#which is probably my favorite bergman
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SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (1955)
#smiles of a summer night#ingmar bergman#ulla jacobsson#*#i took a whole course on bergman in college (and it was at 8 AM ON A FRIDAY so you know i really wanted it because l o l class on fridays?!)#anyway it was two hours of lecturing and then immediately after you'd go to the screening#imagine sitting in a lecture hall for two hours and then having to sit in a child-size folding chair to watch scenes from a marriage#which is probably my favorite bergman#but it is the longest film e'er made#do admit!#anyway i had to write a critical analysis for this film#and i had to stop myself from starting it with 'so ulla has the most adorable doll house ever and i need it! in this essay i will - '
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Propaganda
Audrey Hepburn (My Fair Lady, Sabrina, Roman Holiday)—Growing up, Audrey Hepburn desperately wanting to be a professional ballerina, but she was starved during WWII and couldn't pursue her dream due to the effects of malnourishment. After she was cast in Roman Holiday, she skyrocketed to fame, and appeared in classics like My Fair Lady and Breakfast at Tiffany's. She's gorgeous, and mixes humor and class in all of her performances. After the majority of her acting career came to close, she became a UNICEF ambassador.
Jean Seberg (Breathless, Saint Joan)— Some of us watched À bout de souffle as a lil French undergrad and had the trajectory of our lives changed by Jean Seberg. She IS French new wave!! She is the moment!! She sadly had to work with a lot of shitty directors in her career but even so, she has this magnetic energy whenever she’s on screen. In her personal life, she was also very supportive of civil rights causes, and was even targeted/harassed by the FBI for financially supporting the Black Panther Party.
This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.
[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]
Jean Seberg:
anyone who plays Joan of Arc is kind of hot by default tbh
she's gorgeous, she's cool, she has the original blond pixie cut
She donated a lot of her money to civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and the black panther party as well as Native American school groups, as a result of this the fbi ran a smear campaign against her and a surveillance campaign which is thought to have led to her suicide tragically.
idk if this is propaganda but the COINTELPRO and the FBI are widely blamed for her death. If the FBI was after her for supporting the Black Panther Party you know she was good
Audrey Hepburn:
"She may be a wispy, thin little thing, but when you see that girl, you know you're really in the presence of something. In that league there's only ever been Garbo, and the other Hepburn, and maybe Bergman. It's a rare quality, but boy, do you know when you've found it." - Billy Wilder
Raised money for the resistance in nazi occupied Hungary. Became a humanitarian after retiring. Two very sexy things to do!
where to begin......... i wont her so bad. i literally dont know what to say.
My dude. The big doe eyes, the cheekbones, the voice. The flawless way she carried herself. She was never in a movie where she wasn't drop dead gorgeous. Oh, also the fact she raised funds against the Nazis doing BALLET and she won the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her humanitarian work.
"It’s as if she dropped out of the sky into the ’50s, half wood-nymph, half princess, and then disappeared in her golden coach, wearing her glass slippers and leaving no footprints." - Molly Haskell
"All I want for Christmas is to make another movie with Audrey Hepburn." - Cary Grant
I know people nowadays are probably sick of seeing her with all the beauty and fashion merch around that depicts her and/or Marilyn Monroe but she is considered a classic Hollywood beauty for a reason. Ironically in her day she was more of the alternative beauty when compared to many of her contemporaries. She always came off with such elegance and grace, and she was so charming. Apparently she was a delight to work with considering how many of her co-stars had wonderful things to say about her. Outside of her beauty and acting ability she was immensely kind. She helped raise funds for the Dutch resistance during WWII by putting on underground dance performances as well as volunteering at hospitals and other small things to help the resistance. During her Hollywood career and later years she worked with UNICEF a lot. Just an all around beautiful person both inside and out.
youtube
No one could wear clothes in this era like she could. She was every major designer's favorite star and as such her films are time capsules of high fashion at the time. But beyond that, she had such an elegance in her screen presence that belied a broad range of ability. From a naive princess, to a confused widow, to a loving and mischievous daughter, she could play it all.
Look at that woman's neck. Don't you want to bite it?
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Very much wanna talk about any and all modern!aemond headcanons
Modern!Aemond • general headcanons
Hey friend!! sorry for the wait! Being back to teaching is putting a dent on my blorbo-thinking time lol. WE LOVE talking about modern Aemond in this house. These are just general likes of his! If you want headcanons on a specific scenario please do drop that in my inbox!! This Aemond is the same that I've written in all of my modern fics so far. X
As I’ve established in previous fics, he is a DOG DAD seriously. He loves his babies, Vaghar and Patch (even if Vaghar is an old lady now lol). He’d give his life for his dogs and he’s constantly fussing over them.
Especially Vaghar because the older she gets, the more care she needs. She’s always been a chill dog and very calm, but as she gets older she starts to get anxious if either Aemond or you aren’t home.
Aemond is also very athletic and into sports, and he has a super set routine that nothing will interfere with. He goes out for a run every morning (maybe except for Sundays) and he often takes the dogs with him.
He strikes me as the outdoorsy type – someone that prefers going hiking or running at the beach than going to a gym, and doing bodyweight exercises while out in the woods or the beach. Maybe he'd go to the gym like three times a week. This mostly because he likes being alone and would get overwhelmed at the gym with so many people around him, starring at his eyepatch.
So if he went to the gym I feel like he’d prefer to swim laps in the olympic pool. He strikes me as a very agile swimmer for some reason.
I don’t know squat about sports (no pun intended) so I’m not sure what kind of sports he’d like to do or watch – I’m thinking fencing and soccer.
If you’re into sports feel free to imagine him practicing them with you, however.
I feel like working out is something that he really enjoys doing by himself. Yes he loves you with all his life, but he needs his alone time, which is healthy for the relationship as well.
I’m gonna self indulge here, i’m more of a yoga-doing type of person lol, so maybe you do yoga in the living room while he’s out running, and when he comes back he’s instantly salivating at the sight of you all bent up in your tight leggings.
He’s a respectful king so he wouldn’t interfere with your exercise, but he does have the fantasy of just bending you over, grinding on you from behind and fucking in your sweaty workout clothes, right there on the living room floor.
Maybe he does end up giving in on some days. Which leads to you fucking in the shower afterwards because you're all so sweaty and messy <3
Another thing that I tackled in one of my fics is that he loves analog media.
One of his hobbies is probably analog photography. I feel like he’d be self-taught but would just have the chance of learning if there’s a workshop at a gallery/museum/cultural center. He definitely collects cameras and his favorite to shoot with is black and white film.
And in the subject of analog media, he still collects VHS tapes. I’ve said before that he is a member of the (1) surviving video rental store in his city and he’s there constantly. Maybe if there's a movie he wants to watch but they don't have it in the store, he places a special order and because he's already good friends with the people there, they grant him that wish and import a movie from somewhere else. He of course covers the cost of it, no matter how much it may be.
And he loves movies in general.
He’d be the type to watch directors like Sidney Lumet, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Chantal Akerman, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Akira Kurosawa and John Cassavettes.
My spanish speaking brain is begging me to add Pedro Almodovar into the mix but I don’t know if it would be his thing. Maybe those are his guilty pleasures.
I can’t unthink him as an Al Pacino fan lol! He watches Frankie and Johnny with you on special occasions like on valentine’s day. He loves 70’s Pacino but I feel like his favorite movie would be ‘Scent of a Woman’ because it hits close to home with Al playing a blind colonel. But I feel like he’d love ‘Heat’ with Robert De Niro and Insomnia with Robin Williams, which was directed by Christopher Nolan.
As for music, I'm basing this on a friend of mine that’s kinda like Aemond, and is an engineer that is now studying film composing. He had such in depth knowledge of classical music and music theory, but was also into rock and metal. I do see Aemond liking oldies like Metallica, Mercyful Fate, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, but then also Muse, Måneskin, Bring me the Horizon, etc, along with a long repertoire of classical music and film scores. Maybe his favorite composer would be Ennio Morricone.
These are the ones I could think of atm but I'm sure there I can come up with more!!
#aemond targaryen#aemond targaryen headcanons#hotd#house of the dragon#aemond targaryen fanfiction#aemond targaryen x reader#ewan mitchell#my writing
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hi i love your blog :) & was wondering if you could recommend your favorite/the best sapphic n wlw media like shows books movies please? I have recently come to ... Realisations .. :') I do love picnic at hanging rock btw and also the similar vibes of the media that you tend to reblog. homeorotic energy w out being Explicity Stated it also very welcome <3 thank you if you can and i hope thats okay !!! have a good day :)
hellooo what a lovely question - thank you so much! i’ll happily rec some things i’ve loved, especially that i find homoerotic/wlw media that Compel me much harder to come by - and i agree, picnic at hanging rock is so unique.
books:
- zami: a new spelling of my name by audre lorde - an “autobiomythography” & maybe thee most formative book for me, in terms of wlw reading. i read it for university and it changed me as a person, changed the way i look at loving women. it’s beautiful
- nightwood by djuna barnes - if you like the more unsettling aspects of picnic at hanging rock, something lynchian and modernist, this is a dark and heavily abstract lesbian novel which i really love
- our wives under the sea - a really poignant and lovely soft sci-fi depiction of a wlw relationship, themes of grief, identity, loss etc. some compare it to annihilation though expect much less science fiction
- her body and other parties by carmen maria machado - a lovely (probably my favourite!) collection of short stories which often are wlw-centric or have a vibe. stunning prose in general
- hera lindsay bird by hera lindsay bird - wlw poetry, very fun and contemporary, what i call self-aware poetry
- mary oliver’s poetry!!!
- for biographies, anything about tove jansson….
- anything by virginia woolf will fit the not explicitly stated vibe feeling - mrs dalloway has a really wistful lesbian undercurrent, orlando is a love letter to vita sackville-west. etc. etc.
movies:
- persona (ingmar bergman) - thee movie. it’s Not explicitly stated, it’s feverish and desolate, but it’s both intensely homoerotic and a searing exploration of identity, existential dread etc.
- mulholland drive (david lynch) - again, unsettling vibes. not even gonna elaborate on it - it’s a david lynch - but it’s a must-see
- passing (rebecca hall) - a moody, poignant and beautiful adaptation of nella larsen’s novella (which is on my to-read list) about a relationship between two women
- the favourite (yorgos lanthimos) - recently rewatched with a friend, no notes. a bizarre, obsessive, thrilling story. rachel weisz is to die for in it
- kajillionaire (miranda july) - a tender and strange (affectionate) depiction of a bond between two women in unexpected circumstances
- thoroughbreds (cory finley) - what if murder was homoerotic, what if murder was a metaphor. in a way this is about every codependent friendship between girls that has ever veered towards obsession
- vita & virginia (chanya button) - a biopic abt virginia woolf and vita sackville-west specifically, people have very mixed feelings on it but i personally love it to bits.
tv shows:
- black sails - anne and max’s storyline in black sails is the most visceral and lovely wlw story i’ve seen in tv or film… there are specific tws i would heed for max’s arc in the first season which i’d be happy to elaborate on, but their story is beautiful
- first season of killing eve is still unmatched 😔 second is still quite nice, if not as good. third is hm. the ending scene has whimsy to it. never watch the fourth.
things my gf loves that i still haven’t read/seen:
- portrait of a lady on fire - i just know it will Get to me so i’m waiting for the right mood to watch it
- this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar & max gladstone - same reasoning!
things i’ve started but haven’t had a chance to finish yet:
- little blue encyclopaedia (for vivian) by hazel jane plante - a beautiful (but sad, and also about grieving, hence it’s taking me a while) trans wlw story. quaint and quiet and wistful.
#wlw recs#wlw books#wlw movies#thank you for this question this was so nice to think about!!!#lesbian book recs#answered#my dream is for something like autobiography of red about women to exist#One day maybe i’ll make it happen#and i would love recs too!!!
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I was tagged by @a-very-fond-farewell! Thank you so much darling 💜
1. Last song: Shishen Take On the Challenge from The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity soundtrack (which I paid a small fortune to get my hands on so you bet I've been listening to it almost non-stop ever since. The music is SO FUCKING GOOD OKAY)
2. Favorite color: Purple — which I feel should come as a surprise to no one xD
3. Currently watching: The Killing Vote, because I apparently need more dramas where the Korean public is allowed to vote on whether or not to execute people. Quite enjoying it so far! The characters are a hoot xD And I'm curious to see what they do with the Kwon Seok Joo dude.
I also just started The Guest because I want to watch it before they remove it from Netflix but BOI. That's not one I'll be able to binge, that's for sure. Horror is great but also, well, terrifying x'D
Though, I must say, I might have to take a detour and rewatch the Along With the Gods movies. I've been meaning to do so for ages and seeing Kim Dong Wook in The Guest makes the urge even stronger. Because, let me tell you, I'm SO EAGER to rewatch the movies and observe the characters now that I've seen the twist at the end of the second movie. A twist I figured out before I actually reached the reveal, sure, but I don't think that's a bad thing? Like, for real, guys. The AUDIBLE GASP I let out when I realised what the twist was going to be and then got to sit there and see it slowly dawn on the other characters? BEAUTIFUL. And it CHANGES SO MUCH. Like, I need to rewatch them because so much of what I thought I knew is now a lie! Circumstances have changed! My initial analysis might be wrong! Characters I thought I knew are now completely different! I need to do more research! I NEED TO KNOW.
(This is what happens when your brain works like mine. And one day I might tell you all about why Kang Yo Han is such a fascinating character to me, because, let me tell you, I've rarely seen a character remain so solid in his characterisation even through the kind of reveals we're given in the drama. It's fucking SPECTACULAR)
4. Currently reading: Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (I do it in bursts because it's not the kind of book I can just binge, okay? x'D), We Have Always Lived In the Castle by Shirley Jackson (I would have finished this LONG ago if it didn't give me so much anxiety (but in a good way?)) and Eld by Mats Strandberg and Sara Bergman Elfgren (though I should probably start over on this one since I was very distracted when I read the first chapter)
5. Last movie: No Regret, because why not dabble in older Korean LGBTQ+ content? It was a ride, that's for sure xD And the next movie will be The World to Come (also one I want to watch before it's removed from Netflix)
6. Sweet/spicy/savory: Either sweet or savoury — it depends on my mood, really.
7. Relationship status: Married! :D
8. Current obsession: I'm not sure if I have one right now? Though I am hoping to get back on track with that diorama thing soon. I've almost collected all the materials I need! I just need fake foliage (preferably red) and I'm going to try and buy that either tomorrow or on Saturday.
9. Last thing you googled? Why my phone kept taking only green photos. And everyone kept telling me I shouldn't have unlocked the bootloader (which I don't think can be done by accident and I sure as hell haven't done it intentionally) so in the end I just restarted it and now it works just fine xD
10. Selfie: I don't really take selfies but here's a cropped version of a drawing WIP of mine.
If you know, you know ;)
(... LOOK, the suspender-pulling had to happen eventually, okay?)
11. Currently working on: Chapter 5 of A New Dawn (Begins With Us) and, after that, it'll be either chapter 37 of Who Holds the Devil or maybe the sequel to Gravitational Pull which I'm STILL struggling to find the time to work on. I'm also working on, like, six different drawings simultaneously. Because why make things easy for myself?
Tagging: Whoever wants to do it! Tell me about yourself! :D
#Amethystina Does Tag Games#I feel very all over the place right now x'D#And I have read so few books this year :/#That's such a bummer#I should look into that#I kind of miss reading a shitload of silly romance#And I also want to draw a lot#But then there's writing too#So many hobbies#So little time
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what were some of your favorite books/movies/tv shows as a young child?
I should preface this by saying that while I was growing up there was very little control/censorship in my home when it came to the media I engaged with, so it often happened that I read books or watched movies that were not really intended for kids haha but I turned out fine so who cares!
Books: I was an avid reader as a kid and still am, it would be impossible to remember all the books that had an impact on me but there are a couple in particular that stand out. The first one was A Tree Grows In Brooklyn which I read when I was like... maybe 10 or so and I remember it ROCKING my entire world, I was absolutely shook and I would just read it over and over again for years, it's been so long yet I still sort of remember the plot and the characters and how many emotions they evoked in me. Idek if it's meant for children that young, probably not 😅 but I really should reread it and see if it holds up lol.
Another one I was obsessed with and would just read again and again is a Greek children's book called The Last Black Cat by Eugene Trivizas. It tells the story of a stray black cat living a cool cat life on an island, when suddenly all his black cat friends start disappearing, until he’s the only one left. It is basically a story about discrimination and illogical superstition through the eyes of a cat and it's just brilliant, I do believe it rewired my brain and I still think about this story to this day.
I also mentioned this in another ask a little while ago, but growing up I used to have a collection of greek mythology adaptations for children accompanied by beautiful artwork by Sofia Zarampouka which I also think are a big part of my brain chemistry lol.
Movies: I remember really loving Matilda as a kid, it was just a fun and sort of silly story and I used to wish SO hard I could make things move with my mind 😂 Another favourite was Dumbo and I think it's where my love of elephants came from, I used to cry every time I watched it 🥹 and then perhaps a weirder one that I really enjoyed watching growing up was Ingrid Bergman's 1982 film Fanny and Alexander. I remember finding it very moving then, and I still think it's a very beautiful film. Again, not sure if it's appropriate for children but oh well.
TV shows: I was not a huge fan of TV series and TV in general as a kid, I just didn't have the patience for it, but I do remember watching reruns of Hercules and Xena from time to time. My grandma also loved telenovelas and I remember them always playing in the background while I sat next to her and did other things lol.
#i really should revisit all of these#really sad idk where my greek mythology books are now#i remember them being so well loved that they had started falling apart so i would constantly be taping the pages and the spines#nothing quite like the bond a kid has with their favourite books
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What other film versions of Hedda Gabler are worth watching?
