Thinking Films: Another Woman (1988) | E180

In this episode of The Thinking Mind, Dr. Alex is joined by Michael Cohen and Jonathan Kirschner, hosts of That ’70s Movie Podcast, to discuss Woody Allen’s 1988 film Another Woman, starring Gena Rowlands, Ian Holm, Mia Farrow and Gene Hackman.

Another Woman is a quiet but devastating psychological drama about Marion Post, a philosophy professor whose life begins to unravel when she overhears the therapy sessions of a younger pregnant woman. 

Dr Alex, Michael and Jonathan discuss why the film feels like such an “adult” movie, how it explores introspection, repression, memory, regret and the possibility of change. This is a conversation about cinema, psychology, middle age, missed possibilities, and the strange kind of hope that can come from finally seeing yourself clearly.

Check out That '70s Movie Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/that-70s-movie-podcast/id1832034357

Interviewed by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Alex is a consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Thinking Mind and to another Thinking Films episode. Today I'm super pleased to be joined by not one but two guests. I'm joined by Michael Cohen, a political journalist who is a senior fellow at the Stimson Center where he runs his own project called Is War Worth It? He also has his own substack called Truth and Consequences. He's previously written for outlets like The Guardian, Foreign Policy, The London Observer, and many others. And I'm also joined by Jonathan Kirchner, who is a professor of international politics. And besides numerous books about politics, he's the author of Hollywood's Last Golden Age, Politics, Society, and the 70s Film in America. And he's the co-editor, along with John Lewis, of When the Movies Mattered, the New Hollywood Revisited. Most importantly, they together host that 70s movie podcast, a podcast exploring a whole bunch of movies from the 70s. I've enjoyed this podcast. I've used it to research films that I've discussed on the podcast. So I'd encourage you guys to go listen. Today we're discussing Another Woman, a 1988 film directed by Woody Allen and starring Gina Rollins, Ian Holm, Mia Farrow, and Gene Hackman, which, among other things, is really about the value of introspection. Michael, Jonathan, thank you so much for joining me today. My pleasure. Me too. Before we discuss the movie itself, it would be great to ask you guys, what is it about 70s movies specifically that you guys think is so special and worth exploring, and you really wanted to dig into on your podcast?

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Well, I'll jump in on that one since I've been obsessed with the 70s for a very long time. And what it represents for me is a window of opportunity in mainstream American cinema from the period of the breakdown of the American censorship code toward the birth of the blockbuster, which roughly coincides with the decade of the 1970s, and in which there was a subculture of films made by a bunch of generally younger filmmakers who were inspired by the kind of independent cinemas and European cinemas. And so there was a certain type of film culture that was able to thrive in the 1970s that was different than what came before it, and that when the business model in Hollywood changed, had a much harder time continuing forward. So it was almost like there was this one precious moment in which a certain type of film could actually be allowed to make, be made within the auspices of the Hollywood studio system.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Yeah, I'll just disagree with everything that Jonathan said, but I'll just sort of say more specifically, I think it's just it's the rawnness of 70s movies, it's the moral ambiguity that is at the core of so many of these movies. It's the uh we joke about this in our podcast, it's the bleakness, which I think for some people is a is a turn-off, but for us it's kind of challenging, right? These movies invariably, we've we've discussed about 35, 36 movies so far. I mean, what is really striking about all of these movies is how much they challenge the audience and they challenge your conceptions of the world, a challenge conceptions of what a movie can can possibly do. It's just an incredibly audacious period of filmmaking. And I think for people like Jonathan and I who love the film love the movies, it's just such a great era of movie making and such a challenging and sort of exciting era of filmmaking, even today, 50 years later.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, there's definitely a boldness to 70s films. Absolutely. And you get the impression that you can get not with every film, but with many films, a really singular artistic vision. So a film like Taxi Driver, for example, jumps to mind, where you're you're really getting the expression of the director as the central artist and the person who is uh expressing himself unfiltered by the interference of the studio or the need of a marketing campaign or something like that, which of course is one of the main problems in cinema now.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Yes, and speaking of the movie we're going to talk about today, Woody Allen in some ways carried part of the ethos of the 70s beyond the 70s, and you talked about marketing. He was once asked why he didn't test screen his films, and he said, I'm not really interested in collaborating on my films with my audience.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah, that's interesting. And I as far as I know, Woody Allen also famously tried to not watch a whole lot of other movies by his contemporaries. Like I think he lost he was influenced by other filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and people like that from the past. As far as I know, he tended to stay away from his contemporaries for fear of being influenced.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Yeah, that's interesting. I'm I'm not sure about that, but I know that he's so steeped in film history and loved the classics. And is a child really of the 30s and 40s more than anything.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

Yeah, yeah. You know, this movie is sort of fascinating because it is such a um, and I I use this term understanding the other meaning it has, but it's a real adult movie. Now, if you hear adult movie, you think, well, you think of pornography, but that's not what I mean. This is there's nothing pornography pornographic by this film at all. This is a movie that has that deals with adult themes, that is a mature mature themes, I should say, and is a movie made for adults. It's made for people who want to be really challenged in the movies, who want to consider a perspective that might be difficult to even have to take into account. The idea of somebody at you know in a middle age kind of looking back on their life and having regrets. So I just think that there's a that's the kind of thing that we're talking about. We're talking about why we love 70s movies, that there is this movie is is challenging an audience in a way that I think there is still that happens in contemporary cinema, but I I don't know that you have this as as as uh ubiquitous as it was, say, in the 70s. Of course, mid 1887, and because Woody Allen has a sort of rarefied space. But the fact he was making movies like this, the sort of 70s ethos into the 80s, the 90s, even the arts, it says a lot about him as a director and as an artist.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yes, if you want to say something with your films, you have to take those risks. If you want to say something bold with your film, your film can't be for everyone. It might be polarizing. Some people will love it, some people would hate it. Now we get the opposite. We get films that, like a lot of Netflix films and Amazon films, where you just have vast amounts of people who are kind of indifferent to it. They might play it in the background, but doesn't say anything. So it doesn't create necessarily love, it doesn't create hatred, it kind of creates a sort of uh benevolent indifference.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yes, and something is always lost when your goal is to chase the largest audience possible, because that will require you to kind of sand off the rough edges and be less willing to take kind of dramatic risks with the story.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yes. Now, uh, before we get into today's film, I do want to acknowledge Woody Allen does remain a controversial figure. There have been allegations made against him, allegations which he has denied, and there's been wider public debate about his personal life and his career. Our discussion today obviously is on the film itself. I recognize that for many listeners, separating the art from the artist might be complicated or not possible. And if that's you, then that's okay. That being said, Alan has had an undeniable impact on cinema. Today we're discussing Another Woman, as we said, which I don't think was highly rated by many when it came out, with some exceptions. Like I think Roger Ebet notably really loved this film, but I think it's one of those Woody Allen films that has been appreciated more as time has gone on. And now I think it's rated as one of his best films. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 7:24

I think that's right. I I'm looking at some, I was actually recently before he jumped on some some uh lists of Woody Allen films, and I was shocked at how many of those lists had this movie in their top 10. In fact, there's a really there's a actually a Woody Allen podcast out there, these two British guys, actually. And uh it's a it's a really fun show. They're really excited about the movies. And uh for one of them, this I believe was his favorite Woody Allen movie. So, you know, I think it's just a movie that's gotten a lot of critical reappraisal over the years.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Yes, but it did have it did have a very modest release, and it wasn't because of anything about Woody Allen. He was at the top of the world uh when he released this film in the midst of a remarkable run of critical and commercial successes, but this one did not kind of catch on the way many of his films did. I liked it at the time, and I have subsequently always loved it and is definitely in my top 10 Woody Allen films.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, so I've only watched this film twice. I watched it uh probably when I was in my early 20s, and then I watched it again last night in preparation for this, and I remember appreciating it and liking it, but now that I have another 10, 15 years of life under my belt, gosh, do I appreciate it a lot more? Because this film, as we've said already, is so much about uh looking back on life that you've lived and regrets, and maybe could you have like thought about things differently? Could you have made different decisions? Micah, what's what's your relationship to this film?

