Cate Blanchett in "Heaven"

spk_0:   0:00
What do you do? On Sunday, we talked about Cate Blanchett, the act,

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the costumes, the awards, but mostly Blanchard of it all.

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No, I think, is a Erica.

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This is Sundays escaped and I'm your host or Todd Ill. Welcome to Sunday's Escape, our podcast series about the films of Cate Blanchett. This is Murtada el Foot, and today we are discussing the 2002 film Heaven and My Guests. It's Kyle Stevens. Hi, Kyle.

spk_0:   0:42
Hi, How are you?

spk_1:   0:44
Good. How are you?

spk_0:   0:45
I'm doing while pains Very

spk_1:   0:47
excited to have you on the podcast, to talk about Kate and about Heaven. And before we jump dive into our conversation, tell our listeners a little bit about you.

spk_0:   0:57
I'm a professor of film studies. This coming semester, I'll be doing a visiting gig at M I T, which is very fun. Usually I'm at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. I work on Ah, couple different things. Some queer cinema articles sound, but a lot of a lot of things about phone performance have edited a couple books about screen performance, and my first book was about Mike Nichols and psychological realism. So that involves a lot of discussion of performance, too.

spk_1:   1:26
One of the books he edited has Kate as Blue Jasmine on the cover, right? It

spk_0:   1:31
does yes. The American Collection, the collection, American screen performances, great screen performance. It's got lots of good writers and scholars from from all over doing doing working. Yeah, I think I'm Blue Jasmine. Such a such an amazing performance. So we put it on the cover.

spk_1:   1:47
Yeah, it deserves to it deserve It's everything It does Boy Harold to Talk About Heaven, which is a movie that was released in 2002. It starts Caden, Giovanni Ri BC. It's directed by Tony Tick for Mid was written by Christophe Kozlowski and his writing partner, Christophe Pisco. It's, I think, who together made Blue, White and Red the trilogy, and this was supposed to be and utility heaven, hell and purgatory. And because Loski died before they were able to make the movies. And I think I'm not sure was he always meant to direct them or the Tomczyk for coming before he died or after I'm not sure. But anyway, Tomczyk for directed it, and this was the only one in the trilogy that was made to send

spk_0:   2:36
you a little Kozlowski, but I didn't know the whole story. Yeah, I don't know if he was meant to direct them. One assumes, though.

spk_1:   2:42
Yes. So the movie was racing. 2000 to Kate plays Philippa Picard. It's a very double P name. She's an English teacher living in Turin who carries out a terrorist attack. Um, the reason she does that is because her husband was killed by this corrupt policemen who deals drugs or he the corrupt businessmen in cahoots was the police who deals drugs. Let me correct that. And she had tried to get justice the regular way but didn't and then plants of bombs in this man's office. The bomb doesn't kill him, but actually kills for other innocent people. And the movie starts was her on the day that she carries out this attack and then through the interrogations. Giovanni Ri BC is the other main character in the movie, and he plays one of the police people interrogating her. He's an interpreter, and for some reason he sees her and he falls in love. I understand that is a gate for you. See that face awful in love and Esther and then he breaks, they break out and the movie then becomes something else other than what it was in the first half. So you like this phone, right, Kyle?

spk_0:   4:00
I do. I do. I like it very much. Um, before even talk about that, I'm curious, and I'm interested in thinking about it as a terrorist attack. I mean, I feel like, in a way, I mean, you could call it vigilante justice, which might also be a terrorist attack. But it I mean, I think one of the things I guess I like about the film is that it's like high tragedy, right where, like the action, we're sort of on board like this is such a corrupt system. And so, Maney, there's all these Children that die right there. Yeah. I mean, this this this is a bad guy, right? And

spk_1:   4:35
he's a very bad guy. He's killed lots of people, weasel the drinks that he deals, and he's basically she's a teacher. And she talks about how so many Children yeah, actually teaches have died. And even Steven goes and wanting to explain in sort of gruesome detail how one of them died as a result of this man's actions,

spk_0:   4:54
right? So it's not. She's not trying to create terror, the ice, trying to sort of, like, just rid the world of this bad guy. I'm not like endorsing taking

spk_1:   5:02
No, I think this is actually going to bring up because I guess I'm just conditioned to somebody planted a bomb there. A terrorist. So but it's good to interrogate it.

spk_0:   5:12
Yeah, because because then they feel like we start to misunderstand. Kind of like what's good about the movie? But also what's interesting about her performance to yeah, and and the feminist aspect of it, too. I mean, I think that especially back in 2002 it was so unusual to see a woman in a you know, a teacher, saying, saying like enough, right? I'm trying to, like, protests and disrupt the system again. I'm not endorsing tracking box. We know you're like conviction, you know, like, this is something we're Batman doing it. We would applaud, right?

