Speaker 1: We're Tom Lorenzo, and this is the Bitterkitten Movie Club.
Heliciten's welcome back to another edition of the BKMC, a
supplemental edition of the PSO podcast where we take a
look at one film per week and just unpack it.
And I was gonna say, rip it to shreds, but
we never do that, actually, and we would never do
it with this. Oh my selection, which is nineteen eighty
seven's Babbett's Feast, which is Lorenzo's number one of all time.
And before I tossed to Lorenzo, who is going to
have a lot to say about this, I just want
to say, I think it's kind of fascinating. I didn't
realize until we started doing the BKMC that your favorvorite
movie and my favorite movie both are both foreign language
films because mine is ways a desire and they both
came out in the same year. Oh really yeah, they
both came out in eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And oh, I do want to say, because we were
talking and I know you don't want to get into this,
and I don't blame you about why that film appeals
so much to you on a personal level, on a
profound level. And I really was thinking about this this morning,
where I was like, you know, if someone really wanted
to understand the two of us, like really, this is
Tom and this is Lorenzo, you could do a back
to back. I remember it was ways a desire bubetsfe yes.
Speaker 2: When we first started dating. That's what's one of the
first things we talked about was international movie. Yeah, and
you made anyway, And yes, this is my number one movie.
I have two other favorite movies. If I had to
pick what, I picked three, but that's my number one.
I've always loved this movie my entire life. I saw
it in a movie theater, didn't watch it many, many
many times, read the book everything about it. I just
I just fair in love with this movie. And I
do mean this movie is so beautiful, so poetic, and
it has to do a lot with the writer. And
we'll talk about her who wrote the story?
Speaker 1: Can I just fill in some details here? So it's
directed by Gabriel Axel, who is a Danish director film
director who also spent time in France. So he's also
he's you know, when you see an interview with him,
it's you think he's French. He's very French in the
way he acts. But it's very, very true, and it's
based on the novella The Short Story. It's a short story.
Speaker 2: It's a short story.
Speaker 1: It's a long short story, but it's of the same
name by Karen Blixen, who wrote under the name. And
I've never said this out loud, but I think I'm
going to do it right each Dennison. I think Denison.
She's famous for Out of Africa, of course, and I
didn't realize this until we were doing research on this
film that the only reason this film got made was
because of the success ab Out of Africa starring Meryl
Streep and Robert Reford. Because Karen Blixen, he'sacked Dennis and
was not particularly she was largely forgotten. By the mid eighties,
she was larger forgotten.
Speaker 2: He tried to make the I mean, he tried for
like nineteen years to make Gabrielle Axel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Then finally Out of Africa came out, and he's got
the fun so huge success. Everybody started reading her again,
Karen Blixen, and and that's how he people got interested,
but even so not that much interested because people felt
it was a very short story. There's nothing there.
Speaker 1: There's nothing there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they felt there was. It wasn't much for a movie.
Speaker 1: I do want to say, like these these bkmc's are
entirely focused on films. They're not focused on the books.
If they were, like we did Atonement last week, and
I had nothing at all to say about the book
because we're focused on the film. We focus on things
like cinematography and costume design and direction and acting deliberately
because we want this to be a movie club. Having
said that that, yes, I read Babbett's Face last night
for the first time. Yeah, I've never read it before.
I'd never read Karen Blixen before, and I'd say I
was charmed.
Speaker 2: She is.
Speaker 1: Her use of language is just beautiful but also very
very charming. There were just times it's not a long rate.
I think I read it in forty minutes. Maybe there
were times where I had to stop and go because
the praising was just so I was so charmed by
it right in terms of and I was also pleasantly
surprised that to read the story is to see the film.
They are almost totally identical. Axel did very very little
to alter the tone of the story or the circumstances
of the story. It is exactly as you know, it's
laid out in the story.