GOD i'm trying to remember lmao....this truly would have been a better question for Me Age 17. it has literally been eight/nine years since i saw most of these but uhhhh:
-janet suzman, which i mentioned earlier—my favorite filmed version of hedda the character, iirc. she's smarter than everyone but also it's one of few performances where you buy that she's literally two seconds away from blowing her brains out at any given moment. considering those are hedda's two primary character traits, you'd think more actors could pull off this juxtaposition, but it's shockingly rare! not perfect—she is a little old for the role imo, and the costuming choices are weird as hell. but what can you do
-ingrid bergman—i remember liking her fine but remember liking this production's torturous (in the best way) hedda/tesman dynamic even more. unrelated but also i went years between seeing this and casablanca so whenever people would mention ingrid bergman i'd mentally be like "oh yeah. from hedda gabler" which in retrospect is so funny
-fiona shaw—what one might call an, uh, Inspired take! most heddas imo opt for "condescending" (at risk of forgetting suicidality) and fiona shaw opted for "suicidal" at risk of forgetting that hedda's actually also super condescending and awful. watching her is like watching a protracted nervous breakdown. it's probably worth a watch because it does get to the heart of the emotions in a way one rarely sees with ibsen but i would not call it, like, super faithful to the intent of the text
-diana rigg—i think this was the one we watched in high school on the days when my teacher was like "fuck it movie time". did not leave much of an impression on me tbh. all very mannered
there's some version from 2016 i never watched, idk if it's good. re: stage productions, there are clips of cate blanchett hedda floating around, and i'm sure it was great, but who knows if it was ever actually filmed in full. i have also heard good things about the ntlive hedda directed by ya boy ivo van hove/starring ruth wilson but still haven't watched it yet due to being a fake fan
#i literally could have written essays on this once upon a time but as it stands now i had to go back and watch youtube clips. SAD!#hedda gabler#asks#anon anon
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LOST ANGELA
Our dog Othello was a fan of Angela Lansbury.
My mother-in-law would often dogsit him, and she, like many people of her generation, was a devoted viewer of Murder, She Wrote, Lansbury's series that ran from 1984 to 1996 on CBS, and for decades thereafter in syndication. So she and Othello would sit happily on the couch together and enjoy the adventures of mystery novelist and small-town slueth Jessica Fletcher.
This is how many people will remember Lansbury. But her remarkable career is far from defined by the hugely successful Murder, She Wrote.
Sometimes the death of a famous person who has attained great age can be oddly more startling than that of a younger celebrity. This was the case, for me, with Lansbury, who passed on last October; today would be her 98th birthday. She was around so long, and so vitally, that she had become almost a symbol of geriatric health, agency and relevancy. She was on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in 2005, and was still acting as recently as Mary Poppins Returns in 2018; she also had a cameo as herself in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. It seemed like she might outlive us all.
A native of London, Lansbury came to the U.S. in her teens when her family fled the Blitz. She studied at the American Theatre Wing, then made her movie debut, at the age of 17, in support of Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer in 1944's Gaslight. Her role as a shifty maid in that film got her the first of three Oscar nominations. The second came a year later, when she played Sybil Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Many other film and television roles followed, from The Harvey Girls to The Court Jester to The Long, Hot Summer to Bedknobs and Broomsticks to Death on the Nile, but in the '60s and '70s Lansbury ascended to legendary stardom on the Broadway stage, with leads in productions of Mame, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and others. She won a total of six Tony Awards, from eight nominations. In the '90s, she provided the voice of Mrs. Potts in Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast, probably the role by which younger audiences know her the best, and sweetly sang the title song.
An impressive career by any standard. But none of the above achievements are what I think of first when I think of Angela Lansbury. No, for me her most memorable role is the one that brought her a third Oscar nomination, in one of my top ten all-time favorite movies: that of Eleanor Iselin, mother of poor Laurence Harvey's hapless brainwashed Raymond Shaw in John Frankenheimer's 1962 political thriller The Manchurian Candidate.
Lansbury's Eleanor is the true power behind the title character, buffonish McCarthy-esque Red-baiting Senator Johnny Iselin (James Gregory), and she's more than willing to conspire with Communists and to sacrifice her son Raymond's mind and heart to steer Johnny to the White House. Her performance is hard-edged and scary and despicable, but also strong, intelligent and witty, with a touch of wry lechery toward her husband and an unsavory Oedipal undercurrent toward her son.
It's strange to think that the same Angela Lansbury who played Jessica Fletcher and Mrs. Potts could also have created one of the great villains in American movies. But watch The Manchurian Candidate and you'll see the iron behind the sweetness.
#angela lansbury#murder she wrote#the manchurian candidate#the picture of dorian gray#beauty and the beast#bedknobs and broomsticks#the harvey girls
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This is really unrelated to Batman (unless it happens to be), but do you have any favorite films? I’m curious if there are any movies you like and recommend that are from Europe (or anywhere else, too!). Also I hope that you’re having a good day or night ♥️ stay safe
Hm. Well, I do recommend Cristian Mungiu's films -- he's a great Romanian director, who made Beyond the Hills (2012) and Graduation (2016), which you might've heard of if you're a cinephile. They're not necessarily favorite movies of mine, but they are worth watching.
Otherwise, from the European non-British realm, I do love Ingmar Bergman's movies. Autumn Sonata, Winter Light, Through a Glass Darkly... And that sets the tone for my favorite type of movie, tbh. Undisputable favorites, or movies I've watched more than once, are definitely Thoroughbreds (2017), Alien: Covenant (2017), Gone Girl (2013)... and I do love the John Wick saga, especially the first movie. Personal favorites of mine also include Arrival (2016), A Ghost Story (2013), In Bruges (2008), Enemy (2013), Mother! (2017), The Invitation (2015), Inception (2010), Relic (2020)... My favorite genre tends to be fucked up philosophical depressing movies, tbh. Throw a dark murderous dynamic at me, some existential horror and or/sorrow, or philosophical sci-fi... hell, or plain dark absurdist humor, and I'll probably like it. (A24 movies, my beloved.) The Death of Stalin (2017) is a perfect example of a great dark, well-written comedy. Though ngl, I also have films that are just dumb fun that I love a lot, like 21 Jump Street (2012), Snatch (2000), Sherlock Holmes (2009), The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)... Guy Ritchie's brand of film-making is always entertaining to me. And Wes Anderson's, I guess, since I greatly enjoyed The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and recommend that too.
It's tough to pick favorites, damn. I've seen a lot of movies I thought were good, the list is long. Anyway, if you watch any of these (that you haven't seen already) I hope you enjoy! Thank you for the ask and the interest. Take care, and stay safe too! <3
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Finally finished the transcript for this one so I can post it here!
Jane
Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies in a 20-year period. Today I will be discussing number 19 on my list: RKO and Vanguard Films’ 1946 spy drama Notorious, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by Ben Hecht, and starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains.
After her father is convicted of being a Nazi spy, party girl Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is recruited by American agent Devlin (Cary Grant) to help infiltrate an organization of Nazi scientists in Brazil. Alicia and Devlin quickly fall for each other before learning that Alicia’s job is to seduce Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), a friend of her father’s whose house seems to be a current Nazi headquarters, which complicates Alicia and Devlin’s relationship.
Notorious is a fascinating, well-crafted, underrated gem of a movie that not nearly enough people talk about, so I was delighted when I learned that my friend James Hefel is also a fan of it. We had a very fun conversation that I hope you will enjoy, but before we get into that, I want to warn you that we do thoroughly spoil the plot, which probably isn’t surprising if you’ve listened to other episodes because I usually spoil the movies I talk about, but Alfred Hitchcock was the Master of Suspense, which means that spoiling his movies does kind of ruin them more than spoiling a typical movie does, so if you haven’t seen Notorious and think you might want to, I would highly recommend watching it before listening. It’s currently available on YouTube. Anyway, here’s our conversation, proceed at your own risk:
Hi, James!
James
Hey, Jane, how's it going?
Jane
Good. How are you?
James
Oh, I'm all right. Just chilling on this fine day. Ready to talk about Notorious.
Jane
Yes, Notorious. The first Hitchcock movie that I'll be talking about on this podcast.
James
Oh, there are more?
Jane
Yes, well, one more.
James
I have a hunch I know what it is.
Jane
Yeah, I would say that Notorious probably is my second favorite Hitchcock movie, so, uh, it's appropriate that it's my second most watched.
James
Yeah, that would make sense.
Jane
Cary Grant was in four Hitchcock movies and two of them are like my favorites, and two of them are, like my least favorites. So it's it's interesting.
James
Shall we talk about this, the second favorite one though I suppose?
Jane
Yes, so Notorious, I was looking back to find out when I first watched it and I think I had like this major Hitchcock phase when I was like 14-15 ish, I watched like a ton of Hitchcock movies for the first time. And so I was I was looking at my my little notebook where I wrote them down, I'm going to show you. The audience can't see. But there's this, this notebook where I wrote down my movies. And so I have like this section here, where it's like Shadow of a Doubt, Family Plot, Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, Notorious.
James
I mean, that's a damn good lineup.
Jane
Yeah. That was that was me being introduced to, I think I had seen a couple or at least one before I'd seen my favorite one first. That was the first Hitchcock movie I watched was the the one that I'll be talking about later. Um, but yeah, I I think I was just getting a bunch from the library and just like sort of starting to devour his work.
James
But I think every young person who considers themself a movie buff goes through a Hitchcock phase every so often, so there's got to be bound to happen eventually.
Jane
Yeah. Do you remember when you first watched it?
James
I was introduced to it actually in college. It was very late to the game with this one, but the class was for it was called gender and sexuality in Hitchcock and the professor kind of picked out specific movies within Hitchcock's cannon that, like had those issues and ideas sort of in the center stage and turns out there's a surprising number of them that do. And when we got to this one A) I'd never heard of it, but he introduced it with like, “this is kind of like uh considered a forgotten gem among Hitchcock enthusiasts” and I think that's fair because like this movie doesn't really have, I don't think the cultural permeation that movies like Psycho and Vertigo have, but I think it stands on the shoulders with them and I remember watching it and I don't think I was like… I was aware of Cary Grant at this point, but I wasn't really like…a fan of his, I wouldn't say? But then when I watched this, I was like, “Goddamn, he's really good at acting!” Like, this is a character who would be really difficult to play and he just nails it. So that was kind of like started my really big appreciation for Cary Grant. And then when I met you, which was after that, I pretty sure I was like, “Oh damn, this is great, I got a fellow Cary Grant fan to talk with.
Jane
Well, I was very excited because I'm used to sort of introducing Cary Grant to people. And so it was fun to meet you and be like, ohh, someone who's already a fan! Nice!
James
Actually, now that I think about it, I had watched North by Northwest, but I didn't really under- like I didn't really get Cary Grant from that point. I was just like, I was just like a, you know, rather attractive looking, old Hollywood actor. But like this one, I was like, damn, he's…good.
Jane
Yeah. Well, it's it's very different. I mean, he's very different character in those. And I think it's interesting because most of the Cary Grant movies that I've talked about so far are comedies. And I feel like I tend to enjoy him more when he's being silly. Like I I enjoy him more in comedic roles, and sometimes in dramatic roles I feel like they don't quite work like. Like, have you seen An Affair to Remember?
James
I haven't, I've heard of it.
Jane
Yeah, so it's like a really famous movie. I don't feel like the end of that movie works. Like, I don't believe that he's sincere at the end of that movie, for some reason? Like I just, I feel like maybe I've seen him in too many comedies, but I feel like you can't, a lot of times you can't really take him seriously, like he always sort of has a little joke. And what I think is so interesting is like Notorious is a dramatic role and I feel like he's really good in it, and I don't know that I think he's as good in other dramas. So that's part of why I enjoy this movie is it's like, so different from the Cary Grant movies I usually watch and enjoy.
James
Indeed, although you can see glimpses of, like what made him like such a charming comedic leading man in this role, but whenever he's doing that, it's almost always when he's, like, trying to fool specifically Alex, like he's trying to fool Alex into thinking that something else is going on when it's not actually what the subject of his conversations is about so.
Jane
Yeah, no, I know exactly what you're talking about. Another thing that I enjoy about Cary Grant movies is that a lot of times the woman is really the lead. Not always, obviously, like North by Northwest is very much Cary Grant. In North by Northwest the female lead doesn't even show up until like 45 minutes into the movie, but Notorious like Ingrid Bergman's character is the lead.
James
Oh yeah.
Jane
It's really more Ingrid Bergman and I love her. She's great. And in this movie, she, like, totally kills it.
James
Yeah, well, I have a couple of notes about Ingrid Bergman, specifically in regards to that. So I'll let you finish, but I'll go on to that afterwards.
Jane
I just think that she absolutely gets this character and like just is completely into it. It's also very funny to me, having watched a lot of Ingrid Bergman movies, how often she's just sort of like… whatever European nationality you need her to be.
James
I mean, she was Swedish, but in this case, she's playing like a German American.
Jane
Yeah. And I believe that her mother was German and she was… she was fluent in like 5 languages. So it's like she knew German, but it's just really funny to be like, yeah, OK, she can be German in this movie. She can be Italian, she can be whatever. She can be Russian. She was Anastasia. Like, whatever European nationality you need her to be.
James
And that seems like that was the case for a lot of European actresses of that era, I'm sure, especially the ones that were in America.
Jane
She has a vague accent. She's European of some kind. But yeah, I just I one of the main reasons I keep revisiting this movie is just because I love her performance so much.
James
Oh yeah. So I was gonna say was OK, so the two male leads, Cary Grant and Claude Rains, their characters, essentially, those two are playing, like kind of opposite the types that they've been cast in at that point. Like Cary Grant's playing like a kind of moody, sulky, you know, leading guy who's kind of a bad boy almost in some respects. And Claude rains is playing a respectable villain, but he's also playing a a villain who seems to have take things very hard in the chest and like is very sensitive and jealous and you know, not as secure as maybe a lot of his other roles were, and a lot of other villainous roles. So there's that. There's that kind of inversion there, of their types and then, but Ingrid Bergman is basically playing like, exactly the type that she had been playing for her entire career, it's like. But it's just like the perfect role for her because, like you say, she gets this role perfectly, and she's just able to find all the little nuances to make Alicia real. Like you can always see like the moments where she's really trying to be happy and then some situation happens where it's just like squashed completely and she just has to default back into, “OK. I guess I'm just like, uh, you know…” – I don't want to use this word, but it's only word coming to mind – “like a, like, a slutty young woman trying to like, you know, sleep with everybody I can.” And that's just like her protective mask. And it's just you can see that. Go on and off so perfectly throughout the entire movie. And the other thing I wanted to say is I watched the special features on Criterion that included like a whole interview style documentary with people near and close to the movie and they had one with Peter Bogdanovich, where he talked about, he had talked to Cary Grant about this movie and asked him what he thought about it and Cary Grant was like… - by the way, Peter Bogdanovich does amazing impressions - but he was like, [Cary Grant impression] “Oh yeah, that was the one that Hitch threw to, threw to Ingrid” and Peter Bogdanovich was like, huh, that's a very interesting way to think about this movie, but it's true, like Ingrid Bergman is just perfect for this role, so....
Jane
Yeah. Well, and I I think it's really interesting because like, yes, she played characters like this a lot, but at that point she had more of a reputation of being like more pure and and like she'd played like nuns and stuff. And it was before the whole scandal with cause, like…
James [overlapping]
With Rossellini.
Jane
…there was a huge scandal in the middle of her career that she had an affair and got pregnant when she was married to somebody else with with Rossellini.
James
Yep.
Jane
And but that hadn't happened yet at this point. And so I think it's kind of funny because, like everybody called her a slut after this. And also I think it's really interesting, like Hitchcock did this a lot, like pushing the boundaries of production codes cause like you couldn't say like, “Oh, she's a slut” in 1946 in a movie.
James
Right.
Jane
But like, that's very heavily implied. Like, that's why she's Notorious.
James
Ohh yeah.
Jane
And like originally, I think the ending was going to be that she was going to die, and they were going to show people looking at an article about her death and being like, “Oh, she was Notorious” and that's why it was called that. But then of course they made the ending a little happier than that.
James
I mean, a little.
Jane
She doesn't die that we know of.
James
No, but someone dies. Definitely someone dies.
Jane
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, he kind of has it coming. That's another- like, OK, so yeah, it's an Ingrid Bergman movie, but Claude Rains is so good too. In this, like, villain that's actually kind of sympathetic. Like you feel bad for him even though he's a Nazi, like he's bad.
James
Yes.
Jane
But like he really does love Alicia, like he is in love with her. And she totally breaks his heart. Obviously, like that's her job. But like, you feel bad for him at the end when it's like, he's clearly going to die.
James
I had a note that going back to really quickly to Alicia is like you were saying that you can't say she's a slut, but there was a line that she says in that conversation with Devlin at the horse race where she's like, “You can add Alex to my list of playmates.” I have no idea how they managed to get that line past the Hays Code. Like, that one was like… that's pretty like clear what she's talking about. And you're like, oh.
Jane
Yeah, but that that line in itself, like if you said it out of context, maybe like playmate could be innocent, but like…
James
She’s like, you know, a 20-something woman.
Jane
It is, it is very clear what she means by that.
James
But yeah, I’m trying to go back to my Claude Rains notes real quick. Yeah, I kind of already mentioned what I was my primary note, but just the idea that there's this inversion of like what kind of role that Claude Rains and Cary Grant are playing because like, I feel like if you had switched their roles, that they might have actually played it in a way that fit more their like established personas at the time. But it works so much better that they're doing it in the way that they are, because it's just like they're just so perfect for those roles.
Jane
Yeah.
James
And like you said, Claude Rains is just...
Jane
He's amazing in everything.
James
Right. But he wasn't really known for playing like characters kind of you can see their heart. Like he was known for playing very cold, dispassionate kind of villains like, you- I mean, maybe like, Phantom of the Opera’s kind of an exception where, like that's his whole point. But even still, there's just like, he was known for being- he kind of like almost established the like British, archetypal, like, you know, “I am a very cool but charming villain” sort of deal and then, but this one you can just see like he's charming, but he's also, like, he gets sad, he gets upset, he gets angry. That's why you like him.
Jane
Yeah. Well, and I think that often in, like when the villain is the husband it’s like, he's very manipulative and like trying to control his wife, and it's very much not that at all. Like she's manipulating him essentially because, like, she's just trying to get in his house and find out what he's up to. And he's like, very genuinely in love with her.
James
Mm-hmm. Well, it's it's a very strange kind of thing, cause apparently he knew her when she was like, a minor. And you're just kind of like…eugh….
Jane
Yeah, that is uncomfortable that they talk about how like…
James
He knew her growing up.
Jane
He was he had a crush on her when she was young, like.
James
And there's a very clear age difference between the two of them. Like if he was like about her same age, it wouldn't be so bad. But like knowing that he was, you know, probably in his 20s when she was in their teens is just kind of like….
Jane
Well, yeah, he's a friend of her father’s.
James
Exactly, that's why.
Jane
Yeah, it it is uncomfortable. But I feel like he's not trying to take advantage of that.
James
Yeah.
Jane
In the, in what we see. I mean, maybe when they met before it was inappropriate and…
James
Yeah, maybe they did that to like, try and reemphasize the fact that like, you're not really supposed to like him because as if the Nazi thing weren't enough, but like, it's maybe easy to forget that somebody is a Nazi when they’re not like decked out in Nazi regalia. So just having this like visible age gap maybe was kind of like a way to, like, make sure the audience doesn't fall too hard for Alex as a character.
