Episode 259: Losing Time ("Tár" with Paul Bloom)

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] Everybody wants to fuck you. The goal is to not get fucked. The Greatest Boss has spoken! I'm a very good man. They think deep thoughts, and with no more brains than you have. Anybody can have a brain. You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man.

[00:01:06] Just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston. And I am here with the two hosts of the new podcast, Psych. Paul, how does it feel to be a homewrecker? It feels awful.

[00:01:26] And I feel the only way I can make it up, Tamler, is if you and I have our own podcast. And then we would have a perfect triangle relationship, and nobody would feel left out. That would be good.

[00:01:38] We're very excited to have Paul on, in spite of the personal resentment and rage that I feel. You're a big man, Tam, to bring me in here. We're going to talk about Tar, Todd Field's movie.

[00:01:53] You told Dave, in one of your many discussions over the last few months, you told him that you loved this movie. David watched the movie, he said he loved it. I had seen it, I've now seen it three times, including once in the theater.

[00:02:13] Yeah, it's a big mystery of a movie, and we have a lot to talk about with that. It's Kubrick-esque, which I didn't, I just had no idea going into it. Well, you know that Todd Field is Nick Nightingale in Eyes Wide Shut,

[00:02:26] and apparently just studied Kubrick as he was over in England for like a year and a half. I did not, can you remind me of the character of Nick Nightingale? He's the friend of Tom Cruise that he runs into at the bar.

[00:02:41] He's playing piano, and he leads him to the secret place. Exactly. So, remember David when I said you were going to lead us into the... Oh, that's right. This is what I mean about his work suffering. It's all falling apart.

[00:03:01] Before we talk TAR, Paul, you got in a bit of a Twitter beef, a little Twitter, some drive-bys exchanged about something that actually was triggered at Cornell. So, Cornell recently, students recently proposed that there be a mandatory trigger warning policy

[00:03:24] of some sort at Cornell, and it was quickly shot down in a statement by our president and our provost. And honestly, this passed without too much attention for a few days. It was just sort of like a comment that they appended to the student council movement.

[00:03:41] And then all of a sudden, it got national press for among other things, you know, the bravery of Cornell in finally standing up to the woke mob. The woke mob. And Paul, so Paul, you tweeted that... And I had your tweet up. I have it.

[00:04:01] I agree with the decision. Nobody should force profs to use trigger warnings, but I am mildly pro-trigger warning, and I've used them in the past. It's often basic decency to warn people, and this includes students, before exposing them to shocking material. So, I stand by this.

[00:04:19] Maybe I'm biased here, but I think my opinion is just incredibly reasonable and shouldn't be controversial. I feel the same way about many of my opinions. But, you know, and I realize people got... And it's also, I guess, my most woke opinion, which I'm mildly pro-trigger warning.

[00:04:36] And even, I don't know if we could go on, there was a point where I even made a point of making a trigger warning and allowed students to opt out of a paper in a seminar I had. But how many did? None. And it was a seminar.

[00:04:50] The paper... So, what I was talking about in the tweet, maybe this is just worth talking about, is I think it's just basic politeness to warn people before you're going to show them something that's going to shock and offend them. And I think everybody knows this.

[00:05:01] It's just that somehow because woke people are saying we've got to give trigger warnings if you mention Donald Trump, and we've got to let students take the class off if you're talking about anything, ridiculous positions, I feel that the anti-woke crowd are saying,

[00:05:14] no, you could throw feces at the students without warning. That's just fine because it's actually good for them. In some way, students are kind of like people. And so the same things, rules you apply to your friends and people in everyday life would apply.

[00:05:31] And that includes warning people before you throw something unpleasant at them. You clearly show them, I don't know what, snuff films or... He takes the John Hite dilemmas and films them. We reenact them in class. Okay, somebody, you've got to be the chicken. You be my sister.

[00:05:56] I totally agree with you, Paul. And actually, like, I've had to rethink my own just personal preference about whether to use them. Common courtesy, right now things are a little fraught. Yeah, like you say, like I'm looking through your thread, kindness, respect, that's all it is.

[00:06:14] There's no political statement here. You're not taking part in the culture wars. You're just saying, hey, look, this could be a little upsetting, just letting you know, just a heads up. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. And that's actually why I think it shouldn't be enforced

[00:06:30] because I think professors under academic freedom with some extreme limits have a right to be somewhat rude and insensitive and shocking. And I don't think that's very kind. I sometimes think that's bad teaching, but we shouldn't force them to conform to our rules.

[00:06:45] I'm just saying that you have a right to be an asshole in class, but you shouldn't. Yeah, and as a matter of policy, it seems misguided. And, you know, it seems as if just at the very least there are logistical problems

[00:07:01] that would make this a nonstarter, like what you warn about and when and how you enforce it. I think it was a stupid, well, a misguided attempt at to force professors into doing this. But I was honestly a bit surprised at some of the response on Twitter,

[00:07:18] which mostly consisted of people telling you that clearly you didn't understand the science because studies have been done. This was the offensive part of this whole episode. So there's research showing that trigger warnings might actually make people more anxious.

[00:07:34] So it doesn't have the alleviating effect that people think it does. But it seemed to me so incredibly weird that people were talking right past what Paul was saying and making a completely different argument just because I think they view this as such a politically charged topic.

[00:07:53] It almost was like, Paul, you were caricaturing it to some extent, but like it's almost as if they think that shocking our students is the way to not coddle them because this generation is so coddled. So don't give them a warning about it.

[00:08:06] Well, you know, in preparation for this, I did a little bit of reading. I read some of those empirical papers and sometimes what they'll argue, some people argue is the way you deal with somebody who has a phobia

[00:08:20] or anxiety is sometimes exposure therapy where you present to them the object of their fear and anxiety. They realize that it's not dangerous and then they calm down. In fact, David and I in our podcast, Psych, talk about exposure therapy. We've heard about that.

[00:08:37] Have you heard of it? Yes. I have to mention it every four or five minutes. I feel I'm experiencing that right now actually. But you see nothing bad is happening. So I don't think, first thing, the studies, I think the studies are fine.

[00:08:53] The studies they involve, you get Amturkers and you get people who get Amturkers and you give them upsetting stories. And these are, and often these people have a history of trauma. And then you say after the story, you say, how do you feel?

[00:09:03] And it turns out that giving them a warning ahead of time doesn't make them feel any better. Maybe even makes them feel a little bit worse. That was unclear. But I wasn't talking about trauma. I wasn't on an artificial situation like that.

[00:09:13] I was just talking about how you would normally treat people. It's kind of like spoilers. So there was a very, I think a very bad study showing that, a little Amturk study showing that spoilers don't make things worse. And of course this is because they use unrealistic.

[00:09:28] Then other better studies show that spoilers, people don't really like spoilers. But if you were watching a show and I say, you guys should really watch this session. And you say, yeah, I can't wait for next episode. Don't tell me what's going to happen.

[00:09:41] I say, no, no, I'm going to tell you what happened. Because according to Google Scholar, it's good for you. Say, no, no, don't be a jerk. Don't tell me. No, no, I'm going to tell you. That's not how you treat people. These studies, so I didn't read them,

[00:09:55] but isn't it that trigger warnings, one of the things that they're supposed to do is, if you know that it's going to make you very uncomfortable, you can opt out. It's not that I'm going to trigger warn you and then make you listen to the stuff, like presumably.

[00:10:10] Well, I don't think it's always like that. It's not always like that. No, no, but it could. So nobody's being, like if you gave a trigger warn, you said today we're going to talk about suicide. And a student said, just walked out.

[00:10:22] Because they knew like that is available to them in a way that it wasn't. If you hadn't triggered. Can I just say what is triggering me is this headline. The data is in trigger warnings don't work from the Chronicle.

[00:10:37] It's like, first of all, like, you know, based on the study, it's like, you know, who the who the fuck knows. But also just this idea of whether they work or not. And this is, I guess what you're saying is so not the point.

[00:10:54] Nobody is thinking this is going to work to solve trauma or like racism or whatever. It's like asking if you should take off your shoes when you come in someone's house doesn't work. Holding the door open for people doesn't work. New studies find. So stupid.

[00:11:17] This is this is one of the worst examples of people taking something that's totally neutral and politicizing it. But I think like you guys are a part of it. Like to run studies on whether trigger warnings work or not is all ready to like play that game.

[00:11:35] You know. So let me steal man. I'm using this almost unironically. Good word. Maybe we should use it. I think that the those like so there's two issues.

[00:11:51] One is whether the studies show what they intend to show and the other is if they do, does that matter for what we're talking about?

[00:11:57] And I guess if if the claim was very clearly that the reason professors should use trigger warnings is that they do prevent people from reliving trauma. And then you show that in fact it doesn't.

[00:12:11] If you believe that, I guess that it's not unreasonable for them to think that that's the case.

[00:12:16] What bothered me, though, was that Paul repeatedly was saying, no, like I'm just saying as a matter of politeness or as a matter of kindness, like I don't think it's a bad thing. And people kept like shoving the data. But look at the scientific data.

[00:12:26] Such trigger warnings cause all caps, not relieve anxiety. It's like who's the fragile? Who are the who's the fragile group here? You know what I mean?

[00:12:36] And like you said, you know, like I think you say that like people are a little less people are more resilient, less fragile. They can handle a trigger warning.

[00:12:44] Like that's how ridiculous this debate has gone is that the snowflakes are the one that worry about whether the students get exposed to a trigger warning. Yeah, there's some irony here that people who argue, well, you shouldn't coddle students, but don't you dare give him a trigger warning.

[00:13:00] And in some way, I mean, I was going back and forth with Dan Gilbert, who's somebody I often disagree with, but always respect. And then I was saying in the end, a lot of these things will ultimately reduce to empirical questions.

[00:13:10] And I think I think David's example, in a sense, is the empirical question is do students appreciate what you're doing? If they what if they will find it condescending and distracting and unpleasant? You found that out. You say, oh, it's going to stop doing it.

[00:13:22] So in some way, you're always sensitive to people's responses. But the responses aren't the sort you test in an M-Turk study. They're more like, you know, you ask people, what do you want? It's just normal human discourse. Yeah. And also they don't care.

