¶ Introduction and Tribute to Uncle George
Hey, this is Chris Wiegand, along with my wife, Jessie.
Hello.
Today is going to be a different episode. And so I decided to bring Jessie up to help me pay a little tribute at the beginning of this episode. Just in memory of George Wiegand, my uncle. Really more than an uncle. He's just been, He's been there for the family and we lost him on Saturday and we are going to be saying goodbye to him this Saturday. So in this special episode I thought it was appropriate to make it a tribute to Uncle George.
¶ Discussing Wildcat and Flannery O'Connor
In this we're going to be talking about Wildcat and it's about Flannery O'Connor. Jessie and I get into why it was so meaningful to us. There's themes of justice, redemption, wrestling with God. When I was telling this to my mom she told me a story that she said I could retell here. My Uncle George I don't know how often he said this or how often he told people this, but apparently if he had to get near a church he wouldn't go inside. He'd stay by the door, or sit by the door maybe.
And when asked, it was because he was afraid that the roof would cave in on all those nice people in there because he went in the church. And I just, I, I loved his sense of humor. You know, I knew I wouldn't be able to get through this without crying, but. Dammit. Ah. He's meant so much to so many people, so.
Yeah, so, so this episode is for Uncle George, and for all of those who wrestle with God.
Absolutely.
¶ Toasting to Uncle George
This is happy hour, and Jessie and I are going to have a little toast to Uncle George. Don't pull this out very often, but it's my Blackened Limited Edition 72 Seasons, so.
Give me the little one.
Oh yeah, and I got the lion's shot for me, so. Here's to Uncle George.
To Uncle George.
Oh. Wah! Man.
Ooh, that makes you make a James Hetfield. Wah! Wah!
That's why it's, it's Metallica, Blackened.
Okay then. It, it does it.
So, yeah so Tracy, George, Jenny. We just wanted to honor your dad. I tried to get my brother on here today and he was unavailable. So we're on different time zones. but he raises his glass with us. So we love you guys.
¶ Introducing the Silver Screen Happy Hour and Wildcat
Welcome to the Silver Screen Happy Hour. I'm Chris Wiegand along with my brother Jerome.
Present and accounted for.
And our very first special guest.
Hi, I'm Jessi Wiegand. I married Chris and I'm apparently related to Jerome now. There's not much I can do about that. But here I am to be on this show.
This is gonna be fun. So I requested that we do these movies and you Agreed.
This is definitely your episode.
So, yeah, so let me just kick it off with saying the first movie we're going to do, and we're going to talk about our drinks in a second, but the first movie we're going to do is Wildcat, and that's why I asked Jessie to join us today. She watched it with me the first time. We rented it. And while the credits were rolling, I asked her to buy it. So she bought it after we rented it, because I knew I was going to watch it again.
And so we re watched it a couple nights ago, and now we're ready to talk about it. So we'll get to why I asked her to be here, because it just led to a lot of great conversation. Now I know this is a screenplay, screenwriting, But there's a lot of personal things that I loved about this movie. I can't wait to hear how you break it down like you do with all the movies that we discuss. But so yeah, that'll be the first movie we talk about.
The other movie, and this might be a part two but the other movie we're going to be discussing is Stranger Than Fiction. Came out in what, what year? Oh '06. Six. Yeah, so going on 20 years old. Holy cow. So because it's two, about two authors, I didn't even say what Wildcat was about. Wildcat is about Flannery O'Connor, who's a Catholic writer. And the other movie, Stranger Than Fiction is also about a writer who's got writer's block and that's more of a comedy.
And so I'm just going to say the drink I'm pairing with this is a wonderful Irish whiskey called Writer's Tears. And And the fact that it's Irish is even better because Flannery O'Connor, right? So I'm going to go ahead and open that while you discuss what you're drinking, Jerome.
So I really didn't have anything clever to tie in to the podcast today. So when in doubt Of course I have my lightsabers, you know, I always have my lightsabers ready to go. But aside from that, Are you done? I, I have a bottle, it's not Irish.
Wow, babe. That's intense.
Sorry. Are you done?
Yeah. Nah, I'm just getting started.
So I brought out a nice 12 year old Macallan Scotch. So it's Scottish, it's not Irish. But, you know, we're here to enjoy some nice drinks. So now, my turn.
Oh, this is nice. This is triple distilled Irish whiskey. Yeah.
Okay, hang on. Hang on.
Nice.
Are you ready?
Man, there's a lot of ice in that scotch, sir.
Well, I thought you said on the last episode, Oh, I like to put ice in it, and the scholars agree with me.
I'm going neat on the Irish whiskey. So, Jessie, what are you drinking?
This is the part I was looking forward to. You know,
actually, we're kind of dicks, like, shouldn't the lady go first? Like, here we are, we're just doing our drinks first.
It doesn't matter. I'm good. I actually feel like that this was set up perfectly. So I had the opportunity, because of the close proximity, to drink the writer's tears. But at the last moment, I decided to go with A nice bottle of Menage a Trois since the three of us.
How fitting how fitting
would be hanging out tonight? You'd And so Pat, you know here, here you go. Am I supposed to make the noise? You guys? You gotta hear all the noises going. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. You guys, that's the end of the bottle of menage trois. 'cause I might, for
anyone that's listening, she didn't start drinking already and then, and now it's gone. Oh, I'm assuming that bottle was opened.
Well, it was,
it was open like an hour ago.
I think she had a glass on the patio while she was waiting for the podcast to start.
I did. I, I had a glass before this started because I thought, well, I'll just have a glass of wine while I'm reading my book and then I'll come upstairs and do the thing. But then this was, I realized what I was drinking and I was like, Oh dang, that's perfect.
You guys are going to be interested, well, maybe you'll be interested to hear my thoughts on this movie. At least in the structure and all of that. Yeah, let's go. All right. We're going to do Wildcat first. Yep. Yeah. All right. Here's the specs. 2023 directed by Ethan Hawke, written by Ethan Hawke and Shelby Gaines. Now, before I continue 2023 was its original release date. It was in limited release. Actually, I'll get to that. That's in the notes. This is Hawk's fifth feature film.
Three of the five, including Wildcat and a previous documentary are all based on real life people. So, kind of a thing of his. He likes that.
¶ Exploring Flannery O'Connor's Life and Work
Wildcat, of course, is based on the short stories and a brief part of the life of writer Flannery O'Connor, as my brother mentioned. This is also Hawk's fifth feature length screenplay. Gaines his writing partner mostly has a resume involving music specifically composing, but this is his first credit as a screenwriter. Running time is one hour, 43 minutes. I couldn't, anywhere that I looked online, I couldn't get a disclosed budget for this film. It's like nowhere.
I looked hard for that too.
It's safe to say though, it's a very low budget. Yeah. But it, it premiered at the 50th Telluride Film Festival on September 1st, 2023. That's why it has a 2023 date, although it's not technically it wasn't technically in wide release until this year. Actually, it's not even in wide release yet. It was shown at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival 10 days after that on September 11th. In January of this year, it was picked up by the distribution company, Oscilloscope.
And they released it in limited theaters in New York and L. A. on May 3rd of this year. That's how we all got to see it and it went streaming. It, it, because it was released in New York and L. A. in May of this year, it's eligible for this year's Oscars. So, as of now, of course when I wrote this, this was like a week or two ago. As of then, it was up to about 560, 000 in its release. So, very limited release.
I do expect that if it gains some hype, and more importantly, come February, if it gets nominated for Oscars, people are going to be streaming this left and right, and it's going to easily, it might have already made its money back, we don't know, we don't know how much it costs.
Well, and I, I'm just curious because it went to streaming so quickly and it wasn't in wide release, I'm, I'm guessing more people have paid to watch it? Streaming than did at the theater by now.
Oh, I'm sure.
You know, I'm sure. So, and now do they count the box? Is that just box office numbers or do they count what they made from Amazon and all the other streaming services? Well, it
depends if you're gonna go on like box office Mojo, I think it's just tickets at the theater. Okay. But, but when you look on like IMDB and it says it's overall gross, that's everything. Okay. But. It's also cost money. Distributing a film is expensive. So they probably didn't have the money. Oscilloscope might not have the money to go nationwide right now. They got it in New York and LA.
If it gets picked up by some hype or Oscar nominations, you can bet that somebody like Fox Searchlight or Focus Features or somebody bigger will come along and say, Okay, we'll get it nationwide. We'll pay for it. As long as the first 15, 20 million it makes goes to us for putting it in theaters. So, that's the business side of it. Right now we're just gonna talk about the artistic side of it.
Yep.
¶ Film's Reception and Artistic Choices
It has met with mixed reviews by the critics. Rotten Tomatoes has it around 46 positive review percentage, while Metacritic scores it at 53 out of 100. So, like right down the fairway, kind of right down the middle. It focuses on five, specifically five short stories, The Life You Saved May Be Your Own, Parker's Back, Revelation, Everything That Rises Must Converge, and Good Country People, though there are references to some of her other writings in the film.
It stars Maya Hawke as Flannery O'Connor, Laura Linney as Regina, her mother, Philip Edinger as Robert Cal Lowell. Christine Dye as Duchess, Willa Fitzgerald as Elizabeth Hardwick, Liam Neeson as Father Flynn, Alessandro Nivola as John Shelby, John Selby and has special appearances by people such as Vincent D'Onofrio and Steve Zahn, who appear as characters that are played out in her writing. All right, when was the first time you saw this film? A few weeks ago. And what did you think?
Well, we were first introduced to it because of Jessie's interview with Ethan Hawke.
No, it wasn't Jessie's interview. You're such a, you make things to be bigger than they are. So, so,
no, no, no, no. We're going to play this up as if Ethan Hawke himself is listening. So so Ethan, I don't know if you know this, you were interviewed by Jessie. It was a great interview.
Yeah, it was fabulous.
Okay, go ahead.
Yeah, no, I mean, I just had the opportunity to be in a press conference with Ethan when he talked to the Catholic Media Association. So I'm a CMA member. through my job and they did a press conference talking about this movie. And so I was like, Hmm, not sure how much that has to do with my job, but because of being able to be in the room, I wanted to be in the room. I'm just a huge fan of Ethan Hawke and just wanted to hear what was going on in.
I mean, this opportunity for people in Catholic media to have their voice heard, their faith be talked about in a positive way or whatever, it's just a cool thing. So I found that really interesting and I hadn't heard about the movie until then and then was totally intrigued to find out, you know, what it was and made Chris watch it with me. Any movie about a writer is going to get me. I mean, literally.
Best favorite movies for me, best stories are always the stories about writers or the stories about the heroine who is also a writer written by a heroine who's a writer. So it's just my vibe. So of course I'm, I'm gonna I'm gonna want to watch this. But the other reason was because I had never really heard of Flannery O'Connor. So, I don't think that this was literature that was in my AP English class.