Speaker 2: It's important to mention that the story, but the Babbetts
Fee story was first published serially in the Ladies Home
Jourrenoid nineteen fifty. So that's how we got published.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because someone another author told Blix and if you
want to break through the American market, right by food.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so she thought about the story about the
dinner and all that. So that's when the story was
first published. And then later, you know, with a combination
of other stories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he published in a collection of short story So, okay.
The film it is. There's so much about this film.
I love it much in the same manner of Wings
of Desire. It's a film that takes its time, that
doesn't over explain a single thing. It wants you to
sit there and experience. It wants you to sit there
quietly and let it all happen to you. And I
have to say Axel said, I have a quote from him.
He gave an interview in nineteen eighty eight to Cite
and Sound magazine, and I think this is important. All
I can say is that in Babbet's faced. There's a minister,
but it's not a film about religion. There's a general,
but it's not a film about the army. There's a cook,
but it's not a film about cooking, right, And those
three sentences right there, It's like, Yeah, I did a
lot of reading on this movie over the last two
couple of days, and it's amazing to me how many
people are convinced it's a movie about Jesus, or it's
a movie about French cuisine, or it's a movie about
the you know, the his military history. It's a movie
about art. It's about art. It's about being an artist
and what art can do to people, how it can
bring a community together, how it can heal wounds, that
sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Do you agree, Yes, I agree, it's it's it's not
about it. I'd say it's about artistry. Artistry fair, because
it's it's what you can do. It's it's how you
can prove to yourself or to everybody that you know
you have a talent, you have you have a craft,
and then you know, just let me show what I
can do. That's pretty.
Speaker 1: Let me do this for you because I can.
Speaker 2: Let me do this for you because I can. That's
the whole point of the movie. I absolutely adore the
whole story. I'm very much into small village like in
the middle of nowhere type. I mean, that's why I
love I. Yes, when I was a teenager, I read
all the actor Christie's movie and I fell in love
with Miss Marple and I wanted to live with her.
Speaker 1: Miss Marple, you ran over that way, I'm.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Miss Marple. I wanted to live with her because
it was just this cottage small, you know.
Speaker 1: I just love that.
Speaker 2: And I fell in love with the small village with
these two ladies devoted to their father, gave up everything,
voted to their community, to the community the father, you know,
and gave up everything. One of them was very talented,
and I think that's very interesting because towards the end
of the movie, when she hugs Babets, I mean, she
understands because she's also in artist.
Speaker 1: She she has a beautifuless, repeats what Monsieur Papin says
to her, which I he at one point says, the angels,
you know, will hear your voice in heaven, and she's
she repeats that back to bad At the end of
the film, and I think that's important because you're right.
It was artist to artist, yes, and I understood. And
she was repeating the words that she had received from
a mentor artist herself. And that's like I read essays
about this film that picked apart the cuisine. It wasn't
historically correct, it wasn't typically French, it was there was
And I will say this, I was watching the film.
We watched it last night, and I have not seen
it in a while, and there were certain aspects of
it that my age and experience caused me to look
at it in a different way, one of which is
Lorenz Lohenheim, who I do want to talk about him
because I'm a lot closer to his age now and
I sort of get where he's coming from. But the
other thing is I'm a much more accomplished cook than
I was the first time I saw this film how many, however,
many decades ago, and I was watching it, going, ain't
no way you're doing that in that kitchen. You don't
have the space, you don't have the tools.
Speaker 2: So I was I think that's meaning the criticism in general,
that you know, she just doesn't have the equipment.
Speaker 1: Or the kitchen, have the equipment they showed her using
specific Well, first off, she had all those copper pots,
and there's no way the sisters had those pots. Well,
she bought it every she bought everything. She bought the
table setting, she bought the china, she bought everything. And
she had a bleany pan at one point when she
was making the clean and this was specialized stuff. But
I did read a cook point out that to make
turtle soup from a living turtle would take an entire
day and you would need a kitchen three times that sung.
But I also saw, and this to me is a
little more on point. I saw. I read essays by
religious people, preachers that sort of thing, who were looking
at it from a religious perspective, right, and also criticizing it.