[00:13:35] Probably like 99.9 percent of the time they don't care. And nobody's like, oh, you're patronizing me. I'm actually an adult and I'm strong and I can handle whatever you're going to show me without you warning me.

[00:13:49] Nobody thinks like that unless you're already like your brain has been exposed to this like culture war virus. You know, I think the more trigger warnings just just day to day.

[00:14:02] Like I just I haven't had conversations with somebody and also they're telling me this disgusting operation they had or something. You know, I remember when my kids were little. I talked to a cab driver. Oh, you kiss a little. You hear about those kids. They died. Those horrible.

[00:14:18] And and I got and they start telling me the story and they say, dude, let me opt out. Yeah. I was about to ask if you've ever if either of you have ever had the feeling that you wish you had been given a warning.

[00:14:30] And I have a similar one where I was with a couple of people who said, oh, let's watch this show. It's really good. It's like a true crime show. And I was like, well, I'm not really that into like shit about serial killers.

[00:14:42] Like it kind of I'm not a middle aged woman. And I was I was like, you know, I'm not there. Oh, no, it's fine. And so we start watching it and there's literally talking about the gory details showing crime scene photos. And I was like, I'm out.

[00:14:57] Like, like maybe I'm a wuss compared to you two women. But I did not want to see that. I did not expect to see that. And I feel a little a little pissed off that you made me watch it. I want trigger warnings.

[00:15:08] I feel strongly about this for when somebody is about to tell like a really boring story. So I have a 25 minute story which doesn't really have an ending. Is this OK with you? Yeah, I would just say no. I would opt out. But nobody ever does that.

[00:15:26] Or like the minute someone says, you know, I had a super interesting dream last night. Oh, yeah. Sometimes you just go right into the dream. I'm actually weird. I like to hear about people's dreams. I don't like to hear about their real life.

[00:15:38] You know what other thing I really hate is reading people's clever, quote unquote, prompts for chat GPT. And then they post the conversation and like, isn't this crazy? It's such a random question. Look, here's like us, like Trump's indictment sung to Gilbert and Sullivan song.

[00:16:01] I don't like those. It's like, I don't know. OK, I want a trigger warning when somebody says that we're having a discussion. Well, I have four points to make. And I'm like, I don't want to listen to you make four points. But that is a trigger warning actually.

[00:16:15] That itself is a trigger warning. Only if I have the option of opting. Yes, you want the opt out. Actually, you're right. That is a trigger warning because then when I get point three, I know there's going to be a point four. So I don't relax. Yeah.

[00:16:28] So I once used a trigger warning in the more heavy duty sense, and I'm curious whether I did the right thing. It's, of course, a seminar on moral psychology. And I assigned an article by Jeb Rubenfeld on rape.

[00:16:40] And it was a very interesting legal article where he basically argued that the notion of rape as sex without consent doesn't work. And it was one of the most interesting articles I've ever read, actually, because he points out that in everywhere else in the law, consent requires consent.

[00:16:56] So if you're a sex offender, you're not going to be able to have sex with somebody being informed. But if you deceive somebody into having sex with you, putting aside some really strange cases, it doesn't count as rape.

[00:17:05] If you tell somebody you're much richer than you are and have sex with you, you haven't raped them. But if sex was consent, that would normally violate consent.

[00:17:12] So he talks about, and this was in the context of a course where I assigned David Livingston Smith talking about lynching, Jonathan Haidt, and so on, which is disgusting examples.

[00:17:21] But for this one, I said in the syllabus, if you don't want to attend this class, you can opt out and we'll figure out some other readings to do in another assignment. Good thing or bad thing? I have zero problem with that.

[00:17:36] I mean, I would have zero problem with you that you did or if you didn't. That's how I feel. I mean, I think that the syllabus in a way is a long trigger warning. If you have content, right, you put the reading.

[00:17:52] When I used to teach a moral psych seminar, I would tell students, look over the material. We're going to talk about all this stuff. Some of it is uncomfortable. And so just know you don't have to take this class.

[00:18:02] But really what I'm upset about now is we're going to have to put another trigger warning before this conversation because you brought that up. We've got to have Liza come and give a trigger warning.

[00:18:10] You pointed out a while ago, your podcast, and I've heard of none other, begins with an extended trigger warning. Yeah, it does. Bad words and possibly inappropriate jokes. Yeah, and some people would say the bad words I could take, the inappropriate humor. No, no.

[00:18:26] Yeah, honestly, like what I think about that story, Paul, is that it's supererogatory. It's like you didn't have to do it, but it's totally fine that you do it. And yeah, and you're even willing to put in extra work if people take you up on it.

[00:18:39] I mean, it's anti-science, but whatever. I mean, there's an intuition there. So if I said it for something else and because we're discussing Trump, and I know this is upsetting because many people are unhappy Trump was president, that would be foolish.

[00:18:54] I think there's dumb trigger warnings which apply for things that assume people are extremely sensitive. And the fact that half of 1% of people respond by getting extremely upset for any given night, that's not enough to provide a trigger warning.

[00:19:06] But rape is a category that many people are really upset by. And suicide is another. Certain disgusting visual depictions is another. It's not an enormous list. Yeah. Can I say one last thing about the people who are replying with the science?

[00:19:24] Like they're making it sound as if, actually, Paul, I'm the good person here because I read the science and it's doing more harm. I'm so concerned with harming my students that I am the, I'm the mensch here like you.

[00:19:38] That's what we were saying. It's like they're the fragile ones. They're the snowflakes. They care about their students more than I do.

[00:19:44] I think one more point, which is this gets politicized in the sort of standard way where the left, the woke are hyper concerned and want the triggers. And then people on the right, anti-woke, mock this and say this. But there's another way to look at it.

[00:19:57] And I think I got to some Scott Alexander who says, look, I'm a libertarian. As a libertarian, I love trigger warnings. I love the ability to make informed choices. Maybe they shouldn't be mandated.

[00:20:07] But, but, you know, I make choices all through my life of what courses to take, what to listen to, what to read. Some advanced knowledge about what I'll enjoy and what I won't is welcome.

[00:20:17] I mean, it's so obvious that it's annoying that you even need to make these obvious points. One of the worst examples of the way culture wars are rotting our brains.

[00:20:28] I guess the positive side is people like me who never would have thought to do it before now have it in my head that maybe that's a good idea in some cases. And nobody has ever forced me to do it or even like.

[00:20:42] I am happy that Cornell wrote the opinion that it did, though, that this shouldn't be mandatory. Like I like I think that was the right decision. But but yeah. And in my heart, for my perfectly reasonable opinion, I got canceled just like just like Lydia Tarr.

[00:20:59] There you go. What a segue. You're getting good at this. That's bad for me. Very bad for me. All right. We'll be right back to talk about Tarr. This episode of Very Bad Wizards is brought to you once again by BetterHelp Online Therapy.

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[00:26:37] Now let's get back to the podcast with Paul and David and me discussing Todd Fields' Tar. Alright, we're back to talk about Todd Fields' movie Tar starring Cate Blanchett. And this was a movie that came out in 2022. It actually played in theaters for a while.

[00:27:04] I didn't get to see it the first time in the theater. Because it was kind of, I don't think it did that well theatrically. No, it didn't. It got a lot of Oscar nominations. I don't think it won any, which is unfortunate.

[00:27:19] Because I definitely think it's like one of the best movies of that year, if not the best. Paul, what did you think? I thought it was fantastic. I thought it was really a masterpiece. It did a lot of things very well.

[00:27:33] It was beautifully shot. The dialogue was amazing. It was clever. It was in some way ambiguous and hard to figure out, but in a good way. Not in a sort of a sloppy way. In fact, I was just with some friends a little while ago.

[00:27:47] And somebody hadn't seen the movie and asked me what it was about. And I said, I was like, interesting. And there's this composer, Tar, who was sexually involved with these people she worked with. And somebody said, no, she wasn't. You don't know that.

[00:27:59] And he said, they left that. It was not clear. They gave no strong evidence it was true. You had to assume that. And the fact that we could see the movie in that sort of different way, I loved it.

[00:28:12] And I think at a deep level, we're going to talk about this, there are some real puzzles about certain things that are going on there. But they're good puzzles. Yeah, that's well put. David, what did you think? I felt the same way. I didn't know why.

[00:28:27] I hadn't read much about it. The first time I watched it, I don't know how long, for the first 30 minutes, I thought, I don't know if I like this. The dialogue seems stilted. The people seem fake. It's this sort of like hoity-toity,

[00:28:41] I don't know how to describe this world of both rich and like intelligentsia. Like the movie version of the New Yorker festival. Exactly. Yeah. And I thought that the lines were being delivered as if they were lines. And I was really puzzled.

[00:28:58] I was starting to conclude that it must have been one of these misfires that I don't agree with so many people who I would normally agree with. And then as the movie progressed, it became something else. And what it became was so perplexing to me

[00:29:14] that at the end of that first viewing, all I could think of was to go immediately and read as much as I could and watch it again. And that is the mark of a great movie. I mean, I think it hits a bunch of buttons for me.

[00:29:28] There are layers of mystery and weirdness but done subtly. There are details in there that point you to something else going on. What that is, I'm hoping, I think it's what you were saying, I'm hoping by the end of this conversation,

[00:29:42] I know a little bit more about what that is. Yeah. Yeah, I'm also hoping that. And I honestly believe it might happen. Like I feel like I need to talk through this movie. It's a Rorschach test in terms of just what you think about it.

[00:29:56] I think initially a lot of people thought it was a canceled culture movie and then people comment like that was maybe a central theme and maybe Paul, you think that so we'll talk about that. I don't think that although I totally understand why people do.

[00:30:12] And I like you, Dave, I liked it just because it was so kind of beautifully done and it was so patient in the first 20, 25 minutes and already there's just certain things that you're wondering what's going on. Like people texting during.

[00:30:27] I still don't know what that opening scene is like, what she's texting and who and why. Yeah, I wrote that down. Did you write some of that down? I wrote some of that down too.

[00:30:39] It's like I feel like I'm projecting what I want it to be about a lot of the time. Like when I'm trying to figure out what's going on in a particular scene or when I'm trying to think about the whole movie.