SPEAKER_03 8:51

It's funny. I so when I was a kid, I I was obsessed with Willie Allen movies. I saw all of them when they came out. I did not see this one, and I can't remember why, but I suspect because it was a drama and I probably wasn't as into dramas when I this movie came out. I think I was 16 or something, so I probably wasn't into it. And if I'd seen it then, I don't think I would have appreciated the way that I did what I saw a couple of years ago for the first time. When I saw it, I it had absolutely profound impact on me because I'm around the same age as the protagonist in the movie, and I understand this inclination to look back on your life and to sort of question some of the decisions that you've made. I mean that that happens when you hit your 50s. And I mean that happens sooner, that happens later. But definitely in this period, you do that. And for me at least, that uh this this movie resonated in a way that I don't know that it would have it would resonate for somebody who's younger. It's why I said earlier this is kind of an adult movie because it's a movie really geared toward adults, toward people who have experienced a lot in their lives and are now beginning to have that at that point where they sort of wonder, did I make the right choices?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

So I'm definitely a movie geared towards someone who likes to think and reflect about their lives, you know. And I guess it is so different from Alan's other films. If you watch a Woody Allen film, you might expect a degree of like comedy. Like he has a lot of neurosis, but usually in a comedic way and a lot of fumbling around. Whereas this is a very like deeply serious film. He has a couple of other films like this, probably Interiors is the example that jumps to mind. But this film has something important to say, and it's willing to say it seriously and not compromise on tone in the slightest.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

And it's extremely well executed. I mean, the performances are just top-notch, and it's it's beautifully filmed. You know, the the DP was Sven Niequist, who's Bergman's uh director of photography, and and it shows, you know, in all the production design, in every element, I think it's also just an extremely well-executed film. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Now, and let's we can discuss the plot be briefly. I've done a few films on this podcast, maybe around 10. And normally the plots, oh gosh, they're so complicated, and there's so many ins and outs. Uh, but this one is so simple. So basically, the plot of another woman, it follows Marion Post, a highly controlled, kind of emotionally repressed philosophy professor in New York, and she rents a quiet apartment which she uses to work on her new book. And then through the walls, she begins overhearing the therapy sessions of a younger pregnant woman, and her name is Hope. And there's something about listening to these therapy sessions which is very unsettling for Mary. And I think it captures her, uh, but it also unsettles her. And as she listens, she starts to re-examine her own life, including her marriage, her previous relationships, her friendships, her family relationships, and she starts to realize the certain sense of emotional distance that she's maintained from others. Uh, eventually, she even meets the the woman who's going into the therapy sessions, and she starts to realize, really seriously re-appraise her own life. And really, that the movie ends with like, what is the possibility of change? So, actually, we didn't do a huge amount of spoilers there, but that's roughly what the film is about. I like to think about films in terms of like what are the key questions a film is asking in the mind of the audience. So, maybe if I could start with Jonathan, what what do you think are some key questions this film is staring up in us?

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Well, I like to compare this film with a film that it has nothing in common with, which is John Houston's night film from 1987, uh called The Dead. And John Houston was asked to say, What is the dead about? And The Dead is actually about a dinner party. But he, I'm going to read this because I thought it was so brilliant. John Houston said, the story is about a man's being revealed to himself. What we think we are and what we are really are two different things. And the discovery of what one is is a soul-shaking experience. That's what the story is. My only regret is that I could not do that in John Houston's voice because they have a beautiful speaking voice. But I think that that is what Marion's what this story is about with regard to Marion. She is confronted with herself and she finds out that uh she wasn't the person that she thought she was, and she has essentially a serial series of encounters with people in her life, and each one forces upon her a reassessment of what she thought that relationship was and what she thought about the person that she was.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Absolutely. What do you think, Michael? No, I agree with everything Jonathan said. I love that quote by the way from John Houston. This is a very internalized movie and performance by Gina Rollins. And I want to just say a quick word about Gina Rowlands. She is so good in this movie. I mean, this is such a fantastic. One thing about Woody Allen that he deserves a lot of credit for is that he he is great at writing for actresses. So many actresses have delivered just fantastic performances. I think I think I read somewhere something like it's like 10 to 1 of actresses, actors who've been nominated for Oscars from Woody Allen films. And Jonathan Hayes will talk about the Oscars because he hates the Oscars. But like it's it's relevant because I share his tip of the thing. Uh I I think that that but there's a reason why that's the case because he really writes well for that. And I think in the case, in this case, he really writes well for her, but she really kind of owns this performance. And you sort of feel that I was watching him last night. I was struck by how much you feel the angst, how much you feel the turbulence that these questions she's confronting are creating inside of her. Um, and one thing I'll say that's interesting is that you said she meets this woman uh who's who is uh the pregnant woman who's getting therapy session, she can hear a therapy session. I didn't realize her name was Hope. I I didn't catch pick up on that, but that's actually pretty telling. I don't actually think that woman is played by Mia Farrow, I don't think she actually exists. And we Jonathan and I had this conversation back and forth uh uh last night. I actually think that you the the way that the con the concept of the movie is like she hears this this this therapy session through the vents of her apartment. I really think that's a metaphor for what she hears in her own head. Because what she hears through the vents is really her own thoughts and sort of that are are confronting her about having just turned 50, the choices that she's made in her life. And so I do think this movie is a lot about it's like a it's like a therapy session, but it's really happening sort of inside of the character uh played by Gina Rollins' head. Um, and I think this movie is just about sort of how you deal with those questions and how you deal with the potential that you have regrets of choices that you've made. I think what's interesting about this movie, that by the way, goes against what uh Jonathan and I always say we love about seven of these movies, which they almost never have happy endings. This movie actually does have a happy ending. This movie suggests that you can confront these questions and you can change because of them. It it sort of it opens up the possibility of a change, of of intern of you know, even going through therapy, of going through an internal sort of conversation with yourself and then realizing mistakes you've made and actually changing your behavior and and and hopefully for the better. And so I think that's one thing about this movie that is sort of wonderful, is that it it isn't just a question about forcing the viewer to think about choices they've made, but also giving them the idea that hey, you can do that and end up in a better place than you were before.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yeah, I love that. I love that interpretation, and it it is a happy ending, but it's not a happy ending in an unrealistic or kind of saccharine way. It's a happy ending again. Even the happiness is a mature kind of happiness, it's the serenity of you know, I've gone through some hard work and some hard times of figuring some big stuff out, and I can start to see a window of opportunity for myself to make things better, which is a very, very mature, kind of muted but optimistic happiness. And yeah, so so for me, the the questions that this movie is asking, which I think are still very, very relevant. Firstly, is there a value to introspection, which is actually being debated culturally? Like, should we introspect? And if so, why? Uh, what relationship should we have to our emotions, our feelings, like these pesky vestiges of our psychology? Are they something that are inherently irrational? Should we be in touch with our feelings or not? Um, and and if we should, then how should what's what's the relationship we should have um with our feelings? And I think I was thinking kind of along the lines of that interpretation that you mentioned, Michael, that the therapy session she's listening to is almost like her unconscious barging in on her.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

That's how I read it. That's how I read it. And I just want to say so I can make the one point really quick that I we talk about this a lot in our podcast. Sometimes movies just tell you what they're about in the beginning, and and they they don't they they sort of make clear what what what we're gonna be talking about for the next hour and a half or two hours. And she says this opening monologue, it's before the credits even. And she talks about how she doesn't like to delve in, doesn't like to like sort of to sort of ask these kind of questions of herself. She just talks, she provides this sort of a very surface overview of her life, of her who she's married to, of you know what she does for a living, but not anything much deeper. And she makes a point of saying she doesn't like to go much deeper. And the entire rest of the movie is actually undermining that entire premise that she doesn't like to go and delve into herself, that this movie forces her to do so.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Yes, her first confrontation with her sister-in-law, uh, she even says explicitly, you know, I've I've spent my life avoiding conversations like this, and she says they they tend to be counterproductive and people say things they don't mean to say. And we do need to give a little hat tip toward those opening credits where it lingers over the photographs she describes her life, because that is a direct, let's use the word, homage to Bergman's wild strawberries.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Uh she has a she not only does she avoid her feelings, but she has a whole articulated philosophy about why it's important to avoid. So, in terms of these key questions I raised, her view would be like feelings are irrational, they're unpleasant. That's it's not worth it for her, at least after the events of this film, to get into feelings.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

Yeah, I mean, that's a lot, a big part of what this movie is is is about is forcing her to confront these feelings that she has and these decisions that she has made in her life.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

And if I had to ask you, Jonathan, what do you think about this film really works for you? What really resonates? What do you think um strikes you the most about this?