spk_1:   5:45
Yeah, totally. I mean, she's She is, as Imdb says, takes the law into her own hands. So I guess this is the filmmakers discussion of the action

spk_0:   5:58
that there's also a long going around the whole system is so crap drink. So there's just no law at all in this world.

spk_1:   6:05
Yes, absolutely. I mean, she she does that because the law has failed her. Basically,

spk_0:   6:10
he felt everyone build his kids. Yeah, So the action is good, even if the consequences are awful right? And that's what I think is so high tragedy about it. Like she's she's done the right thing like that. Our actions have consequences, like well beyond our intentions. And then that's when it's, like, really tragic.

spk_1:   6:27
I mean, that's the sort of moral question at the center of the film. Like, just what you said we are with her because she was doing the right thing. She wanted to kill one person. What has happened is that she killed four other innocent people and the person she wanted to kill his actually still alive. Yeah, she has to grapple with the consequences of what she did,

spk_0:   6:49
but it's so much it makes it so much more interesting than like a typical Bonnie and Clyde kind of story where, you know, Okay, they're they're stealing money from banks, so we call them anti heroes. But in fact, we all agree that capitalism and banks are bad, and so, like they're really just heroes, right? Like people talk about anti. Here is all the time, Really. They're just here is and we just judge the system that they're fighting against. Whereas this is much more complicated, like all the guilt and regret that she has, like, she's still announce that I think is great about Cate Blanchett's performance, that she sustains that level of agony over what she's done, even though she thought it was the right thing to do. And it wasn't maybe the right thing to do. But she still has this, like moral center to it, which is like a real anti hero. I feel like you don't see that very often.

spk_1:   7:37
Yeah, and I think a lot of like we have to talk about the interrogations seed rights. So the interrogation scene is basically the centerpiece of the movie. It's a very, very long seen after she is arrested. She didn't try to hide or anything. She knew what she was doing After she's arrested, she is interrogated by Giovanni Ri BC, as the interpreter and two other Italian policemen, and yeah, at that time she just thought she killed who she intended to kill. But I think the master stroke in this performance is as she's being asked questions. She learns that she killed four innocent people and that if

spk_0:   8:17
amazing,

spk_1:   8:19
it is so easy.

spk_0:   8:21
I didn't breathe. I saw this in the theater. I think it came out in Germany first. I think I was still living in Germany when I saw this. I know my DVD copy is German still, so I must have seen it there and I just couldn't breathe. I mean, this is like a way before birth, right at night, like, really famous close up of Nicole Kidman that people still go on and on, which is a great close up. But I want people to see this one, too, because it unbelievable what she goes through in this incredibly long extended close up.

spk_1:   8:49
Yeah, so she doesn't know what happened. They tell her what happened. Just as Kyle was just talking about the emotions on her face as she realizes that she has guilt for innocent people. It is. It is so perfect.

spk_0:   9:05
It's unbelievable. Acting really is quite true.

spk_1:   9:10
See, What was it only for baby people who died so sort of throw your best. No, no, no. I just

spk_0:   9:20
mean the office. The man of the office. I put the bombing. His office feature your nobody burrito. I I did. I don't have a husband. He's dead. Overdosed. Look over those. We know this, my boy. Listen, I've been calling. I've been writing. I've been trying to get your attention for here. The kind of immunity have been year because of what they got. I wanted to talk to them. I wanted to tell him about that. The man who controls the drug scene did I knew him. He studied with my husband because of him to through die. Every we have a new body because

spk_1:   10:25
of Shorty, Shorty got came or your income. And I think everybody like I read a few reviews to To prepare to talk to you today. And everybody spends at least one paragraph talking about that C and the duration of their hair face

spk_0:   10:51
because you're not. Yeah, I do. Especially if you do like long, close ups like in birth. And it's such a payment shop. But I feel like this one really should get as much attention.

spk_1:   11:02
Yeah, and unlike burst. This is one that's that's just acting. There is no music to tell you how to feel. There is no clever set up before to sort of build your emotions. It's just an interrogation scene. It's before the close up. It's just two people in mid shots talking to each other her and in the interrogator and lots of cutbacks to Giovanni is 1/3 person they're interpreting. So you think it's just this everyday scene that is not any special thing. It's not set up a special, and then just in the middle of the conversation like this is maybe three minutes into this very long seen. So in the middle of this conversation, Suddenly this huge revelation happen, and then it becomes is completely different scene. And it's just Kate is Hold that, um, close up so well.