[00:30:51] And in that way, I think like you said, Paul, it is mysterious, but in a good way. I don't feel like I can pin it down. I will honestly change my mind about this movie or like things will coalesce as a result of the conversation.

[00:31:04] That's just a really good movie if you want to dig into it in this depth. And just on the same theme, it defies genre categorization. At times it's come off as like a horror movie. It had a horror movie feeling. At times flat out comedy.

[00:31:19] At times this artistic journey. And towards the end, I don't know what the hell it was. So it was... I was very confused at that ending. And I didn't even realize what maybe you were supposed to realize about what she was doing and where she was.

[00:31:34] I struggled to figure it out. And I think I sort of had to have the ending explained to me at the very end. The question as to that, because it's true, it did get a lot of attention as a movie that was like directly about cancel culture.

[00:31:47] And I'm of the opinion that that's more of a, that's more of a smoke screen, but it's not not about it. Right? There is a lot of effort put into having discussions about this. And the way that I think about it is like eyes wide shut

[00:32:00] isn't not about marital fidelity and trust. Right? It's true. It is. I just think that there is a filmmaker who has, who has given us layers upon layers. And I don't think in the end that is the movie,

[00:32:14] the theme of the movie that he was trying to make. But because it's about, in some ways maybe about power and that, that it plays a central role. So I'll tell you why. Well, I'll tell you the story where she sort of settled on the idea

[00:32:28] that cancel culture is part of it, which is, I read a review by Richard Brody in the New Yorker, and he's not a reviewer I tend to agree with a lot. And he hated it. So this is his, I think this is the tagline of his review.

[00:32:39] Tar is a regressive film that takes bitter aim at the so-called cancel culture and lampoons so-called identity politics. And it goes on how it mocks people of color and it doesn't show proper deference to victims of, of sexual abuse by powerful people. It takes Tar's side.

[00:32:56] And in some ways that's no, it's a complicated film. No, no, no good film takes somebody's side. But I think I love the film, but he was right to get upset. I, there's a hundred, we could talk about the scene in Juilliard for instance.

[00:33:11] They give her the best lines. They make her smarter and smarter and everyone else she confronts. The kid, the scene in Juilliard is great because it is a portrayal of a woke kid by somebody who just hates woke kids. But that's what I, but I mean,

[00:33:26] I think it literally is that it's like, I mean we have to get to this and talk about it in detail, but I don't think we're supposed to take that scene literally. And if you're not supposed to take that scene literally,

[00:33:36] then it's not an all out attack on cancel culture. It is a window into something about Lydia Tar and how she thinks like, I mean maybe we can talk about it now. I don't know. Like let's wait, let's wait. Let me tease this. Yeah, because I want to,

[00:33:55] even though I don't understand the movie as a whole, I feel like I have a sense of this scene or at least I have a strong take on it. I also should admit, I understood nothing that they said about music, which was probably about 60% of the film

[00:34:07] where they would argue. Well, okay. Yeah, sorry. But on that, this is a world in which we, as the audience are supposed to feel like this stuff is all going over our heads. This is a world that's not us. Like the stuff isn't there with any thought that

[00:34:29] we're going to appreciate it for whatever, the smartness of its content. It's like a science fiction movie where they argue about the drive and the starship. And they say, you know, and having a big argument and everything. And you don't get this, but you see what's going on.

[00:34:44] Warp 10 is theoretically incapable. Yeah, but we have a virillion drive. That should solve the problem. I also think you're supposed to feel like, oh, like your cousin is the second violinist and they're letting you watch a rehearsal or something like that. And then you just walk,

[00:35:02] you get to go in there and it's like, oh, this is cool, but you don't get what's going on. But you understand the way this artistic community is connecting and working together. You don't understand the terms that they're saying. So the beginning of the movie,

[00:35:18] before the credits even, is Lydia Tarr on the plane and there's somebody texting, what time did she get up? I wasn't with her. Our girl's an early riser, isn't she? Haunted, ha, yeah. You mean she has a conscience? She says maybe, and then one of them says

[00:35:38] you still love her then. Now, this is just the very beginning of like five minutes of end credits leading into the movie. And it's like, whoa, what's going on here? One of the things that is interesting to talk about is who you think those two people are.

[00:35:56] Maybe one you might assume is Francesca, her assistant, but who's the other one? Is it Krista Taylor? I think it's Krista Taylor. First of all, I couldn't even tell at first that it was Tarr sleeping on the plane. It was far away enough

[00:36:12] that I was like, okay, that is her, right? Yeah. So we never see who. Weirdly, it's also like she, it has a little live icon in the top left, like as if she were streaming the footage. Interesting. Which I don't know if they just meant

[00:36:29] that to indicate that this is a live phone call, like a FaceTime or whatever, but it seemed like she was like going live on Instagram or something. And yeah, she's talking. And after watching it twice, Francesca is talking to Krista still. Yeah, maybe.

[00:36:46] Then you have the end credits coming, which was apparently a controversial decision. But I even thought I got this the first time through, that it's just like an orchestra is not the conductor. Like an orchestra is every individual instrument. Like he wants to show all the people

[00:37:02] who are doing the movie first and really give them their due. Because this isn't about one person. It's about an ensemble. That's kind of what I thought. And I think he's even said it was something along those lines. I thought he was also just saying,

[00:37:18] look, I'm not in a rush. I'm going to stretch your patience. I'm going to give you the credits. Then there's going to be a 25-minute interview. And there's kind of a courage to that. If you feel you're in good hands, you respect that. He's not rushing.

[00:37:34] So I think the same. I mean, I think that that's actually, but is there something else about time that he's trying to fuck with? Because that doesn't explain why in this movie, like he would do it necessarily. And so I don't have a good theory

[00:37:50] about why this is the case. But it does seem like time is... You could play with that at the end. That the very first scene happened at the end. And that the whole thing that happened to Tar was in fact, you know, in her head. Yeah.

[00:38:06] As she's lying. So I think you should at least consider that by putting that shot there. Which would mean, that can mean a lot of things in terms of what you thought. On that point of like, we're in good hands, but you got to be patient.

[00:38:24] I came across this. So Todd Field on the screenplay, like you can download the screenplay and it's like 94 pages. And he has this little paragraph at the beginning that says, based on this script's page count, I'm going to give you two hours. However,

[00:38:42] this is not a reasonable film. There will be tempo changes and soundscapes that require more time than is represented on the page. And of course a great deal of music performed on screen. All this to say, if you are mad enough to green light this film,

[00:38:58] be prepared for one whose necessary length represents these practical accommodations. Wow. So I think like your idea about time might be right. Like he's saying, like, I'm going to give you two hours. I'm going to give you two hours. And I think that's the central thing

[00:39:14] in this movie. And the first scenes, there are so many, like are just really long scenes. And Tar herself in the interview with Gopnik mentions time. Oh yeah. And maybe she hears the voice of the writer who talks about the control over time.

[00:39:34] Things begin and end when she wants them to. Yeah. I'm sure this is going to come up throughout, but I wanted to just put like a, put the seed in our heads that I don't know if you read too much about the sound design,

[00:39:46] which has gotten a lot of praise. But I was reading an interview with Field and he was saying that every piece of sound in the film is 100 percent intentional and that when they were in the editing bay, they were in Scotland doing editing.

[00:40:05] He said that we spent as much on the audio edits as we did on the visual edits. And in fact, to record atmosphere sound, he and the editor would go out and get wherever they could get audio. And there's a time, there's like industry magazines about audio

[00:40:21] where they describe exactly what he did to create the ambiances, like the music in the room. And I didn't even notice that there is a score to this movie because it seems so silent, but it's mixed so low in a very Tarkovsky way. It is mixed so low

[00:40:38] that if you don't have headphones or big enough speakers with bass in them, you might miss it. It just sounds like droning in the background, but it's there. Like it's just unconscious. So Adam Gopnik is interviewing Lydia Tarr at the New Yorker Festival. Like this is where

[00:41:00] when I'm watching it, like the second and third episode, I'm like, it's so over the top. His intro of her, like she can't possibly at her age have done all these things. And one of the things I came across is like she's too young

[00:41:18] to actually be Bernstein's student. Like he was her mentor. And so like, again, you're already starting to think we're getting this from a somewhat maybe skewed perspective. And you know, Fran Turek, Francesca mouthing, first of all, she's texting during this. Her mouthing it again makes me think like,

[00:41:42] I don't know what I think is going on, but this isn't fully literal, even though it seems to capture the smugness of an event like that so perfectly. You know? No, I like that. And at the end of the event, she's approached by an adoring fan

[00:42:00] and they sort of flirt. But just following on that theme, it all has this, you know, Francesca is getting hugely pissed off when she watches this. But everything's going, it's just too much. Yeah. It reminds me of my freshman year at Smith. The unnaturalness of this whole thing

[00:42:22] is what I thought was a genuine attempt at filmmaking a natural like biographical scene. And it was only at the end of the movie where I'm like, what is this about the status of her life? Like, what is this life? Like, it doesn't,

[00:42:41] it just doesn't seem that real. It does and it doesn't. Like, I believe that like the New Yorker Festival with Adam Gopnik interviewing a figure like that would have that kind of insufferable pomposity. It's capturing it. It's just almost capturing it too well, you know,

[00:43:03] and it's just so interesting. And so a lot of I think what she is saying sounded rehearsed to me, which it could be that that's the case if the question, the intro was, I think, written out where I think we're supposed to believe it was written

[00:43:16] out. So maybe these answers are rehearsed. But there was a little uncanny moment where she's talking about the first violin, the chair who was the conductor before conductors were conductors. But when he was keeping time with his stick, he stabbed himself in the back. Like, yeah.

[00:43:34] And it just seemed that threw me off kilter, too. I was like, what? Like, that wasn't funny. It just seemed so odd. It seems surreal to me. Yeah. No, there's a lot of things like that that I noticed that, too. This time it's like, wait, why?

[00:43:48] Like, he seems like he was an asshole, but it's not funny that he died of gangrene. But there is other times where she says something and it is how these like rich people would chuckle at something that's not that funny. It's like an invitation to laugh.