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Well, I would start with where Michael started, which was in praising Jana Rowland's performance. Um, not only is it an outstanding performance, but it is very much against type. So that if you looked at her entire career, she usually played a woman who was her emotions were right at her fingertips. And here she's playing a woman who's so restrained in her emotions. And so it's very impressive. It's an impressive performance, but it's also not uh a lazy performance or an easy performance for her. But again, I was just all in with this confrontation with the self. And again, I tend to be very appreciative of movies that do that extremely well. I mean, I even mentioned, you know, it's it's it's often an obscure thing to talk about, but the production design, the settings, the locations, the performances, the structure, the sequences. But it is a character study. She is the character. And if you're the type of person, and you know, Alex, this really speaks more to your profession than to ours, who thinks about inner thoughts, this is this is an onslaught. And I think that most people who are self-aware of their own characters are challenged by this movie because it really is, one after the other, a sequence of confrontations in the correct sense of the word with characters who confront her with her understanding of herself and her relationship with them from the very start. When she sees her sister-in-law on the street and and she says, Oh, my brother and I have a wonderful relationship. And the sister-in-law looks at her and says, You're deluding yourself, which I think is another kind of key theme to the movie. She has deluded herself about almost every relationship in her life. And you know, if you if you're into that kind of self-flagellation, as I am, uh then this movie is like, you know, hitting your sweet spots. And I I like the way it's done. I really like to, I hope we have a longer conversation about whether or not Mia Farrow's character exists, because I think it's a fascinating question for the movie. And again, speaks back to your profession more than ours, Alex.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I mean, I'd love to have that conversation. And I I think I think this you could interpret it either way. There's something magical about the way people talk in therapy sessions. Obviously, I have um I've been in therapy as a client. I've given a lot of therapy sessions as part of my training, which I actually finished my psychotherapy training one week ago at my last exam. Congratulations. Thank you so much. So I've given a lot of therapy sessions, and as part of my training, I've had to record them. So you listen back to the recordings. And obviously, people are discussing difficult things, but there is something magical about the way someone talks in a therapy session, in that when people speak in these sessions, they're very congruent, they're very aligned. There is none of that pretending to be someone else that people often do in small talk and social conversations, there's much less of a persona. And even though what someone may be talking about is very difficult, there's something very attractive about the way they're speaking because you know they're touching on something real. And so I totally buy that Mira Faro could be a real character because I buy that if you're someone who is very repressed and you're very like at a distance from yourself all the time. If you hear someone giving that pure kind of raw confession, it's going to move you, I think, in some way. And I think this is the way people are moved, often by political figures, moved by cult leaders, moved by people with a certain sense of charisma as they can tap into that congruence. And people often, like walking about in their day-to-day lives, are very at a distance from themselves, and that makes them very vulnerable to being manipulated by other people, but also makes them vulnerable to these sincere confessions. So to me, totally irrealistic that she could be a real person and that could move someone in that way. What do you think, Jonathan?

SPEAKER_02 23:44

I want her to not be real, and there are four reasons why I want her not to be real. One is the contrivance, right? It's kind of ridiculous that this could possibly happen. And so that invites you to speculate about it. The other is the first flashback when Mia Farrow's character, Hope, um, talks about uh a romance that she looks back on with regret. And then we cut immediately to uh Roland's character thinking about her encounter with Gene Hackman. And then the fact that she's pregnant, which is another contrivance, but it speaks to one of the great regrets in Jenna Rowland's life because she had determined a pregnancy and has no children and maybe now regrets that choice. And also there's this beautiful, beautiful shot in the restaurant where they're having lunch, and the camera cuts off Farrow. And so you just have Rolands with a glass of wine as if she's having lunch with someone, and you're invited to think, oh, you know, this is all in her mind. But then, damn it, you get a ton of really literal shots of Mia Farrow across the table. And so she's really there and present and real in so many scenes that it undercuts the claim that she, you know, if she's not real, she sure is showing up a lot. You know, it's it's but I it's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

I mean, I don't, I mean, let's just say for the outset, I don't think it matters one way or the other. Just how I interpreted it. But I do think the scene that actually kind of clinched it for me was when she's driving, uh, Gina Rollins is driving with her her uh stepdaughter.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Martha Clipton, let's pause to praise her. At least I want to pause to praise her. Wonderful young actor, but go on.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

Yeah. And they're they're in the car and they see Mia Farrell walking down the street, you know, which look coincidences are uh often seem to happen in Woody Allen movies. Like you it's just it's people run into people all the time and notice that in a lot of his films. But this one feels very contrived. And what's interesting about it is that she follows her, but doesn't actually find her. Instead, she is led to this old friend of hers who's an actress. And part of me even wondered whether this scene even occurs as well. Because I sort of saw it, and maybe I'm getting a little too in the weeds here, but like this is her subconscious. Like, to be a fair, it's her subconscious, and she sees it and she follows it, and this leads her to this conversation, which may or may not have taken place with this actress friend of hers, and that particular interaction with this, and it's played by Sandy Dennis. Uh, we've talked about her, we talked about um Jenny Wolf, uh, she's wonderful in this in this brief little performance. I'm not convinced actually it happens, but this discussion is really the sort of inflection point of the film in a lot of ways, because it is the harshest uh I don't want to say denunciation, but harshest kind of uh uh critique of who Gina Rollins really is, and it really strikes at what she thinks of herself. The way that Sandy Dennis describes her is completely like 180 from how Gina Rollins sees herself. And I think this to me is the point in the movie when you begin to see that real introspection on her part and a realization that maybe some of the things that she has believed about herself are not true.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

So I agree with you on your reading of that scene, but I I can't go with you into fantasyland on that one. To me, that that scene is very literal and it's another one of those confrontations. And so, yes, maybe Mia Farrow is a phantom, and so following the phantom, you never catch up to the phantom, but it does lead you to stumble upon reality. And I do think that that couple, that whole scene is a is a mini masterpiece in and of itself, and it is again that revelation, you know, we did not drift apart, you know. I I deliberately cut off contact with us. And of course, Gina Roland's character is clueless. Uh, that that that this is what had happened. You know, she even says in an earlier scene, we used to be so close. You know, I wonder, I wonder what happened. And it's uh it's it's quite something.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

I I love the uh interpretation that Mia Farrow is not real. I don't know if I can go all the way there mainly for the reasons you described, Jonathan. Sorry, Michael. But I I love the I I wish it were because that that interpretation almost positions it as a much more mature version of Fight Club, right? Because fight club is the same thing, it's someone's unconscious coming alive and making them do things that so supposedly you know moves them forward. And so that almost makes another woman like a uh a fight club for someone in their 50s. I guess it has this.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Double feature right there.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

There you go, exactly. But the whole construct that she is in this apartment and there is a voice coming through the vents, like it's a metaphor for the voice in her head. I just I'm sorry, I can't see it any other way.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

And that's how I I felt that way when I heard it.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Um it just feels so obvious to me that that's what's happening, that she is being confronted. And and by the way, this voice she's hearing, and I think the first one is a man, actually. She's talking to the therapist. But each conversation exactly sort of uh uh parrots her like internal struggles. I just don't believe for a second any of that actually is existing in real life. It's all in her head. That's just how and I mean you could look, you could ask yourself a question about like, what is the title? Another woman, what is it about? Like what how what is that, how does that relate to what we're talking about right here? I mean, I I think it but I think it's another woman, I think it means like another woman that she could have been, another path she could have taken. But I don't think it's another woman is like the other woman is is is Mia Fair's character.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

So what's thrilling, and I used that word correctly, about the title and other woman, is that it can mean three different things, right? One is that Jenna Rollins could have been another woman. But the other is, of course, the Mia Farrow character could be another woman. But better still, I think, is that her relationship begins and ends with acts of infidelity. And so that implicates another woman. In the first instance, she was the other woman who broke up the marriage uh, you know, the that that her husband was already involved in. And then her marriage is broken up by another woman, in this case, someone who happens to be a friend. So it's like a triple entendre. I I think it's a wonderful title for this film.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

I'm very happy I had you guys on. This is incredible. Um, in terms of like what this film gets psychologically right, I'll start with you, Michael. Like, do you think what do you think this film gets psychologically right? Does it resonate with your own personal experiences, maybe things you've seen in your life?

SPEAKER_03 30:10

I mean, this movie kind of feels like a really, really intense therapy session, like a or series of therapy sessions in which you know it's there's no there's no therapist, obviously, who's asking these questions at Gina Rowlands, but she is you know, as if she's being asked these questions by a therapist and asked to confront some some really difficult issues. And that's what you know therapy often can be. It's confronting things that you don't want to confront, but that you need to confront to better understand yourself. And that's what this movie, what she's doing in this movie. I mean, I I you know it's interesting because obviously Woody Allen has a lot of references to therapy in his movies, right? I mean, it's a big feature of of Andy Hall, obviously, but but of a whole host of his movies. And what's interesting though, I think, in this is that there is not a therapist, I mean, we do see a therapist book very, very briefly, but it really is about sort of a therapeutic process. It's about asking these kinds of questions and confronting, you know, difficult realities that you would might happen to you in a in a good, I mean, at a bad therapy session, because it wouldn't happen, but in a good therapy session, you would be confronting these questions. And I do think that's what this movie is kind of a lot of this movie is about. It's about it's it's it's a kind of a version of therapy in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Yeah, I totally agree. And it's funny because in many ways this film I think might be Alan's best representation of these kinds of principles in a film when when while he has many films which uh portray really bad therapy or really kind of useless therapy of people kind of just ruminating, which we kind of talk about maybe a bit later, the difference the difference between good therapy and bad therapy. But this is as you're saying, Michael, really showing these principles, ironically, not happening within really a therapy session, although there are therapy sessions in the movie, but happening to this woman, to Gina Rowland and her confronting these difficult things and therefore uh growing as a result. Jonathan, what what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 32:05

