Formal Meets Feral in “A New Leaf” (Elaine May, 1971) – Part 2

Henry Graham belongs to the most exclusive clubs, dines regularly at the most lavish restaurants, drives a Ferrari, employs a butler, and owns something called a Montrazini—in short, he capitalizes fully on his inheritance, despite having little understanding of what “capital” actually is. The very ignorance of practicality that his wealth affords turns out to be his undoing, as soon finds that he’s run out of money and must bid goodbye to the high life—unless, that is, he can find a single, wealthy, isolated woman to marry and, for the sake of preserving his refined, hermetically-sealed existence, murder. Enter Henrietta Lowell. Similarly stunted by her own inheritance, she’s friendless, awkward, and utterly helpless: the perfect mark… But Henry soon discovers that protecting his own interests also means protecting hers, that competence can grow out of the exigency incompetence creates, and that practicing love for someone turns out to be just as good as actually loving them. Wes & Erin continue their discussion of the 1971 film “A New Leaf,” written and directed by Elaine May. Thanks to our sponsor, the incredible online language school Lingoda. Go to https://try.lingoda.com/Subtext and use code SUBTEXT to save 20 EUR (or equivalent in your currency) when signing up. Upcoming Episodes: “Whoso List to Hunt” and “They Flee From Me” (Thomas Wyatt), “Beetlejuice,” Conrad Aiken (“Senlin” Section 2 of II. His Futile Preoccupations). Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:20 Erin: or patreon.com/subtextpodcast. Okay. Welcome to part two of our discussion of Elaine May's 1971 film a new Leaf. Wes, I think we ended last time by talking about how the fern that Henrietta discovers and names for Henry is kind of like her. It's kind of like their surrogate child, but it's something in which he takes an interest and which represents some sort of progression on his part from things, inanimate things, to living semi animate things encased in plastic, but still formerly animate. And I think we also. So we wanted to talk now about this idea that Henrietta, who we haven't really focused on too much yet, that she is very repulsive to Henry at first because she's feral and primitive and what that might mean. 1:19 Wes: Yeah, So I think that, yeah, the question is, what helps him change and turn over a new leaf? And I think part of that is that he, in service of her, actually gets to confront the form of philistinism that he truly hates. And the representatives of that turn out to be Henrietta's servants and her lawyer and his own uncle. Right. So in a scene with his uncle where he's asking the uncle for the money, the uncle, very humorously is eating like a pig during that whole scene and just indulging himself. The servants are made to look like very seedy and self indulgent. And the lawyer, of course, is in on it. They're trying to exploit her. So they are genuinely exploitative. And they genuinely, I think, fall under the category of primitive and philistine. And so they kind of arouse in him a certain kind of contempt. And some of the energy that he is devoting towards murdering her is diverted to taking care of these parasites. Essentially at a certain point with the servants, I thought, you know what he is. You mentioned Roundup. And she's the weed that he's gonna get. It turns out they turn into those weeds. He becomes the poison, the Roundup that is going to get rid of the weeds, who are the servants. So that's an interesting redirection. And of course she's not A philistine in the same way, she's well educated, she's a biologist, botanist, intelligent, and certainly not exploitative. So I think my point is that we get in the beginning for him what is primitive or regressed. His interest in form is lumped in with a deeper contempt for philistinism more generally that shows up in his interest in art. So that what he's calling primitive and regressed in her is just all this form stuff. So that when she spills her tea at the club and the hostess is really angry with her and is laying into her, he can come to the rescue. Now, on one level, he's just. This is part of his plan to exploit her. And deep down he is. He's just as concerned about appearances and form as the hostess who's chewing out Henrietta. But on another level, the contempt for lack of form conceals a deeper contempt for the sort of the unrefined, unsophisticated exploitativeness of people like the servants. Henrietta's servants. 3:47 Erin: That's so great. Yeah. You know, I'm going to say something a little crazy, which I'm better able to locate. The fact that what I might love about this has a little something to do with, like, my love of religion, shall we say, which is a strange thing. But thinking about form and thinking this through, form extends to the marriage, the marital contract, right? A marriage takes a relationship and makes it formal. So because he's entered into this form of the marriage with Henry, Henrietta taking care of his finances means now taking care of her finances. He's inherited her and her baggage, and that includes all these servants that are taking advantage of her, right? And by virtue of the marriage, he now has to deal with this. So. So, so the money comes with problems just like anyone in a marriage, right? Comes with baggage, comes with problems. So he starts to take care of the problem and to. To destroy the weeds that are choking his financial interests. But this has the same effect as taking care of Henrietta, because they're her interests too, because of the virtue of the form, that is the marriage in which they are taking part. The same thing is true with all of his courtship of her. I mean, he's decided to enter into the form of a courtship which very quickly becomes the marriage, right? They only know each other for a few days before they marry. He's doing it to take