[00:44:02] Yeah. Like the time stuff is really interesting in this because Adam Gopnik is saying, like, somebody said that the conductor was a human metronome, almost like inviting her to be like, oh, my God, no, it's nothing like that. And she's like, actually, there's a lot of truth

[00:44:20] to that. And he says, but I'm sure it's much more. And he's like, she's like, I don't know, kind of. But but no, this is it. Like, I control the time. And so there's a couple interesting things about this speech. Number one, she says,

[00:44:34] I control it like that. And that's the biggest thing that a conductor does is control the time. But to like, I give the illusion of spontaneity in terms of like me figuring out on stage. But every little bit of that has been already decided in rehearsal.

[00:44:52] And at one level, this is clearly like I think this is how she runs her own life. This is how she runs her life. Like things that appear spontaneous are actually really well rehearsed before. And she likes to be in control of everything that she says, number one.

[00:45:11] And then number two, I think, like, if you want to give like what is this movie about? It is she is losing control of time. Like she the one thing that matters to her is that she wants to control time. But all of a sudden, she's getting

[00:45:24] older. The kids are getting younger. The rules aren't working. And she, you know, we can talk about like where we think like what we think literally Lydia Tarr is. But clearly, like the world is slipping away from her as she's getting older. And that's a problem.

[00:45:42] And time and sound, because her control of the sound and when the sound comes in and out is is super important. And sounds are intruding on her increasingly throughout the film. And so I think those do go hand in hand. I should have known that maybe

[00:45:57] this is obvious to people. I should know this. But like this a few months ago, I learned this for the first time, that the reason that the conductor's role is so important is that orchestra is keeping time. If two instruments are on the

[00:46:11] opposite side of the stage, the sound takes time to travel. So it's actually really hard to keep in sync. But light obviously travels faster. So having the conductor in the middle, giving the visual timing is necessary for the whole orchestra to stay on time.

[00:46:26] So like being a metronome is very literally sort of the role that she's playing. And so she talks about her right hand is the timekeeper and I forget what she says that her left hand does, but yeah. Shapes it. Yeah, shapes it. She also says so.

[00:46:40] So one of the things that is important to the plot is that she has now with the Berlin Symphony done eight of Mahler's nine symphonies and she's saved the fifth for last. So this is going to be like her, you know, the the the

[00:46:55] icing on the top of the cake. The crowning jewel. The crowning jewel. Yeah. As your book Tar on Tar comes out. How insufferable is that? For all of us, we now have a framework for our book about our own work. Blumen. Exactly. Sounds dirty.

[00:47:14] Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And so they do have a discussion about interpreting these pieces. Right. And so the conductor has to make some creative decisions because not everything is spelled out. And so they're talking about Bernstein's view about what this fifth symphony was about.

[00:47:33] And it seems as if later on in Mahler's life, he had had like a falling out with his wife and Bernstein wanted to use that emotional material to interpret the symphony that was clearly written before that. And so she says Bernstein really had this belief that you

[00:47:49] could reach back in time and give meaning to your previous actions based on your later actions. And she disagrees. She says, no, Mahler, Mahler's fifth was born into young love. Yeah. Young love, which will be a recurring theme. That's right. I hadn't thought of that.

[00:48:10] Yeah. But it's again, it's one of these things where the crowd's like, oh, yeah, clap, clap, clap. And the Smith, the Smith's harlot will bring that back. She looked like she was married. She was wearing a ring, too. So she's clearly. So we go to

[00:48:28] after the Smith lesbian, we go to the conversation with this very anti-Semitic conversation. I mean, not like I guess the scene is anti-Semitic because it portrays Paul I don't know if you felt this, but it portrays us in a bad light in a way that we're, you

[00:48:51] know, self-conscious. Rich, rich Jew aspire towards brilliance, but plainly not brilliant himself. Yeah. Gay for whatever that means. Oh, is he? I didn't I didn't even catch that. Oh, I thought so. Well, I misunderstood the scene. I thought that there was she mentioned somebody's looking at him. Yeah.

[00:49:10] And yeah. But I thought that might be a perspective like somebody who wants to to get him for his money. But that could have just been the money hungry Jew things. I think it could be either. I interpreted it the way you did,

[00:49:22] Paul. But I don't think it's like a lot of things. Nothing is fully confirmed. Right. It is kind of interesting. This guy just wants to get a look at her score. Oh, he's on her nuts. Like it's it's it's hard to watch how much he's like, just come

[00:49:36] on, just a peek. Like I tried to bribe your assistant, but she said no. And she says at the end of it, there's no glory for a robot. Elliot, do your own thing. Yes, you really. She really sours on him. It was private jets.

[00:49:49] Yeah. And then, you know, that's what's so funny about at the end. Like he's doing like Mahler's Fifth Symphony with her score, presumably at the end. Like you can see why not like I don't really believe this happens. She would want to tackle it.

[00:50:05] So does that make any sense that it would be him doing it? No, I thought that's just that we're into sort of a dream sequence here. Totally. The striver would end that. Right. And it is relevant to what she said during that conversation.

[00:50:21] She said something about him maybe like whatever conducting. And he said, I know my place. Money can't always buy you everything. And then she looks and she goes, you don't believe that. So maybe in her mind, like he did he did buy her position. All right.

[00:50:34] Now's the Juilliard scene. All right. Let's talk about this. Max with the twitching leg. Yeah. Too fast, you know, for her. Like she didn't. It was going at a speed she can't handle. So, like, first of all, this is shot in a single take, but not

[00:50:50] in a showy way at all. I had no definitely. I didn't notice it, but I only could appreciate it afterwards when I was reading about them having to capture the sound. And they were like, it was really tricky because we because they were

[00:51:02] doing a 360 of the whole room in this continuous take. They couldn't have microphones placed all throughout. So they had to like be creative. They had like attach them to the camera and like walk around. I don't know. We can go through some of the

[00:51:14] things, but like I'll just say as a way of starting the conversation, I don't think you can take this scene literally at all. Like, I don't think that's a supportable position, even though almost everybody did when this movie came out. But there are certain things that

[00:51:31] are said by Max, the BIPOC and gender person that I just don't I just don't buy that a Juilliard student would say. And when he leaves, he says you're a fucking bitch. Yeah. Which makes him this misogynist villain and it's like the worst thing anyway.

[00:51:51] And he wouldn't say that. That's just that's again that that's a fantasy of now that you've demolished the person all they're left with is their true evil self. They have to fool themselves. It's like Barry Weiss's fantasy of like what would happen at a Juilliard master class.

[00:52:10] But like he literally says honestly as a BIPOC pan gender person Bach's misogynistic life makes it kind of impossible for me to take his music seriously. She's like what do you mean? And he said like didn't he sire like 20 children? Like nobody talks like this. Who says sire?

[00:52:26] Who says sire? Right. Yeah. No, I agree. The question about what he's what Field is trying to say with the scene is an interesting one. But it is clear that that this dialogue is I think the fantasy of someone who's looking to own like

[00:52:42] one of these like woke kids. And that is what you would write if you had a caricature of the woke kid in your mind. And I think I might be wrong, but I do not I do not think that there could be you couldn't

[00:52:57] dedicate your life to music and get to Juilliard and not like Bach is just the most important composer ever like it. So it made it extra caricature that somebody would. And it wasn't just Bach, right? Like he was saying like I'm not into the dead white sis composers.

[00:53:17] It's like I just don't buy that that's what would be happening at Juilliard. What I do buy is that that's what a woman or man of like roughly our age might think is going on there and might. And it's really funny because we're all unanimous on this.

[00:53:34] But it's not filmed in a way that makes you think this is in any way surreal or we're not supposed to take it literally. And you look at the reviews of when this first came out and everybody just took it at face value. And like now I see

[00:53:53] it and I just like that doesn't even seem remotely plausible to me given how smart the rest of the movie is. I agree there's too much subtlety in the rest of the movie to think that this could be his attempt at actually taking down this view.

[00:54:05] But it's still the question still remains why this then. And put me down as 90 percent convinced because they don't give us any clue that we're seeing the world through her eyes. Yeah. Why is this particular scene important for her? I mean arguably up to now the whole

[00:54:23] movie has been has been and I see it. One, not a fantasy scene but the world scene from somebody who wants to see the world in a certain way. Yeah. My daughter when we saw this her idea was that like this is her memory of these events like

[00:54:41] that's how she remembers the New Yorker festival. That's how she remembers the scene at Juilliard you know like after she's already gotten into trouble. She remembers that guy as just the most the caricature of a woke Gen Z person and she remembers the scene at the New Yorker

[00:55:01] person and she remembers her as saying eminently reasonable like things in response and him being you know completely unwilling to even consider that maybe Beethoven had some like good music even if he was a cis white male. I like this because it is a nice

[00:55:25] contrast with what she thinks of as the ultimate sin against her which was the heavily edited version that got leaked online. Which is also ridiculous. Right so this is her mind may have edited her memory edited what happened. Yeah. Just in the same disingenuous way

[00:55:43] that the footage was edited. Yeah as like a single take in contrast with the footage which is just these ridiculous edits like you know like not even trying to make it seem like they make sense. You are such a yeah. And then in this it's like a single

[00:55:59] long beautiful take. Yeah. Her eloquence and that guy's unreasonableness. Yeah it helps explain if a lot of this is her memory of these events it helps explain why she's speaking as if they were line deliveries. Because Cate Blanchett is not you know she's very good. She's one

[00:56:15] of my favorite actresses actually ever. And I think she's giving a performance that is like and then I said this awesome thing. Yeah. I think that's right. What do you think of Cate Blanchett Paul. I'm trying to remember. I

[00:56:27] thought she was wonderful in this. What else has she done? I was looking before and I'm just blanking. Carol is what you won. Blue Jasmine the Woody Allen movie if you're even allowed to admit that you've seen a Woody Allen movie anymore.