I I would go back to something Michael said earlier about middle age, right? That it is a movie about the confrontation of middle age. And it is also a movie about the terror of possibly getting still older and looking back and realizing that you've lived a life of regret. And that is why one of the many scenes in this movie that shatters me is it's actually a dream sequence, but it's when John John Houseman comes to the therapist's office and and and talks about how he has lived nothing but a life of regret. And it's I I I would have loved to hear your your Alex, your your reaction to that scene because I I find it utterly shattering. But it's also his character is so important for so many ways. And there's a very small piece of business early on when they visit him in his home. And Martha Plimpton asks John Houseman, Do you think you could find love again at your age? And Gina Rowland's character kind of really is irritated with her for asking that question. Why is she irritated? She says it's because it's very insensitive to ask a very old man that question. But no, I think she's taking that question personally. She's hearing Martha Plimpton saying, Can someone your age actually find love again? And Gina Rowlands is immediately saying, uh, can I find love again? You know, because I'm kind of in a loveless marriage, you know. That's exactly how I read that scene as well.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Yeah, I mean it's it's devastating. I think regret is one of the most devastating emotions because almost by definition, it can't go back, we can't change those things. And I mean, for me, again, this film really shows the value of like congruence or how devastating incongruence can be. So, one way therapists often think about psychological health is what is the distance between who you think you are or who you want to be versus who you actually are, and the more that distance is, often the more you might suffer from things like depression or anxiety, and you might not realize that's why it is because of this distance. Um, but often it's this distance from self. The problem is getting close to yourself requires like pain, painful confrontation with things like perhaps sadness, anxiety, shame is a huge one. And because they're inherently, it's inherently difficult to confront these emotions, we tend to compartmentalize them, or you know, I'm sure listeners will know about defense mechanisms and things like that. Basically, ways of putting our difficult experiences out of awareness, and that is kind of incredible as a short-term strategy. So if you're dealing with some emergency situation, if you're fighting a war, if you're trying to escape an abusive situation, absolutely compartmentalize, put your feelings aside for that second and get out of the situation you need to get out of. But as a long-term strategy, shoving stuff into your unconscious and keeping it there is terrible because again, you're being you're divorcing yourself from yourself and from reality and then from the people around you. It's this very kind of predictable thing that happens. And the more you do that, your unconscious will react back. That could be like through a hallucination, which maybe this is what's happening if Mia Faro isn't real. Maybe that's a hallucination, maybe it's our dreams, maybe it's anxiety, but our unconscious, that pressure, that intra-psychic pressure, will build up and like start to interfere and burst into our uh into our conscious mind in quite predictable ways.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

You know, it's it's what you say. Like the I think the the other sort of crucial element of this film is her interaction with Gene Hackman's character. This is a man who she I love that. Yeah, the two of them. I mean, first of all, let's just be clear. Anything with Gene Hackman it's gonna be good. I mean, he's always good, and he's he's actually it's a very small role, and he's great in the small role. But what's interesting is they they have this sort of make outs, I should, I guess they have, at this party in which she is um she's there with her husband, and he tells her that he's in love with her, and she says, no, she's gonna marry uh Ian Holmes' character, and she's sort of and you can see all of the rationalizations that she engages in as to why she'd rather be with this person who seems safer rather than the person who she clearly has more passion for, which is Gene Hackman. And there's a really fascinating moment here where Hackman kind of turns on her and says, Maybe I just underestimated you. Maybe I haven't maybe I don't understand you at all, actually. And you know, in ourity, actually, he does understand her, and he she is sort of rationalizing this relationship that she doesn't really love. And what's interesting about this is that the book end of the movie is that you see Hackman at the end and you see this book that he wrote and this this uh uh imagination of the relationship between the two of them in which there is real passion. And you sort of see this as like this is the path she had chosen, the beginning, where she rejects Hackman, and this is the path that she is trying to get get on after this experience that she's had. Doesn't mean she's gonna be with him necessarily, but it means that, and that's what's sort of I think fascinating. What would have really what would have killed this movie is if she ends up with Gene Hackman in the moment. Oh my god, that would have been that would have been all right, it would have been awful. Like, oh, it's don't do that. But it's better than that. And this is why it's such a mature uh movie that instead what it's saying is that this is this path of being with Gene Hackman when she wanted to be with him, that's the path she should have taken. And now it suggests that she understands that. And going forward, she's going to act, you know, with her passions, not like with her sort of clinical mind.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Yeah, Gene Hackman is the poster boy for congruence. He's saying, you know, you have to pay attention to your feet. He's very congruent, you know, he's very congruent in the scene. And he's saying you you have to live a life of passion as well. You can't just retreat into intellectualism.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

And it also speaks to something you said earlier, Alex, um, that it's a a hopeful ending, but it's a mature ending. And that in in the book, he talks about how he, the narrator of the book, recognized that she had that within her, you know, so that it was there for her to be able to tap, and that she had not, you know, tapped that for for most of her life. But now you are left with the possibility that she will live a more robustly emotional life. And it is, I hadn't thought as much about this, but because it's such a classic Woody Allen line that I almost let it slide by. But when he is giving her a hard time at that party and she's describing what she likes about her her future husband, Gene Hackman kind of taps his head and says, It's it's all up here, it's all up here. You know, there's nothing from the heart. And so definitely you have that that that contrast between the intellect and the emotion.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Yeah, the two worst endings have been either if she ended up with Gene Hackman, or if she has a conversation with Mia Farrow and then Mia Farrow gradually disappears to reveal that she's like a phantom and not really, those are the like she's an angel or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Right, right. But I it leaves that look, maybe she does end up with Gene Hackman. I have no idea. I don't think so. But had it shown, but that is not the point, right? The point is that she is at a a she's reached a point in her life where that's a possibility when it wasn't at the beginning of the film. And that's the maturity that you're seeing from her character. And whether Mia Fair exists or doesn't exist. I mean, I don't think she exists. I mean the question of my mind doesn't exist. It does not matter. It does not matter, right? And had they showed that she did other, I mean, there was one suggestion at the end from the therapist that she that uh she may not actually exist.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Yes. Um she's completed her treatment and moved away, which is I was discussing with Alex is a gigantic Hibba violation.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Uh yeah. And we we should shout out uh Mia Faro's performance, which I think is excellent, and even though she's not on screen for very long, and actually most of the time she's on screen, she's kind of out of focus, but then there's a few key scenes where she's really in focus, and you see a close-up of her eyes, and she's that she's kind of the beating heart of the film a lot of ways, in a lot of ways, and it's shows how that confrontation with Mia when she eats with her at the restaurant is a huge catalyst for her um to move psychologically forward. There's quite yeah, there's there was also a scene I think where they actually show a mask somewhere on screen.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

And I think there are several falling masks in this movie, I think as many as three. And there's also a kiss through a mask. I thought suddenly I thought I was watching Eyes Wide Shut.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

Yeah, she gives the mask to her first, I guess it's her first husband who had suicide, who she had got pregnant with and then had abortion, and she puts the mask on and he kisses her. And I mean, you know, it's a little like metaphor alert, right? I mean, you know, she's keeping herself, you know, hidden from her real true feelings and emotions from the world. I mean, I will say this that like the other thing that makes me convinced it's not real is that Camia Farrow is pregnant, right? Because it's clear that, and you get this by the end of the film, that the crucial moment in in Marion's life, or the crucial inflection point is the decision she had to not have a baby, to have an abortion. And she says at one point uh that maybe she should have had kids. I forget who she says this to, but she says maybe she should have had kids. It might have been Martha Plimpton. It might have been Martha Plimton. I can't remember, but like that is is clearly this is the biggest regret of her life. I don't think there's any question about it. I mean, you could argue it's the it's that she doesn't really have real passion in uh that you see with the situation with Hackman, but like the decision to not have a children is one that has haunted her. Um and I think it's interesting, I think it's very comp very interesting that like the last big sort of uh uh um uh what's it called, sort of introspective moment is when she has this dream about her being with her first husband and when she talks about having an abortion. Um and I think in a way, part of what again comes across in the movie is that she has this regret, but she's not going to allow it to dominate her life. And I gotta say for the just one thing I say about Woody Allen, his movies do not usually have happy endings, right? I just finished watching them, Husbands and Wives. That is the bleakest effing movie you are ever gonna see about marriage relationships. I mean, it's a phenomenal movie, but it is dark. And what's interesting to me is that, you know, when this movie came right, I think it was two movies after Hannah and her sisters. Yes, which was I I think one of his best films, but it's also very unusual in his filmography in that it is incredibly happy ending. I mean, like an ending that whenever I see it, it I tear up. It it makes me it makes me weep whenever I see it.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Which which drove him crazy. He hated the happy ending for Hannah, and he said, Well, where have I gone wrong? He did.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