I mean, it was always English student literature, reading all of the things that were on those lists that you would get in school, where they'd say, all of the smart people read these books. And I was like, well, I'm going to read all these books. It's just how I've been wired since I was a kid. I always wanted to be a writer. And I was always fascinated with the journey of a writer. But I was like, wait a minute, how have I never read her? And then we watched the movie and I knew why.
It's like, I literally think she's censored. From the public education system. I think her stuff is just too edgy, controversial, the language. I mean, I know for myself, at one point, because I'm the reader and I usually read aloud really well, Chris was like, well, why don't you just read it to me? And I want, I want to start reading her short, short stories aloud to him. And I was like, I can't, I can't, I can't read that. I can't say that word.
So, so that's, that's interesting. So when you say censored, you mean by Catholic media?
No, by the public school system. I didn't go to catholic school. I went to public school and read tons of other things, but Flannery O'Connor was never on the list.
But she wasn't on the list in Catholic school either. Yeah, I went to Catholic school.
Yeah, which is fascinating because now I feel like, I mean, honestly, Ethan Hawke was introduced to me through the CMA. So now Catholic media is like, hey, let's talk about The people that share our faith that have created art and let's, you know, be excited about this or whatever. But it was just not something that I had ever been introduced to either in, in high school or in college. So, all of that to say I love Ethan Hawke. I love stories about writers. Let me watch this movie.
Let me make my husband watch this movie. And then we're watching it and, you know, quite honestly, like, I'm not a screenwriter. I don't have any intellectual, you know, It's just not my thing to take a movie apart in the way that you guys do. But I had emotional, an emotional reaction to watching the movie. The way they went back and forth between the stories, And the story of Flannery and the way they used Flannery and her mother as the main characters. As the main characters. Maya Hawke.
Yeah, Maya Hawke. Yeah.
Totally. Totally.
Yeah, the way they did that, and then, you know, so like, I kind of knew that there was this whole mother daughter thing going on, I knew that there was this intergenerational struggle between the way her mother was raised and the way she was seeing the world change and all of that hypocrisy and all of that, but just watching that movie, the artistry of it, And then the way they integrated her writing, which was so raw, she just writes so transparently and with so much courage about human
nature. And the fact that, like, there's, there's like a lot of yuck in us. And so I was just intrigued by that.
I have one thing to add though for the listeners. Go for it. Jessie sort of glossed over This conference call that she was on with Ethan Hawk I, I, I believe that she was pressured greatly by myself to at least mention or ask a damn question if he had listen on behalf of the silver screen, on behalf of the silver screen, happy hour. If he ever bothered to listen to Ethan Hawk Day, which was one of our most famous episodes. And she failed to do so.
So Ethan, if you're listening, we have an entire episode that's just dedicated to two of your movies where we, I mean, we just fawn all over you like long lost lovers. Jerome fawns.
I love you too, Ethan, but not as much as he does.
I do fawn and she was given specific direction to bring it up in the conference call. And from what I understand, there was some sort of communication failure. It didn't happen that way.
Yeah, I was definitely torn that day between you and 14 year old Jessie. I mean, my own 14 year old self, who was assured by probably, like, Sassy Magazine that I was very compatible with Ethan Hawke and could potentially marry this man because we both liked pizza and No,
I'm not saying that I also did a compatibility thing with Ethan Hawke. But I'm not not saying it either.
That's alright. I mean, I get it. I totally get it. Alright Chris,
it's your turn. How did you feel?
¶ Personal Reflections and Emotional Reactions
Yeah, so it's funny because when we sat down to watch the movie, you know, you've kind of trained me to start looking for things in these movies that I'm watching, but I very much had a similar reaction that Jessie was talking about where just an emotional, an emotional response and I, I don't, I, it, you know, to put my finger on it there's multiple reasons like, like her struggle.
Is I, is, is relatable in our family to a degree with Jessie has an autoimmune disease and has had seasons of real struggle and the Maya Hawk did such an amazing job portraying the physical and emotional. turmoil that she was in as a result of having lupus and, and the frustration of wanting, having this desire to be a writer and you know, feel and like the, all the emotions that go along with that and her struggle with God. So a lot of that was very personal to just to us and our family.
Cause I remember when Jessie. You know, got so bad from the illness that you have that she was in a wheelchair for a season and we didn't know if she was ever going to get out of it, you know? And so there is that, but then there's also, I think the way Ethan Hawke directed the movie for me. And I've heard interviews where he talked about, you know, where, when his daughter Maya brought this to him as an idea for a movie, he's like, but she didn't do anything.
She, she died young and she wrote books or she wrote, you know, short stories. And. So they're looking at her, her life, and that's when they got the, he got the idea, well, Maya is at the age she was that Flannery O'Connor was when she began her writing journey as a professional, and when she was diagnosed with lupus. And so this is the season, that's the season of life that we want to make the movie about, when she was first trying to get established.
And and when they decided that that's the season they were going to do, he also decided we can weave in these, these short stories to tell the larger story, because a lot of these short stories reflected her relationship with her mother or other people that she knew in her community who dealt with a multitude of sins, right? Racism being one of the most predominant ones. But yeah, so the way he, he did that and went back and forth.
To me, it was just super powerful because, I mean, the one scene will set you up, and there was enough comedy that kind of weaved in, into the stories. I'm laughing and then I'm horrified at something, you know, it's something that was said or or done And so yeah, it was a it was a roller coaster for me So that was my kind of emotional response the first time like I said the credits are rolling and I just said buy that movie
So I had a few Responses emotional and creative at the same time. As I mentioned, I did go to Catholic school and I don't remember the name. Flannery O'Connor is familiar to me, but I think I may have only come across her name in college. I don't think they ever talked about Flannery O'Connor when I was in high school.
And I took a lot of like, you know, classes in, in high school where I had, I took a Shakespeare class when I was in high school as an elective, you know, so there were writers that, that my school pushed, Flannery wasn't one of them but I I agree, I think the, for it being his fifth feature, This was one of the better directed films I've seen in a while. And not just camera choices. But I mean, just, I mean, the performance he gets out of his actors is amazing. Yeah, Laura
Linney. Like, oh. Yeah, she's awesome. Is that even her?
Yeah, she was, she was really good. I heard some of the criticism because I, I dug deep on this one. There was some criticism. One guy said, I am from the South. And I didn't buy the accents. And I was like, huh? Well, I wouldn't know because I'm not from the South. It sounded Southern to me.
But when I listened to Ethan tell on one of his many interviews that I watched, I He said that Laura and Maya, but mostly Laura, did an amazing job of in character or, not in character, but when she went from character to character, sometimes she's playing Regina, sometimes she's playing one of the people in the short stories um, she would change her dialect from, like, well to do South and poor South, because they're two different things.
Yeah. I immediately thought, well, maybe this guy that said he didn't buy the accents is because she was changing them all the time. Most of the time, that's not a good thing. You know, when people talk about Kevin Costner and Robin Hood. Look, his English accent comes and goes, you know? Same with Princess Leia. Yeah, well, and then this one, there's a reason why it came and went. Yeah, yeah. She played a different character. It was from a different part of the South.
And maybe this guy whose criticism was that her accent wasn't good enough. Didn't think much more deeply about the movie than that and was just wrong. Maybe that I agree It was just wrong
and I agree with what you said because I see where
this episode is gonna go Well, I find Laura Linney's like hey, I'm gonna throw away the first four pages of my notes
I mean, I'm not like a total fangirl where I think it was perfect. I actually don't want things to be perfect really Anything that's too perfect kind of rubs me the wrong way because it's not like real life.
Except for Unforgiven. You can't get much more perfect than Unforgiven.
I don't know. But but yeah, I don't know. Sometimes reading other people's opinions for me isn't helpful because then I'm absorbing their perception.
Sure.
And I just need it to be, I just need it to be what it was, the way I experienced it, the feelings that I felt. And all of those things that may or may not be perfect depending on who you talk to.
I was, I was going to mention the, the, the accents again. So that guy's criticism and I, I might've read the same article or maybe I read someone else's criticism about the accents. And I think I, I agree with what you said. Like She didn't have the same accent throughout the movie because of what she was doing. She was playing different characters. Yeah, absolutely. And it's not the same as my criticism for Bonnie and Clyde's southern accent. I mean, Bonnie's southern accent was horrible.
I thought it was horrible in that movie. Are we Wildcat? No, because the accents were way worse. The acting was far better in Wildcat.
But is it even a possibility that she parodied? Yeah. If you think about those different clips and what they showed to do the, to over accent or just parody.
All right. So so no, I had a lot of thoughts and, and you know, like I said, the accidents wasn't even one of my thoughts. I just heard that later.
Well, if Laura Linney would give us an interview, we would be able to just ask her.
Yeah. Yes.
Hello.
We could. Ethan's listening so he can hook that up.
Oh yeah. Ethan, call Laura. Have her connect with us. Okay, back to you, Jer.
Okay, so Again, I thought the direction was great and I thought the acting was great. There were so many times I know I know every actor wants to be their own person and not be compared to other people But I have to say it's hard for me to not acknowledge that there were several times. I saw Uma Thurman's face She just got oh my god. There's so many times. I'm just like man. She looks just like her mother right there. But But but she was fantastic.
She was really good. I'm gonna say it right now. I, I think she should be at least nominated for Best Actress.
See, and, and here's the thing. So we talk about, you talked about censorship, right?
But she's such a new face to Hollywood. But her parents aren't.
But, but that doesn't matter. There's been new people. I mean, look at the acting nominations. Just the nominations. Not just who won. Just look at the nominations from the last five years. That's true. Remember the dude from Sound of Metal, the supporting actor guy. Like, like there's, there's so many, if Hollywood loves anything, it's new faces now. It wasn't always like that, but they love it now.
But I think if there's, if you talk about censorship or blacklisting, you saw the kind of treatment Passion of the Christ got from the academy. You know, I wonder if this is going to have the same problem.
It might, and it's funny because I feel like In trying to discuss this with certain people, I found, like, if there, if there's a wall because of the roots in Catholicism, it's hard to break through. Sure. You know, and that just is what it is. But if someone actually watches the movie and, and discerns it for themselves, because from, like, like, someone might even hear, oh, she was a racist. You know what I mean? In a, in a critic.
That didn't even Watch the movie or read her books, but when you, when you read them or when you watch the movie about them, you come to realize her, like anything that was said that was racist is because of her pushback against the racist culture that she lived in and was trying to put it in people's faces, trying to get them to that. I don't know. That's the way I got
more to say on that, but we'll get to it later. But but no, I just I remember thinking. When I first, when it movie first starts, I loved the opening. We're going to get to the beats in a second, but when it immediately went into another one of her stories, it took me a second to figure out what was going on. And I, I remember having the same feeling I had the first time I saw Memento, which was Christopher Nolan's breakthrough.
You know, for one of his first movies, if not first movie, where everything is in reverse chronology, and it's going backwards. So in the first couple scenes, you're like, okay, okay, I got it now. I got it. I got it. I was lost for like a second there, but I get what's going on now. That was, I remember having that, that sort of reaction to this movie. I was like, what the
fuck?