spk_0:   11:54
I mean, yeah, yeah, We already knew she could carry a movie because of Elizabeth and stuff, but this was just like she's so major in that moment. It was something that we haven't seen before on screen. I've always thought, like fantasized about making a list of like, all the like thoughts and feelings. You see her go through, and I have seen like I feel like it would take pages and pages because she goes through so many like things like that. It's so clear that things she's thinking and feeling as if like, realization dawns and it really sinks on like that. These people are dead and what she's done and that this guy is still out there, and it's just like Harding on an arm. But it's made

spk_1:   12:36
so many things, and I also love, like later on in this scene. She just, they seem, continues, and they continue the interrogation in this realization. First, that she killed these people and then that the person she wanted to kill is still alive. So and at just one point she gets so overwhelmed that she faints and that fainting as someone who like I've watched Kate a lot, and I know how she can use her body to not on Lee just act with her body and fill the frame, but also to give us a beautiful image. Like I think of this as a sister to that scene in Carol, where she gets up while, um, that Christmas scene. That date was with Rooney, where she is playing with the Christmas presents, and then she gets up, and that's a getting obscene, very smooth. And this is the opposite. So here she is, not getting up from the floor. She's falling into the floor and just also full. Very beautifully.

spk_0:   13:38
Yeah, she didn't just start yoga reason like I just had the court big for a long time. She has a likely how to do that. Yeah, it is quite lovely.

spk_1:   13:56
There are a couple of rave reviews for Kate Blash it in heaven that I thought I must quote just a little bit from So Stephen Holden in The New York Times says, And this is a quote. Also, Miss Blanchett's face has always registered emotion with a mercurial, fluid ity. The immediacy of feeling she conveys in heaven is astonishing. It allows her to carry off the seemingly impossible seat of making us care passionately about a woman who has committed an unforgivable crime. And Roger Ebert says Blanche, its performance confirms her power once again. She never goes for, in effect here, never protects herself, just plays the character straight ahead. As a woman forced by grief and rage into a rash action and then living with the consequences. You see why

spk_0:   14:55
I had to quote those? I mean, we have, you know, saying that she, like, blows you away when she's a leave in the movie. Now, it just sounds silly, but, I mean, at that time, Elizabeth Well, I think it is an amazing, amazing performance on. And then tell the talented Mr Ripley kind of blew everyone away as well, right? She just steals that whole movie. She does like back down the I'm, uh I don't actually know how well is that did at the box office, but it it felt to me like, this is before Twitter it felt to me and my friends like cable, and it was very much, you know, like our discovery, right? Like we all felt a special connection to this kind of quirky Australia and actress who is like not Angelina Jolie, And not when it Paltrow and not Winona Ryder, Like she was young and beautiful, but in such a quirky way, right in her ears, stick out and her, like her live, is kind of far from her nose. And she has a wide bridge of her nose and stuff like she shouldn't really be like the most beautiful woman in the world. But it's you say is right. And it was it was amazing. And it did feel like, um, like an answer to some of those other actresses that I mentioned who are so good. I like him, too. But, um, for her to, like, kind of break out in the mainstream with things like Talented Mr Ripley. But then go and do this like Tom Tick for German film, like, Half in Italian. And yeah, I worked with the director of Run, Lola Run. It was just like she was just so cool at that point. Like it just felt really, really cool and then shaving her head for the role, right? Like it was just like everything about her at the time. And this role just dripped coolness. Uh, like, totally even 11. Then she get this incredible performance and carries the whole movie. And, you know, I just don't white T shirt and a shaved head and she's Gloria's.

spk_1:   16:56
She is so glorious. I also like in the first few minutes of the movie, as Philippa is preparing for her big day. The movement that when she's just walking around, it's completely different. Like just I just said that you always uses her body, but that walk she's really glides on screen. And as Phillipe, she's not gliding. She's walking more awkwardly. It's not exactly a waddle, but it's definitely not the usual glide that she does this Carol or Blue Jasmine or not. All Yeah, Bob Dylan,

spk_0:   17:29
right? She's carrying the weight of the world here, right? I mean, sheets. She's undoing everything she believes, and I would be totally unsurprised to find out. She put like weight in her shoes or something. Teoh give effect because you're right. It really is like a plotting kind of, Yeah. Oh,