Because if you look at if you, for instance, take
the perspective of Christian charity or Christian sacrifice, which you
know permeates the film, then Babet's Babet's choice is about ego.
It's not about helping other people, and she trashes an
entire lifetime worth of money just to do this one thing.
So from a theological perspective it might not you know,
you could possibly find some criticism there. I am not
criticizing any of this. I think actually those perspectives are
interesting to consider. But as Axel points out, this is
not a film about religion, and it's not a film
about food. It's about community and art.
Speaker 2: This is Yeah, the movie is about community. It's those
people live in the same village and knowing each other.
You know, they all know each other for a very
long time, and they practiced a religion.
Speaker 1: They're a Lutheran. It's a Lutheran s act.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got older together, they go through a lot
of stuff together, and all of a sudden, this woman
shows up because her whole family died. Yeah, and she
has to live there. It's not her choice. I'm sure
she didn't want to live there, but she ends up
living there with these two ladies, serving those two ladies.
And it's just very interesting because she it's it's it's
it's about accepting what has come to you.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: And I for all of them, the ladies, you know,
they would be married with kids and all that, but
that didn't happen because of their religion and the father,
the pressure of the father and all that. So they
chose to live their life, you know, helping the community.
Their lives, helping the community. So it's it's very interesting.
And but that is just so amazing. It's such a
wonderful character because you can feel her pain the entire time,
and yet she she wants to do what she's supposed
to do, you know, or she said she was going
to do. She's going to be there and cook for
those two ladies, serve them, clean the house and all that.
Speaker 1: I don't think she's she cleans the house. I don't
think you ever really see her do that. Well, I
think she does all the cooking.
Speaker 2: No, you see her cleaning the weather. That's right.
Speaker 1: You do see her cleaning which right, which.
Speaker 2: Which means that she cleaned the house. And they show
her room and you can see her.
Speaker 1: It's an attic. It's nothing, it's nothing.
Speaker 2: And thanks to Stefanodram, she is the one who asked
to design that room because she said, I think we
should show how she lives. Not that the two ladies
were rich, but her room is far. Yeah, it's worth Yeah.
I just think it's about love, it's about acceptance. It's
about finally having a chance to show who you are
truly as an artist. Because she gets the money, she
wins the lottery, and then she said, I'm just going
to use this money to do one more thing in
my life, which I think is amazing, man, amazing.
Speaker 1: I also think the film, and again, this is one
of those things that I didn't understand when I watched
it as a young man, but I had much more
of an understanding now. Obviously, everyone in the film is
almost everyone in the film is elderly, so it is
a film about old people. And subsequently it is also
a film that is dealing significantly with death but not
being overt about it. One of the courses and the
meal is Kayans sacrifage, which is quails in a coffin basically.
And you know, that's what I love about Axles. He
doesn't go too far with this stuff. He doesn't overstate it.
The other thing is it's twelve disciples around the table,
and it's this figure doing a tremendous sacrifice to serve
these people. So of course the allusion to the twelve
the Last Supper is there, but I love that he
did not overplay that. And a less talented director, I guarantee,
a less talented director would have done the Michelangelo frame
would have had them all like mimicking that. There's nothing
of that in the film. The last shot of the
film is a candle going out. It is all about
I mean, death is all over this film, but it
is not a morbid film and it is not heavy
in its symbolism. And I do so appreciate that light, light,
light touch that he takes through the whole thing and.
Speaker 2: Down to the Canada was written by Karen Blixen's I
know she wrote all that. She her writing is amazing
if please try and go find her books. I mean,
Out of Africa is amazing.
Speaker 1: This story is amazing, and you can read it, and
like I said, unless you can read it very quickly.
Why don't we take a break because I know you
want to talk about who designed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well let's let's stay that, I know, but I
want to talk about the casts in general and a
lot of others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have much to talk about, so we'll be
right back. We're back, Lorenzo go.