[00:56:41] Actually I haven't seen Blue Jasmine but I saw Blue Jasmine. Hannah she was in Hannah. Talented Mr. Ripley. Oh of course yeah. Most importantly Galadriel in Lord of the Rings. She's the Elfin Queen. No she's like considered one of like the all time

[00:56:59] you know like actresses of this generation. I honestly was not a huge fan and went into this movie prepared to think that I was too actor-y and I was prepared not to like it. I had a kind of pissy attitude when I went

[00:57:11] when I first saw this movie and like she immediately won me over. It's like such a good performance and the movie doesn't work at all if it's not that good a performance. A lot of this is sort of a Kubrickian thing you two were mentioning before

[00:57:27] which is I hadn't thought to connect it to Stanley Kubrick's movies like but they're similar to sort of similar stylized delivery. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. There's a couple of things in the Juilliard scene that I think were important from the filmmaker to us and it's

[00:57:43] in her soliloquy she says it's always the question that involves the listener and never the answer. It's very much like telling us how to interpret art and she's I think she's saying something about how to interpret the film maybe. But she also says

[00:58:01] in this super dramatic way, you must stand before the public and God and obliterate yourself. Yeah. I have that down too. Yeah. Which is just it's great but it's also like I think she has a savior complex of some sort. And what she says about Bach

[00:58:15] is humility in Bach he's not pretending he's certain about anything again like he's not a 18 year old kid who figured out like whose music is worth listening to. Yeah but then that other thing I think is deeper it says something more about Lydia like you must sublimate

[00:58:31] yourself, obliterate yourself I don't know. I don't know what that's telling it's definitely important though. The one line which fell flat and I don't know if it's just badly written but it really fell flat is she described herself as a U-Haul lesbian. Yeah. It's such a strange phrase.

[00:58:47] She plays herself as so European and so stylized and that's such an American phrase. Well you know. Well we see where she's from. We see where she's from. I wasn't familiar with that term. I think it's the joke is that they move in after one date. Oh really?

[00:59:05] Yeah. I didn't know that. What does a lesbian bring to a second date? A U-Haul. A U-Haul. Okay. One scene I want to talk about because it's in sharp contrast to a later scene she's in the hotel and Francesca comes in and is like

[00:59:21] hey you want to go to dinner? And she says no I'm just going to work on this. Don't you have friends at New Haven? No. And Francesca is kind of hanging around wanting to go out with Lydia. This will be in sharp contrast to our girl Olga later

[00:59:37] in the movie when she will ask her to go to dinner and Olga says no jet lag and then we see her going out. So I think this is a very pointed way of showing that she's losing her grip on people. Yeah and then also

[00:59:55] Francesca gives her a book, a mysterious book and then on the plane she's going to see what the book is. It comes from the front desk they don't know who it's from. What do you think about this book? I meant to look up that it was the book.

[01:00:11] It was a book about a similar theme to the movie. I forget it was a discussion of it. Well it's called Challenge. Do we know more details about it? I didn't know. It's a real book. There was like a maze on it that was handwritten. Yeah

[01:00:27] and that's a maze that we see again. It is? A couple times. Yeah. There's a couple times where we see like a little labyrinth. One is in oh I'm starting to make sense of this. Okay so I missed the maze on the cover of the book.

[01:00:47] So one time when she is in oh fuck okay she goes into Petra's room. So this is the daughter of her wife and Petra has been playing and there's a bunch of like stuffed animals like centered around like a little conducting baton

[01:01:07] that's a pencil. And then she looks over to see some of her other stuff and made out of play dough is the little labyrinth in red and blue play dough. Wow. And then when she goes to Francesca's apartment after she's moved out, she's

[01:01:25] looking through the pile of papers and she sees that same labyrinth drawn in red and blue is when she sees the rat on rat. So I think Francesca has been in her apartment. I think Francesca may have given her the book even. Or it's Krista.

[01:01:39] I mean Francesca gives the book but you're made to believe that it came from outside. Francesca doesn't seem like she's yeah. So Krista's been in the house. Krista's like haunting that house like literally with Petra she's like in the closet at least that's how it's sort of

[01:01:55] shot. And the book by the way Challenge was inspired by the female author's love affair of a woman who threatened suicide after her separation. Oh okay. This is a small tidbit by the way. I was very touched by Petra asking the adults to hold her foot.

[01:02:11] It's such a kid thing to do. Such a kid obsessive little twitchy thing for physical contact. It was very touching. When I was reading about William Blake I was reading about how he was fascinated with the symbolism of the foot and there was some deep symbolism

[01:02:27] about the foot being grounded in reality. So I couldn't help but think that that is the child is grounding her in a way that in the end she gets the child taken away from her and she no longer has that grounding. It's the one non-transactional

[01:02:45] relationship in her life. So she goes home and clearly she's taken the pills of her wife. She's totally stealing the pills. She's stealing her, I guess, anti-anxiety pills. They're beta blockers. I look them up. And the wife, Sharon, is freaking out. She seems somewhat remorseful, pretends to find

[01:03:11] one. She's like, is this the right one? That's just something like a pill stealer. You sound like you speak from experience. Been on both sides of this. And Sharon who has a problem with her heart. That's horrible. And she also says that Petra, their

[01:03:35] daughter, is getting kind of bullied at school by the German racist. By the Uber womanage? By this point I think we've already seen that Francesca said Krista sent an email and this one seemed desperate. That whole thing is strange because if we're meant to think that she's texting

[01:04:01] Krista during a lot of these scenes, it seems a lot more lighthearted. They seem a lot more connected. So something's not tracking there with her being Krista. So a great scene, takes Petra in the car. That's a really nice scene. That's the first time

[01:04:19] you've seen Lydia be a nice human person, getting her to sing that song. And then as she drops her off, asks to point out Johanna the bully. This is a funny scene. She refers to, she just goes up to the girl and says, I'm Petra's father.

[01:04:37] And says like, if you touch her again I will get you. And don't tell any grown-ups because I'm a grown-up and they'll believe me. And then says, God watches us all. God watches us all. Johanna is just like, we're gonna have to pick up the pace.

[01:04:51] Yeah, we really do. This has all been good. But Paul needs to go. So we start to get the intrusion of noises throughout. One of the things that's happening to her and Field has explicitly said as much that this is a woman suffering from misophonia

[01:05:11] so noises start bothering her. Like mundane noises, even the humming of the refrigerator will wake her up. They clearly are distressing to her. The Sebastian in her orchestra clicking his pen really bothers her. He also said in an interview that she is bothered by movements. So that's why

[01:05:29] the kid's knee moving up and down was bothering him. And then she starts hearing things that were not, I don't know if they're real or not. Importantly, as she's jogging she's hearing things and importantly, as she's jogging we hear the sounds of what appears to be somebody

[01:05:45] being murdered. Screaming anyway. Did you happen to catch that these screams are actually the Blair Witch Project? What do you mean? So the audio of the woman screaming is just a direct rip from the Blair Witch Project. Yeah. I take these things as this reminder

[01:06:05] of what she did to Krista. It's like a little telltale heart. Exactly. It's exactly telltale to Hardy and sometimes it's just the metronome in the cabinet but sometimes it's a woman's scream when she really feels like this is something I don't know.

[01:06:25] Again, I don't know what to interpret it but it's clearly her being haunted by what she did to Krista Taylor. You get now, the movie kind of settles down for a bit and you just get rehearsals and figuring out the internal politics of the orchestra.

[01:06:43] There's interesting stuff with Andris, the ex-conductor. It's just like all this stuff is really well done and you really buy it. That's what's so hard about seeing this movie as a Lynchian fever dream or something like that. This stuff all seems so real and kind of naturalistic.

[01:07:01] There's a scene where Andris hands her a blurb and he means it to be of great significance and she says, oh thanks, I'm not sure there's enough time to get it into the book. Plainly, you see, she doesn't think he's high status enough. Yeah.

[01:07:13] And it did get that little sense of what Tamla was talking about before. This is a man whose time has passed and she sees herself maybe getting there at least by the end. Was it Andris again who makes the parallel between the sexual accusations and the denazification? Yes.

[01:07:31] That's right. So the movie is careful. So Tar says, oh you're making that analogy. It's an offensive analogy. It's an extreme analogy. But the movie gets it out there. Yeah, that's totally true. And in fact, the speech that she gave in the Juilliard classroom,

[01:07:49] you would think that she is a bit more on board with some of the stuff that he says because at some point when he brings up Schopenhauer so he says Schopenhauer believed that geniuses would also be very bothered, very sensitive to noises and she says, well didn't he

[01:08:05] throw a woman down the stairs? And he's like, yeah but that has nothing to do with his actual work. And she's a little taken aback but you could just see well this is the person maybe who has shaped her views on this stuff. Slippery slope.

[01:08:19] That leads right to Andris and the Nazis. To be accused is the same as being guilty he tells us. Yeah, I don't know who we're supposed to be sympathetic to. Honestly, I'm not sure what the director is... He's not making that guy villainous enough for me

[01:08:35] to think that he's being morally abhorrent to say it. And Brody by the way was furious at this scene. He describes the scene without actually mentioning that Tar herself makes the point because it's grotesque that the movie is making a parallel

[01:08:49] between the people being accused of being Nazis and the actual movies. What happened to him? He used to be like a serious film critic. That's just ridiculous. That's just not getting it. Whatever is going on, it's not we're supposed to... Oh yeah, that's a good analogy.

[01:09:05] That's so clearly not what's happening. It's such a bad analogy that it seems to make the opposite case. Exactly! You could think it's... If anything you might think it was too woke because it's caricaturing this way of thinking. The way that he caricatured the Zoomer who is pan-gender.

[01:09:27] He's presenting both sides in unflattering light. Again, very Kubrick. You were wondering who to sympathize with? No one. We're all just flawed hypocrites. But I have particular dislike towards Olga because of her cruelty of youth. She just takes and takes. She represents what

[01:09:53] Lydia Tarr used to feel like she had some sway with and now it's not happening anymore. Olga just plays her like a cello and literally doesn't give her any more than what it takes for her to get what she wants and Lydia cannot

[01:10:11] crack through in the way that you clearly see she could with Francesca up to a point and clearly probably has passed but it's over now and Olga is a great representation of that I think. She sees Olga out of the corner of her eye during her

[01:10:27] book reading flirting with some guy in the background and this obviously bothers her. And Olga, I mean I think Olga knows exactly what she's doing. She probably is aware of the reputation and she's just playing it right. And then on the way back to the airport

[01:10:43] Tarr is sitting there and trying to make conversation with Olga and Olga is like staring at her phone and she's texting. Purposely. Just like again the way that only young people can. They can just type a mile a minute, never make any mistakes and you can't reach them.

