backbone and being stronger and she gets a big torture scene, She's the only white woman who's tortured, which I was like I can't was this movie. I can't believe they're torturing Cate Blanchett. I can't watch, but

spk_0:   17:05
well, they actually did torture Glenn close to

spk_1:   17:07
Yes, they did. Eliot going to be enough. That's true. Yeah, So the two biggest. The two biggest stars today are the ones who worked. But did it really sort of like the romantic part, the one that sort of people look at her and be like, Oh, I want to see her in a grand love story. You're next And she didn't get Pride and Prejudice, but that was the highlight of her career. And she never sort of got I agree with you. She was the one I would have chosen to if I've seen this at its time. Yep. And so reading reviews for research for this movie was very funny, because the critics really came for Frances McDormand, which I don't know when I went and looked back to the time line this morning, released less than a month after she won the Oscar. And I don't know, is it like people saw it at that time, like maybe critic. So it the night of the Oscars or the day after the Oscars. And everybody was just coming for Frances McDormand because she does have a thick German accent and she's the only woman who is doing like a big accent. You know, it is just having an Australian accent blend is doing a British accent. So critics the knives were out. Nathaniel

spk_0:   18:16
Yeah, I mean, and most people actually within this movie are playing their own nationality when the used is also in this just just one of the awful Australian on she's great Australian actress and, like so most bien Kate, of course, playing Australia and Juliana's The Make the American, they point that out several times. Yeah, so the she's the only one that's really other than Glenn Close, who is really like playing not where she's from. And the accent is a little dodgy like it comes and gotten that comes and goes. But it comes and goes in its strength. Let's just say that,

spk_1:   18:52
and also like her character is also not that great like, I don't know why Frances McDormand took this role. She is second build after Glenn Close, probably

spk_0:   19:00
because in

spk_1:   19:00
the Oscar, because of her status at the time, But also it's one of the like most of these characters. They're not that developed, but hers is the least developed one like I don't even know what her arc is except in relation to Cate Blanchett, who even has a smaller part that hurt.

spk_0:   19:16
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's not that great of a part, but maybe, but it is very much of Frances McDormand perches, worldly and wise, no nonsense jaded. You know.

spk_1:   19:27
Yeah, it is. What did you think of Glenn Close? I thought, you know, Glenn Close has the star part, but I didn't really And she doesn't get, you know, beaten up once, and she's the leader of this voice choir, but I don't think she registered. Did she registered for you?

spk_0:   19:42
I would say yes. I have recently had sort of a Glenn close moments where, you know, I was never So you just Glenn close fan, like, I think that's a misinterpretation from people reading the film experience. I always liked her, but I was never one of these people who like Oh, you know, she didn't get the career she deserved. I was never one of those people, and I do think sometimes that she's bad, like she's one of these actors. That's very uneven for me, but I, like, turn it. It did feel like a star part. It made me think of that time period in her career. And I was like, Oh, yeah, she what? Her career was sort of in the wilderness right around then. It was like when things were dying out for her in the movies. Um, and it felt like a really, like worm, sort of like a warm star part.

spk_1:   20:24
And she's not playing a cycle, which he has played a lot. So she is the actual do gooder in this, Yeah, in this movie,

spk_0:   20:32
and I like that she underplays it. So I think for in that way at registered for me like she has a scene with the Japanese officer who hurt most her caused her torture scene, and it's like she really underplays that scene, which I loved. He seeks there in the woods, and you think he's gonna kill her. But instead he likes sings a song to her because of the music. I really loved her reaction. It was very sort of small and understated.

spk_1:   20:55
You know what? Now that you have said that, I do remember that scene and she's very pointed in it. And maybe my reaction to her when I said not registering is to your point. She was underplaying, and she's not doing the usual Glenn Close right, more guns. And maybe that's what I was expecting that and I didn't see that. And maybe that was why I said she she didn't register that much. Would you say that Pauline Collins. You gave her a little bit of praise earlier. Did you? Would you say that's your favorite of the women performances?

spk_0:   21:25
Maybe actually, because she doesn't really have a part of all that. She just so charming. I just really liked her in it.