Speaker 2: I also love the whole the entire cast, as you said,
I mean, Gaboraxo actually mentioned that it was very hard
to convince people to make a movie about old people pray.
Speaker 1: With that essentially an eating and.
Speaker 2: That's essentially what they do, you know, on the surface.
But anyway, but it's an amazing cast. They're all amazing, creative,
talented Danish actors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're all. We're very highly respected, all of.
Speaker 2: Them, and you can see they're so talented. They do
such a good job. I love all of them. Unfortunately,
of course they're all dead, but they they are amazing.
I'm glad, I'm glad. I'm so. That's one thing I
take about the I mentioned that there's a scene where,
you know, but Bet needs help and she gets this
boy to help her. And I just adore the whole
thing with the boy because towards the end the boy
there's a shot of the boy eating me.
Speaker 1: And he takes a drink, yeah, general wine.
Speaker 2: But then, you know, Gabor Axa made the point of,
you know, to show that the boy also ate that meal,
and I just love all of that.
Speaker 1: The respect That's something I didn't want to bring up
is that this is so kind and respectful of the
people in the story. One of the things you could do,
I mean, listen, a story about a sect of people
a far apart from everybody having their first glass of
wine in their first you know, French food, and you
could make that very funny. You could make fun of
those people. The other thing is you could look at
the sisters in this story and see them as pathetic.
You know, their choices were pathetic. They ran away from
the world, they gave up on love. The film doesn't
do any of that. It respects that these people live
a certain kind of life, and for the most part,
that life works for them. There's some you know, they're
arguing in the village and everything like that, but the
sisters have a pretty nice life. It's the life that
they want. And again your point about it's not just
the boy but also the driver who sits in the
kitchen and samples everything. And he's probably my favorite character
because they let him enjoy it. He and the general
are the only people who are allowed to just enjoy
this meal because they've all decided that it's too sinful.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Joy, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: Their reactions are important. Otherwise you wouldn't realize how amazing
this meal was.
Speaker 2: That's a very good point.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm very smart that ye yes you are.
Speaker 2: But it's just the whole thing is beautiful. I remember
a teenager I saw the movie in a movie theater
and when she sets the table, and I remember at
the time, I had no idea what.
Speaker 1: You were not a teenager when we whenever, I was young, bitch.
Speaker 2: I was young. Okay, that's all it matters. I was
young anyway, younger. But I remember like amazed by the
whole thing because I wasn't expecting that the table was
going to look.
Speaker 1: So incredible, so elegant.
Speaker 2: That she's ironing the table. You, oh my god, that
should put the additions, because I, oh my god, everything
about it. I just ah, I screamed. I was just like,
oh my god, this is so awesome.
Speaker 1: I do think because Gabriel Axel is a Danish director
who lived in Paris for a long time, he's very
good at For instance, what's going on in the dining
room is extremely Scandinavian, and what is going on in
the uh in the kitchen is extremely French. Uh. They're
all sitting there trying so hard, and they're you know,
it's it's very like spare and they're not trying to
show any emotion and that sort of thing. And there
are people in the kitchen and the kitchen's bubbling away
and she's serving the driver, and she's letting the boy
sample the food and everything, and at the end she
allows herself a glass of the Clode devoujeou wine, which
Stefano Dron insisted that they actually pour it the actual
wine for her and said, if you want an actual
French woman's reaction, you will give me real wine.
Speaker 2: Amazing, and that.
Speaker 1: Shot is it's like, oh, yes, she is tasting the
best wine. Yeah.
Speaker 2: When the whole thing is done and she's sitting and
just so beautiful, Oh my god, because it's exactly what
happens when you when you want to. I've seen you,
I've seen him in the kitchen, working very hard, and
then when it's all done, you're just sitting there and
you're like, you appreciate what you did. You exhausted, but
you pleased that you so many people enjoyed what you did.