Oh,
okay. I get it. I
get it. I get it.
All right. I did have to explain. The movie to Chris. Yeah, there was a point where I, I was, I, we paused it and I'm like, wait, what's going on here? Yeah. It was after, it was after the opening scene, after we were introduced to her, then we went to a story and then I had to say, okay, honey, she has mommy issues. Laura Linney also plays her mom. But I mean, I thought they
made it kind of obvious when she saw the guy with one arm in the train station and then it immediately cuts to the story and Steve Zahn only has one arm. To me at that moment, I was like, Oh I see, she sees something and she's writing in her head what she's seeing. But okay,
alright. So. Log me. Wildcat. Follows the life of writer Flattery O'Connor while she was struggling to publish her first novel.
Okay, so, notes on this. Another thing that I felt when I was watching this. Very few biopics, if you want to call this that do this right. Ethan did it right. Here's how most people get it wrong. They do this from birth to death shit, where you see somebody's entire life, and, you know, 40 percent of it is not necessary at all. Maybe even more. As a screenwriter, I was tasked with adapting somebody's book, who asked me to adapt into screenplay form a book he wrote about his mother.
Okay. This book was about 50 chapters long. And I wrote a screenplay that focused on 15 chapters right in the middle. I realized that at the beginning and end of this this guy's book, there was a lot of like where his mother came from and how she became, you know, who she was. And then at the end, the last several chapters, I want to say like 10, 15 chapters or so was how, when she got to the States and how she became a citizen and had kids and he was one of them and all that stuff.
But the middle 15 chapters. Was her escape from communist Czechoslovakia alone. Because her husband was out of the country. And I'm like, that's your story, man. That's the story. So I wrote the screenplay with just that. Ethan does something similar here. When you said that he didn't think there was much to make a movie about. Until he focused on that few years where she was around the same age that Maya is now. Where she was struggling to get that first book published. That was his hook.
I'm gonna do just about that. We don't see much about where she's from and much about where she ends up you know except for an epilogue on the screen, but
I'm sorry. I was just gonna say and one of the cool ways about storytelling is that you kind of get the idea that She didn't want to be home So, like, that tells you a little bit about her past. Like, she, she went to New York, she went to Iowa and then went to New York because she was trying to become somebody, right? Yes. And then, so her whole act of coming home was, to her, yeah, to her it was like a setback, like, I'm going backwards, you know? Well,
from, from what I understand it wasn't supposed to be permanent. She didn't know she had lupus yet.
Yeah. You
know. She thought, I'm sick right now. I'm going to go home, get better, let mom take care of me, and then I'll be back. She even tells Cal at the train, I'll be back. I'll be back. I'm coming back. Cal. Cal. So all right. So I got a few more notes on the beats here. We do follow the Blake Snyder's Save the Cat beats, and just about any film we use these tools, right, to structure the script.
Now. It's important to note, again, that's why I put this down here, that a lot of people in Hollywood sort of rail against Blake Snyder. They think that this cookie cutter, every script is written the same, it's not original, and blah blah blah. But, it's not that this idea, this ideology is there to, to be cookie cutter. It just gives you a foundation, right? Again, my brother and I have gone through years now of doing this.
We stopped clock watching a while ago, although we still mentioned the minutes. I'll still give you a minute page, a minute slash page of when these beats hit just to, you know, so, you know, but the most important thing is that we have these beats and that they come in order. And we already talked about the, you know, the Coen brothers, for example, a perfect example of guys that can write screenplays that deviate from the rules. Remember, they're, they're tools, not rules.
I shouldn't say rules. But when the beats are important, they're there and they're identifiable. And although this seems like a unique way of shooting this film, you're going to find that the beats are all still there. Are you all right over there? Sorry. She handed me her glass. Okay. Now, I, I do not know Ethan Hawke's personal feelings about Blake Snyder or the Save the Cat ideology. I don't.
I hope it's good or he won't come on the show.
But I think I think this is personal opinion, of course, I don't want you two to kick the crap out of me after this, but when you look at such mixed reviews and, you know, 50 percent on, you know, Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, you start to think that there's people that weren't, that, that just aren't, that maybe they had trouble following it, right? I don't think it's that difficult. I think the beats are all still there. I still think it's a, a, a compelling film.
But somebody like like Mom might hate the first half hour of this movie. You know what I mean? Until she, until, I mean just try to get Mom to watch Pulp Fiction. Same thing. She's just like, I don't get it. He just got shot. Now he's there? You know what I mean? Like, so, you know I don't know if, I think mom would enjoy this film, but I think it would just take her some time to get warmed up to it. So here's the, here's the part where you guys might fight me on this a little bit.
¶ Character Development and Storytelling Techniques
As much as I love the movie, I think my biggest issue, and again, this doesn't make it a bad movie, but there's not much Character growth, as far as she's the same person at the end that she is in the beginning. She has a personal fight against will, will God accept her writing? But she doesn't change her writing for everybody around her that's telling her to change her writing. The editor at the beginning says you need to change your writing. She's like, nope, this is how I am.
Her mom, why don't you write stuff people will like? Nope, this is how I am. So she is as defiant as a writer to everybody else in her life at the beginning as she is in the end. Right? There is a different growth with her when it comes to sort of accepting, you know, because a lot of times in the film she's praying to God about You know, let me just write something good or, you know the scene with the priest, we're going to get to that later.
But, you know, there's a lot telling there of she's worried that she's disappointing God in her writing. So we're going to get to all that. But if anything, I didn't see what we talk about a lot is emotional. Doug of war, the push and pull that we see, you know, we talk a lot of the example, the best example I always use is Thelma and Louise, who Thelma is at the beginning of the movie to where she is at the end of the film. But it's not just, you know, flip a switch and you're that person.
It's the constant back and forth, one step forward, two steps back, one step forward, two steps back. Half of the scenes in Thelma and Louise, she's alpha Thelma waving a gun around being a tough The other half, she's baby Thelma again. She's getting ridiculed by Louise. She's like a dog with a tail between her legs. And it's back and forth and back and forth. It's kind of like somebody going uphill but with a yo yo in their hand.
So the yo yo is going up and down but gradually, the person holding the yo yo is getting to the end of their journey, if that makes any sense. So what I saw from Flannery is that It was more of what we called a flat arc in other films, right?
We talked about the flat arc where They themselves don't change as a person But their view of the world around them might change And the world around them's view of them might change But they are, again, the perfect example of that has always been Superman Superman doesn't change at the end of any story He's the same person he is at the beginning He's always righteous, he's always good He doesn't lie, he saves lives, he saves cats But! But the world around him changes a lot.
And sometimes his view of the world might change, but he himself stays the same person with the same morals and the same principles. Hang on. I can see you're dying. Jessie's dying to say something. I'm
dying. Keep going. Okay. Okay. I'm listening. I'm trying to still listen and not just think about what I want to say. Because that's always a hard thing when you want to say something. Right. Right.
So so although it wouldn't have been I'm not going to rewrite anything. I don't want to rewrite anything. This isn't meant to be factually accurate or inaccurate. But there's more push and pull if, let's just say it wasn't Flannery. Let's say this was a movie about a writer, just any old writer. If there was more of that battle where they try to appease others and write what they want, what the others tell them to write, but they hate it.
Like maybe the editor says, you got to change this or that. And then she's like, okay, I'll do this. And then she hates it. And she's battling that. And she's got, it wants to go back and change it. If there was more back and forth, you'll see more of growth. But I think her, her battle with God, I don't want to say battle with God, her battle for God's approval, along with her battle against Lupus, are her two biggest battles. I don't see that she battles the world view of her at all.
I really don't. You know what I, you know what I mean? So that's what I think makes it even more of a spiritual movie, because it's more about, It's like God is the best supporting actor, right? Like God's like the main supporting role because it seems like that to me is where the story is. It's her seeking approval from God, not really seeking approval from her mother or Duchess or her editor. You know what I mean? If anything, she rolls her eyes at those people. All right, go ahead, Jessie.
Fire away.
Ah, so I did see that part differently because I see her right from the get go, wanting to impress Cal, wanting him to see her for who she truly was as more than just a great writer because clearly he's an intellectual, he values writers, he knows that she's good, he sees something in her. Well, you see that in the way she's looking for him to impress her. I see that there's more to her and to accept her writing.
You see this expectation when she's standing in the room presenting her writing to the other writers in that writers club. And then I see it. I see her wanting the world's approval, wanting her mother's approval, and just being cynical when she's met with her mom's inability to understand what she's doing. And so it's like, instead of just like whining and crying about it, she has kind of like a dry, witty sense of humor about that.
And the fact that her aunt doesn't get her, and then she is, she's looking for God, she's looking to everyone else. That scene at the end. When her mom comes in and says, Oh, look at that beautiful window. Aren't you so glad that that's what you get to look out and see when you're writing? And she stops and she turns with all of the energy she can muster and creates a sanctuary for herself.
That wall that she creates, that to me, Was her victory over winning Cal's approval, that room full of writer's approval, that publisher's approval, her mother's approval, and God's approval. She literally said, if it's just me and the typewriter. And I create this wall, which is almost kind of like a wall of icons, like a wall where she creates like this monastery with pictures of things that she cares about. And there were some icons.
Yeah, in a space that she is just cut off from the rest of the world. To me, that's her finally saying, I've overcome the need to please all of you people and to have all of you people understand me. I understand me. And I know what I'm doing here. I'm going to write this fucking book. Like that to me, like I saw. So here's an interesting thing. Introverts have You will see character development in an introvert in a very different way than you'll see it in an extrovert in a story.
And I don't know if you have to be an introvert to get that, or if you just have to be really quiet and pay really close attention. Because the struggles. That an introvert goes through they don't happen as publicly they happen internally.
You'll see it in in her eyes You'll see it in the tone of her voice and the way her Her voice is constricted when she responds or just in that dead dry sense of humor where she's like I'm just gonna turn everything off and just answer you with just Humor because you don't friggin get it and there's no point
so if I can get a word in here go ahead go
ahead I mean, that's just I mean, that's just off the cuff some of the things I was thinking sure and none of
that is none of that is wrong But here would be my response and all of the seeking of approval that you mentioned Cal her mother the editor Everybody does she ever change her writing?
Well, no, because that's the problem. That's her problem. She can't change her writing because that's the truest thing that is a part of her. But just because you know that doesn't mean you're okay with it.
I think
she knows it, but she doesn't. And she knows like, but she's still struggling with how to still fully be that without, and
that was her big question throughout the film. And like, I guess throughout her life, can scandalous art still glorify God? Sure. You know, and that's, and that's something she was wrestling with and it was a spiritual wrestling.