[01:11:01] I think that if I had to say the number one theme is you are getting older. I feel this sometimes and you can't reach this generation. You can't understand them. You can't connect with them in the way that you used to and that's a scary ass thing.

[01:11:15] There's a moment where you realize you have been categorized in a different cup. You are no longer just like a stretch away from reaching these people. You're just an old person to them. There is this interesting scene of them picking the Deutsch gramophone cover and Lydia Tarr

[01:11:35] says, could we maybe try something less considered? And then it cuts to Francesca and she just has this look on her face like you are the most considered person that has ever walked this earth. But I do think that is like she wants full control over her persona.

[01:11:55] That's the thing that's slipping away. Where should we go now? Well, so let's, should we talk about her following or taking Olga? She has taken steps so that Olga will not only get accepted to the orchestra but will be the soloist for Elgar's cello concerto

[01:12:17] which is the companion piece to Mahler's Fifth and in doing so just kind of stepped over the reigning first celloist. And she's masterful at these machinations. She really knows every step that she needs to get Olga to be in this position. And everybody can see that.

[01:12:37] Although, so Richard Brody didn't. So he said that it was and I saw his point when he said it which is it was unrealistic the orchestra cheering on letting her get away with this. And I think you get more purchase if you assume

[01:12:51] again this is her way of seeing it. There are exactly that. Like Richard Brody would be wrong to say that the orchestra was fully on board with it every step of the way. Every step of the way everyone is very concerned and you can get the sense

[01:13:03] Sharon's like oh God we're doing this again. But what we get in the movie is that she's actually the right person to do this. And like you said Paul, they're actually happy for her when she cheers like even the celloist the first celloist that got walked over

[01:13:19] is like kind of smiling and like happy. At least from I got the sense from their facial expressions when she's making these moves that nobody is deceived into thinking that she's being like she's not being as subtle as she thinks. And she comes across

[01:13:35] as a bit of a tyrant. People seem afraid and when Sebastian the one crack in this is when Sebastian actually says don't you we all see what you're like this is completely obvious and she's like what? And he's like no no no I'm sorry I didn't mean to

[01:13:47] say that because she has so much control over his future. And then she says well certainly you can consider continuing to work with me if you have that kind of attitude. Such a bully. So manipulative. Such a bully. Yeah. She's a bully she's a gaslighter

[01:14:01] she does all the things. We haven't even said that like she blacklisted Krista Taylor made it so that she could not get an appointment at any major orchestra like clearly went out of her way to email people. It was vindictive what she did to

[01:14:17] Krista Taylor and so like whatever you think about the Juilliard scene or whatever at no point could you take her side when it comes to that. She's clearly abusing her power. She's trying to cover her tracks by having stealing Francesca's laptop and deleting the emails. Well not deleting

[01:14:39] them actually we never see that. We see her delete the ones on her. She doesn't delete them when Francesca gets the laptop back. Yeah yeah I think she knows probably she would be it would be pretty obvious. And deleting emails doesn't get you any situations

[01:14:55] like that I don't think. Well it's not in her all mail so I guess we'll just look somewhere else. Like yelling empty the trash! We should talk about the Olga scene, the stalker scene. Yeah. So she drives Olga home after a rehearsal. She's now having rehearsals

[01:15:15] at her little extra Berlin studio. Yeah it seems like it's her apartment that she didn't want to give up when she got married. You know. Such a man. She is such a stereotypical man throughout this whole film. It's just so much more interesting

[01:15:29] that it's Cate Blanchett playing it. There's so much stuff that goes on in this place that we haven't talked about. We probably don't have time but like the stuff with the neighbor. I think that's played for comedy. The neighbor goes, we noticed you play this music and

[01:15:45] they go, oh yes! Thank you! Thank you so much! Could you please not play it when we have people coming by? Yes. But what's not played for comedy is the old lady dying and her daughter being institutionalized. Yeah and like the scene where she gets woken

[01:16:03] up out of a freaky dream of her being in the Amazon and then having to help this woman take her naked mother who is lying in her own feces. And it's like really like that was Mohan Dravi, like just the horror

[01:16:21] of that scene. Like what am I going into? The overpowering smell. Yeah confronting both the physical death and the loss of sanity. Right, all at once. Yeah right. And I think that overwhelms her. Your brain is dying, your body is dying. We learn that the sister...

[01:16:37] I think so. Like I do think that. Yeah yeah yeah. What's interesting is that that neighbor still gave her the idea for her new piece. It's like the woman's little bell gives her the idea of the piece which then Olga you know her young cruel talent

[01:16:57] and beauty just like figures out how to improve it. Yeah, she's like B minor. That's an Amadeus. It's very Amadeus. Yeah. Okay so after rehearsal Tarr drops off Olga at presumably the apartment building in which she lives but realizes that she's left a little stuffed animal.

[01:17:17] You know talk about infantilizing. She leaves it in the car so she you can tell that Tarr is happy that she left something. She's like oh I get to let go see her. It's a George Costanza movie. But then it just turns into kind of a horror scene.

[01:17:35] Yeah. It's very weird. Olga is like almost very girly in this and she gets out of the car and she's like so giddy and happy and then she notices that she's left the bear her little teddy bear and she calls Olga and then we cut to

[01:17:53] her perspective and there's nobody there. So it's like she vanishes. And so I think that's already like a little signal like something's off something's fucked up and then when she goes in it's like stalker. It's so stalker that it has to be consciously stalker. The drips of water

[01:18:13] like sound like they're out of the movie stalker. There's a black dog I mean it turns into a labyrinth in it's an apartment building that nobody seems to live in. She's now underground and she starts running from this dog runs up the stairs. There was like someone singing

[01:18:31] a girl singing and she walks into the basement. It's like so horror movie at that point. Like don't go into this random basement in this abandoned courtyard where there are like old mattresses. It's like no I got to go down into this basement. And then she runs out

[01:18:47] and falls cracks her head. Yeah and that just that sound of the smack like is jarring like all of a sudden like that's how that scene. And I feel that's a real breaking point in the movie. Yeah. Perhaps right before I mean yeah I mean definitely

[01:19:01] this apartment is not yeah we're now we're now kind of out of touch with reality. Remember like fairly early on in the movie is the girl screaming as she running in the woods. It's not totally awkward to say like there's a dividing line really at any

[01:19:19] point. No that's what I was saying the beginning. It's like a smooth transition. I just what I was trying to say is that at this point it's certain like it's just become certain. And yet with still some like the scene that

[01:19:29] follows it. That's what's so weird about this movie is now you have like a normal scene of if she fell and now her wife's taking care of her and you know. I'd say this is like a turning point in the movie. Not necessarily it

[01:19:43] starts to get a be dreamlike from this point whereas it was realistic before. But in terms of like the pace of the movie like I'm looking at my notes right now and things are just get really jumbled and things just start happening really fast as Lydia Tarr's life

[01:20:01] starts to unravel at like every level. Yeah from then on in everything that happens is bad to her. Yeah. Right. And it does feel like all of a sudden a summary of all the bad things that happened to her. Like it's unclear to me how much time

[01:20:15] like time it's interesting actually time stops like it's so slow and patient and you almost feel like you're living the first part of the movie in real time not really but then all of a sudden it's a compressed timeline and I don't I can't honestly say how long

[01:20:33] I think how much time is in between her getting ousted and her ending up where she ends up like I So one thing I don't think we mentioned is that the Krista Taylor story gets reported to her not just by Francesca. People are starting to talk about

[01:20:51] her involvement with Krista Taylor. Soon after that she gets called in by at this point she has like this like succession level PR team you know as the YouTube video of the Juilliard thing is released just that hack job and she has like six people around the table

[01:21:11] telling her one I think kind of Asian woman says the major trades aren't picking up on it let's leave it alone see what happens but meanwhile she has to go do a deposition in New York. Is that the accordion like group like the

[01:21:31] that she's a part of the funders of the fellowship that Krista was part of and that Francesca is? Is that like the board of directors? I didn't think so because they're in Berlin right? Yeah it's not because I think that the guy says we're having a meeting on

[01:21:49] whatever day and she's like well I can't be there because I gotta go to New York And Francesca again this is like everything is just happening Francesca just immediately resigns once she's not made the assistant to replace Sebastian it was like all

[01:22:05] I had to eat all this shit for nothing you know Francesca now she seems like she's gonna get a little payback by letting people know what happened There's a bunch of other things like the Petra has a I guess a horrible dream

[01:22:21] and it seems like there's somebody in her closet and she calls for Lydia you know this is all very you know you can interpret it in a lot of different ways. Her score goes missing the score for the Mahler's Fifth She has no idea who

[01:22:41] has been in there so she goes to New York to promote her book and attend the deposition at the same time right? And get some time with Olga And that's when the protesters are all out there and that's when Ellen tries to get Olga to go out

[01:22:57] and Olga shoots her down but then she sees her I go bed jet lag I go bed Again it's too perfect a scene of humiliation to be realistic that she would just happen to leave her room to get some ice or something

[01:23:13] and there we are waiting going to the elevator all dressed up ready to go out I also thought this time around like the protest is a little over the top you know like all of a sudden there's like 30 angry marchers like running by the car like when Ollie

[01:23:29] goes to Africa and like the little kids are running yeah they're like holding up signs yeah it all really happens super fast and then she's somehow back in Staten Island at her childhood Wait no well before that a few things happen so her Sharon leaves her

[01:23:51] Sharon leaves her she can't see Petra she gets removed from the orchestra before that going back to Staten Island doesn't happen for a while we don't see her getting fired or demoted do we? I think things happen very quickly she gets rejected, can't see Petra

[01:24:15] and then we're at the Elliot Caplan scene yeah which is just that is where it hit the height of surreal to me at this point in the movie where I'm like wait no okay like this didn't really happen right?