In fact, I think he filmed initially an unhappy ending and decided he wanted to go with this one. So I don't, but you know, I don't really believe that. I mean, this what's interesting about this is that he made that at a point in his life and this movie becomes like two movies after. And between that, he does Radio Days, which is really sort of a very nostalgic movie. There does seem to be a sort of a wistfulness in his movies in this period that sort of suggests that he maybe has a slightly more positive worldview or positive world idea or a view that like people can change for the better.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

But I want to dive in a little bit deeper into that conversation she has in The Dream with her first husband, where they're having this bitter fight about how she has gone off and had an abortion without even telling him about it. And I think one of the strengths of this movie, and I think it's a remarkable strength, is that I agree with you completely that not having children and perhaps not having that child is one of the great regrets of her life, if not the great regret of her life. But in that argument, she makes some very strong points. I mean, I think she's right to say that this is something that would have benefited him, this old man whose career has been fully established, to then end up, you know, toward the end of his life, having a child and having that experience. And for her, the budding, promising academic, it's not easy to have a kid as a young person. And it might have easily kind of derailed her career and her ambition. I'm not saying she made the correct decision or that she even Thinks now she made the correct decision. But in a lot of these confrontations, actually each side gets gets their points in. Even in the conversation with Sandy Dennis, I thought uh kind of Marion made reasonable counterarguments, even though we know for a fact that she had clearly, fundamentally misread the relationship between the two of them and all of the latent hostility and envy uh that Sandy uh Dennis had been harboring from the very start of their relationship. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

In terms of endings, one of my favorites Woody Allen endings is a totally ambiguous ending, which is Matchpoint. Uh, you guys have you guys watched Match Point where you have no I love that movie. Now, obviously, it's an ending not in the sense of you know, is this person gonna grow or not grow, but is this person gonna be caused for murdering someone or not? And it ends on like the perfect you you couldn't come up with a better cliffhanger than that, in my view.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

It's it's great. But I'll also I'll I'll give a shout out to one other movie. I just watched Vicky Christina Barcelona, which is a really wonderful movie and very similar situation, two women who have very different views about love and about dating and relationships. And you see them, they're in Barcelona on vacation, they come back and they're getting off the plane, they're walking through the airport, and you can they both have this look on their face as though they both think they've made bad decisions about love and dating and relationships. And I sort of he's not afraid to leave the audience with sort of on a bummer note, right? I he really isn't afraid to do it. But I think what's interesting about this movie is that he this one does not. I mean, I guess you could read it that way. I certainly do not. I read this as an incredibly hopeful movie, uh, and very unusual in the again, in the Woody Allen canon to have a movie that's kind of uplifting of an ending.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

And something I wanted to ask you guys is, you know, I'm also curious about what movies have to say about culturally. This film is set in a very specific subculture, which is this New York upper middle class intellectual culture. You guys are a lot closer to that than I am. What do you think this film is saying about that subculture? I could start with you, Jonathan.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

I want to defer to Michael because I know he has stronger feelings about this.

SPEAKER_03 46:11

Okay, great. This actually is one of the things that frustrates me about this period of Woody Allen's films, going back to like this sort of beginning a little bit here, maybe going back to Andrew Sisters, going through like husbands and wives. I was joking about this with John, husbands and wives. You know, there's a Liam Neeson is is uh takes out the character on a date and they go to see a Mahler symphony. And I was like, does what do Alan know that most people like go to rock concerts or like you know, sort of comedy shows or you know, not Mahler? Like he lives this like very bubble existence of just culturally. And uh you do feel that in this movie. The people in this movie are very insular, they're all sort of I mean, they they go to these like sort of you know dinner parties and they're always hanging going out on weekends with their friends, and there's a very Hamptons. Going to the Hamptons, yeah. There's a real they're in a real sort of world of their own. I I I don't know, and that's just things, I don't know that he's making a cultural critique of people like this. Although I could certainly see that critique uh that maybe somebody in that world, somebody in a sort of highly intellectual world, that is fo and and you see this even with John Housen's character, that they're so focused on their work, they're so focused on you know deep thoughts about serious subjects that they sort of miss what's happening around them. And that's certainly true of John Houseman's character. He's an historian, right? And he says, and as John does it, I mean he says how much regret he has, and he seems a very esteemed historian, but that he has this humorous regret that he spent all his life focusing on history and not enough focusing on the people around him who he should have cared about.

SPEAKER_04 47:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

I want to I want to make a movie nerd addendum to this, which is this reminds me of conversations about one of my favorite French filmmakers, Claude Chabral, many of whose films are set among relatively comfortable kind of French intellectual types. And the question of the critics of Chabral say he kind of he's kind of gone native, because most of these films are very critical. Usually, you know, somebody has killed somebody and he's exposing the hypocrisy of this culture. And similarly, Woody Allen spends a lot of time nested in this culture, and it's probably a culture with which he is very familiar. And many times he's making rather searing critiques of those cultures. I think probably Manhattan would be peak in that area, although maybe crimes and misdemeanors as well. But on the other, on the other hand, you do have to wonder whether he's also sometimes kind of going native and is a member of that culture. He likes to think of himself as an outsider in that culture. There's a scene cut from Annie Hall in which there's a fantasy sequence of a New York Knicks basketball game in which the athletes play the intellectuals, and Woody, with his glasses getting knocked off and everything, is on the team intellectual, right? So he's kind of situating himself there. But generally he likes to poke fun at those cultures when his wife and Annie Hall is talking about all of the chaired professors, you know, who are at the party. He has a chair here, he has a chair there, and he says, Wow, two more chairs and you can make a dinette set.

SPEAKER_03 49:13

Exactly, exactly, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

I I kind of read the whole film as a low-key critique of that intellectual subculture. And there's there's one scene, maybe in particular, which stands out to me, which is the scene where Gina Rowland is going to marry her her husband to be, and they're all at a party celebrating. And of course, they met because they were cheating on his previous wife, and then his previous wife stumbles into the party, and she's very, very emotional. And she's she's talking about how horrible it was for him to have cheated on her, and the way everyone reacts is with this stiff, oh, can we get this really emotional person out of the party as soon as possible? So it's this it to me, it shows this attitude of I think in subcultures like this, and I should say I identify with this kind of subculture, you know, I'm a therapist, but it really shows how uh in subcultures like this we can have this quite negative attitude towards intense emotional states, which is obviously also uh what's going on in the main character, and we can see emotions as irrational and unpleasant. And can we please just get these emotions out of the room as soon as possible?

SPEAKER_03 50:25

You know, it's funny because that is actually fundamentally Gene Hackman's critique of Gene Rowland's character and of her soon-to-be husband. But I do think it's interesting, like you say, I don't disagree with anything you said, but I'm also struck by the fact that you know their best friends, Blythe Danner, and I don't remember the act actor who plays her husband, right? Right, they they're introduced to us by him telling them about her the two of them having having sex on their floor and the super coming in and you know interrupting them, which is not what you would expect at this kind of you know gathering, right? This kind of story being told. And maybe the idea is that like these people are all sort of afraid of that kind of emotion, afraid of that kind of spontaneity, that that that's just not who they are. And in fact, you do see this moment between Gina Rowland and her husband where she asks, like, would you want to have sexy other floor? And and he says, Well, he doesn't say yes or he says, Would you, I don't think you would want to. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

Yes. I didn't I never thought of he was the hardwood floor type. Um, right, right. But that little story again, there are so many little pieces of business in the movie that provide multiple pieces of information, right? So you do have what we've just talked about, which is the contrast of Blythe Danner's marriage, which has this robust sexuality to it, as opposed to Gina Rowland's marriage, where the sex is kind of dried up in their life and she's very upset about that. But also it's making a little comment about fidelity because the Blythe Danner sounds like she's having a very robust sex life with her husband, and yet she is also having an affair. So, you know, it's a small piece of business, but that which leads one to have an affair is not cannot simply be reduced to, oh, I'm not getting enough sex at home, so I'll go on the outside. It's it's it's it's interesting that a character who is introduced to us as having a robust sex life nevertheless has an affair, you know, outside of the marriage. It's uh it's just so many of these small pieces of business throughout in almost every scene. You know, we haven't yet talked about the brother who, in older age, is played by the great character actor Harris Eulin. Another of the many shout outs we're going to give in this podcast is to Harris Eulin. And I will just shamelessly say that it was a delight for me to have the opportunity to interview him briefly near the end of his life because I was working on a feature in a different movie that he appeared in. And he was just a he was a real working actor, uh a high quality performer, never a movie star, but just someone you could set down into a into a movie in almost any role, and he would do a great job. And I think he's terrific here as the brother. And there's also in flashbacks the kind of youthful version of himself.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Yeah, what I found to be one of the most riveting scenes is the youthful version of the protagonist's brother arguing with their father about his sense of neglect that all of the resources are being given towards the protagonist because she's so promising and he feels so discarded and so neglected and so neglected. And that that scene really hits home for me.