spk_1:   21:32
I would say, probably Jennifer really will be my favorite, um, of these, although, you know, I could just say Kate because she's always

spk_0:   21:39
Mike. I didn't think Jennifer really like There's a moment late in the movie where she gets like her tragedy, Ark. Where she sees her husband that she's madly in love with and he's not dead. But she sees them and he's very bloody, and she has this moment where she realized never gonna see him again, and she was playing that scene so well. But then the music, one room like swelled to be this big romantic tragedy. And I was like, Oh, orca struck home down like she's doing it. She's doing it for the movie.

spk_1:   22:15
Yeah, that's a good part. One of my favorite scenes in this movie, just because of how gorgeous it looks, is a scene very early on after the shipwrecked were Glenn close. Kate and Jennifer really find themselves together swimming away from the ship and to the island. And at night was the moon. And they have they, they start their report, they start talking to each other and trying to find what they're doing and where they came from. And it's a short scene, but it is. I was like, Oh, I like this movie. This was early on, and that was a really beautiful scene. What are some of your favorite scenes in the film?

spk_0:   22:55
Because I reacted so well to palling Collins. I really liked her all her moments with Glenn Close because I felt like the movies. Heart was sort of in this in these more understated things. But then it got caught up in being, you know, sort of a war movie, which is, I think, why it's so shapeless because it doesn't really quite know where its strengths are. So I liked. I liked those scenes a lot. Yeah, but I mean, it doesn't It's not a scene movie, right? It just sort of it. Just sort of there the whole time in the booth, huh? When I knew you were an ask this question I was just like what? Scenes like you're trying to think of tape scenes that I liked, and even though I really liked her in a, I did like her scene with With Frances McDormand. When Fransman Dorman's tell you know, you could be a doctor, you know you don't have to be a farmer type of thing. Yeah, and I again the understanding word's gonna come up. But I did like that. I felt Kate really underplayed that because you you can feel her character. Arc is coming into her strength, but she really does not overdo it. Yeah, like it's a very subtle character arc, and you can feel her gaining and end. Even the way that strength comes up is in a little petulant way. It comes up in more in scenes where she's sort of what she's letting herself hate the Japanese, you know? Yeah. So like her, her reaction like my my favorite shot of her face, I think in the movie is when they've done the most horrible thing they do in the movie with that torture execution and used the disdain on her face. Just read so well in that scene.

spk_1:   24:31
So she gets to play defiant in that scene. So she gets a plea. A few things like your point, the subtle strengths. But then, in the scene after the torture, the defiance my favorite shot off her is one is later in the movie. Well, her character is not part of the choir. At the beginning, she refuses, and she's like, I don't like your music when Glenn Close approaches her. But later on, after they lose some members, she joins the choir. And there is a scene after her torture where they're making where they're doing the big song in front of all the camp, including the Japanese, and she gets a close up as one tear rolls down her face. And that was the moment I was like, Oh wow, nice close up Bruce Beresford. You are listening to Sunday's escaped podcast series about the films of K Blanche. It don't miss the three part miniseries about her Oscar winning performance in Blue Jasmine. Three episodes, three guests, three Perspectives in Part one. We discuss Cate Blanchett as the real oh tour of Blue Jasmine and the many ways her performance makes for Theo, author of the film in part two way talk about the similarities to Tennessee Williams, a street car named Desire character of Blanche Dubois. Clearly the blueprint for Jasmine, many actresses who played Blanche, or where, inspired by her from the women in Pedro Almodovar's movies to Jenna Rowlands in Woman Under the Influence to most recently Carrie Mulligan in Wildlife. And in the third and Final Part, we discuss Jasmine and her sisters, Anne Hold Helen Sinclair in Bullets over Broadway. Maria Elena in Vicky, Cristina Barcelona and Cecilia in the Purple Rose of Cairo, among others. All these episodes are now available wherever you listen to podcasts or at some days with skate dot com. If you're enjoying the podcast, please rate and review. Now back to Sunday's escaped.

