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