[01:24:29] while I was watching that I was wondering is this a dream sequence is this some sort of fantasy so first Elliot tells her that she's no longer going to be working with the foundation that he runs and then he says this is the last time you'll see me

[01:24:41] this is the last time but it is not some great line so you have to kiss up to somebody else what was it again? she says something very cold to him you'll have to try to crawl your way to the podium on somebody else's

[01:24:59] and then there's the scene which it's very hard to take literally both this and the one that you said you kind of thought was funny of her like playing the accordion in her house which actually I just made just had the thought accordion

[01:25:13] was also the name of the foundation yeah it's just too crazy at this point you know there's also the weird thing that at her reading in New York we see somebody texting somebody else like fuck me if she is it Olga now texting with Krista is it

[01:25:35] or Olga texting with Francesca but they had no relationship I know and if anything you would think it's antagonistic Francesca was really really salty about like you know any attention that Tar was giving to these other people yeah and Olga was perfectly portrayed as an attractive

[01:25:55] love object Francesca is portrayed as a nagging unattractive person that Tar is sick of she could tell she kind of lost her shot at it she might have had that luster at the beginning of their relationship and now she's fallen into this role of like naggy assistant

[01:26:13] in every love we begin as Olga and end up as Francesca so she assaults Kaplan just wails on him and we've seen her before box she has a fight she's very physically aggressive those scenes where they cut to her boxing or jarring like it's very quiet

[01:26:33] and then all of a sudden just boom like you hear her slamming that bag so we know she can kick some ass she tackles Elliot who is just like I guess he's thinking maybe there is glory in being a robot he's literally using her score you think

[01:26:49] to conduct her Mahler is fifth she not only tackles him but then she starts conducting trying to get people to come on that's right nobody knows what to do to look at each other and they kind of put like dutifully put down their instruments

[01:27:07] and then Elliot gets up and yeah she starts wailing on him again curb stomping him I mean this is the height of anti-semitism really you saying curb stomping Dave just was like applauding during this he just got up in the middle of the theater whip that jew's ass

[01:27:27] I don't even know anymore whether to say no or just go along with your accusations when they put together the video it's going to look very bad like the way I took it then she has now a kind of off-brand PR firm trying to rebuild her

[01:27:45] once she's done that she's clearly like a bit of a pariah and they can't get like somebody good to work on her case yeah it's like whoever got Paul Rubens back into the industry you know like slowly but surely like Pee Wee Herm it's the Pee Wee Herm

[01:28:01] people will forget eventually so she's back in New York and taking a cab to her childhood home I think that was the next scene and there's something about her paying for the cab and how that all works

[01:28:15] I think just to show the difference between the life she had had and the life she's having now right she comes in there's an out of tune piano that she plays on she's then upstairs I guess in her childhood room and someone I guess is her brother yeah

[01:28:33] oh hey Linda without any real warmth or surprise or anything really yeah like the kind of cold coldness that shows that he's not even angry at her they've written her out of this because clearly she's written them out of the life but

[01:28:57] her room is intact so like clearly the mother probably still is holding on to something like the room has remained with all of her trophies and all of the like Leonard Bernstein VCR tapes that she goes back to look at that her name is actually Linda

[01:29:15] Tarr with two Rs says something about like this the facade that she's been trying to put on. She has curated her image I felt less sympathetic I have to admit knowing that she actually had rejected her roots that badly. The first time I saw this

[01:29:33] I just wouldn't have guessed that she was actually just some Linda from Staten Island yeah that's part of the performance you know like every part of her life is presented in a way that shows she's kind of a genius and at least the way it's being presented to

[01:29:51] us which I honestly think might be through her mind and yeah maybe there is something about coming from a more working class kind of environment where you feel even more need to present yourself in a way to be a bit more sympathetic to her

[01:30:09] but you can see from just the amount of like medals and trophies in her room that she was clearly talented from a young age and maybe she felt like she never belonged in wherever she grew up but it is one of these maybe you've known people like this

[01:30:23] you meet them and you realize where and you realize that they've worked hard to remove any trace of the working class accent that they might have and you know she talks like a vaguely foreign, like American who's had lots of experience

[01:30:39] in foreign countries. The fact that she put the accent over the A's. The accent is so affected. But then she's going back and I don't know if she's having a real moment of insight about her own life at all but one thing I did notice is

[01:30:53] that she puts on one of her medals and she like leaves it on, you know, like as she's there. It's like she's trying to embrace maybe a time in her life when the future was bright and hopefully it was all ahead of her and not behind her

[01:31:05] which goes along with the themes that Tamler was pointing to about aging and maybe even aging out. Like there was a moment where the world was all a world of possibility for her she's a big fish in a small pond I'm sure in Staten Island.

[01:31:19] When I originally saw this scene I didn't know what to make of it. It was so tonally and stylistically different from the rest of the movie. It's like a different movie. The brother the sort of working class brother, sort of central casting working class guy.

[01:31:33] Yeah you're right. It's from another movie. It's like all of a sudden I'm like a Charlie Kaufman movie or something. Exactly. That's exactly what it is. Interestingly right before when she's meeting with the off-brand PR firm the guy says what we're after is less not more

[01:31:51] we need to rebuild this from the ground up that means we need a new story. And like you guys are saying the next scene is like almost a new story. And one other significant part of the scene besides what you guys have mentioned is that she watches

[01:32:07] an old VHS of Renard Bernstein and actually I think she's wearing the metal at this point and she tears up. He's saying about how music can make you feel even if you don't understand it. It can bring out emotions that we don't have words for. Yeah. That's great.

[01:32:25] I was struggling to know whether or not I was really supposed to feel like she was reconnecting with the true meaning of music here because I got that that's what we were being shown where she goes back to her room and finds the love for music

[01:32:41] but I didn't feel it emotionally. I didn't feel like there was anything in her that was like, oh this is actually what it's all about. I still get like, fuck the world. I'm still Lydia Tarr. Who are they to like... We shouldn't go totally to the end

[01:32:55] but I think the final scene does suggest that she's really not just in for the status or the fame because she's in a situation which is so different but she's treating the whole process with respect. She's treating it... Talking about the composer's intent. Yeah. Right. Although I still

[01:33:15] struggle with thinking that what she has maintained there is not her love and respect of music but the control and authority that she could no longer get in New York. She finds a place where she can still have it. She plainly wasn't cowed. No, right? Honestly

[01:33:31] like I had a flash watching it this time of maybe the whole Lydia Tarr thing is the fantasy and here was a really talented girl from Staten Island whose life didn't go as she wanted it to go. Maybe the kind of like going to

[01:33:51] the Philippines to do a concert like that is kind of who she is professionally but she has these... So in other words maybe more Mulholland Drive that the first part of the movie is the dream and the second part of the movie is closer to reality

[01:34:11] but that doesn't really work because what is all the Lydia Tarr stuff then like in the details of that? So I don't think it works but there's something about the way that scene is shot that makes you feel like oh this is just that character

[01:34:27] and she had big dreams and she got old and I mean everything that you were saying before David fits with this like she wishes to she wants to be young and have her whole future ahead of her but instead it has this kind of what she considers

[01:34:43] a mediocre work you know like work a day kind of career as a conductor that involves certain indignities like playing for conducting for video game cosplay conferences. It is Kubrickian in the sense of Eyes Wide Shut where we're having almost the exact conversation about it defying any

[01:35:05] interpretation of whether or not it's fully in anybody's head because it's ethereal throughout but you don't ever get the sense that you're like okay this part was dream this part was reality. Like it's all just one big blended together and it's

[01:35:21] true like I can't help but think that the scenes we see of her life as Lydia Tarr are just the way that I think you would write like if you were like I want to have a life as a famous composer and I

[01:35:33] want this to happen and I want this to happen like it is as if she could script her life like and then I want to be interviewed on stage about my career and I want to have done all nine Mahler or whatever eight nine Mahler symphonies

[01:35:47] with the same orchestra but then I get taken down by me too like James Levine and Charles Dutrois yeah and then it's like wait so that can't have been part of her fantasy unless unless part of her fantasy is what she's mentions in the Juilliard

[01:36:03] scene of being obliterated where she has a fantasy of being publicly sacrificed Wow it seemed like ego crush like she has built up yeah and that emotion when she said you until we're up there and we get completely obliterated or whatever like she

[01:36:23] had that passion when she said that that made me keep thinking about that like connected to this but a separate question as much in you as you get about her having sexual affairs with these young women we never see any evidence of it even

[01:36:42] with Olga never see any evidence of her like setting it up anything up sexually like and I almost thought it's more like of course these two things can't be totally disentangled but it's almost like she's feeding off the vitality and youth and promise and confidence of Olga

[01:37:04] more than she is just imagining her naked I don't know what do you think about like what do you think just about her sexuality in this regard Paul I think you have a good question There's two questions here one question you

[01:37:20] can be skeptical about is does she really have is she really a sexual predator in this way or does she just really like the company become infatuated want to be with these women want to support these women but it doesn't quite go there I think

[01:37:32] that that's I think that's most parsimonious thing that she does have sex with them or wants to. Sharon I think alludes to this at some point you know her history of previous affairs and this is what Sebastian says to her too

[01:37:46] but then there's the second question which is what's going on in these affairs and it's a sort of question which could be asked it's more typically asked about a man you know a man seeking out these much younger women who are under his control is it simply

[01:37:58] the sex or is it you know being young again being being respected being in maybe even being in a position of benign power Yeah Yeah you know like she has these manicured suits and she's worried about gaining weight then there's Olga who's like first shishlik then

[01:38:16] veal you know at the restaurant and it's like you can see that she's like I need this like I need this injected into me it feels like yeah almost vampire like with Olga I mean the reason I even raised the question

[01:38:30] because I agree with you Paul it's very heavily implied but we just never we see the genesis of this whole Olga thing and I don't think we ever see her do anything like sleazy sexually with her even if there's all sorts of other power issues that come up

[01:38:46] Is it am I completely imagining this is there a little flash of like toward the end a little flash of Krista's red hair like making out with or like kissing the neck of in her dream yeah it's in her dream yeah it's in that crazy dream

[01:39:10] Yeah I think those things are both true that there's probably something sexual there and that there is like clearly there is a desire to capture the energy of youth so it's like unclear whether she wants to be these people or fuck these people and it's probably both

[01:39:26] I like the vampire metaphor I think I'm complaining too much about Francisca who I really do see in her TARSA but she looks like the vampire after the vampire has drained all of her blood used her up She doesn't give that same kind of energy