That's where I think the, that's where I said, I think the approval she's seeking is God. Yeah. All your examples are right. Sure. She has a a, definitely a, a, a, I don't want to use the word desperate, but I would think maybe almost a desperate need to improve to impress Cal. For sure. She
has the same need we all have to be accepted by the people we respect. And by the right, but that's,
but that's exactly my point. Those of us, there are the rest of us, or I don't say the rest of us, but a lot of humanity would try to change to make other people. Happy with us, right? And that's where you see in a lot of dramas, the emotional tug of war that I'm talking about where people change for others. And then at the end, they realize I didn't need to change for anybody. They need to accept me for who I am. She already accepted her own writing from the get, I think. But did she?
I think she did. She didn't ever change. She didn't change anything for anybody.
But I don't think that that showed that she didn't, like, I think she was uncomfortable with the writing too. I think that's what scared the shit out of her.
Ah, see, I disagree. That's interesting. I think that that was her sanctuary. You mentioned a physical sanctuary at the end. I think her emotional sanctuary was in her writing.
¶ Flannery's Defense Mechanism
Every time she was faced with something immediately, we cut to one of the short stories that she had written in her head, you know written, but we're seeing it play out in her thoughts. Like that was almost like her defense mechanism. What my mom and my aunt are annoying. Here's a story. And she puts them in it. You know what I mean? Like, anytime she saw something, I felt her defense was writing a story about it. She was almost like the 1950s Taylor Swift. I, I, I'm, I'm not,
I don't, what? Oh, dear.
¶ The Power of Film Interpretation
It's great. I love it when you know, that's what's so great about film. Is that two people can watch the same movie and pull something different from it.
So, I did get the feeling at the last scene that Jessie alluded to, like, where she recreated her room so that she had this writing sanctuary. Well, the very last scene, I believe, was her writing, and then the peacock feathers pop up behind her. Yes, absolutely. And it was this moment of, like, freedom that she experienced, that she hadn't experienced until that point.
So, to me, you know, I mean, Even if it was more of a spiritual arc, I mean there was an arc there because she was wrestling with God and so, yeah.
¶ The Emotional Priest Scene
Well,
again, that's where I think that the priest scene is the most important. Well, we'll get there. Yeah, the priest
scene. God, so that, let's get there because Yeah, we'll get there. Okay, so I hope I can get through this because I literally cried both times I watched that scene.
Okay, so, okay, opening I'm a crier. You're just like your mother. You know what? I feel real heartless
sometimes because I'm sitting there going, wow, this is really interesting. And I look over and he's going, he's shaking. And I'm like, what kind of Neanderthal am I? That you're the
heartless barbarian. You're the Mike Wiegand in your marriage. And Chris is the Sioux. Yeah. Okay.
All you emotional Wiegands. I mean, you're good for us. You're good for us stoics. But but sometimes it's a little bit like, what? Go, go clean yourself up.
¶ Opening Image and Flannery's Reality
Okay, so alright, opening image. Here's I'm sorry, I forgot this. Okay, we have The beat. Okay. Opening image. The cold open is a trailer for a fictional movie called Star Drake that didn't ever really exist but it was based on one of Flannery's short stories, The Comforts of Home. And then it goes black and we get we get a passage from Flannery herself and the quote is, I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality.
End quote. Once the real opening starts, we see the images It's taken from the short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, where an escaped convict, known in the short story as the misfit, terrorizes a family that's on vacation. This is intercut with the introduction of our protagonist, Flannery O'Connor, as she writes the scenes. This sets the tone for the film that we're going to see from here on out, where you see what she is writing, like in real time as it's happening.
For us that, for us the audience, that's the exercise is, is to figure out when she's living and when she's writing. Exciting incident.
¶ Flannery's Writing and Illness
There really isn't one for an inciting incident. My, and, and that's kind of my point. We'll go back. The point I made about the arc, you're going to see in these, these are, there's a lot of story beats, not this would be a character beat that I don't think exists. So. Instead of my four point push, I'm only going to have a two point push because normally there's four points. The inciting incident would be the first hint that her before world is about to change. We know she feels sick.
She doesn't yet know why. We can assume the illness. is an inciting incident, but we're already in the middle of that story. She's already going to the train station. I mean, when we meet her, she's already got her bags packed, right? She's already on her way home. We never see a debate in this situation. We never see that, that character debate after the inciting incident. When we meet her, she's already on her way to the train station. She's gonna stop first at her editor's, publisher's place.
Which means that in addition to lacking an inciting incident, we're lacking a debate.
¶ Meeting the Publisher
A theme stated at about the seven minute mark while meeting with John Selby, the editor and publisher of her upcoming book, Wise Blood. He tells her, quote, Sometimes I feel you're trying to stick pins in your readers. I don't think you need to make them suffer in order to introduce them to the unusual way your mind works. It feels a little like you're trying to pick a fight with your readers when all they ever did was open the front cover of your book. End quote.
Might be my favorite line of the whole movie. And it comes seven minutes in and right off the bat, I'm like, I think I'm going to like this movie. Like right off the bat, I'm like, yeah, this is going to be good with writing like that. I love dialogue like that. So while I feel that Flannery might lack that emotional tug of war necessary for her to, to learn that character arc I was talking about. There is certainly a theme here. That's going to be flashed.
For us, the audience throughout the film, her angst and her fear, almost her fear of like eternal damnation if she offends God and her writing that's the recipe for the readers of her stories that they're going to have to go along on this experience with her. You know what I mean? Jessie mentioned when she was reading some of the stories, she was appalled and like, I can't read this out loud. You know what I mean? I can't say this. I can't say these words out loud. I
can't do the accent either. So there's
¶ Flannery's Creative Process
that. But well, I think Ethan.
I think Ethan Hawke said that in one of the interviews, was that whenever he reads it, he hears the southern accent from her. Well, and that quote
you just said from the from the publisher. It's because of that quote that it helps me understand even why there's mixed reviews for the movie. Yeah, because some people watch this movie and were offended. They just,
well, I mean, not even, but not even offended. There's people that watched the movie that were just like, or they wrestled with it and didn't know what to do with it. Yeah. Just like, I don't know. I can't follow it or whatever. Or it's, I don't know. But it's interesting. She
memorialized a culture. And a way of life and people that if she hadn't memorialized them in her writing like that, that would be lost. And we shouldn't lose that. We shouldn't lose the knowledge of this, this like niche of the population of a place, a real place.
In a real time. In a real
time with real ideas and real beliefs and a real culture that was set up around these rules.
Yeah.
Yeah. And we can't forget that or we'll do it again.
Catalyst at 15 minutes. She's at the train station to go home to live with mom. We meet the what'd I put? Oh, we meet a real life poet, the real life poet and flattery is creative writing teacher. Robert Lowell. His nickname is Cal. While there are hints of attraction between the two of them, we don't know much about the relationship at this time. At this point, we don't know much about them, nor does it affect Flannery's decision to move back home to mom.
I think that she's she was, again, sick, but doesn't know why or doesn't know what she's sick with. We don't see any of this. We don't see any of this decision making. We talked about in Fargo, how we start in media res, right? The Latin term for starting in the middle of, or whatever it translates to, you know what I mean? It means when the movie begins, the story had already started. Right. We're kind of trying to catch up. Like, we don't see her get sick for the first time.
We don't see her make the decision, well maybe I should leave New York and go home for a little while just until I'm better. We don't see none of that. Right? We just know it's happening. So it's hard for me to dictate character development on the journey of spiritual goals when the protagonist has already predetermined things. That didn't happen thematically on screen, in front of us, you know what I mean? So we're playing You just
said a lot of big words.
We're trying to play catch up.
Sorry. Sounds like
somebody needs another glass of ménage à trois.
You sound real smart.
She moved on to whiskey.
You sound real smart about movies, Jer.
Okay.
That's
awesome.
I can't tell if she's being condescending right now. Okay. Okay. So
I just, I want to keep tracking, but like, wait, what?
Okay. Okay. So Now you made me lose my place here. Okay.
Oh, I need to not compliment you? Sorry, sorry.
No, no, no. I love it. Keep it coming. Keep it coming. I'll always, I'll always look for my place to hear a compliment. Okay. So, Ethan, I feel like he decided instead to give us a glimpse of how she comes up with these stories and writes them in her head. And that is evident in that train station sequence like we talked about. She sees a guy with one arm.
And then immediately, boom, we're catapulted into this story where Steve Zahn's walking in a field and he's got one arm and as an audience, you're like, What the fuck just happened? Like, where are we now? Yeah, you're like, isn't
he the dad in Diary of a Wimpy Kid? That's what I thought.
Wait a minute!
Wait a minute, he's been in a billion things, but also I think he's his dad in Diary of a Wicked Witch. Wasn't he in Reality
Bites with
Ethan Hawke too? Oh, oh, can we do that movie someday? Because that, my friend, still holds up. Because we just watched that, like, two months ago. Because that was my favorite movie in high school. Another reason why I was going to marry Ethan Hawke. So, you know, sorry Ethan, I'm sorry it didn't work out for us. But, anyway. Not yet. That's a great movie. Hey! I got my man. Anyway. That is a great movie, and we just watched it, and I gotta say, Holds up. Okay, although,
although we do go off on tangents and rants on this show,
This is not the time? Is that what you're trying to say? We're,
we're, I, I foresee we're gonna be here a while tonight, but alright. Well, you
invited a third person, that's another perspective. Come on, man, what do you think is gonna happen? Absolutely,
absolutely, that means that this show will be three times as long as it normally is. Alright,
people buckle up.
Alright, so anyway, so yeah, Steve Zahn's part. So, boom, we're in the middle of the short story, The Life You Saved May Be Your Own. He plays a tramp, Mr. Shifflett, and he's forced to marry the dim witted Lucy Nell, and he later abandons her at a coffee shop.
¶ The Role of Regina
Break into two. At 23 minutes, Flannery arrives home, and we're introduced to Regina, her mother, and her aunt Kitty, named Duchess. Nicknamed Duchess. So the overt xenophobic nature of racism that surrounds them is hard for Flannery to take. There's many scenes where she's like rolling her eyes at them. We're going to talk more a little bit about that later, but I think usually around this time we're introduced to the B story.
And while her mother, Regina, has all the markings and makings to be a B story character, since I truly struggled to find that spiritual journey it was hard for me to label Regina the B Story. So because, okay, so maybe Jessie, I don't know how much she's listened to our shows. The B Story is normally introduced at the beginning of Act 2, maybe a half hour into your film. And it's the person that drives your character to their spiritual goal. Again, I don't know if Regina does that.
I think she In addition to her faith and the very pivotal scene with the priest. I think those drive her to her spiritual goal, if anything. Regina's a player, don't get me wrong. But I don't think she's the B story. She's not the Obi Wan. I don't think she's Obi Wan. Anyway, Jessie, Jessie, just to let you know, that's what we call the B story on the show is the Obi Wan. Okay,
so then think about, so when you say that, here are some key moments that come up in my head.
Okay, gotcha.
Regina. Picks her up, tells her she's going to take her to the doctor.
¶ Flannery's Struggle with Illness
So there's this whole other element of the story we haven't talked about, which is her refusal to accept that she has the disease that killed her father.
Okay.