Jane
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's also interesting that they have, like the other Nazis seem more evil than he does, because like, he, there's the ones that are, like, very coldly talking about arranging the death of one of them, who almost gave away the wine bottle thing.
James
The only other one that does die is the one that like also looks the most sympathetic because he looks like just a, you know, nerdy little man.
Jane
Yeah, the way that they portray all of the bad guys in this movie is like, there are the ones that you're like, “OK, that's the evil Nazi!” And I don't know if maybe it's because, like, Claude Rains doesn't have a German accent, so you're, like, not automatically associating him with the evil Germans?
James
Yeah, I think I read somewhere that, like Hitchcock, gave him the option to do a German accent and he was like, “No, I just want to do my normal accent,” and they're like, “OK, fine.” I just, I don't know if that was necessarily the right choice, but it works.
Jane
And I I do think that there's like, well, especially at that time too, that the audience was more likely to be more sympathetic to someone with more of a British accent than more of a German accent.
James
Mm-hmm. that's also part of why like Ingrid Bergman's, you know, natural accent, if that was her natural accent, I haven’t… I honestly don't know what she normally sounded like, but maybe that's why they also kept that in there because you think the idea is that you're not really supposed to get a good read on her for until about halfway through the movie, or even 1/4 of the way through the movie, about like what her deal is.
Jane
Well, and I think that she doesn't even know, like, as a character. Like, she's kind of trying to figure herself out because she was definitely conflicted about the whole thing with her father and like, that she knew that he was a Nazi, did not agree with that, but also didn't turn him in.
James
Right.
Jane
And is sort of dealing with that and that like her coping strategy was to just be a party girl and, like, pretend that everything was fine and but clearly she wasn't actually fine.
James
This is not to get too meta with yours in my life, but this reminds me of another certain character that we both have a very notable connection with, shall I say? Lydia Bennet from Lizzie Bennet Diaries.
Jane
I was wondering if you were thinking about that. Yeah, it's it's a lot like that, actually, of like, that people on the outside are like, “Wow, you're being irresponsible,” and she’s actually like, “No, I'm just trying to deal with my feelings!”
James
“And the fact that I'm rejected by my family for various reasons.”
Jane
Yes. Yeah, there's a lot of similarities there actually. So yeah, going back to trying to get around production codes, there’s a very famous scene between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant that we must mention.
James
The kissing scene?
Jane
The kissing scene, because according to production codes of the time, a kiss could not be longer than three seconds, and so Hitchcock instructed them to just, like, stay in each other's arms, but come up for air every three seconds. So they're like, they'll kiss and then they'll say a line and they'll kiss and say a line. So it's a very long kissing scene, but they don't actually kiss for more than three seconds continuously.
James
Right. Which is just like genius move, I have to say like…
Jane
Yeah, very sneaky.
James
Malicious compliance to the max because like people have written about this already, but like, it does end up being like, oh wow, this is… they're really into each other at this- like it, it's- you can… they're almost more, they feel more into each other for that reason than they do with if they had just, like, been making out continuously for, you know, 10 seconds even like it's just that going back and forth like that's something you only really do if you really feel comfortable with the person and there's like not just like straight lust to driving you, like there's other things going on there and that really adds to establishing what this relationship has early on in the movie. So I really appreciate that.
Jane
Yeah, their relationship is set up so well because like it's this whole thing of like, Devlin is in love with Alicia, but he doesn't want to be.
James
He doesn't want to admit it.
Jane
Yeah, exactly. And so he's, like, he's like, really mean to her some of the time too!
James
Yeah and that was what- that was one of the things I was mentioning, I think before we recorded that like, my feelings of this movie have gotten a little bit more complicated on this rewatch because I forgot that he was actually kind of mean to her before he even like needed to be. And I'm just kind of like, OK, I get that you don't think you should be in love with her, but like, you don't have to, like, insult her down to her bone right off the gate. You can just like be more disinterested. I don't know. It's just like, he's just like he goes right for the gut on the first shot. And you're like, jeez, dude.
Jane
Yes, he is, there's so many mean things he says to her and she's just like, “Wha- what did I do to you???”
James
Yeah, exactly, it’s like-
Jane
The part when she- when he finds out what her job is going to be and he comes back after they had the kissing scene, and she's like, “Oh, what do you need to tell me that you have a wife and two adorable children and this can't go on?” And he's like, “I bet you've heard that often enough.” She's like, “What? Why did you say that?”
James
Yeah, and like… Like at that point I kind of get it because like, again, he's trying to like, you know, distance her so that she can potentially do her job better or whatever. But like even still, like it was even before that in the scene, like at the cafe where right before they even kissed for the very first time on screen, you’re like… He's still saying things similar to that and you just kind of like… Dude, you got issues it seems like.
Jane
Yeah. And then he gets really mad at her after she says the the playmate line that you mentioned earlier. And it's like that was, that was what she was supposed to do!
James
Right.
Jane
Like, that was literally her job, and he's just like, “Ugh, I thought you'd changed.” It's like… She didn't want to!
James
Yeah you just feel so bad for her this whole time. You're just like…. I mean, that's again part of the point, but just like… ugh. And apparently David O Selznick when he was producing this movie wanted Joseph Cotten to play this role. And I'm… I think it's a stroke of genius to Hitchcock got Cary Grant to do it instead, because like and I know he wanted Cary Grant to do it anyway, but even still, it's just like had Joseph Cotten done this role, like Joseph Cotten's charming enough, but like… you've seen Shadow of a Doubt, you know, like when he wants to be mean and and nasty he can be real mean and nasty. And I think he would have overdone it. So, like having Cary Grant there, like his natural charm kind of helps you overcome the like, just meanness that Devlin throws at her, but at the same time you're just still kind of like, if you step back, you're like, oh, yeah, this is just…ahh.
Jane
Yeah, I do think that that's a good point that Cary Grant doesn't quite cross that line that some other actors would have of, like actually being really vicious. And you can kind of see that the reason that he lashes out is because of, like, his inner feelings. And like he doesn't want to care for her, so he's really trying to make her not like him.
James
Right. And there's also like parts of it where you can kind of see in his eyes, I think that like even he doesn't really want to be saying what he's saying, but at the same it's like, he still says it, so...
Jane
Yeah. Well, and he defends her when she's not there.
James
Right. That's the other thing.
Jane
Yeah, because like, when he's in the room with the other like…
James
With Prescott, who was, I think the worst character in the whole movie. That man just...ugh.
Jane
They're like talking about, like, cause she goes there to say, like, “I don't know what to do. He asked me to marry him and I don't know what to do about that.” And so they're like, “Oh, yeah, why is she showing up here? A woman like that” and he, like, Devlin goes off on them. And it's like, “Hey, she is, like, risking her life for you guys, and you're just like, insulting her character.” But it's like, but you said the same thing to her face! So like...
James
Again, I feel like that might be kind of him trying to, like, make amends for what he feels as his own terrible actions. But again, it's just like, ugh. He's a very, very complicated character and I think again, that's deliberate. But it's just like…ugh
Jane
Yeah, it's like you could have made things a bit easier on yourself if you hadn't been so…conflicted.
James
Yeah, but I guess it's like maybe that's a statement in itself is like trying to like highlight, I mean in a complicated way like patriotism or like feelings of patriotism at the time where it's like America and veterans and people who fought in the war, like, did really terrible things, you know, to other people but at the same time, I feel like there was also this rhetoric, especially amongst against like, you know, Europe Germans as opposed to the Japanese, where it's like, but the Germans are still such a noble and historical people and they like, you know, deserve some sympathy from us in the end. And like, that's part of what leads into like the Marshall Plan and the rebuilding of Germany by the Western powers. and whatever else but it's just interesting that like… there's an echo there of like how the rhetoric of the war kind of would have played into that I feel like. And when you look at when you recognize it as a whole that this movie takes place immediately after World War Two, it's like, you can really see the kind of complicated feelings of you know, OK, how do we treat- How do we as the world move on here and you can see that kind of evolve I think in Alicia and Devlin's relationship, at least I think so.
Jane
Yeah, definitely. And it's like it not it only takes place right after the war, it was made right after the war, too.
James
Even during in parts like it was written during the war too.
Jane
Yeah, so people definitely were having those feelings. The people who made the film, the people who would have watched it on its first release, were definitely wrestling with that and it's interesting how it reflects that a lot of Nazis did flee to South America and showing that it's it's just, it's interesting to watch it from a historical perspective, if nothing else, I mean I watch it because I enjoy the acting and the characters and things like that, but it's also very interesting from a historical perspective.
James
And I think a lot of that comes down to Ben Hecht. as far as I know, because he was really tapped into like all of that. Like he was a former journalist, and so he had all of his journalistic connections, so he would have been really into, like, trying to make this movie feel like that from a plot standpoint anyway. Like, really current and fresh, so props to him, the screenwriter, for anyone who doesn't know.
Jane
Yeah, so I think that just there's so many things that really work. One thing that I do think is interesting, it took me a few rewatches to pick up on, is that when they're in Brazil, there's the like one Brazilian guy and then the rest are American people and they make the Brazilian guy really clueless.
James
Yeah, he's, like, totally deferential to Prescott and everything. Like he, he immediately changes his mind after on the plot after like Prescott does a very basic explanation of what's going on, and you're just like… this does not does not make the Brazilian government look good.
Jane
No, it's like it's very sort of like American savior mindset sort of thing and I don't, I don't love that.
James
Ohh yeah.
Jane
I think that's really like they could have made him smarter and more like in on what's going on instead of being like, “Why don't we do this?” “No, we're going to do it this way.” “Oh, yes, you're right.”
James
Yeah. And then it's just like, he disappears like halfway through the movie and like the rest of the movie, you're just seeing Prescott and maybe one other American superior agent, and it's just like eurgh.
Jane
Well, and the guy who plays Prescott, I think Louis Calhern, like I am used to seeing him in High Society, which is a remake of Philadelphia Story where he plays the Uncle Willie character. So he plays this like, really slimy Uncle guy, and I feel like a lot of times he played like a bit more slimy character. So, like, I think you're supposed to like him in this movie, but I like can't see him as not a slimy character.
James
Well, I I think you're maybe supposed to like him initially, but then like he's I think he provides like a… a foil for Devlin. Where, like Devlin clearly has reservations about this, and Prescott is very much just like, “Nope, this is just going to happen.” And like literally, the last scene you see him and he's laying in his bed like eating charcuterie and just like, totally casual, even though, like Devlin is seems pretty concerned that Alicia is in mortal danger and it's just like, this man literally does not give a crap, and you're just saying like, I feel like you're really supposed to not like him that.
Jane
Yeah, he's just like, “OK, you can check on her if you want to” and like she's literally being poisoned to death. It's like, uh yeah, I think you should check on her. But that's another thing that, like, she uses her, like partying as a defense mechanism, and she's so used to doing that that, like, even when she does need help, she tells Devlin, like, “Oh, I'm just drunk. It's fine.”
James
Well, I think at that point it's also, just like she's possibly baiting Devlin to be like, “Hey, can you see past my mask at all and see that I'm actually really in trouble? Or are you just going to like, let your prejudices against me get in the way again?” because, like I think at that point, she knows that something's wrong. She may not necessarily have any idea what, but she's like actively trying to put up a wall against him because it's like he's been treating her like everyone else in the world has, so why should she, like, let it down for him at this point, and then, you know, it's like it's a test, really is what it is and then Devlin only passes it very belatedly.
Jane
Well, and she has found out that he asked to be transferred and he won't admit it to her.
James
Yeah, I was gonna say cause like that was one thing I noticed is like he seems to be completely, like, clueless as to the idea that he's aware that he's been asked to be transferred and almost like the point that he doesn't even know that he's being transferred. Like I I read from that scene that he's he just seems like he's not even aware that anything should be wrong, that he should be treating him this way and it's like, OK, did you actually ask to be transferred? Was Prescott lying? Like I was trying to like… Hmm, this is odd. Like his behavior just seems like almost too clueless to me in that scene. I don't know.
Jane
Yeah, well, he's still, he's trying. He's trying really hard to not be into her. And because I think at the end or like towards the end when he finds her, he says like that that was why he asked to be transferred because he was so in love with her and he was trying to seem clueless in front of her. And so, yeah, there's layers.
James
Definitely I think that scene is one of the best acted scenes in the movie between those two, where you kind of have to you see them, like really playing with each other. At least her playing with him.
Jane
Yeah, I just she's just so on in every scene in this movie. Like, she's just so good.
James
Yeah, she's never, like, the only time I could really see her say she's kind of being casual is the part where she's like, after Devlin comes home and she's been fussing with that, like, chicken that she was trying to cook. And she seems like that seems like the happiest moment she has in the movie, honestly. And then it's just like, boom, everything starts to fall.
Jane
I have this very funny memory of one time, I think in college I was hanging out with my friend and I was saying like, “We should watch a movie together,” and she was like, “I saw this like clip of an old movie of like somebody saying that they didn't like to cook, but they were gonna make chicken” and I was like, “Notorious!” She was like, “How did you know that from that one brief thing?” I'm like, “Well, it's, I don't know, it’s a notable moment in the movie.”
James
[laughs] That's… that's such a you moment. Like just knowing you, that's such a you thing that would happen.
Jane
Yeah, well, yeah. My friend at the time was like, “Of course, you would know that was what- you would know exactly what movie that was.” So, yeah. So I watched it with her then.
James
Oh, nice. If I can pivot, I have like another big part of the movie that I wanted to talk about.
Jane
Go for it.
James
The cinematography by Ted Tetzlaff and just like in general, just like the decisions made during this movie, I feel like are unlike most every Hitchcock movie that was made before or since where, there's just an intense subjectivity to the camera that doesn't really like reappear I don't think in any other Hitchcock movie like the for example, the part where Alicia is like realized if she's been poisoned, she stands up and then the key lights drop off of Alex and his mother and they all they look like are like black silhouettes. And like there's this whole sequence where Alicia’s like stumbling out of the room and then it's just like all twisty and turny and…and then, not to mention the long tracking shots that happened twice, at least twice during the movie where like it goes from the top of the staircase all the way down to the key in her hand. And following the cup of coffee as Alex's mother, like carries it over the table and all the shots were just like, right in next Alicia's face. And you're like, “Oh, God, I hope she doesn't drink it. Oh, God, she's going to drink it!” Like there's just so much cool stuff that goes on in this movie that just like, frankly, genius in in the ways that it just tells the story just by visuals and major props to Ted Tetzlaff and his team for pulling that off because this movie, like when you really watch just the images, you can really tell what's going on. It's amazing.
Jane
Yeah. About the the key shot, there is another earlier Hitchcock movie called Young and Innocent, which is not one that's talked about very much. And there's a whole thing where, like the bad guy has, like, a twitch in his face. And so they're trying to find him again. And it's like this big shot of this whole, like, I think it's like the dining room of a hotel or something. And it's like this big crane shot. And then it goes and it, like, zooms right into the the band and the drummer's face. And then he twitches, like, right when it's like, right on his face. It's a little disturbing because he is in blackface.
James
Maybe that's one of the reasons why the movie isn't remembered very well.
Jane
Yeah. But that's a very similar thing to the shot of like the entire like entryway of their house. And then it goes right into her hand, and then she, like, moves it, and you can see she's holding the key. So that had been used in a previous Hitchcock film, but I think it's it's even better here and, and yeah, with the the poisoned coffee cups. They actually got like giant cups to put in the shot when you see it like in close up because they didn't want the background to be more blurry.
James
Right, yeah.
Jane
So you could see like the shots of like the big coffee cup. And yeah, you're right. There's so many great, like shots and and the lighting, and I… I never know if Hitchcock movies count as film noir. I feel like some of them have sort of noir aspects? I feel like this is probably the most noir of his movies.
James
I would make an argument for Shadow of a Doubt being a little bit more noir,
Jane
Oh, that's true.
James
but like still like I get your point. Like this was right in the middle of the noir period. And yeah, there's definitely a lot of, like, noir elements to it, and I think it's hard to say whether or not like that's Hitchcock or the crews that he was working with because those were obviously a lot of the same people who were working on a lot of these other movies. So I don't really know because I I also took a class on noir in college, so like to bring it all the way around. So like, I think Hitchcock movies don't always have a lot of the major elements of noir, but there are definitely like some of them there. And yeah, this movie definitely has quite a few of them. So if it had to be compared to another famous noir would probably be Gilda, it would probably be the best comparison.
Jane
Yeah, because it's like, Ingrid Bergman is not a femme fatale in this movie.
James
You know, most femmes fatales like, they're actively trying to, like, sabotage the men for their own purposes, which, if you actually flip that idea, it means that they would be really cool protagonists in most other movies, but that's beside the point, but in this case, like the movie is happening to her, she's very much not like in control of the situation at all.
Jane
No, no and I think it's really cool how they show that, like, she has not been really trained to be a spy.
James
And yet she's somehow quite good at it.
Jane
Yeah, she's very effective. Like, she finds out a lot of information until Alex and his mother find out what she's up to and manage to keep her from finding things out, which is again how she figures out that they're on to her is like they interrupt the guy who's about to say where the stuff comes from.
James
And they also prevent them from picking up her coffee. That's what, that's the major tell.
Jane
Ohh, that's true too yeah.
James
Because that it's after that point that she actually like looks at the coffee and then looks at them and she drops her jaw. And you're just like, oh, oh God, she knows. And they know she knows.
Jane
That's a great scene because, like, there's the the guy who's talking has no idea what's going.
James
Right. That's Doctor Anderson, who's like, the Nazi who, like, seems to actually like, try to care for her the most.
Jane
Yeah, he's another somewhat sympathetic villain character.
James
Right.
Jane
But yeah, so he's just like talking and she starts to notice that they're interrupting him and she's kind of like, “Huh, that's weird.” And then he, like, almost drinks her coffee and they, like, freak out, and she's like, “Ohh, no! This is why!” It's… yeah, it's it's good. It's good!
James
I think we've danced around her a bit, but I also want to bring up a moment to say, like, the character of Alex's mother: brilliant.
Jane
Yes.
James
Like, as far as I've read, she's like the first, like real domineering mother in Hitchcock canon. And like, they did a great job of writing her. Like, I don't think she like fully overtakes Alex in the course of the movie, which is a good thing. Like, Alex needs to also stand on his own in certain ways, and he does in certain scenes, but there are also elements where it's like no, even though he tries to stand up to her, she undermines it a couple of times. Like the first time he stands up to her fully is when he's like, “I'm going to get married to Alicia and we would like to have you at the wedding” and she doesn't show up. But then, like she tells all the servants to go to bed so they come home to a dark and empty house and you're like, this woman is something that's for damn sure.