spk_0:   26:39
Oh, I don't remember a scene I liked, but I liked it. But also it's one of the reasons why the movie's bad. There's a scene where all of the well, not all of the ladies but all the ones we're talking about, like Glenn and Jennifer and Kate, they all are chosen as like the beautiful girls, so, like they all get shipped off to this place where they're sort of being offered to be like prostitutes, essentially for the Japanese, the high ranking Japanese officers. But the trade off is, of course, they get to live in this very nice place instead of a prisoner of war camp, and they would be treated more luxuriously. But then they're also basically becoming prostitutes. And I thought that seem was really good and sort of the push and pull of, you know, because they talk a lot in the movie about survival, instinct and what people will do to survive. And I thought that scene was really interesting, except for the fact that when it got super interesting when Julianna Margulies, who we know, is married in the movie when she makes this very pragmatic decision to become one of the prostitutes, and then Glenn sort of talks her out of it. But then the scene ends without, and then we don't see this. Another thing about the movie being shapeless. We don't see Julianna Margulies for, like four scenes after that. So, like you don't really know if she chose to become a prostitute or not that all of a sudden she's in one of the group scenes again, and I was just like, but that was so like, interesting. And then they just drop it in the middle. And then the scene owns.

spk_1:   28:06
Yeah, I totally thought that she didn't go, and that's why we didn't see her for the next 15 20 minutes. I was like, Oh, Juliana went to the officers corners and maybe we'll go back and go back to her and see what happened to her there. But no to your point, she just appears back with the women.

spk_0:   28:23
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about with the shapeless nous like it's like what the movie doesn't even seem to realize when it's interesting and just sort of doesn't follow through. You know,

spk_1:   28:32
when I was reading Roger Ebert's review, he said that he wanted the movie than to follow whoever went to become a prostitute. And maybe that would made the movie more interesting dramatically if there was a contrast between these women and acquire these women who went, who went and became prostitutes, which your point? Yeah, it would have been interesting. Especially you had Giuliano, you could just fallen. Julian, you don't need to, like, follow all of the other ones because they were mostly from the Dutch group

spk_0:   29:05
Ray, and there is a scene later on. That's like a brief follow up to that scene where they're driving past. And they noticed the women again and Julianna gets a little remark about I should have joined them. And But that would have been more interesting if you had if you could even realize that she didn't join them for so long afterwards. Any anyway. Yeah, it's kind of a mess of a movie.

spk_1:   29:32
It is very messy there. Which brings us to Bruce Beresford, who is the director, and I didn't know this about him, but he's kind of a woman's director because he did this movie he did. Driving Miss Daisy. Double Jeopardy. Crimes of the heart. These Airil movies in the eighties and nineties that are about women and about women experience is different eras.

spk_0:   29:57
Yeah, yeah. And then, of course, his big one that he got really famous for in America was Tender Mercies. Yes, we just what got him his Oscar nominations and such.

spk_1:   30:07
And Robert Duvall won the Oscar for best actor there.

spk_0:   30:10
Yeah s Oh, yeah, he was a prestige director, but he was He was one of those famous examples of somebody who, when his movie won best picture, he wasn't even nominated driving. Miss Daisy was one of those, so they dodged a bullet there because that should not have been nominated for director. But it's just so funny that that was like, Yeah, I'm just not sure I have not seen his big Australian breakout movie, Breaker Morant, but so I don't really know what to make of him there, but I've never found his directing all that interesting. Yeah, and here I just don't think he has a really strong grasp on story, which is strange because I think he's a writer director Thio, isn't he?

spk_1:   30:49
Yeah, he did write the screenplay for Paradise Road.

spk_0:   30:52
Yeah, I

spk_1:   30:54
probably my favorite of his movies is Tender Mercies from The One I've seen. I also haven't seen Break up Moran, but just looking at the movies he made. Like the actresses, he has worked

spk_0:   31:03
with all the great

spk_1:   31:04
in this movie to Diane Keaton to cease its basic to Sharon Stone. He did her movie Last dance like he really you know, Double Jeopardy with Ashley Judd. He really went to all those famous women of the nineties and eighties, and they were all in his movies and I don't know. Is it him choosing them or they choosing him to direct the movies? Who knows, Right?

spk_0:   31:27
But in other words, he was definitely no known as that type of director.