[01:39:42] and confidence and vitality anymore and so that's why it's discarded for Olga There is just to me like an overwhelming desire for control that's so dominant here and I think it fits in very well with the theme of her as a conductor and having

[01:40:00] what she says about having complete control It seems like she you're right Tyler we never see her actually try to like get physical with these women in fact when she's like in a bathrobe and because she's like cleaning herself off from the contagion of the old lady

[01:40:22] she could very well try to be seductive to Olga because Olga shows up at her door when she's in a bathrobe And she shows up soaking wet Yeah she's like do you have a towel and nothing happens but the way that she manipulates and the machinations

[01:40:38] everything that she does to get it perfectly be the case that not just that she exerts her will to get Olga the solo but that she convinces the orchestra that they arrived at that judgment on their own it's just so masterful It's like conducting Yeah exactly

[01:40:58] and it's like she's getting off on that part of it just as much if not more on the sexual conquest part For sure yeah And the way that she tightly blacklisted Krista, you know, exerted her control whatever happened there, the falling out she was like yeah

[01:41:16] she didn't just fail to support her she actively was writing these emails to all of those people saying do not this woman is not... That's unforgivable Yeah Unless she really was a problem. We don't know It's true. You know? I mean it could be that both of them

[01:41:30] are bad It was such an exercise of power that she could do it Just so people on Twitter get it right David is the victim blamer Not me You know I know of not one but two academic stories involving somebody sending letters to a faculty member sending

[01:41:52] letters out to destroy a graduate student In neither case was there a sexual thing in both cases they didn't like the graduate student very much Was this philosophy? I think this is best discussed Just say it and then Tamler will bleep it

[01:42:06] and then people will ask us to Yeah, unless he forgets Then I have to spend the next year in court So all of a sudden she goes to the Philippines It's already like when you said David that she still wants to be in control

[01:42:22] she's not even in control for the Philippines like they tell her oh the composer is not flying in from Osaka sorry about that and she doesn't even have the score yet and they're like oh it just came and they give it to her

[01:42:36] But they gave her some nice gift baskets They did She's in this shitty hotel Men are kind of clucking at her as she walks by down the street It's the only corner of the world in which she still wanted though She asks for the hotel person

[01:42:56] for a massage This is seen again like another somewhat mysterious scene I take it she really just wanted an actual massage and he sends her to a quote on quote massage place and she doesn't totally know what's going on They lead her into this room where there are

[01:43:20] a bunch of women all laid out I didn't first notice but in a fishbowl that is like an orchestra and the one that raises her eyes at her is number five, Mahler's fifth Oh, very nice And then she just immediately runs out and throws up

[01:43:40] What do you think Why does she have that reaction? So first is it obvious it was a brothel as opposed to I guess a massage place where you choose your masseuse Yeah, I feel like it's just so cool I don't think you would ever go to a place

[01:43:58] where you could choose among your masseuses for young attractive women I'm just so naive I mean the simple thing she threw up What kind of massage place do you go The simple story is she throws up because she's guilty and ashamed Very Freudian

[01:44:16] Is it that she, that's how they think of her that they would send her to that place when she asks for a massage Here's what they think about Here's what they think about Here's what they think about Here's what they think about Oh, I hadn't thought of that

[01:44:36] I thought that the fishbowl scene reminded her of her exploitation of people Yeah, that's how I read it too That makes more sense actually Where it's never been in such stark clarity for her that she's just using people in this way

[01:44:50] But it's not inconsistent with what you said, Tyler where it's like, well that's No, we know that this is who you are So like here And so she's confronted with her own sort of use and abuse of others Yeah, that's like what Sharon says about her

[01:45:04] You've only had one relationship in your whole life that's not transactional and that's with Petra This is so starkly transactional And then she's conducting Yeah It's like Rocky 3 He had to get knocked down and he's like, Rocky 3, he had to get knocked down and build himself up

[01:45:26] I can't wait for Tar 2 Right Tar's at the bottom where she'll step up again You know, I forgot to pay attention on this second time around but something I was reading said that of all the ironies in the last conducting scene she's actually conducting to a click track

[01:45:51] with a metronome in her ears which makes her job even That's what it said, I didn't pay attention but like, which just also just goes to show that thing that you thought was so important is actually It's not in your control anymore Yeah

[01:46:07] If that's true, that's probably what that's saying You don't get to control time anymore Your right hand can't do it Time is going by at the rate that it is whether you like it or not You have no control over it I don't know what to make

[01:46:21] of like what's real and what's not but that always comes through to me any reading that I have Yeah One scene we didn't talk about but we could is right before that, she gets to go on a tour with I guess two very young people Oh yeah

[01:46:39] We're going to show them around our beautiful country Yeah, they talk about how she can't swim in the river because there are crocodiles which are there from when they filmed Apocalypse Now in the Philippines That's a true story apparently that they brought in crocodiles I was wondering that

[01:46:55] And then I think the significant part of that scene aside from just giving us a sense of her life now is when they do stop at this kind of waterfall and she's watching the two of them, the two young people play, kind of splash each other

[01:47:11] and she's behind in like a little cave behind the waterfall Where they put old people It's like I can't get their energy anymore I'm blocked off from their energy maybe or something And there's something to me about the wall of waterfall noise

[01:47:31] She's literally being blocked off by a wall of noise as well as the physical waterfall Yeah, wistfully That's how I feel like when I'm looking at young people now I'm like wistfully looking at them I remember when I had fun, frolicking It's also what makes me sad

[01:47:47] when young people aren't like that When they don't frolic When you're sitting there waiting to watch them and they're not frolicking They're like, frolic already I'm trying to feed off your frolicking What the fuck It's just, a friend of mine told me there was a point where

[01:48:07] women would notice him and appraise him and there was a point where they would notice him and say, nah, not really, I don't think so And then there's a point where he became an invisible man and their eyes would go right through That's how she is

[01:48:21] Even in the scene where she's getting the tour They're kind of paying attention to her but not really They're doing their job But she used to be like the center of everybody's world who she interacted with And now Olga who she has put all this work in

[01:48:37] to engineering this career, doesn't even give a fuck She doesn't And it seems I'm sure she knows that Tar was doing this stuff on her behalf and she just can't be bothered to even flirt really Olga is completely immune to whatever she would use

[01:48:59] on Krista Taylor or Francesca or something like that You can't reach Olga like that Yeah, you're at that career stage where Lydia is with all that success The one source of power that people have there is their worldly success And clearly she's like

[01:49:17] I think wanting to impress Olga And Olga's just, eh, cool Let me text some people Sophie Callard is the actress and she is a real cellist and she is actually playing the cello I was going to say There's no way they could fake that

[01:49:35] Also, we talked about the performances and we talked about the sound But let's say something about the house The house that she and Sharon live in the brutalist architecture is amazing I spent so much time looking it up online It was an old Nazi bunker of some sort

[01:49:55] Layers upon layers here of antisemitism Todd Field I have not seen the other movies In the bedroom, Little Children No I saw Little Children Do you remember anything? In the Bedroom was his other one His first one What else did he do? Just three movies

[01:50:21] I think this is the first one in 16 years Yeah, it's crazy Apparently he said this that he did the film for Cate Blanchett and she would have been disproceeded if she said no That's great It does feel like you need that level of performance I completely changed

[01:50:43] whatever annoying opinion I had about her before seeing this It's completely 180 degree I was rooting for her in the Oscars and for the movie a bit I continue to worship at her feet even more Also back to what Temmler was saying about never seeing on screen physical

[01:51:05] like sex stuff I'm glad That does add something more interesting to me It would have been, if she was just making it out and trying to go up Olga's skirt, it just wouldn't be the same She doesn't even ever touch her inappropriately

[01:51:25] I think it's really an open question It's an open question and whether, yeah Again, whether Lydia Tarr exists is an open question I really don't It's so funny because I don't know what to think about what the underlying reality of this movie is I really don't

[01:51:49] Is it a literal ghost story? Because it sometimes seems like it's a literal ghost story She's being haunted We barely talked about that thriller aspect I don't think it's going to surprise anybody but it's just the kind of movie that of course we love because it defies

[01:52:11] our ability to categorize it to make any coherent story of it It's a vibe It really is a meditation on something What that something is is what we've been trying to figure out It's never going to be as clear as a story but I love movies

[01:52:29] that give you the facade of the structure of a story and give you hint after hint after hint that it can't be that It's just so good I will say that I think I'm pretty sure about this Sebastian is Kaiser Soze

[01:52:49] In a Tarr extended universe, there'll still be a Sebastian movie He does have an office full of tchotchkes that would allow him to start spinning stories She has such scorn for his collection I read this, I didn't notice it when I watched it that she steals his pen

[01:53:07] Because he keeps clicking Any final thoughts? No, can't wait to see the next thing the guy does Even though it might be another 15 years I hope it's not another 15 years I know he got a lot of praise but he deserves even more

[01:53:27] Sophie Callard, if you're listening to this, call me She's not going to call you I don't call you Of course you would like a character who loves veal Did she say she was a vegetarian before? No, Lydia Tarr says cucumber salad is pretty much the only option

[01:53:49] if you're a vegetarian I can't interpret as, are you a lesbian? She definitely was testing her out She clearly wanted her to be a vegetarian You can cut this out but she also says, what about fish? It's true That's right It's more explicit than I thought

[01:54:23] The only reason I knew the vegetarian thing was because I remember reading some way back in the day, they were like porn reviews and they would call lesbian scenes veggie scenes So if you're into veggie scenes No meat? Yeah, and then fish, I guess No meat

[01:54:45] Maybe this should all get cut I thought it was just some sort of health stereotype I'm a gorilla, you know Mother, it's like the ocean This is a Deadwood reference That's how we're going to end our discussion We didn't even give Paul a chance to pimp his book

[01:55:11] Oh yeah, bye psych We'll splice that in Paul has a new book That's right, thank you That sounds like you're saying, buy Paul's book, not really I didn't think that went through, Paul Also the problem is there's a show which I've seen before called Psych

[01:55:33] and still when you go to Amazon it's still what you get when you talk to them It's a catchy tune You're like Lydia Tarr, mastery of music Time Alright, join us next time on Very Bad Wizards