Jane
Yeah, it is because she's, like, jealous. And it's it's very interesting to see, like, the progression from this to Psycho. Like, there's a lot of similarities in that sort of dynamic, but also, like, it's very funny when Alex tells her like, “Oh yeah, she's an American agent.” And and the mom’s like, “I knew! I didn't know, but I knew” kind of thing of like she knew there was something wrong, but…
James
She just thought she was just a slut and, like, cheating on him with Devin the whole time. But then she grabs the cigarettes and just like, does that cool trick where she like, drops the bottom and then the lid next to it, and then whips the cigarette out. You're just like that's a cool move, but anyway.
Jane
It is, but it's also just kind of like she's so excited to be justified. And she's like, “Oh, yeah, this is exactly what I thought would happen.” Like, no, it's not. You just didn't want him to get married.
James
And you just want an excuse to have her die.
Jane
Yeah, yeah. She's so excited to be like, “We can kill her now! But but we have to do it subtly!” because Alex is like, “I'm just going to strangle her,” and she's like, “No, you have to poison her gradually.”
James
Right, because we can't tip off your friends that like she, you know, sold information on us.
Jane
And I also love how he he's like, “Yeah, the one guy really doesn't like me.” And she's like, “Yeah, but even he wouldn't think he would be stupid enough to do this, so it's fine.” And like, “No one will suspect that you actually married an American agent.”
James
Right. “We have been stayed by the magnitude of your stupidity,” I think is the line.
Jane
Yeah, it's- they have an interesting dynamic and I think it's great that they used- because there aren't really any other female characters in the movie.
James
Right.
Jane
That are at all important besides Alicia and Alex's mother. But they're both so interesting.
James
Right. Shout out to Leopoldine Konstantin, the actress who played the mother like apparently this is her only American movie and she was suggested for the role by the guy who played Doctor Anderson and she was apparently like a major German actress for a long time. So like the fact that she got to play a role as good as this one in her only American movie was pretty good I think.
Jane
Yeah.
James
One shot I did think was interesting is that when Alex is telling his mother about the fact that Alicia is an American spy, like there's a mirror in the background that like doubles him and I think that's almost like an interesting moment to show like, OK, Alex has now fully been able to separate like the guy who loves Alicia from the fact that he is, you know, a Nazi and he, you know, is probably going to try to kill her. And like that, separation is just really interesting.
Jane
Oh yeah, I don't know that I'd ever picked up on that.
James
It's just this movie’s so good.
Jane
It's one of those movies where, like I cause I've watched it like 20 times and every time when it gets to the the parts when, like Alex is starting to figure it out and stuff I like, I'm always yelling at the screen. Like, “Don't put the key back on his chain! Make it look like it fell on the floor!”
James
Yeah, that's what I was thinking like if she handed it to him and he was like, “Oh darling, I saw this key on the floor. I think it's yours” I think that would that he would have bought it. I think he would have bought it.
Jane
It's just like they do everything wrong there to make him really suspicious and like that they put the bottle with the wrong year and…
James
Yeah, they could have just… What what would have worked is just pulling up one of the bottles from behind and moving it forward and just leaving like a gap. I don't think he would have really taken any notice of a gap just like…
Jane
Yeah! They just they, I mean, they panic and it's it's fair like cause I probably if I was in that I probably wouldn't have known what to do. But now that I've seen it, I'm like, “No, there's so many ways you could have done this better!”
James
I know. Oh one other thing about this that we didn't talk about but jumps all the way back to the beginning of the movie. The opening score. I didn't notice it initially, but that opening score sounds like a romance movie score. Like you just hear that like, soft strings and it feels very like, you know, sensual and like field of poppies or whatever, and it's just like… And when you know what this movie is, it just feels so dissident to what it actually is. But it also could serve to highlight that, they want you to believe in the love story initially, and then they're going to just like shank you in the side. Like, oh, actually, this woman has to, like basically prostitute herself for the US government, haha.
Jane
Yeah, well, and I think that Hitchcock does that a lot of like sort of playing with romance and murder or like other crimes, and I think that's part of why I like a lot of his movies, even the more like romantic ones is like, it's it's not the way that movies typically deal with romance. And I always find that so interesting.
James
Yeah, like Truffaut famously attributed him at that, like big party that happened in like the late 70s at the end of his career by saying, like, “You respect him because he shoots scenes of love like scenes of murder, whereas in France we respect him because he shoots scenes of murder like scenes of love.”
Jane
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. To him, it's like all strong emotions and passions are related.
James
Mm-hmm, I think he's not necessarily wrong in that, but I also feel like he drew some interesting conclusions about that at the end of his carrer.
Jane
Yeah, yeah. Well, and, I mean, he was… Hitchcock was a very strange, disturbed individual, clearly based on the movies he made, but also there’s stories of of how he treated some of his actresses that are not great. But I think Ingrid Bergman worked with him three times?
James
I know she worked on him in Spellbound and I think there was one more after this. Yeah, it was the one that took place in Australia.
Jane
Yeah, Under Capricorn I think it's called.
James
Yes, I think that, yeah.
Jane
Yeah, I've only seen that one once. I don't really remember it.
James
I wanna see it because I've heard some people say it bears revisiting.
Jane
Yeah, well, I don't know, maybe I'll watch it again. I have seen Spellbound a few times. That movie just cracks me up. I think it's so funny. It's like so bad. The way they deal with psychiatry in that movie is just, it's so funny now. I don't know if you've seen it.
James
I've seen clips but…
Jane
There's like this whole thing when, like Gregory Peck has this very intricate dream.
James
Oh yeah, the Salvador Dali sequence.
Jane
Yes, exactly. It's very famous. But like when they're interpreting it, it's so funny. They, like, know exactly what it means. It’s like, “Oh, something was chasing you? That must have to do with the name of the ski resort!” It's like what? No, that's not how that works. But it's so funny. But anyway, yeah, so I think this is definitely her best Hitchcock movie.
James
Yeah. One note I did want to highlight that I made the champagne in general, champagne as a thing in this movie is really interesting because the first time we see it is Devlin has a bottle with him when he goes to the government office to like, learn what Alicia’s job is and he forgets it there. And in that moment it almost feels like the champagne represents like Alicia's like love for him. And like, he kind of almost forgets that in the next scene, because that's only at the end of the scene that he realizes he forgot the champagne at the government office. And it seems like he has a little bit of regret about what he just said to Alicia. And then later on, when we reintroduced to champagne, it's the big party and obviously, the fact that the champagne is like running out very quickly is like the source of tension in the scene, but then you- it almost becomes a double meaning, because then you're like it contains what the government wants, which is like, you know, their uranium. And they're like, you know, that's what everyone's fighting for. And then it almost also becomes a reintroduction of the idea that it represents Alicia's love. Because that's also what the government is after because they want her to use that to like leverage Alex. And so there's so much meaning baked into the champagne in this movie. And I really think that's just a genius writing in that level. And I've really admired that in this rewatch.
Jane
Yeah, I agree. It's very nice, like the way that the champagne bottle is important early on and then it's like, oh, this is actually really important to the story. I also enjoy that, so Hitchcock is famous for making cameo appearances in most of his movies, and he's helping deplete the supply of champagne so they'll have to go down faster.
James
It's just like he just appears in after a cut, drinks an entire glass of champagne in one gulp, walks away. It's just like… perfect, Hitch, perfect.
Jane
Yep, great. Cause it it started in his like, early early films when they like they would need an extra and just like not have that many people. So he would he just kind of ended up being in a lot of the movies. And then it became sort of a running joke of like, when you going to see him? And then in his later movies, it's usually very early on, because he didn't want to...
James
…distract anybody…
Jane
…from the suspense of the story, but this one is is kind of in the middle. So that's, that's fun.
James
Yeah, and one other thing I noticed, speaking of the scene where Devin has forgotten the champagne, there's a lot that's been talked about where this movie where drinking just in general, not just champagne, but in general is like really important to the story. Like you know, the fact that Alicia is drunk and the first party where she needs to, Devin, and then she drinks the orange juice that he gives her and… et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Alicia only takes a drink during that scene after Devlin has really, fully, just like, broken her and she walks off of the balcony into the apartment behind the curtain that is see through so we can see her in sort of a silhouette and then that's when she picks up a bottle of wine and pours a glass for herself and like… Drinking is almost a part of Alicia's mask, and like at that, I think that maybe somewhat unintentionally Alex and his mother play into that and that's why they poisoned her coffee. It's like, the mask itself is killing Alicia in multiple different ways, and again, like I keep going back to my notes and most of these are just like impressed by the writing and directing choices.
Jane
Yeah, well, yeah. And and there's also the scene when they have, like, recently arrived in Rio, but don't know what they're doing there yet. And they're at like the-
James
The café?
Jane
Outdoor café, yeah. And she's like, “Oh, I don't need any more to drink.” And then he's, like, insulting her and she's finally like, “I'll have more to drink now” because she's like, “Yeah, I've changed. I'm actually becoming more, like sober and enjoying my life.” And he's like, “Well, yeah, how long is that gonna last? Like, obviously you're gonna go back to your old ways.” She's like, “Fine. I'll have another drink.”
James
Mm-hmm. It just goes back to, Devlin makes a lot of mistakes in this movie.
Jane
Oh, my gosh, yeah. He's so mean to her!
James
I know it's just, ugh, like, why?
Jane
But he's also nice to her too. It's not like he's always horrible.
James
Right. But like the times where he's mean, it almost feels like he doesn't make up for that in the scenes where he's being nice.
Jane
Yeah.
James
Which means I kind of don't buy the romance at the end of it, which maybe is also entirely the point.
Jane
Yeah. I think that the scene when they're in the cellar and he's like, so casual about it. She's, like, freaking out, like, “What if they come down?” He's like, “Oh, that would be unfortunate.” And that is very Cary Grant. Like, that's how he is in all of North by Northwest. And so I I think that's very funny that he he does get a little bit of the like making light of the situation Cary Grant that we know and love.
James
He also kind of does that in the staircase scene in the end, which I think is part of why he's able to get out of the house is just he's so, almost disturbingly laid back about the situation where everyone else in the scene is like either invalidated by the…you know, her, Alicia in this case, is being like, you know, poisoned. And then Alex and his mother are basically just frozen in shock. Whereas Devlin is just like, “All right, this is going to happen. Let's just keep walking. Let's just keep walking. Do I have to pull out my gun and start shooting? Let’s just keep walking.” It's just like…
Jane
Does he even have a gun?
James
That's the other thing, too, is he's like… what?
Jane
He's like pretending he has a gun. Does he have a gun? We don't know.
James
Yeah, we don’t.
Jane
He's like, very much in control of the situation, even though, like he has every reason to be freaking out.
James
And he's just like, “No, I'm just going to be casual. I belong here.”
Jane
I also really enjoy when Alex tries to get into the car and he just like reaches over and locks the door. It’s like, “Sorry.”
James
“That's your headache.” It's just like…
Jane
“Bye!”
James
Like, that's again, that's I don't, I don't think Joseph Cotten could have played that. I only think Cary Grant was- would have been able to just play that like complete, like utter inability to like give a fuck at all.
Jane
Yeah.
James
It's just so, so fun.
Jane
Also, going back to the- how they're walking down the staircase, they had actually built a separate, longer staircase for that scene so that it takes longer for them to get to the bottom and increasing the suspense. And that's another thing. I think that like in a lot of Hitchcock movies, the end feels very rushed and like like he was building up suspense for the entire movie. And then when you finally get to the end, it's like, OK and then it's the end. We we don't know how we're gonna deal with this. And I feel like Notorious is one of the best Hitchcock endings.
James
Definitely. I think going back to North by Northwest, though, I think the ending of North by Northwest feels very much in that way of like, oh, it's just the end now. Like there's a match cut, but even still, you're just like, OK, that was the end? Like…
Jane
Yeah, it's the same thing of like they didn't know how to wrap it up. Like he doesn't know how to do denoument, you know? Like it's just like, here's the climax, the end. And I think that that the way they made the staircase longer is like there's still tension at the end and then it doesn't feel like, “and we just didn't know how to end it.” Like, it's very much like, you know exactly what's happening after the end of the movie. They didn't need to show that. And it's just sort of like, OK, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman got away. Claude Rains has to go back and face his Nazi friends, who now know that something major is up. I like that they have that little part of like, “There's no phone in her room.” Like there's like, they're starting to pull apart his story and they're like, “Uh, we need to talk to you now.” And it's like such a great ending.
James
And that slow walk back up another staircase into like this imposing facade of his house and, and Roy Webb’s amazing score that just…
Jane
Yeah, it's so good.
James
So good. And also that was another thing I thought of when with regards to the staircase is there's a series of shots in the part where Alicia is like fading from the poison after she realizes where when she gets back into the house from, like the outdoor sitting area that they were at or whatever it is, the first thing she looks at is the study where the Nazis have been hanging out the whole movie. And then she turns and looks at the staircase and I almost like read into that, maybe too much, that it's almost like a choice between hell and heaven, where, like, you know, Nazi hell in the study that's got black doors in the staircase, which you know, is always a poignant metaphor for, like, the stairway to heaven or whatever. And later on, of course, Devlin, you know, goes up there to rescue her and bring her back down to the place of the living. And then notably, when Alex goes back in the house, he like, is facing the direction that we that's been established is towards the study. And I just feel like there's a lot going on in there that if you want to do like a Christian read of this movie, it's there to be read.
Jane
Oh, yeah, that's a very good point.
James
Yeah, I don’t know, just like that came to my mind immediately. And then maybe it's just like it could be too much reading into it, but whatever. And then the other last note, that's a major note here that I had was when Alicia has come back to the American Embassy or whatever it is to announce that Alex has asked her to marry and like for most of the seeing Devin standing over by a mirror and he's got the noir blind shadow on him. So like going back your idea of it being noir, like there's a very clear like noir symbol right there.
Jane
Yeah. Well, and also, do you know about the movie Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid?
James
I've heard of it. I haven't seen it.
Jane
OK, so it's a very fun movie where they like, put clips from old noirs in to like, but it's like Steve Martin and.
James
Oh yeah.
Jane
He's like doing a noir sort of parody, but there's all these clips from noirs, and they have some clips of Notorious in that movie. And so it's it's pretty fun that that like you get to see Ingrid Bergman interacting with Steve Martin.
James
[laugh] I'm especially imagining some of the lines that are in Notorious like her talking to Steve Martin and like, Oh my God.
Jane
Yeah, they have, they there's like 2 moments. And also they have it so that she poisons him. And there's like the from the party at the beginning, you see Cary Grant’s back.
James
And they and they show a reverse shot of Steve Martin?
Jane
Yeah, the back of Cary Grant, the front of Steve Martin. So they have like a little bit of that in that section. And then he says something like, “You put on your fancy black dress and then the next shot is of them like getting ready for the party in the House of like when she's like going to steal the key and stuff so that there there's a clip of that in there too. So I'm like, OK, well, the people who made Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid clearly think that Notorious is a film noir.
James
Yeah, I know it's it's a, it's a debate that many scholars have had for a long time, and I don't think it's really gonna, we're not going to be able to solve that debate right here.
Jane
I think that with film noir, it's not really a firmly defined thing. It's just sort of like a a feeling of like it's it's it's a mood so…
James
It's also people described as a style or whatever else. It's just it's could be all of those things or none of them.
Jane
Yeah, because people weren't specifically making the movies to be like, this is going to be categorized this way.
James
Yeah, it's it's a retrospective assignment that the people gave to them.
Jane
Yeah, exactly. So I usually watch it during noirvember, which is part of why it has made it, because it's like I'll usually either watch it for Cary Grant's birthday, or for Ingrid Bergman's birthday or for Hitchcock's birthday, and then also watch it in November for Noirvember. So usually watch it once or twice a year.
James
Yeah, now that makes a lot of sense. When did you watch this? Like, what's your watch history of this movie? Because I've noticed like this is just a thing, meta podcasting, you haven't really talked about your history of watching movies when you have guests on them, so.
Jane
Yeah, that's true. I usually don't cause we've we we talk enough about other things, but yes, so I watched it for the first time in 2004 and then I watched it in 2006 and 2008 and 2009 and then I think that might have all been before I had a copy. So I was just getting it from the library. And then I watched it once in 2011, twice in 2012, once in 2013, twice in 2014, once in 2015, twice in 2016.
James
There's a pattern.
Jane
Yeah. And then I broke the pattern. I didn't watch it for a couple of years, and then I watched it twice in 2019. Twice in 2020, once in 2021 and twice in 2022. So. Yeah, I watch it, usually once or twice a year. I don't know why I didn't watch it in 2017 or 2018.
James
Maybe you were tired of seeing Cary Grant be mean to Ingrid Bergman.
Jane
Yeah.
James
Which I wouldn't blame you.
Jane
Well, they made another movie together called Indiscreet, which I don't like as well, but they're also kind of mean to each other in that movie. So I'm like, couldn't they be nice to each other?
James
Yeah, it's weird cause apparently they were really, really good friends in real life, so it's just like...
Jane
Yeah, I don't know.
James
The key prop that they had, there's a story that Cary Grant apparently took it from the movie set and had it for 10 years, and then gave it to Ingrid Birdman in the hope that it would bring her good luck cause apparently he had for him. And then at the same big party that I talked about with where Truffaut tributed Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman was the emcee, and she had apparently kept the key on her that whole night and, like, gave it to Hitchcock at the end of the ceremony in the hopes that it’d also bring him good luck, and I think it was Peter Bogdanovich who was also there, or some- one of the people I saw in that same documentary interview that, he then turned to Cary Grant and was like, “Is that the key?” And Cary Grant was like, shoulder shrug.
[both laugh]
James
It's a great story regardless, but you know it- who’s to say if it's true?
Jane
They just, they just took a random key. It's like, “This is the key from the movie!” It's like, you wouldn't know.
James
I mean, apparently it still had the same brand on it, so there's that. That was one thing that was very distinctive about the key in the lock and the movies that you could very clearly read the brand on both of them, so…
Jane
Yeah.
James
That was another cool shot too, was when Alex is at the bottom of the staircase going towards the wine cellar and walks straight up to the camera and then he lifts his hand up and his hand is perfectly in focus in frame and you can see the three keys spread out, missing the important fourth key.
Jane
Yeah.
James
That was really cool. And then he just casually is like, “You know,” – whatever his Butler's name was –
Jane
Joseph.