And I think that's that's the main point. Yes, it's
a movie about food too, I mean you can't ignore that,
but it's combined with a lot of other things, you know,
with love, with acceptance, with with everything.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the general because oh yes,
one of the other themes that overlays the entire film
is disappointment, right, is disappointment with how your life worked out,
and and that's I mean, that is all him, you know, right,
and what I think he serves as a counterpoint. And
also I shill Papa when you when you see the
old version of him in Paris, he doesn't seem like
a particularly happy old man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone forgot him, you know, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And then you have you know, obviously the sisters are
just there are disappointments in the sisters' lives. They they
could have done other things, they could have found love,
they could have had tremendous careers and they didn't, and
they have lived with that their entire life. And then
of course you have Babet, who I mean the disappointments
in her life are almost uncountable. And I think when
you go around the village, what little you know of
those people, they trade little bits and pieces of their stories.
It's like, yes, this is all about people who have
are living with their disappointments, and some of them can
live with them, like the sisters and bb I mean
Babet is like I think you can take some lessons
from how Babet, you know, lives her life, her ability
to get past certain things, her ability to still produce
art like she should, by all rights be the most
oppressed woman in the history of the world. But she's
stoic and she's I mean, I love oh, you know
what scene. I love the scene where she visits the grocery. Oh,
I know, and they're speaking back and forth in French
and Danish and first off, but he's very charming, and
you can tell that they love her, that this village
actually loves this bizarre, papist French woman with her strange ways.
And you can also tell that she has achieved a
certain level of comfort in her as much as she's
able to like that this is her life, this is
where she is, and all of that to me is
very Again I think at this stage in my life,
I'm like, yeah, that's a good lesson. That's a good
thing to keep. To take away from this film is
how do you move on from your disappointments, how do
you keep going? How do you find and deliver beauty
in the world.
Speaker 2: I think that's the main lesson here. We all make mistakes,
we all have things suffer decided for us, and then
and we suffer the consequences of all that, and we
just have to be smart and learn how we're going
to deal with whatever happened to us, you know, from
from that point on. And I think the movie does.
Speaker 1: A very good, beautiful what happened.
Speaker 2: What happened to me Bet is horrific. I mean, her
son died, her husband died, everybody died back in France,
and and that's her life now.
Speaker 1: And she no, she lives in an attic in on
the coast of Denmark.
Speaker 2: Yeah so, but yet she managed to do this. Amazing
you because it's it's her I don't know, it's her moment,
it's her moment back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's allowing her to reclaim her artistry.
Speaker 2: A little bit, yes, for at least for one night.
Speaker 1: Which is powerful for her. I do note again, I
don't this isn't about the book, but I didn't or
the story, but it is interesting to me that blicks
and at the end of the story, the scene is
almost identical when she tells the sisters that she spent
all her money and that you know, she's not going
back to France and they're so shocked, and they said,
you shouldn't have done that for us, And the film
does she does say I didn't do it for you,
And I think her point is very clear, but she
actually says much more in the story. And it's interesting
because Bebeck gets very haughty in French at the end
to the story and it's like you women wouldn't understand
with your small lives, bubblah bub. She's not insulting, but
she's very haughty in French. And he took that out
completely right, she did. It ends on a grace note
with the sister hugging her and everything like that. And actually,
I think that's a very smart choice because it ends
it ends on a grace note. You know, I don't
know that I would call it uplifting, but it's not depressing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We also have to remember the story was written
back in nineteen fifty when a lot of wars, a
lot of stuff has had five years after the war,
and so I guess Karen Blixen had that in mind.
You know, like people are suffering and you live in
a small town, right, small village, and you don't understand.
You don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on out there. Yeah, so
ba bets. Yeah, so cloak and uniform, which are stunning
on camera.
Speaker 2: So it's Stefan o Doom. She has done a ton
of movies with her husband especially she's amazing. Yeah, go
check her movies. She is gorgeous, she's so fab with
I love her. Anyway, she died like a year time, Yeah,
she died recently. So anyway, she knew Carlaga felt because
they worked together before. Uh so she called him and
asked if he was interested in doing the costumes for
my God, did you.