spk_1:   31:31
Yeah, but this is probably his last big movie. Since then. He he's sort of career Peter it off. He still works here and there, but not in anything that people talk about or watch or C. And this, I think, was like a few years after he won best film with Driving Miss Daisy. One other thing I wanted to bring up before we close the conversation about this movie is a lot of the reviews. I read said that this movie is redundant because it came a few years after Schindler's List, which is funny because people still make World War two movies all the time. But I know like Schindler's List is a huge movie. It's a it's a movie that sort of defines the movies about World War two. Do you think that's why this movie was not so well received there? Is this because you know, we already talking, It's not that good?

spk_0:   32:21
Yeah, I think it's just because it's not that good. I mean, I think that's a really a horrible, unfair review point to compare it to Schindler's List. It's not trying to do the same thing, not about the same things on there, Definitely. I mean, there's a reason they make so many movies. Well, the world wars is because the entire world was involved. You know, That's why so many different countries make movies about World War two because they're all they all had stories from it, so their mirrors myriad of stories to tell. So that's it just seems a little like misogynistic to be like, Oh, it's not as good as this male war movie. I don't know. It just seems very strange thing to say about this movie, because I couldn't I couldn't even think of a different movie like a less a less similar movie to compare it to. But I guess it's the timing. Yeah, you two years after that

spk_1:   33:10
and because it's World War two, which is like so many movies are about that. But before we move on to talking a little bit of back Kate, is there anything about Paradise Road that you wanted to say that we didn't touch on

spk_0:   33:20
just that. I wish it had been better again. I did. I didn't just like it. I thought it was quite watchable. It just like you said, It doesn't pop. Yeah, And it had so many elements that that you thought that they I don't know if you felt this way but like that I thought, Oh, here is where it's really gonna click in Because there are so many appealing actors and like some of the some of the character arcs are good, but it's just like it just doesn't go there ever. It's very tentative.

spk_1:   33:49
Yeah, and one thing that I also notices that it put all the characters in silos like they paired them together. Francis and Kate Glenn close and pulling Collins. Jennifer Really and the Dutch woman who wants to learn English. And even though the movie is supposedly about a group of women who come together to do something, the dynamic is never a group dynamic. It's always in the silos, which I I think also undercut a lot of the dramatic tension because these women don't seem to know each other like each other. So when they're all devastated, when the one Asian woman is is killed or devastated for Kate, when she's being tortured your just like. But I've never even seen you give her one look before the seen or talked to her or being,

spk_0:   34:38
Yeah, I mean, not all directors could be Robert Altman, but But what you do wish I often find myself, I'm glad you brought this up. I often find myself wishing this in on several movies, which this is that directors really need. Toe do things more than two shots. Like if you're making a movie that's about groups of people. You need to find ways visually and emotionally and to include lots of people in shots and two to make sure we understand the interpersonal dynamics. I just feel like they're not very many directors who are very good at that, And there are directors in the past, you have been good at this, and people should be looking at them. William Wyler was great about Robert albums greater that Paul Thomas Anderson was great. That there are directors to look at and be like, This is how you shoot a group scene and you notice so many things going on with the group. And that's this movie. Could have been so much better.

spk_1:   35:32
Yep. Well, Bruce Beresford isn't what? No, but we do think

spk_0:   35:38
that's all this is. The pop were the ones that between two people.

spk_1:   35:41
Yeah, exactly. But we do thank Bruce Beresford, forgiving Cate. One of her early movies. I am sure some people watch this movie and solar and cast her in 1997. This was the first time she made movies she made in Australia. Thank God he made Lizzy and Paradise Road. And then she got to do Oscar and Lucinda, which came also the same year a bit later. And Oscar and Lucinda was let Two Elizabeths a year and 1/2 after this was released. And as they say, the rest is history. But Nathaniel, when was the first time you saw Kate

spk_0:   36:16
the first time ever?

spk_1:   36:17
Yes. What's this movie?

spk_0:   36:19
I It might have been Elizabeth. I think it was actually because Elizabeth was before talented Mr Ripley, Talented Mr Ripley was when I because a shameful confession. Since this is a Cate Blanchett, I guess I was not crazy about Elizabeth. it's an it, and that's where everybody fell in love with her. But I was really, like a hold out for a long time with her.