And there's some really, like, key little things that are specific about the fact that she has the disease her father had. Her mother watched her father die from it. She watched her father die from it. Like, think of the scene where she's putting on her father's jacket. And then putting on his crutches for the first time. Absolutely, but that's not, but that's not Regina. I know, but okay.
So her, her mom is there and she wants to say she's just doing this because of the fact that her dad was sick or whatever. But she, she's there, she gets the doctor and she refuses it. And then you have this, these other key moments where she's there Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. I've had alcohol. Well, I
don't want you to ruin. I don't want you to ruin. I do have one beat that I'm going to get to later. Where I actually wrote on here. There is something that she does near the break in the three. That's the closest we have to driving her to her spiritual goal. And so I am willing to concede that she is the best we got for a B story.
Yeah, cause she, it's, it's just so subtle. She'll say something, or she'll make a face before she leaves the room. Like, she'll say one line. That's the problem. It's like, it's so subtle. If you really think about it, most of the time there's conflict.
But Flannery, but Flannery doesn't change because of these things. You know what I mean? It'd be one thing if these actions by Regina forced her to do something different. Again, we call it in writing, we call it wrong way goals where you're trying to do one thing and it's not the right way. It's not going to get you to your spiritual goal, but she doesn't do any of that, but there is one to
not be sick. She's trying to not die. So going up to the room until she falls down the stairs. Continuing to struggle up those stairs until she finally falls and then she just says, okay, fine. I'm not going up these stairs anymore. But that's not Regina. That's Flannery.
We're talking about what makes Regina the B story, but but I got
I I guess you could you could say that The whole movie most of the movie is set Like the reality not the stories, but the reality is set in her mom's home In the space that her mom has provided her
Okay, that, you're getting close. Yeah. So stop right there. Okay. Because you're, you're getting close. I
feel like there's, she does play this role. I can't really articulate it. But, you so I'm So keep talking. Okay, I'm
gonna give you, I'm gonna give you a good one near the end of the second act.
Okay.
Okay.
¶ Flannery's Stories and Symbolism
Fun and games. When her mother tells her That she's taken her to the doctor. She begins her, her mental escape. Now she's writing the, the story called Revelation. This is where her characters herself and her mother, as well as Duchess, are among them in the doctor's office waiting area. This might be my favorite of the stories. Dude, I read that
story. You have to read it. Did you read the original? I haven't,
I haven't read the original story. Okay, so I
read it to Chris because of the movie and I'm telling you it's, that is brilliant.
Okay, okay. So at one point I thought it was funny and almost telling. That we're going to get to the title later. I have stuff on that too, but there's a part in that scene where she hisses her answer. Yeah. Duchess it's not Duchess Duchess is there, but she's playing a different character, but she looks at her and she goes, she asked you a question and Flannery goes, I have ears. She says I have ears, but she says it like I can't hiss.
I thought that was not only was that brilliant acting, but it was, telling of her character, right? I have ears. Okay. In this segment, Regina is playing Ruby Turpin, a rather annoyingly racist caricature of a Southern woman who is given a choice by Jesus to be reincarnated as a black woman or a white trash woman. And she can't decide.
Well, because, and I didn't catch this in the movie until I read the story. The other woman in the doctor's office, who's sitting there with the little boy. Oh, it's Justice Atrocious. Yeah, she's the caricature of this white trash woman. Yeah. And then these two Racist women who have grown up with privilege their whole life are having this discourse about, you know, like how difficult life is now that you can't get a Negro to do any of the work that they're supposed to be doing in their place.
And then you have this millennial sitting next to her mom, who's so frustrated.
Reading human development. Yes. Right, right.
Who's so frustrated with how backwoods her mother is, and then the mother's so confused at this ungrateful child because she doesn't understand the youths today.
Right. One of the things, I just want to say one of the things about this scene that I thought was brilliant. So if you haven't seen it, or maybe you haven't, if you haven't read it, like the, the, the, the story is taking place in the waiting room of a doctor's office. Right. And then. at one point. The in in the story, the mom has a dream right? Yeah. That's that. The mom has a dream within the story.
Yeah. So if you're following along, you're in a story and then all of a sudden you're in it's inception. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you're in a dream that's in the story. And then it snaps back to the story again in the doctor's office.
But, but I had to note real quick before you continue, that she has trouble making this decision. She finally comes to, alright. I'll be black as long as I quote It's a clean black. Yeah, and quote like what the fuck?
Just like the way I am now only black also makeup. Can we talk about makeup for one second?
Oh, yeah,
and the way they did the makeup on Laura Linney to give her this nose this nose. Yeah So in the Story. So in the story, it doesn't conclude in the doctor's office in the original writing of Flannery, it concludes when she goes back home and she, whatever, hus, I'm bad with names. I'm so bad with names, but her husband who was there with the kick in the leg and the,
yeah,
ulcer. He goes into the house, she goes out to feed the pigs. When she gets out to feed the pigs, all of the pigs are huddled around the queen pig. And it's a very descriptive scene where this queen pig is in the corner of the pig's, you know, I don't know, house, cage, whatever. And all of the other pigs are basically bowed down before it. I mean, it's kind of the scene of them worshipping this queen pig. And that's when she has the vision of all the people going to heaven.
And it's all the blacks and all of the white trash and all of the the simple minded and the invalids or whatever. And she's just furious. She's just furious. And so when you see that scene of her in there and then you look at the way they did Laura Linney's nose,
it's
a nod. to the original writing where the woman is actually the whole thing is she's the pig. She's the pig. And you're like, Oh my gosh. And literally, can you see why people were just like, radically offended?
Lightsaber one coming out. Ready? Okay, at 37 minutes in, Duchess tells her that she has lupus. The same disease that killed her father at a young age, and she's forced to deal with that realization. She could very well be living the rest of her days in this house. Two minutes later, at 39 minutes, she gets a letter from the publisher saying that They're ultimately going to pass on Wise Blood.
Now we do know that in real life, Wise Blood does get published, but it was a different publisher that ends up picking it up. At this time, we go into flashback two years prior, and show how she came to be Cal's most noteworthy student and that he obviously became infatuated with. From what I understand, this is the biggest departure from reality in the film.
That for most of the film, it's as accurate as you can get, but there is no noted connection or relationship between Robert Lowell and Flannery O'Connor.
I, I did read, or I did listen to an interview where I forget who was, was talking, but they were talking about that. That's, that topic and apparently in a letter, there's a scene in the movie where he tells her, I love you.
Well, he says it at the train
station. Yeah, before they depart. And there's no evidence that that was actually said in person, but he does write it in a letter to her.
Yeah, but again, the way I took it at the train station? Was sort of a teacher student inspiration kind of love. I didn't take it as romantic. Note to self,
your teacher is not supposed to say, I love you. Okay, back to you.
Starting now? Just in case
any youths are listening, your teacher shouldn't tell you he loves you. Okay, back to
you.
Okay, this took a weird turn there. All right, you
said it Okay
In any case the subject of her story that she reads aloud in class is called Parker's back And it's about a rather crass guy named OE Parker Specifically Obadiah Elijah Parker, which they have fun. Isn't it a lay who a lay who sorry Obadiah a lay who? He gets a tattoo of Jesus on his back to impress her I can say that this is one of the stories that is shown all the way to the end. You mentioned how the revelation wasn't, and there was another one, Steve Zahn's.
Steve Zahn's one his story in, in the actual short story, it goes on longer, right? Yeah. But this one, I believe, from what I read, it, it, It goes all the way to the end of the story. Like, they kind of do a quick version of beginning to end with this one all the way through. And we actually do get to see Parker's remorse at the end. And taking a beating from a broom? On your freshly tattooed back? Well in the image of that are her whipping Jesus.
Yeah, and the blood coming down like it's all like obviously To
tell you the truth. I read that story and I still don't get it all the way I have ideas about it, but not fully formed ones cuz it's it's out there
There is an interview with Ethan Hawke, one of the million that I watched where he talks about it. It's very interesting. Yeah. But it's yeah, it's kind of, for me anyway, for anyone that's had tattoos, that's a rough watch at the end. I'm like, I'm like, dude, be mad at him. Don't hit his back with that
broom. He just got a tattoo. Well, and it makes you kind of sympathetic towards the guy that got the tattoo, right? Yeah. Because he did
it. He did it thinking he was impressing
her.
Yeah, and, you know, I He did
it because he felt like he had an encounter with God that he needed to memorialize and thought that that would gain her approval. That story is about him gaining her approval because he married her but he really didn't ever feel like she loved him. And he loved her but he couldn't understand why. It's really sad and I don't get it. I don't all the way get it. I'm still thinking about it.
I think part of the thing that makes it sad is that she tells him. That she doesn't like tattoos, right? So he, he goes and gets this tattoo. Yeah, she goes and gets, he goes and gets this tattoo thinking, I'm seeking approval and I got a big face of Jesus on my back. And she couldn't be more appalled. Right,
but she tells him he doesn't, she doesn't like tattoos from the beginning, but then chooses him who has a tattoo on every face of his body. He's loaded with, yeah, he's loaded with tattoos. So in the story, he actually says something about, she says she doesn't like it, but I don't really believe. That she knows her own mind, basically. Because she says she doesn't like things, but she does. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so it is like, it's a very interesting story.
I've read it a couple times now, still don't get it all the way.
I just noticed, by the way, side point, it has nothing to do with anything that we're talking about. But in my notes, I just noticed that my autocorrect changed Flannery to Flanner just about every time. Flanner. Flanner.
Just say Flanner O'Connor and it'll always say it sounds the same. Yeah, like, I'm
looking at my notes and I'm like, I did not write Flanner this many times. But anyway, it must have been the autocorrect. All right.
¶ The Midpoint Party Scene
Midpoint scene. 54 minutes in, Flanner stumbles across Cal, and he invites her into a party that she is reluctant to attend. At one point, a tennis table opponent suggests she should be less racist in her writings, and she defends the language. Moments later, she defends Catholicism to a group of critiquing elites. Particularly when Cal's, Love interest writer, Elizabeth Hardwick suggests the Eucharist is just a symbol. She says, quote, well, if it's just a symbol, then to hell with it.
End quote. And then she doubles down with what people don't understand is how much religion costs. They think it's easy. They think it's an electric blanket when really it's the cross. End quote. So normally, I know this movie is littered with great lines of dialogue. Normally the midpoint brings a tangible goal and a false victory. But since I'm having trouble finding this character art for Flannery, I didn't find a tangible goal or a false victory.
But Cal does speak highly of her to Elizabeth, and to your point, if that's some of the approval she's seeking, that's a false victory. Right? That's a moment, yeah, that's a moment of gain for her. Yeah, cause she even said that
she's, she knew who she was, she's read her book. Or her books or whatever, yeah. Yeah,
so that's the closest I could get to that. So we're there. So you're noticing that we're still finding them. They're there. Just gotta find them. Alright, bad guys closing in. Back to reality with Mom Regina at church and she mentally dives into the story Everything That Rises Must Converge. Another great story. I like this one almost as much as the Revelation one. Right. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't read the short story. It's a boy in the story, isn't it?