James
“I think they've- think we've served them enough champagne, haven't we? They've got wine and whiskey, don't we?”
Jane
Yeah. I do wonder what Joseph thinks about everything that's going on because he seems to be kind of oblivious to the fact that he's serving Nazis. Cause he seems genuinely concerned about Alicia when she's being poisoned, like I don't think he knows the like political stuff that's going on.
James
But I think he does know that the people that he's serving are Nazis, but I don't necessarily think he knows that Alicia is a spy.
Jane
That’s fair.
James
That part I don't think he knows, but I think he knows most of what's going on in the movie, he just doesn't talk about it.
Jane
Yeah, I could see that.
James
I do love like a good, like, you know, semi-passive servant character just because they provide like a great character for all the audience to bounce off over. It's like if I were in that situation, I'd probably laugh, but they aren't, so I have to. [chuckles] So yeah, that's just, lovely little background, stuff like that.
Jane
Yeah, I think this is just an incredibly well-written, -acted and -shot film. It’s like, what more could you want?
James
Right. And the fact that it's not as well-known as like some of Hitchcock's other masterpieces. Is a real shame, because it really is a masterpiece, especially for this time period in his career, I think.
Jane
Yeah. And it's fairly early in, like Ingrid Bergman's American career, after Casablanca, which is probably her most famous movie, which I think is so funny. There's this quote from her of like, “I made all these other movies that were so much more important and people only ever want to talk to me about that, Humphrey Bogart one.” Just like...
James
It's like like that movie didn't win Best Picture. I think, right? It did win Best Picture?
Jane
Yeah, yeah. But I also like, it's interesting when you watch it that like, her character is not- like she doesn't get any of the iconic lines besides the “Play it, Sam” line, like most of them are Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains, who is also in that movie. But yeah, it's like her character is not nearly as well developed as like this one. It's kind of a similar sort of thing of like people being in love with her, but also being like, “Oh, but you're a slut.” Although she was less of a slut in Casablanca, but like, yeah, she doesn't get as much interesting stuff to do. So I could totally see why she didn't like that movie as well as some of her others.
James
Agreed. Yeah.
Jane
Because like compared to her character in this, like…
James
Or any, really, or most other movies she was ever in.
Jane
Yeah, exactly. It's like her character doesn't get much in that movie. The famous line that she gets to say is the one that everyone misquotes, so…
James
Right. So yeah. I mean, confession: I've never actually seen Casablanca.
Jane
WHAT?!
James
I know I have to, but I haven't.
Jane
It's not in my Top 40- How many times have I seen Casablanca? Oh, I've seen it 10 times.
James
So fairly largely outside of the potentially could have made it to the countdown.
Jane
Yeah, I've seen it half as many times as I've seen Notorious. But yeah, it's good. It's a good movie and it's a classic like, I mean, I feel like everyone should watch it at least once. Actually at least twice because I didn't pick up on a lot of stuff until I rewatched it. But like with Notorious, I'm like, everyone should watch it like as many times as possible, because I'm still discovering new things about it that I hadn't appreciated in my earlier watches. Like the mirror thing that you brought up, I still haven't picked up on so it's like, I got to watch it again and look for the mirrors.
James
I feel like it's just like my professor in college has said it really well. It's a masterpiece that's kind of forgotten, and it's a shame that it is. It's like possibly one of Hitchcock's best constructed movies, and better even than some of his more well-known ones. And like I feel like, I don't know why this movie hasn't stuck around in the popular consciousness as much as say, North by Northwest or Vertigo, like it's just… It may not be like as surreal or flashy or like, you know, experimental with its structure as any- some of those other movies, but it just does the structure that it has, like impeccably and as we've talked about like you, you- the more you dig into it, the more you can pull out of it and it's just like, I don't know why it hasn't lasted.
Jane
Yeah, I don't know. I I think that it'll probably be one that not as many of my listeners are familiar with, but-
James
But you should be.
Jane
You should be, yes, so watch it if you are listening and you haven't seen it.
James
Especially if you're a Hitchcock fan.
Jane
Oh yeah definitely. Cause like, like Vertigo is one of his most praised movies and I rewatched it recently, and I was like, but this story isn't actually very good. Like, I don't actually like Vertigo. I I think that it does really cool things with color and like that sort of thing. But like, as a story, I don't like Vertigo.
James
I agree 100%.
Jane
Yeah, it's like, really, this movie? And it's fine if people like it, but it's like usually so high on on people's lists of even just like movies in general. Like, it's it makes it really high into when people do like the best movies of all time lists.
James
Yeah.
Jane
And I- and like no one talks about Notorious in those contexts and I don't really understand why. Like I can see with like like Psycho and The Birds were, like doing different things than had been done before.
James
And it's also like those are horror movies, which is, like puts, which allows them to be genre movies in a completely different way than most of Hitchcock's other stuff.
Jane
So I think that those get talked about in a different conversation and I understand that and obviously I love North by Northwest, not to like spoil that that's going to be talked about on this podcast. But yeah, so I I understand why people talk about that that a lot. And Rebecca was the only Best Picture winner that he directed. So I can see why people talk about that.
James
But it's also really good.
Jane
Yeah, yeah, and it's good. And that was his first-
James
American-
Jane
-Hollywood film. Yeah. I will say tha,t not to flex, but like I've seen all of Hitchcock's American films and many of his British films. I haven't seen all of the older ones. But there's only two that made it into my top 40. Part of that is that a lot of his movies sort of lose their appeal after you've seen them a couple times because, like the whole point is the suspense, and it can feel really tedious when you know where it's going of like, oh, they're just dragging this out artificially to make you wonder how it's going to happen. And once you know how it's going to happen, it's like, okay, I don’t need to watch this anymore.
James
Right.
Jane
But Notorious is definitely suspenseful, but I feel like it gets even more enjoyable when you know where it's going, because then you can focus on just how layered the characters are and their relationships without like worrying like, are they gonna be OK? Because you know how it ends.
James
And then also the other technical aspects that we talked about that you wouldn't necessarily notice at first glance, but like the cinematography, the music, the writing, the structure like, you can't really appreciate all of those things until you've watched it multiple times. And it's just a movie that really holds up in that way, and that's not to say like some of those other ones don't. But like you said, a lot of Hitchcock's movies, like they're not as rewatchable because of the fact that they are so… to kind of like paraphrase Rian Johnson, they're like puzzle movies almost. They're like movies where the whole point is you don't know what's going to happen at the end, but once you do, that's it. You know the tricks. You know the turns, but Notorious, there's so much more to appreciate. Like everyone who worked on this movie was just very good at their job.
Jane
Yeah. Well, and a lot of it too is that, like, Hitchcock really liked to manipulate the emotions of the audience, and was sort of, like, very fascinated with how films can do that. And I think he was really good at it. But again it's like, once you know what's coming, it's harder to feel that emotional ride as well. And I think that his movies that I enjoy more have more to them than that of like, that the emotions are deep enough that you can still feel them even when you know where they're going,
James
Exactly.
Jane
…and enjoy the film, again from a technical perspective, from a character perspective, even when you aren't quite as into the emotional aspects of them.
James
Exactly, yeah. And I think it's specifically at least for me, Alex kind of jumped out on this one in terms of like viewing his character and emotional like wavelengths that he was going through. Because at least at first, he's kind of like, just like this dumb puppy that you just like, you can see like the joy in his eyes and just like all of that and everything. And then like, he slowly but surely like slinks into being like a more manipulative and crafty villain, but even still, I never really felt like that scared by him. I was more scared of his mother than I was of him because he, for the most part is just like following his mother's directions, and his mother is the one who's really like, coming up with the whole scheme.
Jane
Yeah, well, you can really see that, like, not to just keep bringing up Psycho, but like, the line between Claude Rains’s character and Anthony Perkins’s character in Psycho is very interesting because like then… I mean, I'm going to spoil Psycho. Do people know how Psycho ends? It's a very old movie.
James
I hope they do.
Jane
I'm assuming people know like his mother is dead and so he's like playing…
James
His mother.
Jane
…himself and his mother. But I think, like, you do kind of feel bad for Norman Bates when he's himself. That he's being manipulated by his mother, who is really him.
James
Himself.
Jane
But but it's a very similar thing. So I I like I find this movie fascinating as like sort of a precursor to Psycho in in those terms that like having a sympathetic villain who's being manipulated by his mother. Which is a little bit… I don't know it's a little bit sexist or something, but…
James
It's also very Freudian.
Jane
Yes, there is that. Claude Rains is just a fantastic actor and I feel like among people who like old Hollywood, clearly like he gets a lot of praise. But I feel like he's not quite as remembered as a lot of the like flashy movie stars of the time, and I'm just like, anyone out there who's not familiar with his work should like be seeking out Claude Rains movies because he's fabulous in everything I've seen him in.
James
Yeah, I mean, I've mostly only seen him in other in horror movies like The Invisible Man and The Phantom of the Opera, but he was perfect in those, so...
Jane
Yeah, he plays villains, he plays not quite like the movie star leading man, but he he can play more sympathetic characters, and uh and also his character in Casablanca is fascinating. So like, since you haven't seen it like you should watch Casablanca for Claude Rains alone. Because his his performance and just his character is so interesting cause he's a horrible person, but also somewhat sympathetic.
James
Similar to Notorious. What do you know?
Jane
Very similar to Notorious again, and Ingrid Bergman is also in that movie, but he doesn't, he doesn't interact with her nearly as much in in Casablanca because he's not married to her. But yeah, also, oh, this is another thing that I wanted to bring up is that Claude Rains is very short and Ingrid Bergman is very tall.
James
Yeah, that was one thing I thought was really cool was like, Claude Rains is very clearly a short king in the movie, but anyway.
Jane
Yeah, but they they wanted to like even it out a little bit more. So there's definitely scenes when they're standing together where he was like on a box or like, there's one scene when he walks towards her and they, like, built a ramp so that it would look like he was closer to her height when he got next to her.
James
Probably the one where like he does the key pass behind his back I would imagine is that probably that.
Jane
Oh yeah, yeah. When he comes up to her and is like starting to kiss her- That is really funny, too. The way that he like...
James
Goes for her fists and just like…
Jane
Yeah, yeah, that's that's good Hitchcock suspense right there is like, because she's holding the key in one hand and he, like, opens her hand and kisses her palm, and he's about to do the same to the key hand. And she just, like, grabs him.
James
Pulls him into a hug and then passes the key across, hands behind her back and then kicks it under her chair.
Jane
Yeah. Oh, it's so good. So well done. It's like, why was she so good at that? But then she didn't think like maybe I'll just throw the key on the floor and make it look like it fell off his chain instead of putting it back on his chain after he's noticed it's gone?
James
Speaking of that scene though, like, that's the cover of the Criterion Edition of Notorious is that that passing scene.
Jane
Ohhh, nice.
James
So that's pretty cool.
Jane
OK, I just have it in a Hitchcock collection.
James
Nice. How many movies are in that thing?
Jane
There's only, I think there's eight, but it also has, like, little like information about the movies. It's like a little notebook.
James
That's pretty cool.
Jane
Yeah, it's a good collection. It has a lot more of the like movies that are still kind of remembered, but lesser known, I mean, Rebecca's in it, but besides that, I mean, it also has that Young and Innocent movie I was talking about. And The Lodger, which is kind of considered his first Hitchcockian movie.
James
The Lodger's good, yeah. It's only his third movie, too, which is really impressive.
Jane
Yeah, that movie really holds up.
James
Definitely.
Jane
What I'm saying, if you're listening to this and you're not familiar with Hitchcock, is that there's a lot of good choices out there. It's not just the ones that are the most well-known. He made a lot of movies and some of them are not actually very good and some of them…
James
Are very, very good.
Jane
Very, very good. So it's like when Hitchcock's good, he's amazing. When Hitchcock's bad, it's kind of painful sometimes, but you can also make fun of them, like with Spellbound.
James
Exactly. It seems like we've just done a lot of wandering around trying to find the end and we're just like…
Jane
I mean, it's like Hitchcock didn't always know how to wrap up his movies. So we're having trouble, uh, wrapping this up, but uh, it's just, it's just fun to to chat with you about this movie and…
James
Other Hitchcock movies.
Jane
I could just talk about Hitchcock for a while, part- One, like, project that I've thought about embarking on is like trying to watch through like all of his movies consecutively and sort of paying close attention to the evolution. But I don't know if I'll ever actually do that.
James
That also does sound kind of painful like you were saying because there are ones where you just try to- you would try to watch it and you’d just like…ugh that's that's… I can't watch this. This is so…yeah.
Jane
Yeah.
James
Like I I don't, I can't think of a specific one, but there I feel like there's one Hitchcock movie I've seen where I just like tried to watch it, and it's just like, this is painful to get through.
Jane
Yeah. And there's some that is just like, OK, that was fine.
James
Yeah.
Jane
Which I think is true of most directors in their careers. They don't-
James
Right.
Jane
Nobody has like a career that's only masterpieces and it's like, you know, he was trying things. He… he experimented with things and sometimes they worked really well and sometimes they didn’t. And I think that that's…
James
Admirable.
Jane
That's what you should do, like if you're going to make movies you should take some risks. This was one that definitely paid off. This was a very, very well-done movie. I don't know that it was one of- it wasn't one of his more risky movies, but uh…
James
Well, it was one of his more daring, I would say, in terms of like the with the kiss at least, like he really dared the censors on that one.
Jane
That's true. It really, when you look at the plot like it could be made now, like people would make a movie like this now. It would have a lot more nudity in it probably. But like it's it's a plot that sounds like it's from a at least post Hays Code era period when-
James
Right.
Jane
Cause there's- it's just a lot of implied sex in this movie and violence, but I think that Hitchcock did that a lot. And like a lot of his movies, there's implied homosexuality that I don't know how he got past the censors.
James
Yeah, especially Strangers on a Train that one like that one's obvious in a lot of ways.
Jane
And Rope.
James
Yep.
Jane
Like they only have one bedroom with these two guys that live together like there's definitely some queerness in his movies.
James
Which is why there was a whole class about it at my college and that's why I took that class.
Jane
Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's, there's just a lot of of characters that seem… not straight in his movies. This this isn't a great example of that, although I do feel like, I don't know, there's something about Claude Rains that just seems… kind of queer-coded to me sometimes, which is weird because he's very much in love with a woman in this movie, but uh...
James
No, I I can see what you're saying. Like, it's that same kind of refinedness that Hitchcock always seemed to like associate with queerness. Like another example, is like when we watched Shadow of a Doubt in this class, like there was a large implication that there was an attempt to queer Uncle Charlie and, like, make him seem like a queer person. And then like, I don't know that I buy that. But I can see that there's this idea of Hitchcock where, like the more classy and refined you are, the more queer you may or may not be. And it's just like it's an interesting parallel that he seemed to draw in his career. So, but yeah, I see what you're saying about Claude Rains and yeah, other than that though, like, I don't think there's any way you could do an aroace reading of this movie to keep with the theme of the podcast.
Jane
[laughs] No, not really. I mean, maybe some of the Nazis are, but I don't really wanna…
James
And who cares about those?
Jane
Yeah, I I don't want to go with that. Yeah, no, it's it's very it's it's very romantic and sexual. But I think the element of like using sex is definitely like… I think that as someone who… took a long time to figure out my sexuality and not quite understanding that I didn't… because it's hard to understand that you don't experience something, you know? Like...
James
Exactly. Yeah, no, I get it.
Jane
I think it's easier to figure out that you're gay because if you're feeling attraction for someone, like, you can tell. But if you don't feel attraction toward anyone, it's harder to know that that's a thing.
James
It's almost like you feel… It almost feels like you're expected to have a magnet in your hand, and then you just like you suddenly turn your hand around. It's like, oh, there's not actually a magnet there.
Jane
Yeah, so I think that that just like… sexuality in general has kind of fascinated me in a way, because I don't understand it. And so, like seeing people using sex in ways that are separate from actual attraction has been always kind of interesting to me in a way.
James
Yeah.
Jane
So I think that that is part of what has intrigued me about this movie from a younger age. Seeing movies like this of like being… I guess I can't say it's super open, but like it's pretty open for a 1946 movie about like that, it's about sex. But also that, like particularly the way that Alicia is using it to find out information from Alex is like, she's not attracted to him, she's just like, pretending to be, and I think that sort of like pretending to have attraction for people resonated with me in a way that I didn't consciously realize.
James
I mean it, it has echoes of like what you were talking about with Chicago, like that same idea.
Jane
Yeah, exactly. And those- I like didn't unpack why those movies fascinated me until, like, later, so it could be, you know, I'm assigning meaning that wasn't actually there. But I think it makes sense to to be like, I don't understand attraction, but I can understand like, pretending to have attraction and like, especially when you're using it to get something important. And like in Chicago, they're using it for themselves, but like…
James
Here they're supposedly using it for the greater US benefit, and it's just like they never really, like... I mean, they estab- they get the idea that there's, like, maybe an atomic bomb could be made by out of this. But like, they also seem to imply that the Nazis are having trouble actually like, putting together a bomb, so like they never really established that it's like that pivotal that you know, they just uncover the source of what's going on in the, you know, the uranium and everything because like, she gets all that information and Devin is, like, making notes of it in his head, and it's clear that that's going to be solved by the end of it anyway. But the whole idea that… you know there's danger for the greater United States just feels immaterial, which almost makes this move even more tragic, where it's like, this really didn't even need to happen. You know?
Jane
Yeah. Yeah, it's uncl- well and they call it – what do they call it, a MacGuffin?
James
Mm-hmm.
Jane
Where like, there's with the wine bottles, it's like they're there to further the plot, but they're not actually important in and of themselves. And so like the plot, is more about like her and like it's in the context of, like, they're trying to help stop the Nazis and whatever, but like, that's not actually, that important to the story.
James
Right.
Jane
It's like it is, but it is not the point. And so, yeah, so we don't actually know if they were going to succeed in making a bomb if she hadn't interfered. And we don't really know if they all get caught or what happens after that. But that's like kind of outside the scope of the story, which is interesting to be like, you wouldn't ever really describe this movie as being like about the Nazis or like stopping the Nazis. It's like about this specific person and her journey and like falling in love with the agent and things like that is like, very interesting layers there.
James
It's also just an interesting time capsule of like a very short period of time, where the United States's interests were more concerned with Nazis than with Russia, because the Cold War hadn't really started yet. And had this maybe even made like even a year or two later it probably would have been Russians that they were trying to trick. But in this case it's like, you know, Nazis on the run, which is just a very, very interesting like little time capsule of when this movie could have been made exactly in this way.