advantage of her. But whether he was doing it to take advantage of her or because he wanted to legitimately be chivalrous, the effect for her is the same. You know, this is this is what people don't. Don't understand. I think about. About love, that like, you know, love is something about something like having good feelings and thoughts about somebody in your head. This proves that, like, you can love someone and absolutely hate them because the, you know, the expression of it is what matters. Right. The action is what matters, the outward form. And so, you know, so. So it makes me want to connect this idea to, like, religion and this idea of being a philistine. You know, we're all philistines, right? Because of propriety and standards of behavior, we all are good people. Not so long as we have no negative thoughts about anything. But so long as we behave ourselves and treat other people with respect, that is sort of obeying the form under which society puts us. And I think religion in particular, you know, and Catholicism in particular is accused of having a kind of inherent hypocrisy because of things like, you know, the Catholic calisthenics, as they call it, you know, kneeling, standing, sitting at various times of the Mass. Right. Having, like, making your body perform certain things over the course of the Mass. And then one is accused of being purely performative. But I think what, you know, what religion understands is that performance is like 90, 95% of anything. Right. And so the idea is that there is something pious about just looking pious. Like going through the motions carries you through 95% of, you know, it gets you very close to being there. So regardless of how you actually feeling or whether or not you actually believe or are, you know, your internal state comports with your outward state. I think what religions that are traditional in this way and that have these outward structures are for is to show you that no matter how you're actually feeling on the inside, you're still giving due. You're still paying a kind of tribute to reality that your body is assenting to, even if your mind isn't or something like that. I'm putting this very badly. Right. But I think you understand what I'm trying to say. 7:17 Wes: No, no, no. This is great. Yeah. 7:20 Erin: And it turns out that that's actually what matters and that actually following, you know, I think there was a. Like, I might have been Aquinas or somebody said that, like, you know, actually just going through the motions and putting your body in those positions, St. Augustine is. It proves. 7:34 Wes: So this. Yeah, you were reminding me of this in St. Augustine. Yeah. Sort of fake it till you make it. 7:38 Erin: Exactly. Because of the power of the physical. 7:40 Wes: Yeah. The power of ritual and going through the motions of someone who has faith until you can develop the correspondent inner. Inner experience that goes along with those ritual activities. 7:53 Erin: Exactly. 7:54 Wes: I think this is in his confessions and I think this is the way, by his own account, that he developed faith. I mean, I think it was very personal for him, if I'm not misremembering that. And of course it is. The over focus on rituals you pointed out will get Catholics accused of hypocrisy. And that of course is that the very origins of the Protestant revolution is a big deal. And even someone like Erasmus, right, who's getting into it with Luther and. And ultimately is not a Protestant, but is highly critical of the Catholicism of the time once some sort of reform, because of the sorts of things that monks do going around flagellating themselves or going through the motions, but being incredibly corrupt in their spare time. And the same thing with popes, right? The same thing that would had Luther using the printing press to make copy after copy of pamphlets that showed the Pope having sex with the devil or something like that. I forget exactly what it was. But so hypocrisy, you know. Yeah, that subject of hypocrisy is really interesting, as you point out, because we are all hypocrites in the sense that we all have these conflicting impulses and we can hate and we can love at the same time, you know, in a way. 9:06 Erin: Whereas a society, I think, laboring under the implications of the Protestant revolution, which became an entirely internalized mental process of constant self examination and asking oneself like okay, am I a member of the elect or not? You know, in Calvinistic strains of Protestantism, right. And that constant self inquiry of, you know, am I having the right kind of thought? Am I having that it became entirely mental and not at all registered in the physical. And I think to a certain extent there are of course things that are useful about. About self examination and all of these things that that perhaps represents. But that also means the constant fear that one is lab under a misapprehension about one's own salvation. And it doesn't live in the physical at all. And I think that in a way it can become a means of self torture. When all you have are your own thoughts to go off of. And when nobody has pure thoughts and when nobody can always think perfect things all the time because we're seldom, we are sometimes, but not all the time responsible for our thoughts. This can get us into a lot of trouble. This can get us into a place where we can even just outside of our responsibility to other people and our behavior. You know, it can cause us to be. Be in a state of despair just all on our own. Whereas some deference to the physical or the idea that the physical somehow matters, that there's something, that there is a physicality to faith, to sacramentals and various other things, take some of that responsibility out of our own heads and shows that there's something having to do with. It's not just faith. It's faith and works. Right. There's something outside of you that