Yes. Because she's dressed like a boy. Oh, yeah,
yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a man and his, and his mother. It's an adult man. And he's like in his early twenties, so he just got back from college ish trying to find his way, but he actually says, I know I'm not that smart. I know I really can't be on my own. I live with my mother.
He resents it, but he literally needs her care Because he's smart enough to have graduated from college and literally worthless to get a job and make a living So he's living off of the fact that his mom is like second or third generation Plantation.
Yeah,
he hates it, but he's living off of it. So he has playing
the part
Well, yeah, she's like your great, great grandfather, blah, blah, blah. And so he remembers in the story going to this great grandfather or somebody's house and seeing this like, beautiful plantation, but it's since broken down because society has changed. And so he literally, it's like, it's that same situation as that girl in the in the doctor's office.
Mm
hmm. He's living off of it. So he hates himself and he hates his mother and he hates the situation. So he's full of self loathing and everything else.
But from a film point of view, it's set up a lot like the train station. She sees the guy with the one arm. So now we're in that story here. He see, she sees her mother wink at the little white child in church.
And
now here we are catapulted onto the bus where she sees a little black child and she winks at him. And then she backhandedly insults the boy and his mother by offering him a shiny new penny. And of course we know what happens after that. She gets physically assaulted by the by the boy's mom.
¶ Flannery's Acceptance of Her Illness
Symbolic moment at one hour, one minute in when we're back to real life. Flannery pulls out. This is the scene you were talking about. She pulls out one of her father's coats from the closet, smells it before putting it on, and then she sees his crutches in the closet, and she utilizes them.
Okay, okay. So, whoa, whoa, whoa. So, back up. So, right, back, back the truck up to everything that rises must converge. That story ends with, so he hates himself, and he detests his mother, and this, this whole reality that he's living off of the money That funded the thing that he now knows is wrong and hates, then he watches his mother patronize this woman by thinking her child's adorable, you know what I mean?
And then, oh, give you a shiny little penny, which apparently it was a thing back then where rich white women would just give black children a nickel. And she didn't have a nickel. So she pulled out a penny. So it was even more patronizing
when
the woman hits her. She has a stroke. So when she's wandering around in that cemetery in the movie, and she's like, tell, tell somebody to come get me tell grandpa to come get me. She literally had a stroke. She has either a mental breakdown or a stroke. So she's cast back. to the state of a child. And so the story, that story, Everything That Rises Must Converge, which, side note, is being read by Sawyer in the show Lost
at
one point. So anybody that's a Lost fan can try to figure out why Sawyer was reading Everything That Rises Must Converge in the show Lost. There's a whole other show for you. That's a
rabbit trail. Yeah.
But. For people like so think of that. So that's how that story ends with that man in the story, which is played by Maya Hawk. Being with his mother and crying and ask calling out for help for her because now she's had some mental breakdown or some stroke and she's like a child right now and he finally has compassion for her. And then the next scene is Flannery putting on her father's coat, accepting her illness, trying out the crutches.
Well, and, and she's basically stuck living off of her mother's wealth.
She realizes her mom's going to have to take care of her for the rest of her life because she's not getting better. She's going to be like her dad, however that plays out.
That's why I love the very next shot is not just of that, but it's almost like she's. Not just accepting the illness, but sort of like metaphorically accepting that she is taking her father's role now, you know, that's what I think the symbol symbolism is with her taking the coat and smelling the coat and putting the coat on and using his crutches, you know what I mean? Like
if you're if you're a believer, there's this thing about like finding meaning and suffering and also redemption. What is redemption about? It's about taking something broken. Yeah. But by accepting it, and owning it, and being fully present in it, it can become something beautiful. It's this weird paradox of thing that, you know, people who don't have hope don't really understand. Because they're like, well, that's bad. It's just all bad all the time.
But then people of faith are like, yeah, it's bad, but man, there's joy in this suffering. And then everyone thinks you're fucking crazy.
Yeah.
You know?
Didn't they say something like that in in 7? Wasn't there a conversation between Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman? Where they talk about that like, yeah, it's all fucked up. We should all go live in a log cabin, you know, and Brad Pitt's like, well, that's Morgan Freeman. He's like, you want it to be like that to where it's all fucked up. Let's just all go live in a log cabin cabin. But I don't agree with you. It's worth fighting for, you know what I mean? And he goes on his speech. All right, like
there's a way to find meaning here. And I'm not even sure what it is. But I believe the faith is that there's going to be meaning somewhere.
Yeah, which is odd in that film because Morgan Freeman's supposed to be the spiritual one in that movie and Brad Pitt's the, the, the, the rage. Right? But in that scene, he's, they're seeing each other's side of things. Okay. All is lost.
¶ Regina's Role in Flannery's Spiritual Journey
When we get back to reality, around the one hour, nine minute mark, Regina finishes the story that she wrote and voices her displeasure. Worse, she suggests Flannery write stories, quote, people will like. Any writer can truly appreciate this scene. This is once again another example of how she writes this way. Others can't handle it. They make suggestions. She ignores them. And she moves on to the next story. Although there's another great line here where Regina is challenging Flannery.
If she makes any money from this kind of writing, Flannery suggests that she is paid with reputation. Regina responds, quote, reputations don't buy groceries, end quote. I cannot tell you how much I heard dad in that line. So for anyone that knows me, if I mentioned it on any previous podcast, all when I was through school my dad kept talking about internship, internship, internship. If you want to be a writer, you're not going to make any money on that. Get an internship somewhere.
Once I was out of college and out on my own and working for a living, my dad was all, write a book, write a book, write a book. It was always like, you know, dad always had the great thought of, you know, Stasis equals death. You're not going to make any money doing what you're doing. Do this instead. So I heard dad in my ear when she said, reputations, don't buy groceries. I was like, fuck, there's like, God, it's hurt it. And it hurt. It hurt. Uh, All right. Dark night of the soul.
We have a small montage of the moment. Montage moment of what I call in quotes, living with lupus. They show her how the disease is debilitating. Or she's starting to realize the gravity of her illness, or at least we as the audience are. She obviously already knows the gravity of her illness, but we as an audience are started getting it. This worries her as she's become defiant in her writing the in her writing the entire time and praying to God in hopes she's not offending him.
Break into three. A and B stories collide. Here we go. Are you ready? One hour, 16 minute mark. Regina fulfills the best I got for a B story, leading someone to their spiritual goal. She arranges to have Father Flynn come. Talk to Flannery. So in a sense, if she was the beast theory, she served her purpose by getting Flannery into a situation where she can achieve her spiritual goal by getting her in the room with Father Flynn.
Well, in earlier Flannery had asked for the priest, but she kept pushing the doctor, doctor, doctor. And remember Flannery said, I need a priest, but she kept doing the doctor till
physical, physical, physical, spiritual. Yeah. Okay. She's worried that her writing isn't coming from God, that it lacks grace, and that it's too scandalous and has violent elements. Flynn dispels all that worry by asking Now there's a whole long scene I'm obviously cutting through, this really great
scene. Can we just, okay, can we just stop for one minute and just call him Aslan, like we're supposed to be? Because that's what I heard.
Asland? Yes! He did Asland's voice in Lord of the Rings. Come on, man. Liam Neeson, when he's talking
like a priest, sounds just like Asland. I don't think he sounds And so when Flannery was talking to him, I was like, Asland just said to you that it's okay.
¶ Aslan vs. Qui Gon Jinn: A Comparison
It's
beautiful.
See,
you hear Asland. I hear Qui Gon Jinn, so, so we can see the differences here. And when he talks, I was like, yes, because Qui Gon was like a priest. I get it. He's a Jedi master.
Aslan laid down his life.
All right. It's like, it's beautiful. Qui Gon. Lay down his life. Aslan. Qygon. Aslan. Aslan. Qygon. Aslan. Qygon. Oh my god, we're gonna be here all day. I love how this entire movie, this is what we're gonna argue about. Flynn dispels all of that, and again, I'm kinda rushing through this scene, but really it's a great scene. It is great. And if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. To me, it's the scene that kinda sells it all. He says to her
This is the scene, like, when she's talking in this scene, that they need to show at the Academy Awards when she's nominated.
Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Her, her, oh my God. He says, quote, Is your writing honest? Is your conscience clear? She nods yes, and he says, quote, Then the rest is God's business. Yeah. Another great line. And then he finishes it later with, Joy is sorrow over sorrow. Sorrow overcome, which is joy, sorrow, as I would say, I know it's very quite gone. All right, five point finale, here we go. I didn't think we'd ever get here, but here
¶ The Power of Confession
we are.
Hold on really quick at the close of the, the, the scene where he was the, the priest was there and, and she did this whole basically pouring her heart out to him. You know, in, in all her struggles and everything, and he pastorally comforts her, right? Well, I love how at the very end of that scene, They do the confession. He's like, okay, now let's do a proper confession. Now let's do
your confession! Yeah, what was that?
It's
like, Isn't that just like a Catholic priest? Yeah,
but dude, isn't that just like what you want your priest to be like? Yeah. Yes! You want your priest to be like, But how many of us, Alright,
come on, let's go on here. Present company excluded. You two aren't allowed to answer anyone that's listening. How many of us really have a relationship with our priests like that where they know our name? They know where we're from. They know everything about us and you can have a conversation. Why would we be excluded? Because I think both of you know your priest very well. I think he knows you. I think he knows your upbringing, your name, your fucking middle name.
I think he knows everything about you guys. Our deacon does, not our priest.
But that's okay. I mean, it takes time.
No, I get it. What that also did for me though, is someone who's actually has recently returned to the Catholic Church. The idea that you can have this This powerful scene. And then it concludes with him ex basically saying, okay, now we're gonna do the sacrament. And it's, it's, it's a private thing. We don't need to hear her confession. Right. We don't watch it. We don't get to watch it. Yeah. It's a, that's a private thing between her and God. Yeah. And this priest.
Yeah. And I think it was done
like that purpose. It was great. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, he's so good. Listen to him. That's good. Think about, that's why I said, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah. Just think
about that for a second. That's really beautiful, babe. Thank you. We lost Jared. We lost Jerome again. No, but really, I mean that, that's a good, and actually I didn't catch that. I didn't catch that she went through all that. And then he said, let's do a proper confession and then it cut out. It didn't go into that private moment. Right.
Right. Right.
So,
¶ Gathering the Team: The Five Point Finale
all right. Five point finale. Here we go. Gathering the team. father Flynn serves a dual purpose. Not only does he give the reassurance to Flannery, the purpose of the team the purpose to break into three, but also it's the best example we have of gathering the team, right? This is her, like, facing everything that she's been working toward. Execution of the plan, she begins writing, Good country people, with herself as Holga, the girl with the wooden leg. Originally named Joy, see that?
See what he did there? Joy. Is sorrow overcome? Her character's original name is Joy, but she changed it to Hulga, and the wooden leg represents Lupus. The ailment that Olga comes to live with and ultimately becomes attached to as part of her identity. I think that's, that's very
¶ The Writing Process and Identity
telling.