spk_1:   17:45
are you know, some very heavy stones in her handbag or something? Three Other thing I wanted to talk about is she plays an English person, but or an English teacher who is from England, but and she lives in a town in Italy and she speaks Italian and you divide into BBC is Italian. And as someone who's you know, Mother Tongue is our it's Arabic. Sometimes when people speak other languages that they don't know like, I'll give you an example of Naveen Andrews in Lost, who played in the Iraqi person who was supposedly speaking Arabic. It literally he was speaking gibberish. No, nobody has speaks Arabic, understood a word that he said in that in that series, and recently I saw just the trailer for unusable. Who para movie, where she speaks Arabic. Same thing. You don't understand where she's saying So it's It's after school. Learn fanatically, I trust gave his accent. She's always perfect, but I don't know if this would be jarring to Italian speakers or not. Maybe Giovanni's might be even more Dari, and I know if they learned the Italian or they just, you know, learned the sounds.

spk_0:   18:52
I think I have vague memories of them doing press at the time and talking about learning Italian. But I can't really recollect anything with certainty. I would imagine that it would be intelligible, but I can't really, really speak to that either. So mention tangentially that Meryl Streep and Sophie's Choice her German actually has a Polish accent like not only is an intelligible German, but it has a Polish perfect Polish accent. Injury may think

spk_1:   19:20
Yes, of course, Merrill would do that, and I think Marion Courtyard in the immigrant. Olson speaks with certain Polish accent from the Polish region where the character came from. So I think Kate is will probably be with the company of those women, and this would be perfect Italian spoken with and English accent because her character is English. But anyway, any Italian native speakers who are listening to this tell us about the Italian. So I wanted to talk. Also in this movie like the the plot is sort of It's a little fast. I like they, you know. They escape very easily and then becomes a Siris of they meet his dad. They meet her friend. It's it sort of becomes a fable on. It's not like a riel plot heavy move your it doesn't really make sense. It's kind of all un, really. Even though it starts in this very grounded riel thing that happens, that's death, and I kind of like that about the movie. The movie becomes like almost a different movie in the second half. What did you think of that? It

spk_0:   20:39
does well, I think I think it's an art film, right? I mean, take for run, Lola. Ron is like one of the great experimental kind of films, notes. It's got that kind of video game structure where the main character dies, sort of comes back to life writing The story kind of happens three times, and it's all about chance and contingency on. And I think that clearly there's something about chance and contingency at work and heaven where you know the bomb kills the wrong people. It doesn't so it is not a light or no effervescent has run Lola run, of course, but I think that there's still a lot of style here, right, like we already talked about, like the really long close up. So and that's what art films do, right? They tell you, like Who hears a gritty story? You know, drugs, corrupt law enforcement, all of that, like all of this, like shitty stuff going on, And it feels very teams overdosing right? It feels very realist, but then it's told in a really non realist style, right, so you get the great actress like land shed and you do long close ups and and you do this really stylized ending. But that's just kind of what our comes to. And that's what gives them their their fable like quality. They just like, throw it back us like here. We don't know what to do. We can't reconcile having like super stylish depictions of the world with really greedy depictions of the world. So we'll just create an ambiguous ending and make you figure it out. It's a cop out. It's totally it is.

spk_1:   22:07
It is, Yeah, And, you know, this is why I like what you said. But I think this is why some of critics were not into this movie is because this second part is very fable like, and it's completely unreal when the first part is so grounded in reality. And some of the reviews that I read talk about this sort of jarring turned from one part of the movies the other. But I thought Justin old work, because the movie is trying to tell us the story about what taking justice into your own hands mean what you know, chance and repercussions from things that are that you know we're not in control of can lead to life's live, you know, with tragedy. But then it's also literally these two people ascend to heaven in the end, so so they have to do something. Did I go from that first wired to this fire?

spk_0:   23:02
I mean, but it's also there's still on the run. I mean, if this is heaven, it's a pretty shitty heaven, right? This is it doesn't make us feel good. I know it doesn't feel like a happy ending, and it doesn't feel like, Oh, they're getting their their reward for their sacrifices on this planet, right? They're not. Yeah, this is a transcendent.

spk_1:   23:22
It's not transcended. But it's also the only way it can end, right? I mean, some people, I would say, like maybe they should be arrested, and that would make it like kind of what would happen in real life. But I think the ending this way, even though they do ascend to heaven, it's into your point. It's not like a happy ending, but it just means that it's even heaven. If it exists, is just gonna be is fucked up as the world that we live in. And this is kind of why I like the envy.