SPEAKER_02 53:26

Yes, and it's the whole family dynamics. It's another relationship that she she was certainly privy to it, but could not or chose not to process it, the extent to which she was the favored child, uh, and that she got the advantages. And that came at a cost to her brother and to maybe to other members of the family. And while we're handing out hat tips, David Ogensteyrs shows up for this one scene, and I believe fully that is John Houseman at a younger age. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:57

Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

No, no, I mean I'm not saying I believe that's no, let's let's Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Michael.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

No, I was gonna say I think that you know that scene in particular, like it's interesting because and this is the depth of the I think the story here. It's she's not responsible for what happened to her brother, right? Right? That's her father who was responsible for that. But she benefited from that and she's sort of oblivious to it. And when her sister-in-law says to her, Well, he secretly hates you, she is like, Well, why why she seems very confused by that. But of course, why why would that be shocking to you? He lost his he had to go work in a box factory, right? Rather than pursue his dreams because she was the favorite child. I mean, of course it's gonna breathe some resident, but she is oblivious to it. And I think that is again what is this movie is about forcing her to confront all of these things that have happened in her life, some of which she's rabbed for, some of she's not rabbed before, but which she's oblivious to.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Yeah, and that that's yeah. So to me, what this film is about is flying blind, you know, flying without a radar, which the protagonist has done for her whole life, not paying attention to her emotions or any of the stuff that's happening deeper, maybe just outside of awareness, and therefore all of this stuff building up around her tension with herself, tension with the people around her. So, so I guess this brings us to the value of introspection. And is introspection important?

SPEAKER_02 55:20

Now, are you guys familiar before you get to introspection? Because I'm eager, I don't want to interrupt that flow of your conversation, but I wanted to add one more comment about the John Hausman, David Ogginstiers character, which is it suddenly occurs to me, boy, she is her father's child. I mean, there's a cold cerebral man who, in that imagined therapy session, the one that breaks my heart, he says, uh, I regret that that the woman I lived my life with was not the woman I loved most. And I that not only does that have, you know, an overwhelming sense of regret, but I love at least the fact that he threw in the most, right? So he did love his wife, but it wasn't the one for whom obviously there was another woman there that he had this burning passion for. And he too made the probably safe and rational choice in terms of choosing his spouse. And he comes across in all scenes as a very cold and controlled man, both with his daughter and with his son. And you can see how Jana Rowlands, in in many ways, Marion, is an incarnation, you know, of all that her father has given her.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Yeah. And to me, that rings true in the sense that these things kind of these things can be hereditary, they can run in families and not just genetically, although I think partly genetically, so we know from the science. On average, 50% of personality differences can be explained by genetics, which of course leaves room for 50% of environment. But if you're a parent, you're providing a lot of that child's environment, and a lot of what a parent is supposed to do is to teach a child how to feel and process emotions. That could be through language or other means. But it's fascinating if you watch parents and young children together, and I'm sure you guys are familiar with this. You know, if a child is in pain, um, they'll make a grimace, and then the the parent will often mirror that grimace back to them. They might even exaggerate it, show, okay, this is how you symbolize pain. Oh, I can see you're in pain. And they'll use a word like pain, and then so the child now has a word or a symbol they can use to wrap around that feeling and make it a little bit more manageable. This isn't some huge, unstoppable force, this is something called pain, and pain will come and pain will pass. And perhaps this isn't what the the father taught the protagonist that you can feel these things and process them because he himself, for whatever reason, was also quite emotionally detached.

SPEAKER_03 57:46

Yeah, I mean, this movie is look, I mean, every character in the movie, except really for Gene Hackman's character, and I guess maybe the daughter is emotionally detached, right? And that's where I think you could say this is kind of a cultural critique of the world in which these people live.

SPEAKER_01 58:01

Now, in terms of like again, the value of dealing with this stuff, are you guys familiar with the re the recent uh Mark Andreessen controversy where he was talking about whether or not introspection is important?

SPEAKER_03 58:14

Oh, I did see something about this, yes.

SPEAKER_01 58:15

So Mark Andreessen is a billionaire, and just like that's a terrible way to introduce someone. He's a billionaire. Yeah, I think he was the founder of Netscape, yeah, and he does plenty of other stuff, and he was on some podcasts talking about how introspection largely is a product of the early 1900s and therapy culture, and it's something we must be doing away with because we should just be moving forward in life, and introspection just keeps us bogged down. You don't have any levels of introspection.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

Yes, zero, as little as possible. Why move forward, go? Yeah, I don't I don't know. I've just I've found people who dwell in the past get stuck in the past. It's it's just it's a real problem, and it's a it's a problem at work and it's a problem at home. And you probably know if you go back like 400 years ago, it never it never would have occurred to anybody to be introspective. Like it's the the whole idea of, I mean, just the all of the modern conceptions around introspection and therapy and all the things that kind of result from that are you know kind of a manufactured of the 1910s, 1920s. Say more about that. Great men of history didn't sit around doing this stuff at any prior point, right? It's it's all it's it's it's it's all a new construct.

SPEAKER_01 59:14

Never mind thousands of years of contemplative traditions, never mind Marcus Aurelius, never mind any of that, never mind like thousands of years of philosophical thought, introspection is bad. What what do you guys think? Is introspection important? It seems like a dumb question to ask.

SPEAKER_03 59:30

I mean, I honestly I think people who say introspection is unimportant are probably sociopaths. I mean, I actually truly would say that. I mean, I just think that that is the definition of sociopathic behavior, like the belief that you don't have to question your own decisions, you don't have to hold yourself accountable, you don't have to hold yourself responsible. I mean, I know this is your turf, not mine, as far as like talking about sociopathy, but that's what that sounds like to me. That is an insane thing to say, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 59:55

I I'm I think I'm in that department. I I mean I have a friend who has said, and I think he's right, that people who are not introspective tend to be happy people. So so I think there is that element to it. But I mean, I'm pretty much committed to the notion that uh uh a life not examined is not a life worth living. I don't know how well that's worked for me, but it's certainly how I've lived my life.

unknown 1:00:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:22

That's interesting you said, by the way. Can I say I don't know that I think that is that they're happier? I don't think they are happier. I think they're they're people who who present themselves as being happy to the world, but internally are really struggling because they're they're basically having to to not confront the questions that we all ask ourselves. I mean, I think I I don't know, maybe it's the different definition of happiness.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:45

So I think that's this is this is my friend's theory. It's not my theory, but uh, I look around and it it strikes me that uh the the happier people that I see are people who don't knock themselves out, kind of beating themselves up or thinking about choices they made or stuff like that. It's like, yeah, whatever. I'm uh I'm a billionaire, I'll invent something. What's next?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

You know, it's like well, I guess there's levels of introspection, right? One can be deeply injected, one can be sort of introspective, but to say to reject the idea completely, that doesn't scream happiness to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

But you know, I mean, I guess my main problem with Mark Andreessen's point, I mean, all of the things you said, that you can make a ton of great arguments for why you should introspect. But also, is a life without introspection even possible? You were introspecting all the time. You know, someone says, Hey, you come home and your wife says, How was your day, honey? That's an introspect to answer that question requires a level of uh introspection. Introspection is of course one of the things that makes us human and what makes us more sophisticated there than other animals. We can do a thing and then evaluate how did it go? How did it make me feel inside? Did it make me feel good or bad? And uh one thing that's emphasized particularly in dialectical behavior therapy is again, these our emotions aren't these artifacts, they're not these vestiges, they have functions. Sadness has a function, like sadness, the point of sadness is to think carefully about a loss and why you have lost something and why is that thing that you've lost important to you. The function of uh anxiety is to get away from something that could potentially be a threat to you. The function of anger is to generate the energy that you need to defend yourself or to burst through an obstacle. That doesn't mean all emotions are useful and you should sort of believe, if you like, in inverted commas every emotion you have and act on it reactively. But emotions are these ancient systems that evolution has given us, which can, if we if we fine-tune them and calibrate them, can give us very, very valuable information about what's going on with ourselves uh uh and what's going on with our relationships and the world around us. I guess the distinction I would make is between introspection, uh proactive introspection and rumination and getting stuck. So I think maybe Mark Andries is saying we shouldn't continually get stuck and go around in circles about our regrets, but that's not really what the very kind to him.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:12