The hardest thing about having any kind of a disease is saying my disease and like owning that as part of your identity instead of just as a thing that you're struggling with because it's in the flesh. It isn't me. It isn't my personality, but it's a very real present part of my life.
And how many times do people say, and you could probably speak more better about this than I can, that this ailment, whatever it is, doesn't define me. You hear that all the time, right? This doesn't define me. And while it might not define you as a bad word, but it is part of you now, right? Right. And you
struggle, but it's all words matter, right? So my, my disease, my, this, my, that, and I'm like, no, the, the, this is an outside. This isn't who I am. This is like a foreign invader. And yes, I have to live with them, right? I mean, how many people have had to do that throughout history in real life? You're living with a foreign invader as your neighbor. It's part of your life, but it isn't who you are. Right. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, I get that.
Okay, three, Hightower Surprise.
¶ Flannery's Personal Struggles and Triumphs
Flannery gets a letter from Cal, who she thinks she sees at the train station, but you know, it's just a figment of her imagination. He informs her that he is marrying Elizabeth. Much to her disappointment. Dig down I think it's much
to her chagrin.
I actually wrote chagrin. I fucking wrote chagrin. Did
you really?
I did. Oh, I'm so proud of you. I, no, I feel bad now that I tried to dumb it down for our audience. No, don't dumb it,
this is an intelligent audience.
I felt that we were drinking at that point so much that I should just say disappointment. You
are never drinking too much to properly use the word.
Alright, well for the audience, I fucking wrote it. It's right there. Take a picture. What's funny is that you should say that because I literally wrote much to her chagrin. Okay. That's great. Dig down deep. At one hour, 35 minutes in, the peacock arrives. Yeah. And it is the first time we see her smile in a long time. Yeah, and those teeth
though. Sweet woman. She had some teeth.
They gave her teeth. That's not Maya's teeth.
I know. Oh, do you know that for sure? I'm pretty sure, yeah. I've seen them. Right now, Maya's listening because she's sitting right next to Ethan. Oh, yeah. They're listening to this together. They're listening together. And she's like, Yes! Those weren't my teeth! That's prosthetics or whatever. Okay, five. Execution of the new plan. Acceptance of the disease. She knows she'll never move back to New York and decides to stay with mom.
And like you said, she's now, how you mentioned about that, that was sort of like a personal thing for her now that she has to live off, right? Her mother's, her mother's money. But mom
accepted the peacocks too, man. Yes,
I know, but, but the funny thing is the mom at first was like, they're gonna eat all my flowers or whatever. And
then they do, but she still isn't saying get rid of them.
Well, and what I understand peacocks are. Little fuckers, man. They eat everything. Like, they don't, they're, they, they put, they only put out their little feathers when they want. They don't do it all the time. They only do it when they want. And they eat everything. They're little bitches. All right, anyway. All right, so she builds the writing shrine in her room, and she writes. Now, I have to say, before we get to this ending she's fully now accepting, like, who she really is.
Which, again, I don't want to say she hasn't changed from the beginning. All I, all I'm saying is, is that her defiance in her character, at least the defiance in her writing, the biggest journey. I feel that she had was, was culminating in that priest scene. It was her relationship with God. And the peacock feathers coming out, I, I fuckin love that addition at the end. Because of, you know, like, like what Jessie said, she builds this wall, and this shrine to herself.
Not, not to herself. For herself.
No, what, what did I say?
You said to herself, which, I mean, but words matter, right? It's for herself, I think, is a better way to articulate that.
Like a shrine to yourself would be like Yeah,
I think it's just for herself. Oh, I'm sorry. It's like she created a place for herself where she could finally be free, be herself. Yes,
the shrine, not to herself, but for herself. And the epilogue on screen states that she stayed writing in that room for the next 14 years until her death. Okay, side note, side notes, as mentioned I think it's very clear that Ethan and co writer Shelby Gaines made to depict her writing process. Often, like the mental side of it, right? Experiencing her life and having them play out.
In the people in her life, playing the fictional roles of the stories that were going on in her head at the time for us, the audience, you know what I mean? And again, I mentioned many biopics, particularly about writers. They have too many moments where the subject is like sitting at a typewriter and just typing. And while Wildcat has a few of those, they're usually just there for setup, and then we jump into the story. You know what I mean?
We don't have a, we don't spend a lot of time just showing her sitting there writing at a typewriter, which I, which I love. I think that was a creative way to handle that. And those elements that we see Like the short story elements. They're far more entertaining when you do it that way. You know what I mean?
Then a person sitting in a typewriter typing, and even if they had a voiceover while they were typing, which you've seen movies do that, where they're sitting in a typewriter and then you hear what they're saying, but that's lame too, in comparison to what. Ethan does where we get to actually visually see it and see it
with the main character of Maya playing Flannery and Laura playing mom. What's her name? Roberta.
Regina.
Regina. Oh, man. See? I told you. Horrible with names. But anyway, but seeing it play out that way, just, it adds such depth to the story.
Which also saved them a whole bunch of money on not having to hire other actors. Yeah, because
it is an artistic license, right? I mean, you're taking for granted that all of these stories are dilemmas that she's having as she wrestles with her making peace with loving this imperfect mother. But but maybe it wasn't like that for her. Maybe it was more cut and dry. Maybe she was imagining the neighbor. We don't know. They took their artistic liberty there.
But you know what? In having the same actors play these characters that are in the short stories, to me it actually helps the story. Like if they would have hired different actors, it might have been more confusing. Like, okay, what is this story now? And who are these people? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because it was the same actors, Linney and Maya Hawke in different roles. Yeah, you knew. Yeah, you knew, oh, this is a story.
Particularly the bus, the revelation. No, no, it was the all things that rises must converge, right? Right, right. So on the bus, she's dressed like a boy.
Yep.
Right? And her mom even says, why are you always dressed like a gangster whenever we go out together? Like that, like when I saw that, I was like, I got it. We're in a new story now, and I think because again, I hadn't read it the actual story at the time I remember thinking not only are we in a new story. I think in this story. She's playing a boy Right like so I I don't know. I thought it was genius.
I thought it was genius I will say, in addition to that, the direction and the cinematography are fantastic. Obviously, as well as the acting from everyone involved. Mostly Maya, playing Flannery. I think she carries the film. She carries it on her shoulders, and remember that she's rarely off screen. And you don't see that that much where the main character is almost in every single scene. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
It's her film. Easily. From start to end. Oddly enough, I'm going to say something, Chris. Here's some criticism I'm going to throw at you now. Since you, sir, we're critical of Killian Murphy's, what you called PTSD stare in Oppenheimer. Maya had a similar, what I call, quote unquote, her thinking face that she does have draped in many scenes in this movie. I happen to not mind the PTSD stare in Oppenheimer, which is why I loved the thinking face that Maya has.
But if you are gonna love Maya in this movie, you better go back and rethink your Oppenheimer criticism.
Maybe.
But what if Cillian Murphy just has a really creepy face? And that's all, that just makes the stare worse.
Alright, in honor of that. Okay.
Well here, just one thing, wait, hold on. I want to say one thing, I don't know if you're going to talk about this. One thing? Just one thing. I'm going to say, here's a thing that I noticed in this movie that I do not notice in movies. Lighting.
You don't notice lighting in movies? Nope,
never have until this one. You haven't
seen a lot of Scorsese movies, have you?
No. Have you seen
The Godfather?
I don't like Scorsese. Was that how you say it? You don't like Scorsese movies? No, I don't. I don't like movies where a whole bunch of people are being killed all the time. Okay, so don't judge me. It is what it is. But in this movie, I paused. The, I paused the movie in the scene where they're up in the barn, where she, where the guy's like hustling off her leg. And I was like, look at the lighting in this scene. Was there a thing? Because why would I notice that?
It was very good lighting, but it's odd to me that it took this movie for you to realize that lighting plays a part in the direction of a film.
I don't know. It's just a thing I finally noticed. I mean, hello, we're all evolving. I evolved. All right,
Ethan, since you're still listening with Maya sitting right next to you. Your cinematographer and your key grips and the guys that set up the lights. Well done. Well done. Dude, is the key
grip the one with the lights? I've never known what the key grip did.
Well, the grips, the key grip just leads all the grips. The grips are the guys that carry the lights from the trailer. They set them all up but the cinematographer is really in charge. The
important grip. The well, the key grip is in charge, the king
grip, king of all the grips. Wow.
I love it. I never knew that.
But the cinematographer is in charge of all that shit. They're in charge of the lighting and the filters and all that shit. Okay. Trivia. Title. You guys are going to like this one. So, Ethan Hawke's first interview. The one with the priest Bishop Barron? Yes. That was the first, that was the first interview he did for this film.
Yep.
He's asked about the title by the bishop. And he says that it's a play on her character in real life. Unpredictable, untameable, that she is a wildcat. But then the bishop goes on about how he figured it was taken from an early short story that she wrote. Called
the Wildcat!
Wait, wait, let me finish. called Wildcat, which is about an old blind black dude who isolates himself inside of his cabin because he's afraid of this wildcat that's roaming around outside his cabin. Murdering people! While his family tells him that they're gonna kill the thing, it does serve as the metaphor that he is accepting that death is coming for him.
Lupus comes from the Latin word wolf, so there's a connection between the wildcat in that story and the lupus that she had in real life, metaphorically. Stalking her outside the cabin, as the cabin of her soul, as death breathes down her neck. The film does seem to keep that bleak reality in the forefront. The fact that she knows she's gonna die. There's a lot of somber shots. There's occasional crows calling and bell tolls.
And of course, the final epilogue mentions the connection to Lupus to the word the wolf, right? So the bishop says all this and Ethan says, Ethan Hawke says Well, this is my first Wildcat Ick interview. From now on, I'll say that that was the meaning of the title. Oh my god.
Okay. Dude. So.
So
I read. That's amazing.
So I. Ethan! Wait, wait, wait. Before you start. Ethan. Say it. Talk to Ethan. Since I know you're listening, Ethan. That's the perfect fucking answer. If somebody tells you something is more meaningful than you meant it, go with that! That's the one you go with here am I I'm trying to teach Ethan Hawke something He's been in the fucking business a million years But yeah that absolutely he had the perfect answer from now on every interview I give that's the meaning
¶ The Wildcat Metaphor and Racism
of the title
Okay, so one point Bishop Baron Anyway, so when I read Wildcat, I, so my perception of that story was that the Wildcat was a metaphor for the thing that you fear the most.
And in the story, I, I felt it was a nod to racism, that these people, that's what they were really afraid of, like this systematic racism, that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter how successful you are, how much you try to change the culture, there are certain things in place that are just always going to come and get you.
And
they're gonna get you in your sleep that you can't even avoid it. So it's interesting that, and so when I read that, I thought. I thought that's what the movie was named for, too, and I thought it was literally a failure of her writing. I thought her biggest fear wasn't dying of lupus in the end. I mean, I have an autoimmune disease. My biggest fear isn't dying from this disease. It's dying after living a life where I didn't contribute.