spk_0:   23:47
I also feel like that sort of thinking, feeling that the ending gives you I think it means that we all know they're gonna get caught there. They're not going to have a good life, right? We just don't need to see it dramatized in front of us, right? We don't need to see that violence to weaken, just like let them go. Yeah, I've never felt that the movie was jarring and like a first half second half kind of way in the love story, kind of You're not prepared. Maybe for that in the very beginning. But I've never felt that it was jarring.

spk_1:   24:21
Yeah. I mean, I didn't feel it was jarring either, but I think just some of the reviews I read said that, but I didn't but the love stories and it's a good thing to talk about to his. I really like the confession scene in the church where they go after the escape. And we talked a little bit earlier about how juvenile BBC takes one look at her and falls in love, which we understand. But maybe in the real world doesn't doesn't make lots of sense.

spk_0:   24:47
I don't know. I think it could happen. I get happen. I'm sure it's happened to her many times to

spk_1:   24:52
probably yes. I mean, it happened to me when I saw her the first time in Elizabeth. So yes, but then, you know, in that confession scene in the church, she's confessing. It's beautiful scene. It's another close up waiting. Give Kate lots of close up. Thank you, Tom Tick for another close up. She's confessing the rial sort of Catholic Church confession about how she's been mean to her mom and sister and then goes into how she kill people. Um, and at the end of it, he's listening and he's in trapped because he's so in love. Hey tells her I love you, and her reaction is just She's still in that in that sort of frame of mind, of confessing and, you know, thinking about the gravity of all that she's done. But also she's just like being used by him, and she just says, I know as if, like, bought you crazy. Why do you love me?

spk_0:   25:41
Another one? I've done a lot of damage and things. I've lied to my never to my sister. Many, many, many times. I was unfaithful to my husband once on didn't everything I could to save him. Four people died because of me, and I can't live without. I'll never be able to. I shot a defenseless person, but you know. But what you don't know is I've ceased to believe and since justice in life I love you. No, just just that I want the end to come soon. I think they're great together. I really like them. I like them here and in the gift together at Giovanni. Ribisi has a kind of intensity that works well with her.

spk_1:   27:31
I really liked him in this one. I didn't really like him in the gift. I thought he was going a little too big, but I really loved him here. I think he played sort of like the boyish confusion about love. He's obviously ab someone. He's playing somebody younger than her. So they even tell you like exactly the dates when they were born. So he's playing someone younger, and I could totally see like, you know, it's it's loving and admiration mixed together, and he he plays that really well. And also she's just so like I don't understand why you love me, but okay, listen, let's go on. And even in the end, where there is a scene where they hug and you can see a little bit in the scene before it, where she's talking with his dad, that she learns a little better, him and his family. And maybe now she's getting to understand why he loves her and why maybe she could love him, but also she even till the end. It's never like this big. You know I love affair, but it's also not unrequited love. She may be moved just a little bit towards understanding why he'll up why he loves her.

spk_0:   28:38
Yeah, the love story never takes over the rest of the story the way it does kind of in something like Bonnie and Clyde. Yes, that's two people on the run, which I like it it becomes not just, like relentlessly heterosexual, which they could have

spk_1:   28:53
also in something. That this movie is very unique is the visuals. You we talked a little you talked a little bit about You know what it is that's an art film, but also just the visuals. In the last few minutes of the movie, like the colors become very lush, and I think there is a different visually, definitely from the first part, which is, you know, more colors that you would see in an interrogation room or an office building to sort of, you know, they are in meadows that are green and brown and all these visuals that currently becomes so beautiful and lush. And I think that's also sort of gets you to that. It is it looks so beautiful. It's breathtaking. But it gets you that that feeling of like Oh, you know, maybe this is what heaven looks like

spk_0:   29:38
or at least eaten right? I mean, it's sort of moving like let's get away from all the societal constraints and all the corruption that that brings in all of these you know, modernist concrete buildings, right? Like a return to nature. Eaten a little bit of androgyny with the haircut, too right in the T shirt and everything like, Let's just like get rid of all of this human stuff, all human constructs and just return to nature. I don't that's heaven or eaten, but I think it's definitely there comes a freedom, right, Like getting they're becoming more and more free as they learn. Just do what they think is the right thing to Dio.

spk_1:   30:11
Yeah, I do love the haircut I think she looks amazing with no hair. And I asked people on Twitter what they liked about having, and somebody responded to me that haircut alone is gay rights school through it, so

spk_0:   30:26
is it is. And I mean, it's already with 18 years ago now, like, yeah, um, so I think you know, even the Russian 80 Connor and some other, you know, like iconic women with shaved heads and stuff. But it was amazing to see one of the young Hollywood beauties right do this role. It was exciting. Plus, because she was on so many fashion magazines and like there were other actresses, of course, like Vogue has done celebrities and actresses on their covers for a long time. But Kate Blanchett with different like she wore closing you. She was like fashion. She wasn't just like an actress in a pretty dress on the cover, like like new fashion, and was like showing up on red carpets and like was she understood fashion and this, like, really exciting way.