Speaker 1: Mention he only did the costumes for her, though only.
Speaker 2: For her, not not for so. He did all the
sketches and beautiful sketches. And the director Gabriel Acts couldn't
believe how gorgeous they were, had never seen anything like it,
and they went with whatever they decided. There was a
collaboration between Stefan and and and I mean her.
Speaker 1: French in comparison to the villagers, but not you know,
they're not ostentatious, but they're clearly of high quality. There.
That cloak is so freaking dramatic.
Speaker 2: It's dramatic when she shows up and wearing that cloak
and the hat, the little hat.
Speaker 1: The little French hat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and the costume and pretty much one costume,
the entire time, and the only change they made was
the apron was white, designed by Carlogold, and then director said, no, no,
I want everything gray because the movie is great. The
colors are very dark and you know, somber anyway, so
they change that. But she looked amazing.
Speaker 1: All of the costumes are impeccable, even on the villagers.
I question whether that's particularly accurate. I mean, these people
don't have money. They tend to wear clothes like, for instance,
by the time of the dinner, that that has been
living there for fourteen years, presumably wearing that same outfit,
and it looks impeccable. This is not a criticism. This
goes back to I'd never finished Axel's quote to Site
and Sound magazine where he said, this isn't a film
about the army, this isn't a film about cooking. He
finishes that quote by saying, it's a fairy tale and
if you try to over explain it, you destroy it.
Bottom line. That's it right there. Yeah, So you can
look at things like she can't make a meal like
that in that kitchen, Why are there clothes so nice?
It's a fairytale. It's a fairy tale about art. And
community and dying basically, because everybody in that story is
going to be dead in five years except for maybe
by bet. They're all elderly.
Speaker 2: Right and they're facing that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, they are facing that.
Speaker 2: And you know, having a wonderful meal, the celebrating an
important moment.
Speaker 1: And getting drunk for the first time.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know.
Speaker 1: Blixen does actually make that far clearer in the story
that they're all pretty much drunk by the well you
can tell.
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 1: Do love that because there are those scenes in the
film where it's very clear that these people are getting
soused for the first time in their lives and they
don't know it. And again, you could be making fun
of these people for that, but it's not. It's very
gentle about that. And then the fact that it's you know,
they go outside and they all join hands and start
singing a song. And I turned to you and I
was like, these people are drunk as hell right now
and they don't even know it.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's again acceptance. They accept that they have
to drink and eat that food. And I want to
get spoiled for anyone.
Speaker 1: But well, if you're listening, I'm assuming yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming you watched the movie. But anyway, the point
is that they're going to eat and drink everything served.
And I love that because it's it's also a way
of saying, you know, I'm going to experiment. I'm going
to experience something different that I haven't done before.
Speaker 1: I someday I'd like to have Kayne sacriflege. I know
it's a little gross to look at, and as I
said to you, I'm like, I really don't want to
eat anything with a head on it.
Speaker 2: I do remember at the time, all the restaurants were
all the restaurants, A lot of restaurants were doing I
was too poor to go and taste anything, and also
it's not my kind of food, but I Stefan o'dona
also said that when she toured here in the United States,
and she was in Chicago, Los Angeles, everywhere, they were
all New York, they were all doing the meal.
Speaker 1: The meal took two weeks to shoot. Oh wow, and
they brought in a date and I did a chef,
Yeah that I knew who who did a lot of
the close up work. But apparently she was very Stefano
dron learned how to do all that. I mean, obviously
she didn't make the meal, but in order to be
you know, confident on camera, to be able to use
those skills, she learned them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. She talks about her how her husband likes to cook,
like to cook and all that, and then she learned
a lot from him and then watching him, and then
that she wanted to be in the kitchen and you know,
do as much as she could.
Speaker 1: And the only other thing I'll say, uh, but you have.