Yeah, maybe I I I don't know what I didn't hear him say it, and I don't know nothing of this person, but that just sounds like uh an obtuse person saying a ridiculous thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:23

Yeah, yeah. Okay, let I'm I'm happy to go with the less charitable uh explanation. I think it it's part of our part of the culture of like there's something about what's happened recently in the past few years where for some reason there's almost like a resurgence of let's be repressed. Like, why would we get stuck in all of this difficult stuff? Let's just be repressed, let's keep moving forward. And I I think I see this a lot in the tech billionaire class. I think it's almost it's it's part of a way of maybe the way they distance themselves for what they see as the far left. Uh, maybe they see the far left as too much contact with emotions and an overvalidate or overvalidation of emotions. So maybe in in the tech billionaire culture, they're like, screw emotions, emotions are not valuable, let's keep moving forward. Well, you see it in our in our current president.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:15

I mean, the least introspective man, maybe who's ever lived, right? And I think that you know he's a perfect example of just this uh this mindset that you don't you don't have uh well I was just saying this way I look Donald Trump, there is a there is a a voice coming through the vent, right? In his vent. There is a voice that is telling him he is inadequate, he's not good enough, and he has spent his entire life pushing that down inside of himself and seeking validation, outward validation from the world. Uh that's you know, that's what he got the world that he and I think I I mean I think people who support him to some extent that may be defining of them as well. People who don't want to be introspective, who don't want to think about, you know, why is there racism in America, why is there massage in America, why you know the sort of the understanding sort of the the antecedents of some of the things they complain about. So I I think you're right, there is this idea of rejecting introspection. I don't think it's healthy though.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

No, no, I don't think it's healthy. I mean, yeah, in terms of so something I like is like what once we've talked about a film, what can we take away? Because I I I think that films, really good films like this, can hold a lot of valuable lessons. And I'm wondering, having watched it, maybe you do you maybe you want people to arrive at their own interpretations, but what do you guys think maybe are some key takeaways you would want someone to potentially get from this film? And maybe I could start with with Jonathan.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:48

I don't have a short or obvious answer for that. Um, again, partly because of what you said, which is what's really cool about the movies is that the movie is static. But the audience is dynamic. So my relationship with movies changes over the years. I'll see a movie one year, a movie seven years later, and then a movie 14 years later. And my engagement with the movie is fundamentally changed. And now we can be pretty confident that every frame of that movie is exactly the same. So the only thing that has changed is me. And similarly, you know, every audience member sitting and watching a movie brings themselves, their experiences, their context to that experience. So I'm not sure that this movie is in the lesson business. And I think that that's also part of the credo of the 70s film, although it also speaks to filmmakers that I really admire. There's a French filmmaker, one of my favorites that Michael and I have been talking about a bit, called Olivier Assayas. And they share this credo that films are about asking questions, not providing answers. So if you ask me the question that way, saying, what are the types of questions that this movie is asking you to think about, then it's a lot of the things that we've already discussed, which is, you know, what is it like to live an exam a self-examined life? What are the choices that one makes in life? What are the proper ways to comport oneself in their relationships with their siblings, with their spouses, with younger people that they interact with, with their parents? How do you navigate and deal with them? What is the best way in which you should live your life in that way? So again, I'm I'm much more comfortable thinking about well, what are the questions this film is asking? And I'm I'm rarely comfortable with uh the question of what are the answers this film is giving. And again, that gets us back to the 70s film because the 70s film was an era in which answers were set aside in favor of questions.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:48

So I want to just agree with everything that Jonathan said. I want to pick up on one line at the end of this film that I think is that is profound. Uh where I think it's where she's reading from the book, I can't think she's reading from the book, or I think it maybe after she's reading from the book that written by Gene Hackman. And she asks this question, is a memory something you have or something you've lost? And I have been thinking about that question for the last like, I don't know, 15 hours. Like, how do I what do I think of that? I don't know the answer. And that's the point, right? It's a qu it's a really deep question to ask, and I don't have a good answer for it, but I've been thinking, I've been wrestling with it. And that's I mean, to Jonathan's point, that's what a great movie does. It doesn't tell you this is the path, it suggests here's the question you have to answer before you get on the path, or here's the question we want to confront you with. And you know, I we there's basic questions like is Media Faro real or not real, right? I mean, is some of this movie a dream? Like we had a we needed a taxi driver a couple of months ago. We had a back and forth debate about whether scenes on the movie actually happened or they happen, or they in the in the mind of Travis Pickle, and and we went back and forth. There's no right answer, it's how you interpret it. But that's a secondary question, that's a fun question to talk about and tells you a lot about the movie. There's another question about what is this movie saying to you about deeper questions about life. And is a memory something you have and you've lost, is a really deep question. I don't have a good answer for. But I appreciate the fact that when I watched this movie, it made me look it again. I thought I thought a lot about that. The first time I saw this movie, I thought a lot about the fact that she was able to change at the end and she was introspective, and she looked at her regrets and she tried to take a different path. And I found that incredibly inspiring. This time I watched it, I was really stuck with this question of uh memory, something you have, something you've lost. That's again what Jonathan's point is like a movie is static, you're dynamic, and how you interpret it is dynamic. And what you see, things I saw in this version of the movie I didn't see the last time I saw it, or the second time I saw it. Um, so I don't know what the answers are. I just think that this is a movie that just confronts its viewer with some difficult questions. And as Jonathan always likes to say, that's all you really want from the movies, right? I mean, it's all you really want. You want to be and sometimes you want to be entertained, obviously, but a movie like this, you want to be confronted with difficult questions and or or challenging questions, and that's what this movie does, and that's why it's so wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

Yeah, I mean, I certainly agree. I don't think the film provides all the answers and questions like the one he raised, you know, is a memory something you have or something you've lost is particularly enigmatic and wonderful, and I look forward to thinking about it for a week or so. Um, and yet I think the film does provide like some takeaways. Like for me, the film does show that you know, don't pay attention to yourself, don't pay attention to your feelings at your peril, like it's really important. I think the film does show you can understand your life at different levels of depth. The protagonist starts out, you know, understanding her life with a certain sense of superficiality, and uh by the end, she understands herself and what's happened to her in more depth, and that has notably provided a uh more of serenity. You know, she feels a bit more equanimous, and I think that's good. I think one thing the film really shows quite nicely is that introspecting and getting to know yourself sucks like a lot of the time. It's so like it's hard, like therapy sessions are hard, honest conversations with friends or in relationships are really painful. And I almost think about it's going to the gym. Like going to the gym sucks a lot of the time, but you have to go because otherwise your body falls apart. And similarly, good mental health requires you to get in touch a little bit with your unconscious, and it sucks. But if you do it regularly, I almost liken it to cleaning cleaning out your attic. If you clean it, clean out your attic once a month, it's low-level sucks, but it's manageable and your attic is okay and you're okay. But if you leave your attic to build up clutter for 10 years and then you go in there, it's gonna be a nightmare. And that's how a lot of people are with their own minds, is little like let stuff build up, and then they'll have their first therapy session ever, maybe at age 50 or 55 or 60. And boy, is that attic, does that athletic need some time to clear out?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:59

Right. I I just want to mention one thing really quickly that just I thought about this. Um, like the contrast with her introspection is that you know, her husband, played by Ian Holm, in the beginning of the movie, as you mentioned the scene where he's confronted by his ex-wife, and he says, I think the line is I accept your condemnation. Oh, yeah. Key line. Key line. And then at the end of the movie, when Gina Rollins confronts him about his affair, he says, I accept your condemnation. Yeah. Which suggests that he has learned nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:26

Nothing from his ex-I I think that's not quite right. I think what the beauty of that line is, and why we're supposed to be primed in the audience for this dagger that he's going to have an is having an affair that we don't yet know about, is that I think maybe he says it three times, but the second time he says it, and it's not a tremendous space in movie time, but it's a tremendous space in quote-unquote real time, is when she confronts him over their lack of passion in the bedroom, that they haven't had sex in a very long time, and he kind of fobs it off and says we're going through a phase, blah, blah, blah. But then he uses the same rhythm of phrase, you know, I'm sorry if I've hurt you in any way. I accept your commendation condemnation. And that's just a dagger. It's a dagger because it takes you right back to the first wife. And that's when when you watch the movie more than once, you I mean, or even if you watch it the first time, you should get this. I didn't, that it that it's over at that point. And I think I shared with Michael that my son loves to use this line whenever he's caught in a difficult situation. Oh, yeah, yes. Oh, I crashed the car, but I accept your condemnation, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:34