spk_1:   31:13
She tells a story with her red carpet. Absolutely.

spk_0:   31:16
She does, and on all the magazine covers and because she really wasn't as famous as most of the other celebrities that that Anna Winter would put on the cover. Right? But she looks so good on the close, but she made them look to me, the clothes look better, too. So, like her look wasn't just like some sort of superficial, beautiful actress thing, like we were all paying attention to her. And that's, like, really kind of exciting, Like, what's coming next sort of way?

spk_1:   31:37
Yeah, and we still do, You know, 20 something years later, and also this hair cut. I'll share some of these. As I was doing research, I found so many photos of her in 2000 to 2003 as her hair was growing and just looks amazing. Lots of androgynous loads, lots of pictures of her with suits was very sure. She looks amazing. Yeah, okay, really, Get your hair again.

spk_0:   32:07
Or don't do what you want, where your friend,

spk_1:   32:10
we'll still watch you, whatever you do. So for heaven, it's we are, as we recommend this movie, like if you're a Kate Blind should fan listening to the spa Scots, you haven't ever seen heaven go right now rented on Amazon or wherever you get your movies.

spk_0:   32:26
Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah. Run. Don't walk.

spk_1:   32:30
Yes, we recommend it full of heart. But, Kyle, I want it. We'll also talk to you a little bit about Elizabeth because I remember Elizabeth was the first time I saw Locate. And I've already told my story of, you know, watching Elizabeth and falling in love is Kate. But Elizabeth was also your first time seeing K, right?

spk_0:   32:58
I think so. It's a little hard to remember, but I'm sure that that was the first time I saw her on the big screen. And I worked in a video store in high school for a little while. And I remember Oscar and Lucinda, uh, being on the shelves. And I don't know if I rented that before Elizabeth or I saw Elizabeth and then that maybe rush and like, see anything that I could see her. I'm not. I'm not totally sure about that. I may have seen on spring loose in the first, but certainly Elizabeth was the first time I saw her, like in a movie. And it was like, Yeah, that was the falling in love moment. You

spk_1:   33:37
you think that she was sort of just I think that she arrived fully formed as a stupendous acting talent. And Elizabeth, was that your reaction or was your reaction?

spk_0:   33:49
Absolutely, Absolutely. I still think it's one of my favorite performances of hers. And when I go back and re watch it, I wonder if they're like There's a kind of mystery and the way she looks at the camera. Even in that first scene, where she's dancing around on her hair's down in that red dress. I wonder if there isn't a moment where she's kind of learning how to negotiate herself with the camera, like what the close of what's a long shot medium shot or whatever? Because there is just so much going on in her eyes. There's so much kind of mystery and intensity, and inimitably didn't film in sequence, either. And I think that's but But there is just a magic to that performance. I think you're right that she was fully formed, but there might be some kind of level of spontaneity or or something that she was still bringing from her days on the stage. Uh, maybe she

spk_1:   34:42
like to your point. Maybe she didn't yet know how to fill a frame like she does in Carroll or she does here in heaven. But there was definitely the acting talent was. There may be just the technique of being in front of the camera. Wasn't home yet.

spk_0:   34:57
I didn't mean that anything wasn't honed. I think they're perfect. I just meant that like, there's a there's a sort of I don't want to say seductive because that doesn't quite capture what I mean. But there's a way that she, like, looks at the camera that I feel like she's. There's a mystery there that kind of goes away. And some of the older films where it's like there's just like strength and clarity of acting. And in Elizabeth, you feel like it's It's gorgeous for being a little bit rough around the edges, like she's set loose in it. In a way,

spk_1:   35:27
yeah, and because Elizabeth was at the beginning like she charts, was loose at the beginning and didn't know what she wanted to do. And because she charts that journey right from being this innocent 17 year old to being the the state's woman that we know Elizabeth's to be,

spk_0:   35:43
Yeah, it's probably Kate was being that good, but no, actually, a beautiful performance. I mean, talk about discovering things in the moment when she never misses a chance to discover things in the moment on camera right in front of us.