Jane
Yeah, because I think that soon after this, the American government decided they didn't really care that much about Nazis anymore and it’s part of what has led to a resurgence of them in recent years, it's like it was never really fully dealt with. It was just kind of like, OK, that's not important anymore. We're going to fight the Russians now.
James
Yeah, and also not to mention that you know, a lot of the Nazis who would have had the capability to do such a thing were just eventually just actively recruited by the United States.
Jane
Yeah, exactly.
James
It's just like, uh… interesting. Anyway…
Jane
Yeah, so you're right. It is. It is an interesting time capsule of like that, that brief period when it's like, no, we're going to try and kill them and not try and work with them.
James
So and again, going back to what I was talking about with like the interesting relationship that Alicia has with Alex and and Devlin, and how that kind of mirrors the interesting relationship that the United States had with Germany and German people as opposed to the Japanese people after the war. It's just like… it's interesting, like, oh, you have things I want, but you're also kind of not a good person, but I want you. It's like, it sounds more creepy when you put it that way, which is exactly what I'm talking about.
Jane
Yeah.
James
So and on that note, I think we've talked and we've gotten off on tangents multiple times trying to wrap this thing up. We should probably stick the landing.
Jane
Yes, yes, Nazis are bad. Let's end on that note.
James
Yes, Nazis are bad, and the Americans choosing to work with them after the war instead of executing them all was a terrible decision.
Jane
Yes, but, anyway, Nazis are bad. This movie is good. Go watch it.
James
Watch it!
Jane
And thank you, James, for talking to me about it.
James
Yes, thank you for having me and thank you for sending us off on multiple tangents that we didn't need to go on but I still enjoyed nevertheless. I'm also responsible for them. I don't want to make it sound like you're the only one responsible.
Jane
Well, you know, it was fun to chat with you, and I don't know how many of the tangents I will keep in. I might edit some of them out for time, but you know, hopefully people enjoy listening to them.
Thank you so much to James for all of your insights about this movie, and for your tangents, and thank you to everyone else for listening! Happy end of Pride Month! Remember that queer people don’t disappear or stop being queer on July first; we’re always here and we always deserve the same rights as straight cis allos. To all my LGBTQIA+ listeners: stay proud! Anyway, as Pride Month comes to a close, so too does my run of guest episodes, so next week The Rewatch Rewind will be back to just me, when I’ll be talking about the only movie I watched 21 times, which will make it the first non-tie on this list. That movie is also from 1946 but has a significantly different tone from Notorious. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “You don’t like coconut?! Say, brainless, don’t you know where coconuts come from?”
#notorious#alfred hitchcock#cary grant#ingrid bergman#the rewatch rewind#these guest episodes were so fun#but i'm kind of excited to get back to pre-written episodes so i don't have to transcribe them after the fact
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hi cynthia, hope you are doing great✨
any comfort movie? also, any hobbie you would like to dive into more? (lots of love from southamerica🫶)
hi!!! hope you’re doing great as well!
My #1 comfort movie is ever after, it’s with drew barrymore and it was my favorite when i was little--and stayed my favorite, forever. most drew barrymore movies are comfort movies to me to be honest. a lot of 90s romcoms are (of course); i love a romcom and i have no shame. i also find comfort in anything ingrid bergman is in because i grew up watching a lot of her movies and there’s this picture of my grandmother i grew up with where they look alike (to me anyway) so then my kid brain associated ingrid with my grandmother. (not Casablanca though i don’t really like Casablanca...don’t tell film twitter)
hobbies hm. last summer (or this summer...what year is it) anyway i started skateboarding -- not well, but i started and it really made me feel like a kid and i loved it so i’d like to do that a bit more but i don’t have one with me right now. i don’t plan to really become good, i just like doing it you know? probably no kickflips in my future.
my main hobby is guitar though and i always do wanna get better at it, i’ve always wanted to learn more theory so i can improvise but i can never remember it. i’m ok with just reading tabs and getting better at playing other peoples stuff though. i’d like to get better at some more advanced finger-picking in particular.
i also really wanna whittle wood or something, i have very anxious hands so having something to do with them that actual creates something seems like a solid idea. what else...i guess writing is a hobby, and i kind’ve want to try a short story but idk, i’m not very good at long-form storytelling i think? so my mom suggested a short story which...could work? maybe? it would be cool.
this was such a long answer i’m sorry but ty for asking !!!! i appreciate you
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1, 6, 11, 20
book you've reread the most times
aside from harry potter, which probably still holds the raw numbers championship, shamefully, i think speak, by laurie halse anderson, which was probably the first young adult novel i read, and one i probably read too young, but have read many many times since. it's weirdly comforting to me, even though it's about really intense trauma.
6. what books have you read in the past month?
beyond shame by patrick moore, seven gothic tales by isak dinesen, freddy stories by melissa mendez, i know what i am by gina siciliano, and a blind man can see how much i love you by amy bloom. one nonfiction prose, two comics (one fiction, one non-), and two short story collections. i liked seven gothic tales and freddy stories the best, probably, though i enjoyed parts of all of them, and was frustrated by all of them.
11. what non-fiction books do you like, if any?
i like a fair amount of nonfiction, though it's not my primary genre by any means. favorites include h is for hawk (helen macdonald), wandering lives, beautiful experiments (saidiya hartman), gathering moss (robin wall kimmerer), blood marriage wine and glitter (s. bear bergman), and the sabbath (rabbi abraham j. heschel). so i guess what i like in nonfiction is much like what i like in all other genres: beautiful and especially playful writing, pushing at or writing over genre boundaries, queers, transcendence.
20. what are things you look for in a book?
answered partially above, but also: i don't do well with books where there are no characters i am delighted by. gotta have delight. other things that i'm a sucker for: writing that really hones in on the feeling of memory/what it's like to remember and the way humans are often doing constant just-barely-subconscious storytelling, fiction with footnotes and endnotes, drawings with interesting shapes, attention to cooking and food, gothic horror, creatures that are people but definitely not humans, room for fatness and queerness and transness, austenian romance, stream-of-consciousness...
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I feel charmed by Casablanca (1942) each time I watch it. It has everything that make movies wondrous: war, romance, intrigue, suspense, humor, sacrifice, cynicism, idealism, psychological depth, exotic locations, engaging characters, quotable dialogue, clever cinematography, solid craftsmanship, Bogie at his best, a luminescent Ingrid Bergman, an amazing supporting cast, “As Time Goes By”, and the best ending to a movie ever. Science fiction and fantasy may be my favorite film genres.
At its core, "Casablanca" tells a story of love, sacrifice, and the complex choices people face during times of war. The film explores the theme that neutrality is unsustainable in both love and conflict, emphasizing the importance of taking a stand and fighting for what one believes in. The past is ever present throughout the film, reminding us that our choices and actions are shaped by our experiences. No, it is not massively overrated. The film’s depth, nuance, and timeless themes continue to resonate with audiences, making it a true cinematic gem that transcends generations.
This is a great movie about life and love. And it is quite different from more modern movies. It is a simple movies and anyone can learn a lot from it. For example that not everything is as it seems to us. I re-watched it several times and each time I have learned something different. There's an excellent cast, a few iconic characters and legendary dialogue.
I think this movie is among few of the movies which have done justice with satire genre, we can laugh on body fluid monologue or can imbibe hatred of few US military men towards communism in cold war era at the same time. Dialogues between US President and USSR Premier have given us a bite of nuance picture of tension between two superpower that time, movement of Dr Strangelove's hand, negligent behavior of General Turgid son, playboy magazines and condoms with air force personnel are a few other to add up, and how one can forget ironic dialogue " Gentlemen, you can't fight here this is the war room". The absolute insanity of nuclear deterrence and the kind of people who had power in the system. Any SAC commander could've launched a first strike, I believe missile sub commanders had launch authority as well. On the Soviet side it was probably the same. General Ripper clearly went insane but hid it well enough to start WW3. The politicians were more concerned about their own survival than anything else in the end. Stanley Kubrick exposed the man behind the curtains so to speak, enabling people to see that there were ordinary people behind the facade of government stability. Much as now there were buffoons and idiots, a few zealots and you hope enough rational thinkers who remember what it is they're playing with to refrain from abusing the destructive power humanity cursed itself by having.
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Transcript - carla joy bergman on Youth Autonomy, Adult Supremacy, Trust and Friendship
chris time steele
Welcome to Episode 56 of the Time Talks Podcast part of the Channel Zero Network. This month I had the honor to speak to my good friend carla joy bergman. carla is a joyarchist, a weaver, a healer, listener, writer, author, and revolutionary. In this episode, we talk about her latest book Trust Kids: Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy, which is an amazing book. I also have a chapter in this book, and I'm grateful carla reached out to me about contributing. In this episode, carla discusses youth autonomy, adult supremacy, trust and friendship, the Purple Thistle, and intergenerational solidarity. Thank you to AwareNess for the music and here's a brief jingle from a fellow Channel Zero Network member.
chris time steele
So my first question is if you can give some moments in your early life, where you started questioning these dominant narratives, so what you usually refer to as Empire, but to break that down of capitalist imperialist white supremacist childist patriarchy.
carla joy bergman
You start with the hard question. Well first of all, thanks for having me here. I love coming into the Time Talks portal. Time listening it should be called. It's such a big question. I was thinking that maybe I would, because it will help me not go off on a big long tangent, maybe keep it around the topic of adult supremacy and kids, maybe a little bit if that's okay? But yeah, I think it's so good, it's such an honor to be asked these questions because you get to play with time a bit. It's always always interesting of how we affect the past with these reflections. I definitely was a kid who right away didn't like injustice, especially socially speaking. So I was, I think in my kindergarten, or probably even actually in church, like even early on, like, even before school, at my new school I was in trouble for always talking back. The talking back was usually because somebody was not being treated well, like usually another kid was being bullied by the adults. Really, it gets visceral, like I really remember always being that person who stood up for the kid being bullied by an adult and including in my home. I'm the youngest of five siblings with like a quite a large age difference with some of them. So, you know, that's where it really that kind of talk back started. Then with my parents as well, and it played out all through school, like before I dropped out. I was either like, kind of the teacher's favorite, or the one who they they sent to the office every single day, because it was based on that. That was the bar, like, are you treating the young people in the room with respect, then I'm gonna treat you with respect back, like, you got to set the tone. So if a teacher like was a bully, and was disrespectful, I was their thorn in their side, and to the point where I even had one teacher, I'd walk in, they'd be like carla out, I'm like, I didn't even do anything. But I know you're going to like in the hall, I was, you know, the quintessential kid in the hall. It was like our elementary or what's it called middle school or whatever. It was all like at this modern school that was had all glass windows. So if you're a kid in the hall you could see in and so that's why I was always kicked to the office because I just continued being a problem in the hall. So you know, I just talked back really like right away and that included like between kids too like I was that kid who got in between two kids fighting or my brothers were fighting I got in between them. So it's just like, I don't remember a starting point, and it just really comes down to and maybe it's empathy or compassion or who knows what it is but I I really couldn't stand by when an injustice was taking place. So that just continued to grow as I like aged and noticed that happening writ large and it really, publicly it started like with the kind of anti nuclear stuff with like the Sandinista stuff, like in the late 70s, early 80s. That's where I really started to get involved in going to protests and marches and being aware. I was that punk kid, like during the punk scene, and it just slowly grew. It was almost external, in a lot of ways, that kind of stuff and it really wasn't until I became a parent. I always say that Zach was born the same year the Zapatistas did their thing. So I don't know they're both are, they're both important. I think also Rwanda happened around that time, too, that genocide was also really impactful. I spent a good chunk of my academic time, majoring in genocide studies. So I don't really want to minimize that, because it's really important and they all kind of work together. So having a kid who is neuro different, and watching his, his way of being in the world be squashed from institutions and other adults, including close to us adults, it just broke me open in a new way. To the point where I even had to leave university because that doing genocide study stuff and trying to like work at that level of politics was so disconnected from my community and from like, trying to figure out how to work to undo adult supremacy how to like, put my kid but all kids maybe have more thriving in their life. I started getting involved in alternatives to education and alternatives to school and other ways of connecting that solidarity.
chris time steele
No, that was good. You were involved in kind of like the punk scene in the 80s in Vancouver, did that have any influence on collectivity or organizing? Or was it just something you were drawn to, but then something you learned from and helped grow as well?
carla joy bergman
Yes, well, so I was in the punk scene in Victoria, which is like the island, the capital of like, the so called colonial province that I'm in British Columbia. The punk scene, there was actually pretty awesome, some great bands came out of there, like No Means No, and Dayglo Abortions, and many others, I think the thing that like got seeded there was I was about 18, or just turned 19 and the only bar that the bands could play at and, you know, we got to go for free to watch them for a really low price burnt down, and No Means No's equipment was part of the part of that fire, which was really distressing. My brother lived in a really cool big collective house that I spent a lot of time at. So I asked them, if I could start running events there for punk bands, and to that all the proceeds of the door would go to the getting gear back for No Means No and then whatever else and connecting it to other struggles in the city and stuff. So I think like that kind of organizing a social space that brought people together around shared ideas, and then branching out solidarity really did get seeded by this like disaster that happened. That's something that's carried through my life is more that and then in terms of like, mutual aid, or collectivity, or whatever, I actually, like, I grew up on a military base, the first 12 years of my life or something. That kind of like ethos of the soldier of like no one left behind or whatever played out in this, like, beautiful way in the neighborhood. Everyone took care of everyone else's kids. No one like I doubt it's like this at all anymore. But you know, I always joke that everything I learned about mutual aid solidarity and like reciprocity, and like the true ethos behind collectivity, or anarchism, I learned on the army base. So yeah, it's just something that was everyone took care of everyone, everything for everybody.
chris time steele
Awesome, thank you, and you write about a lot of that in your pamphlet on mutual aid and that was also in the Building Power While the Lights Are Out book edited by Jimmy Dunson.
carla joy bergman
Yeah and you're in that book too.
chris time steele
Well, my next question is about Joyful Militancy, you and Nick Montgomery interviewed many people about autonomy, autonomous communities, finding ways to thrive and playing with what joy means, which doesn't always mean happy. There are so many threads in this book with trust and youth autonomy with stories of the Purple Thistle. I was wondering if you can talk about these works, how these kind of work together and feed each other and what you further weaved into your newest book, Trust Kids.
carla joy bergman
Thank you, that's an awesome question. Yeah, they're so connected, it's interesting because I also made a film about the Purple Thistle and trust was like at the center of it. Nick actually was showing that film to his class the other day and he texted me, he goes, trust and friendship, trust and friendship. It was really sweet because it's like yeah, like those are, those are kind of the notions or the themes that animate the work that like my eldest Zach said that joy is something that I'm aspiring to, to embody more and to become and to have more in my life like I definitely it escapes me a lot. But he's like trust is something that you know you that animates your life, like how you work with people, how you like, show up. And I think that comes back to that kid thing. Like, I really noticed when I wasn't trusted, or, you know, to put it in maybe less abstract way, I really noticed when people don't believe me, right? Whether it's my experience or my perspective, or my ideas. So yeah, trust is like, to me the foundation of any good community or any potential for a community to thrive and do well by each other's that, you know, this kind of baseline trust for each other is like what we talked about in Joyful Militancy is really important as a common notion, something that is like an ethical emergence that has to be at play for things to go well and we put it together with the idea of responsibility because trust can't be a demand and it can't be rigid and it can't be this thing that is static, it's always emerging and fluid and then alongside that is our responsibility for each other for how we show up and breaking that word apart. Like thinking about the ability to respond so like thinking about like bringing in intersectionality around disability justice or children or folks who can't show up at that you know, we can't have a flat like a bar of how you must show up or whatever it has to be nuanced and
chris time steele
I like the no assholeism rule you all had at the Thistle.
carla joy bergman
Yeah, that was a Matt Hernism. It was very good it was on the door it was the only rule and no sleeping there but that was something else.
chris time steele
I wanted to look more at the Roots of Trust Kids, one thing I found when researching the Purple Thistle and this was started in 2001, it was in a shared yellow building in East Vancouver is that right?
carla joy bergman
Chartreuse actually, Chris, okay, it was Parisian green is what I was told. (laughs)
chris time steele
I don't have my color wheel key out. On the Purple Thistle blog in 2014, you wrote an entry called Trust Each Other So We Can Be Fearless and I'd like to read part of this entry and have you respond and talk a little bit about it and the Thistle, and you wrote, "Giving folks and especially young folks the trust upfront is a terrific and important place to start. In fact, I think it's the most important foundation for a strong and caring community. I am not talking about the kind of trust you would build over time in your long term core relationships but something more in line with care and respect, like friendship. I think without a starting place to trust our foundations are weak, and then all kinds of problems can grow from that lack of trust in each other. In contrast, when I'm trusted, I do better, I'm going to step up and do well by that trust. So I think starting with something simple, like, I trust that the folks who I am working with will do their best is a terrific place to begin to rethink our practices and the ways we treat each other." This just seemed like such a seed of what Trust Kids bloomed out of.
carla joy bergman
Thanks for reading that and finding that yeah, it was actually, we had a broadsheet like one of those really old analog massive beautiful designed by Joi Arcand at the Thistle and so every once in a while I'd write a little piece for the cover. If you've read haven't read Joyful Militancy, we interviewed Kian Cham for the book and we ended up putting his entire interview in the book because he was a kid who showed up at the Thistle and was part of the project for a really long time and he really talks about trust in a really neat way and how it played out at the Thistle and so I just really recommend that because it had a lot of, I wanted to bring up that because it really influenced Trust Kids and I think the way that it flowed out because I mean you can have this kind of I don't know ethical way of being in the world but you don't always get it reflected back to you. You don't know if it's actually landing and Kian's words about like he said, like it was just wild like you just trusted me like you and the other adults like you just you just like I was there for like a week and I got keys and then like I was there for a month and then I became like the anchor of the garden project and was given this budget and told like, he has this quote where he's like, I could have ran off with all the money but like I didn't because you guys trusted me like it's like this weird dynamic, like you just did this thing. Yeah, it was this interesting thing that was in practice at the Thistle, because of the intersections of difference that folks who were involved, that came from all kinds of different backgrounds, class, race, genders, all of it just busted it all, disability, abilities. I think, like, how that connected to the book is that doing that work at the Thistle publicly and having folks in other kind of movements not really get it, like, there was this disconnect around youth oppression, they thought it was really great what we were doing at the festival, but they kind of pushed it to the side. To the point where some groups, some people, some organizers would reach out to say that they wanted to come and give a workshop to the youth on how to run a space. My brain would be like what, like, like you, I mean, you never got to experience but the Thistle was really dynamic, it had all ages, and you know, all kinds of art projects happened there. They knew how to run a space quite beautifully, actually and they made the same kind of mistakes that any age group makes, it was just this wild ageism, right, this idea that kids no matter even though they're doing it, they still need to be taught, right? Then I just wasn't, you know, I didn't notice that, it's just starting to bust open more, but it's still like often left off of the list of oppressions as a it's just a given, right? Like kids are these things over here. That's when I started using the phrase solidarity begins at home because they go together, like how kids are treated out in public is this thing that's happening. But really, it's all starting home. And what was happening as I was noticing a lot of the most radical organizers who got platformed and held up didn't think about kid oppression, and a lot of them are parents. I just was curious about like that cut off, like, how do you reckon with that? How do you reckon with your own adult supremacy?