spk_1:   36:42
So you held out for a year until Ripley

spk_0:   36:45
no longer really know Ripley was when I went on my first really liked her and something, but it took me a long time. It wasn't really until Blue Jasmine where I was just like, really I know I like. She's been good and a lot of things in between. But my early reactions tour were very Elizabeth based, and they were very much like Pauline Kale with Meryl Streep like, I just saw so much technique and I'm like, It's just not doing it for me emotionally and the first time I really loved her and something was the Aviator. But even that it I didn't want her to win, you know, like I thought it was impressive, but I was thinking it was impressive from a technique standpoint, you know?

spk_1:   37:26
I mean, that is a performance that's very technical, because there is no way you play caffeine happen without doing Katherine Hepburn. You'll just be she'd be like you. She can't do like subtle Katharine Hepburn. She has to do gas it.

spk_0:   37:38
Yes, yeah. I was very late bloomer with Kate. I was I I was impressed, but not in love. Let's just say that

spk_1:   37:45
I fell in love immediately with Elizabeth. What is your favorite performance of fires?

spk_0:   37:51
Ah, blue Jasmine.

spk_1:   37:53
And why do you Why do you love that one? Which which would leave me to my next question because I think it's always either. For me, it's one day I wake up. It's blue Jasmine. The other day I wake up, It's Carol and it's whatever I sold last of those. But you are definitely blue. Jasmine.

spk_0:   38:10
Yes, but Carol is my favorite of her movies. Yes, so I totally get that. Those are the two. You know, Carol is the best movie she ever made, but yeah, Blue Jasmine just cause it's the full range. It's like everything you could possibly want in a movie star performance. It's all in one movie, the whole things about her, and she's incredible in every scene.

spk_1:   38:33
Yeah, it is an amazing performance, and we just did, because it's such an amazing performance. I did three episodes on it, So if you haven't listened. Please listen to those They're available everywhere. And who do you think is your favorite Kate scene partner? Which actor? Do you just love to see them together

spk_0:   38:51
in her whole career? Yes, well, obviously, like Rooney, Mara is way up there, and I was thinking because of Oceans A. Actually, even though I don't love the movie Ocean's they reminded me that I really dig her when she's with other actresses. Like, there are some actresses who I always like, who are really fascinating to me with men like Michelle Pfeiffer, for example, like I love her scenes with men like but with Kate, something about it's like And I think I said, I really like her and Oceans because there's this weird, like Sapphic energy with her and Sandra Bullock and that made me really want to see her with so many see repaired with so many different actresses.

spk_1:   39:35
I like her was women to use Sandra and Retire. Appointment also is Judi Dench and notes on a scandal even in Where Did You Go, Bernadette? With Kristen Wiig's They sort of like all right opposing sides. That movie is not great, but their scenes together great So she does your point, pop when she's with other women in movies. Which brings me to my next question is Who would you like to see? Her work was, It could be another actress or it could be somebody. She's already work Twist or a director. Whoever

spk_0:   40:03
I would like to see her work with, that's gonna be so not like me. This answer, because I'm always, like, take a break, Meryl. But I would like to see her with Merrill because I would like to see the sort of like explosion of critics, just trying to decide who they were more excited about. Because, you know, like the default when Merrill is in something is like we must heap praise on Meryl. But Kate is also one of those actors where people get very effusive. So, like if you put them together,

spk_1:   40:33
we're going away.

spk_0:   40:34
Yeah, like it would be like a death match. Like, what would critics Actually, how would they? How could they possibly praise both of them enough for for what they normally would do?

spk_1:   40:44
I mean, I think that was the year of Blue Jasmine, so we probably couldn't have happened. But imagine if they did August those age county or something like the half? Yeah, where they are, like, coming at each other the whole time.

spk_0:   40:57
Yeah. I mean, I do like her. Her sort of like animosity pairings to like, she's so good with Judi Dench and notes on a Scandal. So, yeah, I like a knock down drag out with Meryl Streep. Why not?

spk_1:   41:10
Yeah, I do agree with you that critics are very effusive about Kate. So she's somebody that I think is rightly rated because they should be if Yusef, But so is she. Somebody you can say is underrated. Really? Because no is. But is there a movie or a performance of her? Is that you like that? You don't see other people appreciate as much?