But don't you think that it's like it's a it is such a it's such a uh oh, what's it called? Like a passive aggressive thing to say. It's a way of denying responsibility. Not denying responsibility, it's a way of pretending it's fake. Exactly. Thank you. It's like you're pretending that you're accepting responsibility when you're really not, and you're not confronting your own behavior, right? You're just sort of saying, I accept your condemnation, but I'm not going to change anything that I do, and I'm going to continue to make these kinds of mistakes. It's interesting that you're right. He does say it when they when she says we don't have we don't we don't have sex anymore, but it's a similar kind of emotionless uh kind of statement that he makes at the beginning of the film.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:17

Yeah. And for a guy who runs off and cheats on his wife at the drop of a hat, apparently, every wife he's ever had, uh, he is a very cold man, you know, very cool, very calm, very you don't you don't he doesn't seem to be a guy who's bursting with passion. It's kind of, you know, and and it's not an accident, of course, that he's a surgeon, which we associate as having the kind of well, a dispassionate personality. Um, but it's interesting, though. You know, there he he does, he he does like to race off and have these uh adulteries. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:47

There's two like key devastating moments in the film that I picked up on. There's that one, and the other devastating moments was when the the protagonist has lunch with Mia Farrow, and she's kind of having sympathy for Mia Farrow, and isn't she in such a difficult position? But then she hears Mia Farrow talking about her and her therapy session, and actually how much Mia Farrow has a lot of sympathy and pity for her and her situation. She thought she had a nice lunch, but actually Mia Farrow has this quite devastating view on the protagonist's life and how that's going.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:20

And then we cut to the lunch scene, and again, it is just so impeccably framed uh when uh Gina Roland's character walks to this little entryway and it's kind of a mirror there, and it's cut off, and we see what she sees. Just beautiful. And again, we want to give some props to Sven Nequist here. The the photography in this movie, it fits the film so nicely. The colors are done so well, the framing is done so well. So this film has a lot to say, but it is also a such a finely crafted movie. It's and it's a small movie, you know, it's not jumping up and down and shouting, and it's not showing off in any way, but all of the elements of movie making are just so there to be admired.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:59

Yeah, one of the best things about this movie is what it accomplishes in about one hour, 20 minutes. So short. And I think that's something you guys admire about 70s movies in general, is that they tend to be short and it packs a punch, doesn't waste any time. Um, one one other thing I want to mention psychologically again is that I think a lot of people are afraid of a more introspective life because they're afraid of tolerating uncertainty and not knowing. So, one of the most painful scenes in the movie is when the protagonist is like, I just don't know, like I don't know what to do, I don't know what's happened, I don't know what's gonna happen, and I don't know how I should like conduct myself. So, I guess one thing I would want listeners maybe to think about is see if you can develop more tolerance to not knowing in your life. You don't have to know at all times. There'll be times when you feel on top of the world and you feel like you're running things. Um, but sometimes you'll have these interludes in between where you feel lost. Allow yourself to feel lost. It's important. If you can let yourself feel lost, that can put you in a position where you then can put the pieces back together and feel a little bit more secure. But don't let that fear of being lost stop you from reflection, stop you from introspection.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:13

Yeah. That is actually a very Alanesque comment on your part, because one of the four or five themes that weaves its way through all of his films is the important role of chance that chance plays in people's lives. And the the opposite of that is control, right? The idea that if you do this and you do that, you can kind of control your destiny, you can control your life. And in fact, the most important turning points in your life are probably going to be determined by chance occurrences. Uh Woody Allen in his Snedabroutine had this great line where he'd like to say, You want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:48

Um, it's a great line. Yeah. And I mean, that's you mentioned match point earlier. That's what match point is really entirely about is that this whole question of chance and and luck and and happenstance.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:58

I I really much prefer the term serendipity, which is like my optimism, my optimistic take on trans, which helps me sleep a bit better at night, the serendipity. Um, just as we wrap up, one of my favorite things to ask, what film would you pair this film with for a double feature, Michael?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:17

Oh god. Uh that is a really tough question. Um actually, I'm gonna let Jonathan go because I know it is I know he has an answer to the question.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:26

Wait, you do? I didn't know. What's my answer? What do you think my answer is? I thought you'd say September. Okay, so yeah, so September is a natural pairing with it because it's the film that Alan made right before this one. It's a chamber piece, it's another one of his very overtly serious films. And so with Interior is September and Another Woman, you kind of have the Bergman triptych. And I'm one of the six people in the United States who like September, so I could pair it with that. Um, but there's a few others who like it.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:56

It has some it has some lovers out there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:58

But I'm gonna I'm gonna go in a very different direction and say I would double feature this with Eyes Wide Shut, which is another film about a marriage. I know this film isn't entirely about a marriage, but it's about marital relations. But it is another film that is heavily invested and is steeped in Freudianism, by the way. So if you haven't seen it six times, you probably should, Alex. Um, but it is heavily invested in exploring the question of the difference between dreams and reality. And so another woman also has dream sequences and reality sequences that Michael in particular is convinced aren't actually real. And so there's a nebulous border between the kind of real world and the dream world. And, you know, Eyes Wide Shut is an underappreciated film because it was kind of marketed as a kind of erotic thriller, which it is not. Uh, but it is a movie that has a lot to do with the challenges of marriage. And it is a film that has a lot to do with exploring that space and the meaning of the difference between what happens in a dream and what happens in real life. And I think that'd be actually a more fun double feature than September, although I do heartily recommend September for all of your patient listeners out there.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:15

You know, I guess I I would actually say I first of all, I'd always recommend watching Eyes White Shut. I think it's a phenomenal movie. I think it's an underappreciated movie. I I'm gonna go in a really kind of weird direction here, just because it's between Woody Allen, so I'll do another Woody Allen. I would almost say husbands and wives, not because it's similar. I think it's actually the opposite. I think the message of husbands and wives is very different from uh uh another woman. And in one regard, which is that the people in that movie end up making the same wrong choices over and over again in their relationships. And the only character who is, I think, somewhat mature is actually Woody Allen's character, which is a little, I think some unusual for his movies, but that is the case. I think it's it's an interesting contrast, maybe, to this movie, in which the end of the movie is about a character who has grown and has sort of understood something about herself. And I think husbands and wives kind of the opposite, in which all of these characters repeat the toxic behavior that got them to the point they were at the beginning of the movie. I know, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:18

Wait, wait, I want to make this a triple feature uh because you watch that, but you can also make watch interiors because what's really fascinating about interiors and husbands and wives, which are radically different films shot in radically different styles, is that they are both their points of departure are exactly the same, which is how does the dissolution of one marriage affect the lives of not the married couple, but the people around them? That's the story of interiors, and that's kind of the story of husbands and wives. And what's so interesting is just how incredibly different those films are in style and substance. And yet, again, the the underlying thrust of the films are the same. And so that's another really fascinating pairing.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:04

I love all of those suggestions. I do need to re-watch Husbands and Wives September and Intiers because I haven't watched them in about 10 years. I think Eyes Wide Shut, I think, is quite similar on a lot of levels because Eyes Wide Shut is also in part about Tom Cruise becoming less incongruent and discovering in the case of Eyes Wide Shut is more aggressive dark side, which is kind of symbolized by the underworld and the upper class, which he discovers, but he also discovers his own capacity for aggression, his sexual impulses, which you know, having not discovered them before the events of the film makes him really disconnected from his wife, and they have a terrible sex life, and then he works through that, and then they have sex at the end of the film. Sorry for those who haven't seen nice wide shotgun.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:50

The last line of that movie where Nicole Kimmins says we have to go. I'm not gonna say the word, but we have to you know go to sleep. That has sex is one of the greatest last lines of a movie I think I've ever seen. It's a phenomenal ending to that movie, phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:02

Uh, it's wonderful. So, my my my suggestion for a double feature, and just so everyone knows, um I'm mostly attempting to get the validation of my guests, so I want my guests to say, Oh my god, that was a great choice. So just bear that in mind. Um, my choice is the conversation, so directed by Francis Ford Coplan, also starring Gene Hackman, it's a 70s film, and I think it's very similar in that Gene Hackman plays someone who's very emotionally repressed, but his job is to listen in on other people and to survey people and to get and he listens to one particular conversation which is really crucial, and that sends him on a whole journey. He's doing stuff in the external world, but also discovering a whole bunch of stuff uh about himself and his own kind of internal disquiet. And so I think that that make a nice, they're both quite quiet films, they're both quite subtle films. They're not one of it's not one of Francis Ford Coppla's big splashy films that came out in that decade, but I I think they make a nice pairing.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:03

You can't go wrong with the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:05

I was gonna say I will validate that pick. I think it's a really interesting, it's an interesting, it's an interesting bookend to this movie. I I know I understand where you got there, but I'll just say for the record, if you want if you recommend the vet the conversation, I will always say that's a good idea because it is it's a phenomenal movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:22

Wonderful. Jonathan, Michael, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. I'd love to have you both back at some point in the future. In the meantime, thank you so much for coming on to discuss another woman. It's been a blast.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:36

Absolutely.