chris time steele
I think you explained that really good of how like trust and how these adults who are even in "solidarity" are coming in and still reinforcing that childism.
carla joy bergman
Right, I guess the thing is, it's a part of the conversation of undoing all oppressions, or collective liberation, that gets sort of put to the side in a lot of ways. There's a lot of practical reasons why, because of capitalism people are struck with so many decisions to make around schooling and not schooling, and like, making sure their kids have, you know, some skills for life and all these things. So part of how that work at the Thistle influenced the book, and then my home life influenced the book and thinking about solidarity in a larger sense, was like, how can I have this conversation? How can this conversation break through some of these barriers that are from Empire that are bigger than us? One of those ways was to really center this ocean of confronting adult supremacy. Often this conversation gets siloed in youth liberation and just like women's liberation was, it got siloed. It took some really powerful folks like bell hooks to go wait a second, this is about patriarchy, you know, we want collective liberation, actually and we need to, look at patriarchy and invite people to this conversation who are like, wielding the patriarchy and right, so it's kind of similar, what was influencing me and bell hooks really influenced me because she actually centered children as a site of oppression that prevented collective liberation. So yeah, all of that is to say that trust is where it all begins but solidarity is a big part of that and how can we grapple with our own, including my own, like, I'm still grappling with my own adult supremacy and how I deal with it.
chris time steele
Thank you so much, I think one other way that this ties in with Trust Kids and the Purple Thistle is your theme through your work is about questioning institutions and also deprofessionalism. One thing that was really cool is on some of the blog entries when that this whole was closing, it was written in there that the Thistle was never meant to be an institution. You all had written, "this had shown us that perhaps we're no longer needed in the way we were in the past and have pretty much done our time," and you all write, "everything does end and to be honest, we wish more places would end when it's time but unfortunately we live in a system that values longevity over thriving, and that ain't us", and I thought that was really powerful. That capitalism thing of having to grind and then this other side that you are brought in of like we're not going to be an institution, we're going to trust and listen and do what we need to do to move on from there. I was wondering if you could speak on that experience?
carla joy bergman
Yeah, thank I mean, yeah, closing the Thistle was probably in terms of community work and organizing and accountability to others was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do it. It took a very, it was not done in silo, it took a lot of conversations. I met with every single collective member, one on one first, every person who was ever involved in the Thistle had like, including Matt, who had been gone for a couple of years. I met with him, he was one of the first people I told, and yeah, it was just really important to me to change, change the discourse a bit about closing and ending because, you know, yeah, another level of gentrification, it was happening in Vancouver and continues to happen. The closing of spaces was connected to that, the cutting off funding to spaces was definitely a big part of that. That was a part of the story at the Thistle too, but there was also these other stories. I think we can we can, as activists and organizers, and people who are really pissed off at the world can just keep in the one narrative. I think that it didn't do it justice, it was like it was going to leave behind the beauty that was happening at the Thistle, which was always a response to the kids in the neighborhood at the time and what they needed, it always was based on that. Like, it was always like, that was the story. So yeah, like, what else is going on? Let's step back and look at all the the other parts. One of the biggest things that was going on was a lot of former people involved at the Thistle were opening their own spaces, which is like amazing, right like that were based on their predilections and their communities needs and the little bit of funding that was left at that time in the spaces was going to the Thistle because we had the we had the reputation, and we had the support. So it was like, yeah, I think we talked about calling it the Quakers ethos of like, sometimes you just gotta lay it down, like get out of the way and that was also at the like, core of the Thistle and the core of how I parent, and the core of how I work with people is sometimes it's actually about getting out of the way. Like, you know, yes, guidance is important. Yes, mentorship is important. But sometimes you just gotta like, go away. Just let people experiment and do their thing. So yeah, it's, and it was, it was really, I think, an important way to end it did change discourses, I had people from socials, we had run social spaces summits, through what we call the Thistle Institute, then people came from all over who ran social spaces. So we had this network, and a lot of those spaces reached out and we're really grateful for that new framing. Because, yeah, I think we can just replicate the systems that we're trying to fight against, when we just keep it really linear. One story just about anger, just about victim, like there's always so much more going on.
chris time steele
Yeah, thank you, and solidarity begins at home, one of your chapters that you wrote in Trust Kids, you really talk about how there's a lot of these normalized social fractures in our community, and that they chip away at our relationships, and cause rifts in social bonds and that was just really powerful. One of the things you wrote was "the roots are often still there deep in the ground but there's a disconnect or more precisely, there are institutions built on top of the buried social ways of being in relationship that cut us off from our more autonomous and communal ways of being together and children spend a great deal of their lives locked away in one of these institutions." I thought that was really powerful and you kind of explain that, like, those roots are already there, they're just disconnected. Yeah, I just wondering if you had anything to add to that?
carla joy bergman
Yeah, thanks, I think that's like why I think how I could connect it maybe to the work or the book is like why I focus on autonomy over youth liberation, or is like that autonomy away from institutions. And because so much of like, how empire and whether it's the state or capitalism, colonialism, or white supremacy, all of it continues to subjugate us all in different uneven ways. But still, it's still going on is that we're so reliant on institutions, everything, you know, how we raise our kids, how they get educated, how we grow our food, what we eat, how like everything is, has been sort of taken away from us and these forms of life are removed, and there's many, many stories of the reclaiming of that there. There's a beautiful upgrowth of autonomy and flowering and blooming and they don't always last though, and I have, there's a lots of reasons why they don't last because you know, because the state comes crashing down, and capitalism doesn't like it. But also I think it's because a lot of them still send their kids to school, or like, have a, I think that's one of the like, strongest colonial holds still is that kids still need to be educated away from community. Toby goes into this really well in the book Toby Rollo about how like, if children, if we don't actually deal with children, childism, and the oppression of children, everything we do gets cut off in one generation, because it gets everything gets replicated again, through these systems of control through the various institutions. And I also want to say all this, that I tend to stay out of the school, not school conversation a lot, and I decentered it in this in this book on purpose, because I think it's one of the ways that this conversation gets marginalized around children immediately, because it gets people in their camps instantly, like, oh, it's so privileged to unschool your kids, it's so privileged to remove your kids out of school. And it gets away from actually the heart of the conversation, which is how can we like undo adult supremacy and create a life of collective liberation and more justice for everybody? Right? I'm more interested in talking about school solidarity, like how can we work to be in more solidarity across all these intersection issues, if the goal is to undo empire's hold on us to truly like have collective liberation, then we have to think about autonomy and autonomy, the way that I think of autonomy, I know that autonomy is one of these words that can get really liberalized fast. But the way I think about it is like autonomy from the state, right? Autonomy from the institution's, autonomy from capitalism, autonomy from and then autonomy for our community, for each other.
chris time steele
Thanks for getting into the difference between youth autonomy and youth liberation in your view too, one of my next questions is if you could talk about some of the ways that trusting kids is a way of solidarity, in not just providing a co-mentorship and stuff and kind of that difference, because I feel like that can get marginalized, that can get kind of put into a binary too like, well, I'm going to trust a kid by being a mentor, kind of like what you're saying about the Thistle on how people, some people are trying to come in and do workshops, and maybe some examples of how you see that not working and ways it can work.
carla joy bergman
Are you maybe getting into like power, the responsibility of power?
chris time steele
Yeah let me give one more example that I left out, you are a part of the podcast Grounded Futures with your kid, Liam and Liam always talks about how it's okay to have guidance as well. It's not just like a kid on their own and adults are just watching them be free and trusted. So I guess kind of that nuance of like, what true solidarity looks like, and how that can kind of be confused with being a mentor as well, but also there is the need for guidance for kids.
carla joy bergman
Oh, yeah. that's wonderful. Yeah, and it gets into this idea of neglect and Liam is, so he's been my kid who's just really always brought it right down to like, the, the core point, I'm just like, appreciate him so much. Oh, my God. Because like I would, you know, occasionally I'd be like, oh, through being in solidarity and listening to my kids like, is there a fine line to neglecting them? Like from becoming their best selves or something and Liam is like no, like, the parent who forces their kid to all the things is literally neglecting them, like literally neglecting their souls, like not listening at all, because they've heard that kids need to be in six different things to become the adult they're meant to be or whatever, and I was always so grateful for him. Yeah, and it's why I am not big on and I I very rarely, if ever, in support of parenting books and parenting advice and Trust Kids is definitely none of those. Because, as Liam always points out, it's not going to work because it's the opposite of listening to, and being emergent with your child and being in solidarity with them at the moment they're in. And sometimes that means, truly, like this is just an anarchist ethos of meeting somebody where they find themselves or where they're at, right. And so sometimes that means doing a whole lot for that kid. Like, it can look like beyond mentorship, like you're actually doing tons for them. And from the outside, they can look like you're this controlling A type parent, but really, you're listening to a kid that maybe has anxiety disorder or is autistic or whatever, right. Like one of the things that emerges a lot in youth liberation circles or alternative schooling circles is an entrenchment of individualism. And this is another reason why I like to move to autonomy and solidarity as the ethos around this work instead of liberation, but I think just moving away from that, is because, you know, it's like, I heard this really good bell hook's quote the other day about the difference between equality and reciprocity and so like I'm really interested in like, it's not about trying to get equality, it's about reciprocity and about justice. So that means listening, that means showing up and being in solidarity across difference. And mentorship flows in all different directions. But more than all, and then all of this aside, is that, you know, I've been around, you know, as an as somebody who's older than my kids, quite a bit older, I have some experience, I have some things to share. And there's a time and place for me to show up in that way in a really solid way. The solid part of solidarity is just be solid. I don't know if I answered it. It's always changing for me. It's relational, Joyful Militancy really is that this is in that book, right? It's relational. It's, it's back to that word responsibility, like, how do I respond? That's based on trust is that I'm, yeah, it's just always responsive. Being responsive versus having a guidebook or a handbook or a parenting how to in front of me and checking off things. Instead, I'm like, looking and listening and hearing, and then responding.
chris time steele
Awesome. Yeah, the the reciprocity that you're talking about through that is so key. Thank you. That was a really good answer. My next question is, there's a lot of talk of throwing around the term, abolishing the family and I wanted to ask you about, I don't know, just kind of a discussion of, of trusting kids, like you say, solidarity begins at home and this nuance between abolishing the family or denuclearizing the family?
carla joy bergman
Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. I really don't like abolish family. I'm not on social media anymore. So I don't pipe in like I did. But anytime I would see the list of all the different abolishing, and it would have family I would always pipe in and say I think you mean denuclearize the family? I think you really, could you please just step back and really think about that for a second. Like, are you kidding? We need more kinship, we need more, we need to actually expand it, what we mean by family and reclaim it. I also think that there's a lot of whiteness, and a lot of colonialism in that statement of abolishing family. Most of my friends who are Indigenous, People of Color, particularly with Latino roots, like the familia is everything, like everything, you know, and it's expansive. It's not the nuclear family, and it stretches beyond bloodlines even. And I know that a lot of it comes from, it's like queering the family, queering kinship, which is really important. I'm really grateful to decades and decades of the LGBTQ+ queer communities who have expanded what it means to build kin like I'm so deeply grateful, because I think that there's an intervention into whiteness that happens at that one that's really important to highlight and the oppression of children still happens in those homes. Because that's not brought into the fore as an intersection. And so I think that's why there's like, anti authoritarian or an anarchist view of like abolishing families, because it's, there's a belief that it's just inherently patriarchal, inherently hierarchical, but it's not like if we stretch back, please read Toby Rollo's essay in Trust Kids, if you stretch back to like that families weren't not hierarchical. Or even, you know, like Silvia Federici touches on this really beautifully in her in her weavings of the past that the subjugation of women through the patriarchal family and then the subjugation of children is all part of capitalism. It's all part of the plan, but sorry, Marxists it actually predates capitalism. It's actually a colonial idea. And it's very actually ahistorical to just root it into capitalism. So it's very much this idea of like a family being inherently patriarchal, heteropatriarchal and hierarchical is flawed. Is it happening? Yes. And it's located in what's called the nuclear family. And that part is really important. And it keeps whiteness really strong. It keeps colonialism really strong and it's about capitalism as well. So yeah, I'm somebody who promotes and talks more about denuclearizing the family and creating larger webs of what it means to be in family and in kinship and, you know, I'm with Donna Haraway, like making kin is the most important thing that we have to do right now and that includes across all species and includes like fungi and more than humans and trees and, and speaking about mentorship, I mean, most of the guidance and mentorship I receive is from, you know, the fungi and the mycelium and the trees about cooperation and mutuality. Right? So I you know, I want to make kin with even more kin, more family across bloodlines.
chris time steele
Yeah, that reminds me of what you kid Zach always says when he sees fungi, he says what's up ancestors? Yeah, definitely expanding what family and kin is to the non human more than human. It's cool you said that because this leads to my next question is a chapter you cowrote with Zach called Magneto's Dreams. I love this chapter and I love the art in there too, by Gadzooks Bazooka, and you have this nuance of Professor X and Magneto and what I really liked about this essay is it's not mean to Professor X either. You all talk about how he provides shelter. He saves lives, he provides trust. But you know, this goal of his is assimilation, and is to work for the state and to kind of bring back the status quo.One quote I really liked on what you all said about Magneto is you say "Magneto supports dissidents and gives them space to exist freely outside the stratification of the state, prefiguring a liberated now." So I was just wondering if you could talk more about that quote, and kind of this chapter. I think it's a really just creative and genius chapter and take on, on the whole book, too and I love that it's at the end of the book.
carla joy bergman
Thank you so much. I just want to go on record to say, if you read Trust Kids you'll read it in my acknowledgments but Chris was really, really important for this book coming together, because you showed up at a really important time. And with a lot of joy and excitement, enthusiasm and knowledge, and an understanding of what I was trying to say and but you really helped. And I really want to thank you, and your essay is so so good. Thank you so much. I'm worried we're gonna get this call. And I didn't get to say that. And including, nothing's done in silo, like nothing. And I've been this person in smaller ways than Chris was for me. But like when you put a book together like this, especially something that involves a lot of people's voices and a lot of vulnerability on the line. And then like all the people who aren't in the book, all the conversations, all the music, all the songs, all the movies and TV shows and like all the books and people's work that influence the smallest conversations that watered seeds that made this book grow. And you're like sitting alone with it. And it's this bizarre thing. And so it's really important to have friends, like Chris was to me that he was somebody I could text and say, I really want to put it in this order what do you think and just having that I don't, I think it doesn't get talked about enough. And I know that most people who write have Chris's in their life or like, and I've been that person for other people. So I just really wanted to thank you publicly for everything you did for this book. And I you know, sometimes I think your name should be on it. You help so much. So thank you.
chris time steele
Thank you and it was an honor to be a part of the book and help out and I had a lot of fun and learned so much. So yeah, thank you very much for that.
carla joy bergman
So connected to that, X-Men and I, you know, Liam, who his full name is Uilliam has an essay in the book, he did a solo essay. And then my partner, Chris [Bergman] did some art in it. And so I was trying to figure out how, you know, the reason why, like I said, like, having Zach was what got me on this path and opened up my world in such massive ways. I can't even begin to talk about it, you know, in a way that captures what he's done for me and continues. So I was really, I was coming up to the end of the book of finishing it and sending it in. And I asked him, if he would cowrite a piece about Magneto. He isn't actually an X-Men fan. He read the comics a bit as a kid. And because I had Lupus, when he was young, I used to always call myself an X-Men that I was, I was mutated, I had mutated. I have like that. I'm actually a powerful person with my Lupus. And we had a fun little joke going about that I was at, and we just nerd out about that stuff. And we're both really into Nietzsche and other philosophies that kind of intersect with these ideas. And so he's like, sure, okay, let's do it. So I just wanted to say that and that's why it was done around that. But also, I went off on a whole tangent about you helping with the book, but I forgot your question about like the quote that you wanted me to respond to.
chris time steele
Oh, yeah, it's talking about this kind of this nuance between Professor X, like providing trust but his goal is assimilation. Then you all had said that Magneto supports dissidents and gives them space to exist freely outside the stratification of the state prefiguring a liberated now and in the your time at the Thistle too and the metaphor of the helmet and how Magneto had the helmet to protect himself, but you can use that to protect others and just so many good metaphors in this.
carla joy bergman
Yeah, thank you and I apologize to true X-Men fans and Magneto fans, we went way off. But I know it's pretty common for anarchists, particularly to have an affinity with Magneto in the shows and in the books, so I think it wasn't too big of a stretch. But yeah, I personally, like there was a time when I was working with the youth and they would call me Professor X and I really liked that. It wasn't until when one of the newer movies came out where the writers went back to kind of the origins of Magneto and his army of misfits and how he was really upset with the assimilation stuff that Liam again, said, "no way you're a Magneto, you're all Magneto" and so I got deeper into like the the nerd verse of who Magneto really, maybe was meant to be in the potential that was cut off. And even Stan Lee himself knew that he wasn't a bad guy. Like he didn't mean for that to happen. And that was, you know, whatever Marvel movies did that, and other writers but I just really liked the idea of, I think it's like a, it's a timing thing. Like we've seen this big opening around neuro difference around people, about the celebration of us that like we don't all have to be medicated and assimilated into being this ideal person this ideal youth, this ideal, whatever professional, that we can like step back and kind of deprofessionalize how we view how we show up together and community and Magneto as a symbol for that shows that, like, yeah, it's not easy having this difference, but we can work with it together. And you can be you can be your full, beautiful, different self. In community, you have a role you have something to offer. And one of the things we nuance in the book is that like, yeah, Professor X, that they trust, and they finally or that they finally find an adult saying you're not broken, how important that is for someone who maybe has come from huge trauma, but also, like, let's use Rogue, for example, when I touch somebody they die, like I actually am broken, like in my soul, like I need some help. I need to not just be put into an a uniform and become an elite member to go fight for the state. Like I actually need some care and love and support. So like there's nuance there. I don't mean to just leave people alone in there. But also like, you know, and I think it's just really connected to adult supremacy and how adults can show up and yeah, and the helmet was the goal of the book is, or that essay is that we can we deal with it, adult supremacy to the point where all adults can take their helmet off, who are doing the work because like, I know, I have to wear my helmet because people are constantly trying to tell me that I'm messing my kids up by raising them the way I do.