spk_1:   35:57
So tell me a little bit about more about that. Is there a scene in particular thinking about from Elizabeth when you say that

spk_0:   36:04
it's been a little while since since I've seen it. So I wasn't thinking of a particular moment that I I sort of feel like you could pick any scene from it that that's kind of what I mean. I mean, whether or not she's dancing and she sees the way that people are looking at her and she knows that bad news is coming, or at least significant news is coming when she's put in jail, she she you know that someone could play. The character is kind of like knowing that this is kind of what would happen right? Or that there is going to say, you know, Mary is gonna be oppositional, right? But like King, she manages to make a little bit so optimistic. Yeah, for the first half, so that she can play every single kind of that event as a moment of discovery rather than like a confirmation of what she already knows, which I think other actresses might do. So it's just so exciting to watch.

spk_1:   36:57
Yeah, she's amazing. And Elizabeth, I love that performance a lot. And between Elizabeth's in Heaven, like the early two thousands kind of wear a rough time to be a gate fan or a T least as I remember it. She made these movies that are not really great. I don't know what you think. Like I'll just list them here. The Man Who Cried the Gift Bandits, Charlotte Gray, the Shipping News where the movies she made, Plus the Lord of the Rings, where the movies she made between the talented mystery eyes. One good movie.

spk_0:   37:30
Well, you Yes, I do remember the years that I spent just again pre Twitter as just a basic sort of town cry or just going around the world talking about how she is so much more than Galadriel. Yes, you just made a really bad movie again, but don't worry, she's still wonderful. Yeah, they weren't there were those years, but I mean, everyone I knew stood by her, but we couldn't pretend that Charlotte Greg was very good. Or the shipping news. My goodness, we were all so excited to have Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett. I'm Julianne Moore coming off of, you know, like Magnolia and Boogie Nights. Like being other really cool collect tress. Um, you have the debt it like it was a terrible movie. Yeah, I think Washington has some. Only her moments and pushing 10 are good. An ideal husband is the one that was really disappointing is allow else and again Julianne Moore in Cape Blanche. It being in that was was quite disappointing. And Rupert ever it to mean that was supposed to be a chance for him to be a leading man and just

spk_1:   38:35
slap very, very flat. But at least in an ideal husband, Kate and Julian had scenes together. At least a couple, right? Yeah. Where in the shipping news? Nothing. Kate is just debt 10 minutes in or something like that very early on. So,

spk_0:   38:52
yeah, you do get that sense that with an ideal husband and pushing 10 that Kate and Julianne Moore, with an ideal husband, were really trying to see if they could do comedy, and I think they both ultimately decided Now

spk_1:   39:06
Yes, I agree. Olds ok did comedy this year in documentary now playing a town Marina Abramovich And she was hysterical so hysterically

spk_0:   39:15
you got to do extreme comedy. She can't do, like light drawing room comedy. Where'd you go, Bernadette? I mean, I think that that should have been a light comedy. Kristen wig was great in it. Right, kids? Not my favorite cake performance.

spk_1:   39:28
Yeah. I mean, I like that performance, but I think it's I blame Richard Linklater because he wasn't interested in what the book was about. Unfortunately like, that book could have made a great movie that he just wasn't interested. He was interested in something of leading different. Unlike So, why are you adapting this book and

spk_0:   39:45
who knows what that waas? I don't know why he was. You seem to have much to say. But then I don't really think he ever does. So we'll just move on, Richard, like,

spk_1:   39:57
let's move on from him. So do you think there was a time when Kate was underrated? Oh, that's

spk_0:   40:05
interesting. I'm not sure. I mean, I certainly think there are underrated que performances like heaven or the missing. I think is a really great performance in a pretty decent movie. Actually, that just kind of flew under the radar. It's hard to say she was underrated just because of the Lord of the Rings movies. I mean, everyone kind of agreed that she was a celestial being, right, like stop star, right? Also, like just

spk_1:   40:31
Elizabeth was such a huge break out and everybody was like, Yes, this is the actress

spk_0:   40:35
And I mean, even the Aviator comes pretty early on three idea that, like there's only like five years, five or six years between her breakout and us being like she's so overdue for an Oscar. Give it six years. Yeah, it's kind of wild. So no, I don't actually think there is a time that she's been under rate is as

spk_1:   40:57
being in the movies that maybe I like that other people like Fritz. I'd love hearing the good German, and that's a movie that nobody talks about it. It's not a great movie, but she is amazing, innit?

spk_0:   41:08
Mailing in it. Yeah,

spk_1:   41:09
and heaven is another one, like nobody talks about heaven now a lot, although when I talk about Kate on Twitter, a lot of people will come into my mentions saying Heaven is their favorite. So I guess there is. It's

spk_0:   41:22
a good movie. It's a good title. If you know that not a lot of other people have seen it, then you mention it right? Like, what's the point of saying I love turn Elizabeth Because like everyone loves journalist exactly that it's true. You could sort of Birch you signal on Twitter being like Oh, I saw that obscured Tomczyk for film.