Speaker 2: To think you have to back to the Mere's just
one more thing you have to remember, because we take
all these things for granted, they had pineapple, they had
they had fig figs, they had all kinds of papaya everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody had to bring that to the proast
to Denmark and whatever.
Speaker 2: A block of ice for the for the bottles, all that.
It's just I can't imagine if you lived in you know,
in that small village and it had never seen any
of that before. Yeah, you think she's she's a witch.
Speaker 1: They did think she was a witch. And then I
just want to point out cinematographer Henting Christiansen, who did
who took his inspiration from Vermier paintings and Whistler paintings
and you can see that in so much of the composition.
The lighting in the film is beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yes, the music.
Speaker 1: The music is also gorgeous. And when I say the lighting,
I mean not just the candlelight, although you know significant
portion of the film is candlelight. Uh. There are sunsets
and sunrises that are just beautifully depicted in their darkness,
because this is not a lush landscape. It's a rather
depressing one. I think I have done everything now in
costume direction, writing.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you know, there's also the post on our site.
Speaker 1: And we're going to do the post on our site.
But if there's anything you want to add, the only
thing I'll say that's the one thing that always bugged
me about this film is I felt that the two
young actresses who played the sisters were miscast, and each
of them should have played the opposite system. A lot
of people have said that because one of them has
big round eyes, and then they go to the and
they you know what, for a long time, I got
them confused. I got them confused because the actresses, the
young actresses, if you flip them, actually resembled the old one.
Speaker 2: I've read that many times.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm like, did he get confused which one was playing,
which I've read that many times that you kind of
get confused if you flip them. They're perfectly cast. They
look just like that. And I will say, the young
guy who plays Lorenz and the old guy who plays
they look like the same guy forty years apart.
Speaker 2: But everything, the costumes, the the everything, the sets. Yeah
they yeah. He chose that place and pretty much created
the entire village for the movie. It's beautiful. The movie. Uh,
if you know, if you're old enough and you remember
the movie back then in the eighties, I mean it
was huge.
Speaker 1: Oscar the World. Yeah, people, it was the first Danish
film to win.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was, I think it was, and everybody loved
the movie. It was just it's just an incredible movie.
Speaker 1: One final thing. The guy who played the ship uh huh.
I was charmed by him in this piece of the time.
I first off, he is adorable, but secondly he's kind
of this big French buffoon and it's kind of funny.
But at the same time, again it's age and looking
at these scenes slightly differently. He got really inappropriate with Philippa.
Yes he really didn't. I did not realize that when
I first watched the film as a young man, Oh,
she's so uptight, and I'm like, no, he is, you know,
way out of line with the way he's touching her.
Speaker 2: He yeah, he was way out of line. And he was.
Speaker 1: Very French, that's what he was.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was very French. And he was already thinking
of her career or her success and all that and
marrying her.
Speaker 1: Probably he was adorable though he's still alive, actually is it. Yeah,
he wasn't that old. He was only like thirty six
and when they shot that.
Speaker 2: But it's beautiful if you like, for me the Painter,
it's very much inspired by the whole cinematography. Everything is
just cool. Just absolutely go. Yeah, it's a beautiful movie.
Speaker 1: You have the opera, it's inspired by Vermier, you know,
it's you know and there yeah, felt, there's so much
there to love.
Speaker 2: And Stefan Odeleine. If you don't know who she is,
google her.
Speaker 1: She is an amazing she gives an amazing performance, was
an amazing actor. She should have gotten an Oscar for
her because she does so much just with her face.
Speaker 2: Now, but Gwyneth Paltrow has an Oscar anyway.
Speaker 1: Never miss a chance all right. We will be back
next week with two podcasts. The first one will be
with the regular PSO and who knows what that'll be about.
And then we're watching First Reformed next week, Great, which
I have never seen and actually don't know a thing about.
And that's great because I've seen Babbett's fe's like forty times.
All Right, so we'll be back then and take care
o yourselves, have a great weekend. Love you mean it,
but love you bye.