you can use to kind of get along when you're in a tough spot mentally, so long as you. You continue to do good things and pay attention to the forms, even if you're faltering in your faith, as we all do, you could use that to coast along, you know, until the feeling returns. Because our thoughts are so fickle. Right. So all of that to say that I think like this idea of marriage now as being something that, like, well, when I'm no longer feeling love or any kind of relationship, when I'm no longer feeling love, then the marriage is over. That, that. That somehow your thoughts are reality, that your feelings are reality. I think this puts the lie to that. The way that I view religion and obligations to people in relationships and stuff. I mean, I don't always practice this, but the way that I view it is regardless of how I feel, I'm going to still do the thing that I don't want to do. Right. I'm still like, that's what really matters. Whether or not I practice this is beside the point. Right. But the ideal is that no matter how you feel about someone, someone can anger you, but you're going to still care about them and not want to hurt them and take them to the airport if they need a ride to the airport, even if you're mad at them, you know, whatever. Whatever the case may be. Right. 11:45 Wes: I wouldn't take anyone to the airport under any circumstances. But that's just. That's just my. They can get an Uber. 11:52 Erin: Oh, wow. Okay. 11:53 Wes: See, this is why I can't be a Catholic. 11:56 Erin: No, but you know that. 11:58 Wes: Time to personally connect to Jesus. 12:00 Erin: Exactly. Yeah. 12:02 Wes: No, but, yeah, I think this is very well put. These are great points. There's a lot to be said for form, and there's a lot to be said for going through the motions, even though one might just think they are the motions. So here's another way to put it. So you might consciously think you hate someone, but if you're doing kind things for them, then you might be said to have at least part of you you could say that those kind things are quote, unquote, loving. It doesn't, doesn't need to correspond. It doesn't need to have the conscious feeling of love going along with it. Because the mind is much bigger than what's happening consciously at one moment or another. One can love unconsciously or non consciously. And one might think of love more deeply as something that is habituated into the character of a person or the comportment of a person. So that you. If you really want to know what's going on with someone, right, you look at their. You look at their behavior, they may not know that they're loving someone. In which case, because Henry doesn't know it through most of the movie, but we kind of know it. 13:10 Erin: That's right. 13:11 Wes: Well, before he does. So I think, again, just to get back to what you're saying, there's really something important about form. And so the fact that Henry is a stickler for form turns out to be very important. There's a scene with his uncle while his uncle is being disgusting with the food and cutting a banana with a knife and fork and doing weird things and questioning his ability to get a wife in such a short amount of time. Henry says, I can engage in any romantic activity with an urbanity born of disinterest. 13:44 Erin: One of the better lines in the 13:46 Wes: film, which is just great. But his disinterest allows him to power through the forms, right? And as you're pointing out, marriage is also a form. He is going through the motions, you know, apparently, because he's going to exploit and kill, but nevertheless, he's going through the motions and he's habituating himself into something new. 14:07 Erin: I very briefly and very casually dated someone once who, you know, like, wouldn't respond to my texts or take me out or do anything nice for me, but would tell me that, and I would be like, oh, I don't think you really like me that much. And he would be like, what are you talking about? Every night before, before I go to bed, you know, I look at your picture on my phone and I was like, that's it. What does that have to do with me? Like, you don't get points just for having nice feelings about somebody. You know, I would rather like. It made me realize I'd rather. I'd rather be with someone like Henry who wants to murder me. 14:35 Wes: Faith not works and. 14:38 Erin: Exactly. 14:39 Wes: He had faith, right? 14:40 Erin: Like I, you know, what an incredibly solipsistic way to claim that. It's like, how am I Like, are you going to Send me footage of you looking at my picture every night before. Anyway, I'll probably want that cut out eventually. But no. 14:55 Wes: What is your love language? 14:57 Erin: It's silent prayer gifts. 14:59 Wes: Or is it me staring at your picture at night? 15:02 Erin: How is that helping me? You know, like you could at least say something nice to me for once. You know, it was so weird. It was so weird. And. And I thought, you know, like watching this film as so many times it's occurred to me, you know, I would rather have someone like Henry than most of the people probably out there. Because what does it matter if you feel like killing me as long as you're nice to me and treat me well, you know, I mean, I don't see any conflict about this. But what makes Henrietta so appealing is that she's so. And maybe what makes this easy to identify with for me somehow is, you know, you see her as someone who's. Who's really starved for love and positive attention. And Henry is lying. But it doesn't matter because all she needs is someone to stand up for her. You know, all she needs is someone to take her side against a world that sees her as someone from whom they can either extract resources or someone who they could just ignore and pity and use to kind of feel better about themselves. By contrast, what does it matter if he hates her and wants her to die, as long as he's complimenting her? 16:16 Wes: It's just like every marriage, right? 