spk_1:   41:39
What is your favorite Cate Blanchett performance?

spk_0:   41:41
That's really hard. I do think Elizabeth is an incredible performance. I also think Blue Jasmine is like one of the greats because she's giving us such a character in such a narc and commenting on the history of Blanche Dubois depictions and updating that in doing. And she's just doing so many interesting things in that film. It it boggles my mind is how she she pulled them all off together. Uh, I feel like I should say Carol as low, but and I love the performance, but I think it would be between Elizabeth and Blue Jasmine for me. I think that those air really there's a true performances that just I cannot imagine anyone else doing.

spk_1:   42:23
I can't either. Yeah. Um I do love her in Carroll and Carroll. Maybe just works. Is a movie better for me as it

spk_0:   42:31
right? I mean, as a

spk_1:   42:32
movie. Yeah, but I think I always I go. I changed my mind every day, but I think blue Jasmine is always something I go back to gas legs. Just last month, I just put it on to, like, watch the beginning and then two hours later, I have watched the whole thing, and that's just because I couldn't stop it.

spk_0:   42:49
It's true. It's an epic performs

spk_1:   42:52
general. Then I've seen her Blanche on stage, and it isn't take on that, but it's also very different. So who would you like to see Kate work with somebody who appreciates her work?

spk_0:   43:02
That's interesting. I would I would love to see her and Emma Stone and something. I feel like they would both just be like thinking and talking at such a rapid fire pace. That would be that would be really fun. And I think Emma Stone could probably bring out a little bit of that humor that's in there without sacrificing in any of that kind of pretty realist. Those those notes, right? Like, I think there's a way that I must own capture some of the that. Okay. Plants. Yeah.

spk_1:   43:30
They should do a comedy. That would be so much fun.

spk_0:   43:33
Yeah, like a dark, dark comedy. Yes. Obvious. Yes. Very dark. Like a deep style kind of the ref attitude. Julia Louis Dreyfus Condemn rectum. Yeah, something until about to

spk_1:   43:47
do it. And of course, they won't listen to, but it would be fine.

spk_0:   43:51
It would. What about you? Do you have people that you would like to see her work? I

spk_1:   43:56
mean, I've just been so taken with federal unmotivated span and glory, like just every everybody asked me. Who would you like to see him like? Candy. Can they be in a federal motive? Our movie?

spk_0:   44:07
I don't wonder. How would that be?

spk_1:   44:09
Yeah, And he's been threatening Or, you know, not threatening, but saying that he he might make a movie in English so

spk_0:   44:17
Well, he should Dio Sorry, I'm now. I'm just fantasizing full on, but I don't know. Do you know this play called the Human Voice? What is adapted a couple times? Ingrid Bergman did one for TV, but it's basically just like a one woman show, and she's on the phone the whole time and he would remember all that much. But I think her husband having an affair, and she's just desperate to find out. But I'll note of our references it all the time. So it's in. It gets like a shout out. I think you talked to her and all about my mother. But if he ever wanted to actually like, just do a production or a film version of that play, which he clearly loves, she would be amazing. What is the play about Kyle, Right? It's It's Lavoie, you men, That's what it is and it's It's about a woman. What? I remember that she's she's depressed and she has a lover who I think is about to marry someone else the next day. And she's just completing just utter despair, right? So she's trying to get him back, or at least get attention from him. But it's really more about her kind of being borderline suicidal on. And yes, it would be an amazing showcase for some of my K plan chip.

spk_1:   45:28
Yeah, and maybe Emma Stone can play the lover on the phone or something like that. It's with Great. That would be amazing. Um, I think that's such a great note to end our conversation with. Let's hope Kate and Emma appear together soon, Kyle, before we go tell our listeners where they confined you and your work.

spk_0:   45:50
Oh, um, I am on Twitter at sentimentalist. Um, see, I am e m t a l i s t ah, and you're confined my work sort of any way you can Google me Google Kyle Stevens film Things will pop up.

spk_1:   46:05
And by Kyle's book that had yes a about Caitlyn.

spk_0:   46:09
Great screen performances, Volume one and two on Amazon and Mike Nichols. Sex, language and the reinvention of psychological realism.

spk_1:   46:16
Well, thank you so much for coming on the pod, Kyle. And you can find me on Twitter at MGM, Discourse says, and follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at Sunday's escape