chris time steele
Thank you for that, that was awesome. Thanks for breaking it open. My next question is kind of on intergenerational solidarity and also ties into EMMA Talks, the program that you had put together with some others. You talk about this patriarchal carelessness, and how many events and talks to a horrible job and that's why many women don't agree to do certain talks and how you had some success with EMMA Talks. You also had Helen Hughes in Radiant Voices and it was in Trust Kids, this interview with Helen, and she was part of the Listening House since she talked about listening and voice. Kind of just wanted, that really showed a lot of intergenerational solidarity that talk is really comforting to read. Then also just how that curtails into patriarchy, too, EMMA Talks if you could just talk about those, those two kind of how they dovetail together.
carla joy bergman
Oh wow thank you. Yeah, I think there's a few things there. When I started community organizing around creating multimedia works, I right away was like, how do I really bring in youth and children and you know "emerging." Or I think we're always, always always emerging, everybody. You know new writers with what you know, longer term, well seasoned, well known writers in a way that's not tokenistic. And how do I do this in a way that feels generative and pushes against the patriarchal and other gatekeepers around how we share media and talks and our ideas? So I started with a magazine project and one of the ways is, it's the way it's done. So I had youth do the magazine with me. So right away, that's going to disrupt a level of tokenism. And there's older people on part of the collective as well. I think from the first issue I had Matt's kid Daisy, who was 10, at the time, write a piece called Daisy's Rant next to a piece from Noam Chomsky. So like, even like layout is really important, and that was really important. And that Daisy had a voice that was just as important, if maybe not even more important in lots of ways to Noam Chomsky. So yeah, and then whatever. And then so years go on. And then a lot of the times I create things because I face barriers. Personally, I have speech apraxia I have a learning disability. Writing is really hard for me, speaking publicly was like, I couldn't even talk in front of a room of six people. So being in collectives is really hard for me always, because I didn't like the tyranny of the round. I would just die. I'm somebody who would never have given a TED talk, I was asked to do one of those smaller TED talks I was like no way. And so I was like, what? So I'm always interested in the conditions and we talked about this as anarchists a lot, right? If the conditions are such things will flow, right. And so EMMA talks was like, what would work for me to do a talk? And I still didn't do one then. And I wasn't even the emcee. I never ever stood on that stage at EMMA talks, talked into the mic, because I wasn't there yet. But, and so one of the things was, yeah, like, EMMA stands for Engaging Monologues Mutual Aid. So monologues, the person on the stage has the first word and, and the last word, there is no Q&A there is they get to just tell their story. And we created beautiful videos that go with it that are accessible, that close captioning and everything. And so if you're in the room, you got to experience the beauty of the evening. But then part of this was I did with Corin Browne, and she was the director of that part. And she trained young women and gender nonconforming folks on camera, there was four cameras going and really highly produced videos. So it was also like part of the mutual aid was to give the speakers something that they could have to share with the world. We also did the people who came the night of they donated to whoever the speaker wanted to donate to whatever cause or organization. Yeah, and so because we have all been to the talks, where we know who lines up first, at the mic primarily it's cis white men or men, often not with thoughtful questions often just to show that they know, they want to say what they are thinking about the topic or adding to the topic. And what it did, the feedback I got was it gave a lot of the speakers the space to go a different route with their work, because they knew they weren't going to get interrupted, they knew they were going like, like, could be vulnerable. I don't really want to name names, but like one of them said, like, they usually wouldn't do that talk that they did, because they are always so emotional after it's about their child and they cry, and they have to go to the green room after and just be alone or be with their people. But if they had to do a Q&A after forget about it, so they wouldn't ever do that talk. So that's an example of how it broke that open. I feel like you had it at an add on.
chris time steele
Just the other part was Helen Hughes and intergenerational solidarity.
carla joy bergman
So it's like, giving a platform or a space for women, for folks who maybe don't always get the space to talk. So that's like one side of it. But the the other part was listening, like creating space for listening in this really cool, different way. And I learned a lot about how to truly listen to young people from Helen. She was one of my main mentors. She was the founder of Windsor House, a publicly funded democratic free school that ran for 48 years or something in Vancouver, really important for because it disrupted capitalist models because it was free. It's part of the system. And she just really listens in a way that's profound. And I think, like one of the, it was, it was interesting, like, the feedback from men, cis men who came to EMMA talks was like, wow, you created a space where like, I had to really get uncomfortable with the fact that I wasn't going to be talking like I had to like, listen, I know. But I liked it. I like the feedback. I guess. I guess the thing with Radiant Voices and why that book happened as an outgrowth of EMMA Talks is the publisher actually asked me if she could do a book based on the EMMA Talks, and I thought that was really kind but like, I really care about who has access, who gets to tell stories. So I wanted to invite other folks in who would never stand up on the stage. Right. So we did weave in eight of the EMMA talks into that book, but then I asked, I asked 12 new folks to participate in the book, and one of them was Helen.
chris time steele
I really love one of her quotes in the interview you did with Helen where she says, "Move toward the trouble it rarely goes away on its own".
carla joy bergman
That's beautiful. Matt had that was also a thing at the Thistle, like, go towards the trouble, or Klee Benally has a term he calls the anti retreat. He first spoke about it at a social spaces summit that he came to, from his space that he ran, runs and ran, had a lot to do with youth, Indigenous youth and media production. And yeah, if something came up, if conflict came up on the collective or, like, instead of retreating from each other, they called it the anti retreat like you actually go towards the trouble. You don't, you don't retreat from it. So I really love that.
chris time steele
That's great. The documentary Common Notions is so powerful. I was wondering if you could talk about, you already kind of talked about this documentary a little bit, but maybe the documentary and the trip that you all took to Mexico, and the interviews that you all had with Gustavo Esteva, who I want to say rest in peace to. You actually dedicate Trust Kids to Gustavo. His interviews were so deep. It seemed a spirit of collectivity and real community were huge themes there. I just wanted to give a little space for you to talk about that trip, talk about Gustavo and really just how he really highlights friendship throughout those interviews.
carla joy bergman
Yeah, thank you. I'm so sad that he passed this year. That was the first time I met him when we went there in 2012. I made that film with Corin Browne, who I did EMMA Talks with, and a bunch of the youth from the collective came from the Thistle. We got to spend time in his home and he shared all his thinking and ideas with us, a lot of them are rooted in Ivan Illich's ideas, he challenges me, he continues to challenge me. He, you know, I would, he could always notice the one word that would undermine my whole statement. So I often sent him work I really, really miss him. You know, like, if I said, I think in like Making Kin, the pamphlet I did I think in the beginning I say, systems of care or something and he messaged me and said, I think you mean webs of care. Why would you want a system? You know, like, I just I don't know, I mean, maybe you come a bit close to that, Chris, but like, I don't have anyone else in my life. I mean, I mean, Nick a little bit too, but like nothing like Gustavo and he did it with such delight and conviviality and friendship at the heart of it like it never felt harsh. It always felt deeply, deeply care centered, and friendship centered, the embodiment of like, carla, like, I know, you mean something else? And I'm gonna help you in this moment. So really, one of the last things we did together was, he cowrote an essay in Trust Kids with his two friends, Madhu and Dana, it's so good. They wrote one of my favorite papers of all time about liberating from pedagogy, and a very anti pedagogy piece, which I'm in line with them and deprofessionalism and all that stuff. But I asked them for their bios, and Madhu sent this really flowery, fun, playful bio, she's a philosopher of education at Penn State University and has cowritten a few books. And she just sent a really playful, joyful bio and Gustavo got back and said, oh, my God, Carla, you need to change my bio, it needs to be more playful. And I was like, okay, well, here's mine. And we all did really playful bios together and Dana got in there and the four of us had this really uplifting, joyful, playful encounter for Trust Kids, and it was like the last emails I had with him. So I mean, I'm so grateful and just heartbroken. But I feel like I didn't answer any questions. I really, really grateful for the space to talk about him. A really big memory, of course, is that you and I got to have a Zoom session with him about some work we're doing together that hopefully we'll put out and because he just dropped so many incredible ideas and information for us both to to live with and be with. So I'm grateful for that. I miss him. He would have really understood what the book is doing and what it was about. Yeah, I don't I don't know that the movie would have been nothing without him like to come back to Common Notion like literally that that film he was so integral and the reason why we went there I need to say is that both Matt Hern and Richard Day who we interviewed for the movie earlier on both said in our interviews, you need to go to Mexico and talk to Gustavo. So it was like within the making of the movie that that trip happened.
chris time steele
That's awesome. Thanks for sharing those stories and thanks for letting me be part of talking to Gustavo too. That was an honor. Kind of what you were saying about how he gives you those suggestions reminds me of that radical honesty that bell hooks always talked about too, or critique as a way of love, or just different ways of just interacting in a kind of way.
carla joy bergman
Yeah, I feel like bell would would have been that friend too. That would have sent like, you don't mean to use that word.
chris time steele
This is my last question and basically this question is about sci fi and you, your influences. I see Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler is present, they're present in all your work you do, and also was wondering about your future explorations in writing fiction and sci fi. You have a new essay coming out or a story coming out on Baba Yaga. That's already out in a zine by Dani. So I was just wondering if you could kind of talk about on some of these ruminations of sci fi and you and your exploring writing fiction and sci fi.
carla joy bergman
Thanks so much, I don't get asked this very often. That's really nice. Every time I visit Ursula Le Guin, whether it's rereading The Dispossessed or I just finished Always Coming Home. I'm just blown away with how many, I'm gonna use your phrase watered, the seeds she watered by reading her work. Like, I just just, it's all there. It's just like, wow, that had more of an impact than probably any nonfiction book I ever read. I also think she wasn't she was so experimental and not afraid to bring in different worlds and make worlds that like I guess like at the term I think I was like, she's such an incredible time binder. Like she was so good at thinking through time. She must have been a time traveler. I don't know. At least this this just plugged in or something. So yeah, she's really really important. And then Octavia Butler in a different way, influences influences the way I am or think about the world or want to write but and many other writers too, but like definitely Le Guin like, yeah, I don't even know. I know it was her birthday yesterday. It's like, oh my gosh, like Orwell too, I want to give a shout out to Orwell because I think like, I think because Orwell started writing in nonfiction and writing about the world, and then moved to fiction, like I actually feel an akin to him like not that I'm like him, or do what he does, did, but that I understand this desire to be like, ah, I got to just move to fiction because and maybe Ursula and Octavia were just smarter and knew, like, this is the way you can impact people in a deeper way longer than writing your rant in a in a journal or something. But the freedom that comes with writing fiction is just there's just nothing like it. And I know you've dabbled in fiction and you do I think you I would say your songwriting does it too maybe you can speak to this better than I can, because I'm just starting. But there was a freedom in my voice of like, like the true me of what I want to say when I write fiction that is maybe connected more to the ether of ideas of the times. So that's what I think I mean, by time traveler, like the connecting to all the ideas that are floating around, and I'm really excited about, yeah, I'm working on a couple stories. And they're not one genre, like I, that's the other thing, too, is like I needed people who could bust through the gatekeepers a bit. And we're seeing more and more of that, but I'm really interested in like, creative nonfiction, but also like mixing that with fantasy and some magical realism and sort of blending them or busting them up, doing both at once. So I'm trying to do that. And it's hard because you, you know, gatekeepers are pretty there. That's a real thing. Yeah, I have been working on one and like that, I did talk to one of my publisher friends, and they're like, I just don't even know. I don't know how to pitch this, because I don't know what genre it is. Like, oh, no. I'll just have to publish it myself. Yeah, I don't know if that answered your question. But I'd like to hear from you. Because you seem to you have I think more experience than me why you might go into that world in fantasy and
chris time steele
Yeah, I guess there's like a freedom in, in fictionalizing things but there's also it breaks a binary, that nonfiction gets stuck in like there's an institutional kind of thing in your back. And when you write nonfiction like, oh, this Western thought of, got to have citations, it needs to be rooted in truth, needs to be verifiable. And those are lies in nonfiction, but they can get stuck inside of you. And when you write fiction, your nonfiction is still there. Like, your stories there. Your friendships, your it's still, it's still autobiographical. So I think fiction breaks down some of these dimensions, but it lets the truth creep in too. So it's kind of it's a magic, you find that in your writing, which I like.
carla joy bergman
That's really well said. Thank you.
chris time steele
Thanks. I never thought about it thanks for asking.
carla joy bergman
But it's true. Like I was trying to think of like, when I write nonfiction, I have all the critics in my head. And it's that it's the institutionalization, it's the like, the lie of Western thought, being there and the linear linear time and that they're, what's the word? teleological that? You know, that things run in linear in a linear way? Whereas when you get into fiction, you get to really disrupt all those ways? Yeah,
chris time steele
yeah. Yeah. That's, that's what I find in songwriting. I can, I can describe a vibe or a feeling it's not. It's make many different people or many different situations.
carla joy bergman
yeah, you do that. Well. That's amazing.
chris time steele
Thank you. Well, thank you for doing this wonderful interview.
carla joy bergman
That was fun. Thank you.
chris time steele
Thank you for tuning into this episode of the time talks podcast. I want to thank my friend Carla for taking some time to speak with me. Please pick up Carlos newest book, trust kids. It's amazing. Thanks to everyone who shares the show around thanks to awareness for the music. And as Lonnie poplin always said, keep the peace
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My sort-of comprehensive yet very opinionated and too deep of a dive into the voice actors of Elmer.
hey ya'll. i have a long weekend, so I have more time to absorb my cringe and rate each voice actor for my man. it's an idea i had for the past few days and really pondered as to who i prefer and why. so here we gooooooo. btw, i'm going in chronological order to help with organization purposes and stuff. also, i will definitely change these numbers in the future but the notes will probably stay the same.
Danny Webb - 7.5/10
He feels fun, fresh, funky; which is funny given that he's technically the first proper voice actor from the 30's. It's not elmer's actual voice, and it's also an impression of another actor, Joe Penner. BUT. he's fun. you can definitely tell that he has a lot of fun, and that also bleeds into elmer/egghead. he definitely feels like a proper fit for the zany and wacky vibes that the early LT/MM shorts. I really recommend watching at least one short to get those zanies into you!
Arthur Q. Bryan - 8.5/10
the OG. the main man. the one that really started it all.
he's a really big pushover at first, but over time became more assertive and gave more of a reason for bugs to be around him and bother and torment (and love). i like how his voice is mainly very quiet (haha get it), but it almost feels too quiet. he never really gets a moment to get angry and bombastic. in fact, mel sometimes had to fill in for the louder moments because Arthur just couldn't do it (SMOG!)
i feel like there's both a lot of material and not that much in terms of how much material arthur was given. then again, he did die of a heart attack so suddenly, so maybe that context for me personally made me feel like we would have a lot more opportunities.
that being said, solid and wonderful and amazing and beautiful and deep and lovely and talented and pure performances all around from him.
Mel Blanc - 5/10
he is, uh. he is.
so uh, if i remember correctly, he said at first that he never wanted to take arthur's role, but then he said sike and took the role anyway. in fact, he went on the reduce arthur's influence more and more as mel was becoming a household name. i just, mel after arthur's untimely death always urks me the wrong way. like, he would try to claim elmer amongst all the other roles he's done.
Ferris Wheelhouse had a really wonderful video that talked about this issue during his "Bugs Bunny in King Arthur's Court" review. unfortunately, it seems to be gone, and if i find it again, i will definitely link it here!
other than that, the voice itself: very, very iffy. makes me feel like that old guy with the cigar at the comedy club who says that he can do great cartoon impressions but, just can't. and it sucks. cause that's mel blanc here. and i like him. makes me real sad.
Hal Smith - 6/10
so his voice is almost the same quality as mel, but at least he feels like he's not actively trying to take control and try to shove arthur aside. he's trying his best, but again, just doesn't cut to the sheer quality of arthur's voice. not really much to say but, he's there, and he tried.
Jeff Bergman - 9/10
he wasn't too bad at first. he definitely tried to capture arthur's personality and voice mannerisms. i like box office bunny and just the vibes that he gives off in that short. blooper bunny was also really nice. he just seems like a guy that would be really pleasant to be around.
then New Looney Tunes/Wabbit came out. and then the HBO Max shorts.
holy shitttttttt. i never realized how much i would love his performance. because, here's the thing: he's manic as hell. he's chaotic. he's a scumbag. he's a diva. he's a bitchy, bitchy man. and i L O V E it.
i love how these new shorts make him both sympathetic, yet when he can be a bitch, HE'S ALLOWED TO. i never realized how much i wanted it until a couple years after Wabbit aired.
the voice: it's pretty okay. not my favorite voice, but he gives something fresh enough to feel fun and fancy free.
Billy West - 9/10
oh buddy of boys and buckets of fuck, here we go.
so, i grew up with his version, ever since the start of my hyperfixation. he's always felt my favorite. he gives something that sounds the closest to what bryan did during the good ole days. he gave elmer more of a cleaner edge. west often calls him the "0 to 60" type of guy, and yeah, i definitely see that.
here's the thing, though: west is my favorite voice, not my favorite character variation.
i feel like WB constantly underutilizes west's talent to go really zany with his fudd. whenever he does, once in a blue moon, he's REALLY good. like, too good. my sanity and my appreciation: snatched and kissed with a thousand roses. we love to see a chaotic yet loving man.
the more i reflect on this notion of his version, the more i appreciate the performances that he gave. although, sometimes, he feels like he doesn't know the context of the situation, but goddammit he is trying his best. god i miss him. father please come back, i need my meals. we need meals.
Greg Burson - 7/10
....we don't talk about him. moving on.
Eric Bauza - 8.5/10
not a lot of material yet from him, but i adore anything he has done so far. his performance in space jam 2 was really solid; feels like a mix of greg and jeff's performances. i hope to see so much more from him. can't really give too much yet because i need more material from him. overall, really wholesome that one be.
so yeah, those are my 11 pm thoughts on the matter. expect somewhat new thoughts to be added in the distant future. otherwise, please send me your thoughts; i love reading them and answering them on here!
#elmer fudd#billy west#jeff bergman#eric bauza#arthur q bryan#looney tunes#space jam 2#mel blanc#greg burson#danny webb#hal smith#i'm so tired#if it feels like i rambled in some parts please let me know please and thanks i wanna give ya'll quality content
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