Like a life without meaning, a life where I didn't accomplish my great hopes and dreams artistically. Right? So I thought the Wildcat was her dying without writing that freaking novel. So, okay, Ethan, I agree with Bishop Barron, but also could we please consider my, could we consider this as an option? Cause that's what I thought. And I was like, wow, that's really amazing that they named the story Wildcat because yeah.
So I didn't watch all these other extra interviews or anything and literally not trying to compete with Bishop Baron or anything, but, but seriously, I thought it was the wildcat was her failure to launch.
That's again, that's the beauty of writing. Several people can read the same thing or beauty of film. Several people can watch the same movie and see, well, yeah, painting, sculpture, everything. The beauty of art is that, you know, no two people look at the same thing. When they, when they view something now, it's, it's interesting that you mentioned racism. So Ethan Hawke and Maya Hawke I read this as trivia. This is not from one of the interviews. So if it's wrong, Ethan, you can correct me.
What I read is that Ethan and Maya almost abandoned this project entirely when they came across the letters that Flannery wrote.
When they were revealed because she drops the n word a lot in them and while the film depicts that everyone around her was racist and she comes off almost kind of innocent she rolls her eyes a lot she's showing disgust and all this stuff in reality she herself was not much different than they were the difference was so she sort of from from what I read she felt the same way they did about African Americans being around her, but she still felt that they had the same, that they should have the
same rights. She had a progressive view on civil rights, but she herself kind of didn't want to be around this. You know what I mean? Around that culture or the environment to get around this, to keep Flannery as a protagonist, that audiences would root for a lot of her words. And in some cases, direct sentences that she wrote in her letters, they took them out and put them in the supporting cast. They, they had other people say those lines when they themselves actually came from her.
So again, although she had a progressive. Sort of like idea about civil rights. She wasn't personally Much different than they were and you know what that reminded me of? Chris, you might remember this George Carlin had this bit when he was alive In my backyard Yes, yes NIMBY, NIMBY, N I M B Y, not in my backyard. So even if it's something you believe in It doesn't mean you want to be around it. You know what I mean? And the example that Carlin used was prisons.
He's like, everyone's always like, build more prisons, but not here. You know what I mean? Like, so, that I thought was an interesting thing. The most interesting part of that, though, is that they almost abandoned this project. They were like, we don't want, you know, I don't know if we want to do this. But then they came up with the creative way of sort of like, I don't know, misdirecting it.
Well, I think if we're all honest with ourselves, I mean, that's what humanizes it as well, because she's still a product of her culture.
Sure. Absolutely.
And I think there are times that I even, you know, like not intentionally virtue signaling or whatever people call that today. But like, I believe things and I think things and then I'll be in a real life situation. And I'll feel that the automatic response I'm having is not the one I want to have. It's the one I don't want to have. And I have to check. There's a check in the system. And I'm ashamed of myself. That the automatic response was the thing that I don't want. You know what I mean?
And so, and that's why I said early on, something that's too perfect, I don't want to have anything to do with that. Because I know it's not true. I know that's not true, especially if it's about a person. Because there isn't a single one of us. No matter how much we want good in the world, no matter how good we want to be, no matter how much we try, that doesn't have a thing in us that rises up in us at times that scares the shit out of every one of us. And it's in us.
And if we can't be honest with that, how are we ever going to reckon with it? How are we ever going to change?
And I think that's why, why they still went ahead with the project. At first thought, their thought might have been, we might abandon this project only because The rest of the world doesn't always see the way the things the way you just depicted, you know what I mean? So he wants he wanted to tell the story. He wanted to tell the story of Flannery. It's a great story She's a human story.
She's an amazing writer And you know This is a story that needed to be told as a movie that needs to come out that people need to see And I understand the original fear of this other Aspect is going to keep people from wanting to see it. And we don't want that or become
a barrier basically from being able to hear anything else past that, because unfortunately, one thing that we are not very good at in this culture is just being quiet and listening long enough to find out more
in our, in our cancel culture. I mean, you almost can't take any historical figure And lift them up. Because they all have something they did or said, you know what I mean?
And that means anybody. Yeah, anybody. Abraham Lincoln, he
had a dark side, right? I mean, come on. You know what I mean? Who'd you say? Who'd you say? Abraham Lincoln.
I'm sorry. She was talking when you were talking. I thought you said Hannibal Lecter. I was like, Oh, no, no, no. I said, Hey, Chris, Chris, that dude's not real.
I do. You do. We all do. We all do. We all do. I mean, like this is, this is Jesus saying to the people who let you, who is, who has no sin cast the first stone.
Bring it on. This is a story of a Catholic woman. So like the apostle Paul.
Yeah.
He said, I, I do the things I don't wanna do, and I, I, the things I wanna do, the things I wanna do, I don't do. And, you know, so he wrestled with that part of his human nature too. And he wrote half the Bible, or at least the Christian Bible Yeah. So, anyway, yeah.
¶ Final Thoughts and Acknowledgements
Yeah.
I just love the humanness of this story, quite honestly. Oh, I, I, I honestly.
I really think it's an important film. It's a great film and I hope it gets noticed. I really like, like, I don't, you know, again, it's only September today is September 3rd for those of us that are listening that my brother won't edit this and put it out until February, but it's September 3rd right now.
Boating season's almost over.
And we don't know what else is coming out yet. There might be some amazing films that come out, but right now, I don't know if I've seen a movie this year. That has moved me quite as much as this one has. So I hope, I just hope it gets recognized. I'm not saying it has to sweep anything, but I hope it gets recognized. I would love to see Maya get nominated. I'd like to see Ethan get nominated.
Again, I got my little issues with the screenplay, but if Ethan gets nominated for director, and Maya gets nominated for best actress, And maybe, you know, even throw Laura Linney in there and Best Supporting Actress. Like give me a Cinematography nomination. Give me an Editing nomination. And I'm good. Lighting? Best Picture? Best Key
Grip. I want Best Key Grip.
Best, Best Alright, alright. Somebody needs to Alright, cut her off, cut her off.
No, I'm just teasing.
She wants more writer's tears. No, no, but all jokes aside, this is the kind of movie that would snag, that could snag a production design Oscar nomination. A best picture nomination.
What about, would it be original screenplay? You struggle with the screenplay though, but I mean.
If it got, I struggled with, I don't think it's. Okay, since Ethan is listening, Ethan, I'm sorry. You definitely deserve a Best Director nomination. I don't know if I think this is one of the best screenplays, although if you were going to categorize it, I think it would have to be original, even though there's parts taken that are adapting from real works. It's not you know, based on any one singular published material. I don't know. That'll be interesting.
Cause remember Barbie ended up getting an adapted screenplay nomination. Yeah. That was weird. Yeah. So it's really how they play it. I don't know how they're going to, I don't know how they're going to present it as an adapted or an original,
but, and again, as far as I'm concerned, like her work was difficult at the time to read. It wasn't received well, and it still isn't. Right. I mean, and, and I think because it's
almost poetic then for the critics to be split down the middle. Exactly.
And I think, I think it, I think it, it, it has to be this way. You know what I mean?
Yeah. It almost would feel weird if everybody was like, Oh, this is the greatest thing we ever heard.
Everybody loved it. Something's wrong, right? Because then if
everybody loved it, then we would have, then everybody would have been reading Flannery O'Connor 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. You know what I mean? So I was really interested to hear that interview with Bishop Baring saying how much he's always been a fan of Flannery because my thing was the first thing I thought of was I went to a Catholic grade school. I went to a Catholic high school. They didn't push Flannery at all, right?
Yeah.
So maybe that's something that should be changed. And I'm thinking
that maybe one of her works showed up in a short story. I don't know. Anthology that I read in college because I knew her name and I had a general idea of her writing. Just kind of knew the time and the place, but that's it, man, that's it.
Yeah.
She's really not talked about a lot. So I'm grateful. I mean, really rock bottom at the end of the day. I'm grateful that I was exposed to another American writer that hadn't really heard a lot about so that I could read that work and make my own. Like judgments or whatever, just learn, just try to learn from it.
Yeah. Thank you, Ethan. Thank you, Maya.
He's, he's waiting for, he's waiting for a card and some flowers here. And
thank you, Maya, for seriously, one of the better performances I've seen in a while. Yeah, absolutely.
So different, so unique. And you don't see anything unique hardly ever.
One other little piece of trivia. It's, it's not. A huge thing, but Chris mentioned earlier how she brought the project to him. In a sense, she hired him.
Yeah.
She's the boss. Like, she hired her dad to write and direct. He mentioned at one point, he thought it was kind of odd that he had to go to her, like, So, like, what do you, what do you think? Is this gonna work? Like, like, like, she was the boss on the set. As executive producer, he was, he was a hired gun, man. He was a hired writer and a hired director. Yeah. So I thought that was kind of a funny element there.
And what does that say about their relationship, that you could see that come through in the, in the finished product?
Well, I mean, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm biased cause I've watched probably a dozen interviews with him and her in the interview together. So I've got to see a lot of interaction between them and they have quite an amazing father daughter. Relationship when it comes. And he's, I've heard him say on several interviews that they bond over the arts. So, you know, fathers and daughters cannot see eye to eye on things, but they found something that they come together on. And it, it comes through.
I mean, it comes through in the work. It comes through in their interviews.
The way they tell a story together. Yeah.
The way they sing songs together. Yeah. Uh, They, like Maya is a musical artist too, and Ethan at least did one song, a duet that was a a Willie Nelson cover. And it's beautiful. I, I didn't know it was a Willie Nelson cover when I first heard it, but then I found myself just, I, I kept going back to it and I'm listening to it and then listening to it. It's a moving song. I I can't remember the name of it now.
Because of the writer's tears, babe. Yeah. That's the problem. Gotta write this stuff down.
Anyways. I just want to say I want to thank Jessi again for joining us, since this is our first time we've had a guest.
Am I ever going to be able to come back?
No way! I think, you were terrible! You were absolutely terrible!
You're terrible! Listen,
I'm absolutely joking. The whole point we agreed to this and wanted you on because we knew that you would give insight. Wildcat that I I don't want to say that my brother and I wouldn't give Certainly I couldn't get, I know Chris could probably talk all day about this, but we wanted to get some outside perspective on something outside of just a movie review. So we were glad to have you on. We knew this was a personal project for you, Ethan. I know you're still listening. This was a purpose.
This was a personal project for Jessie. So since she already was on that conference call, you should probably hit her up and in the meantime, check out. Silver Screen Happy Hours, Ethan Hawke Day. Where we talk about two of your films where you're the lead and you get credited as supporting actor. Alright, anyway. Okay.
That's where we landed the plane on this long episode. Thanks for hanging with us. We'd love to hear from you. Look us up on our socials. And stay tuned for the part two of this episode where we will break down Stranger Than Fiction. As I always like to say, go support your local cinema.