spk_0:   41:34
Well, actually a little secret in behind the scenes of Sundays with Kate. I actually asked Murtada if I could be a guest on the man who cried. But the movie is like proving very difficult to find you because I love her in that movie and, like, nobody has seen that. But that's the movie where it was right after the talented Mr Ripley. So I was like and people were already obsessed with her, and I wasn't. But I liked her and talented Mr Ripley a lot. And then when I saw her in the man who Cried it's such a weird, weird movie and she's not the star or anything. But she's so like her face is so magnetic in it and she gets lots of light, great close ups and things. And I that was when I realized that, Oh yeah, movie star potential. But I did. I wasn't quite there yet, but I think it's a really interesting. I do think it's a really good performance, though, of this very enigmatic character on the other one. I think that people don't talk about that. I think she's really good and is heaven. Oh yeah, yeah, So those were two that I would I would say right away or things that just And it's not that she's underrated. Just the people haven't seen them, I think,

spk_1:   42:42
Yeah, I mean, I would have loved to talk to you about the man who cried because I've never seen it. And she does in pictures look amazing. In it was the blond hair, the very red lips. But I looked everywhere it's not available. So whoever owns the man who cried and if you're listening to the spot cast, put it somewhere so we can see it. And then Nathaniel and I can come back and talk about it.

spk_0:   43:04
Yeah, I think it's maybe it's one of those Miramax movies that got all the rates disputes. Who knows? It's a very strange movie that I think Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp and the stars. I barely remember it, but I just remember Kate so well.

spk_1:   43:17
Yeah, they're the stars and I think she's in it and also joined Totoro. And it's another World War two movies. It's in Paris during the occupation. I just like, read the IMDB blurb. So Kate next is going to be on TV. She's doing the first major TV part of hers in the miniseries Mrs America, which will be on our TV here at Sunday's with Kate. We plan to recap it weekly. What are your feelings about her moving to deviant about that particular miniseries playing Phyllis Schlafly?

spk_0:   43:51
I mean, I think she wants Anami, obviously, because that's why people do those miniseries. I am a little worried about it, not because I don't think she'll be good, but because I grew up in a very, very extreme let's say, extremely conservative home. And so, like anything like set in the seventies that it's about this sort of like conservative stars like it's a little too close to home for me because, like, I remember that I don't remember the seventies really well, even though it was alive. But I my memories are mostly start in the eighties, but I grew up in that sort of like in households that would have been praising her. You know, Phyllis safely. And so I heard names like that as a child, and they were always said in, like, Preysing Ways. So it's like, you know, since I grew up in this horrible sort of right wing conservative mentality, and so I'm a little nervous about whenever there's movies about people like that, like the Iron Lady, for example, I think it runs the risk of glamorizing mom, and so I'm a little nervous about how it's gonna play out.

spk_1:   44:54
Yeah, I mean, we just got Dick Cheney a couple years ago, and then the Fox women was making Kelly, so these rolls are like catnip for stars and awards. And but, yeah, they always have to. As actors, they have to sympathize with the character. So, yeah, I'm afraid to

spk_0:   45:12
Yeah, E. I don't really want her to be too great at convincing people that equal rights for women is bad. You, since she's playing this conservative icon who thought that, you know, So it'll be contrasting.

spk_1:   45:25
It will be interesting also, because when you look at the women they cast, it's like an old star cast of character actors. But all of them are on the other side, so it's like there's Kate and Sarah Poulson and Melanie Lynskey is the three conservative women I think, and then all the other cast are playing the people opposed to Phyllis. So I'm like, Is this lake? Do they think it is so formidable that they have to stack the deck on the other side?

spk_0:   45:52
I mean, I think the answer would be Yes. I mean, wouldn't you?

spk_1:   45:55
Yeah, totally. Nathaniel, it has been so much fun to talk to you about Paradise Road. So thank you so much for coming on Sundays escape. And before we go, let our listeners know where they can find you. and your work.

spk_0:   46:09
Um, I am at Nathaniel are on Twitter, and you confined me daily at the film experience dot net, where Murtada also rates

spk_1:   46:19
Yes, frequently. And if you love actresses, you learn listening to the spot cast the film experience. If you don't know it, you should go there. We talk about actresses all the time, not just game, but a lot of cake, too. And you can find me on Twitter at me, Underscore says, and follow the podcasts on Instagram and Twitter at Sunday's escape until next time thank you.