16:18 Erin: No, no, he's, you know, so long as he's complimenting her. Podium trained, perfectly modulated voice. And her soft, well informed eyes. 16:27 Wes: Oh yeah, that's so great. 16:31 Erin: And keeping everybody away from her so that they don't pillage their joint account, which brilliantly were all made joint before the wedding so it wouldn't look like he's marrying her for her money. 16:42 Wes: So this is scene where she's spilled something on his carpet, I guess he's about to propose and then he spills his drink on the floor to make her feel better about having done that. Although later he kvetches about she should be arrested for that. 16:56 Erin: You know how many llamas died to make that rug? 16:59 Wes: But what he says to her. So this is one of the great, ironically great courtship speeches in film and literature. Can you possibly believe for one moment that what happens to this foolish hairy floor covering matters to me when I have you sitting beside me, looking at me with your beautifully soft yet highly intelligent, well informed eyes, talking to me in your gentle yet perfectly modulated podium trained voice? 17:27 Erin: This is the most beautiful Thing ever. 17:29 Wes: That's great. That's really great. 17:32 Erin: Oh, my gosh. I mean, because he's. He's not objectifying her. He's seeing her the way that she wants to be valued, which is as an intelligent person who. 17:41 Wes: He's not lying to her. He's actually finding true things to compliment. 17:44 Erin: Right, sure. Yeah. 17:46 Wes: He's being a little bit over. 17:48 Erin: I mean, he's. 17:48 Wes: Right. So she's mousy and soft spoken and he's turning that into perfectly modulated podium train. So it's a little bit of a distortion. But, you know, you get the idea. He's not just straight up lying to her. 18:00 Erin: No, no. And I mean, it's ridiculous, but it's also. It's extremely sweet. I mean, he's managing to compliment her, the beauty of her eyes and also fit in something about her character and her intelligence and the, you know, the ineffable qualities about her that she obviously values. So it's a compliment that works on multiple different vectors, that activates different things about her that she's looking to be complimented on all at once. You know, and she is someone who's, you know, she can't take care of herself. But to be fair, like, she doesn't need to be working, she doesn't need to be a botanist, she doesn't need to be teaching at the local college. Right. So she's actually like, she values education and not. She's not Henry just sitting around like, enjoying being wealthy. She does have interests to be complimented on and aspirations that she cares about, and he identifies those and properly modulates his compliments to align with them. But as we're talking about this and the idea of him kind of seeing her properly and appreciating her in a way that's true in these compliments if interpolated. I'm sure I've said this before, but often in the course of doing the podcast, I found that, like, the arbitrary order of our episodes can reveal some really surprising connections between totally unrelated things. And it just. Sure enough, I never would have thought of this if we hadn't just covered it. But I was thinking about how a new leaf is like an anti Medea in a way. I mean, in terms of the Jason Medea relationship. And one of the things I liked best in your analysis of Jason and Medea's relationship and what really helped me understand that dynamic is when you pointed out that Jason never really saw her her to begin with or properly appreciated her. He had just used her out of convenience and for what she could do for him. And that's kind of what made her disposal, something he could carry out without really losing a night's sleep. I found that so poignant because, as I think I said, you know, I think this is a pervasive fear that is probably universal. 19:57 Wes: Right. 19:57 Erin: That the person you're with might just choose you because you were there or because you were convenient or because you had money and they needed money, or because you had magical ability that allowed them to get out of a scrape or. You know. Right. Whatever the case may be. But that. 20:10 Wes: That you're a witch. You know, you're. Yeah. I swear to God, it's not because you're a witch that I love you. And for your potions, it's you. 20:19 Erin: Right, Right. And, you know, this film essentially follows the reverse trajectory of that Jason and Medea relationship. And what happens when, you know, you just. You're trying to take advantage of someone you don't really see or care about them or understand them and then find that you can just discard them. What if you started out by just wanting to get rid of them and then you actually realized that you truly care about them and you actually start to really be able to see them? Yeah. 20:47 Wes: Does this kind of fall into a comedy of remarriage a little bit, maybe, category, in the sense that he wants to get rid of her first and then kind of backs into the relationship? Yeah. 20:57 Erin: Yeah. I mean, this is a really extreme example of that. And that has a U shape where this just has a. It's just half a parabola. You know, it's just. 21:05 Wes: Right. 21:06 Erin: You know, they didn't. They don't start out in love, fall out of it and, you know. You know, typically the movie would begin with a divorce, but it's implied that they had a good relationship at some point. Right. 21:15 Wes: You know, unless we construe the meeting as unconscious love. Right. He meets her and then he's. 21:22 Erin: Oh, I like that. 21:23 Wes: Right. Smitten. But consciously he hates her and then spends most of his time trying to get rid of her until he figures it out. 21:30 Erin: He sees her and he says she's perfect. Which is funny because that's what his financial manager says about him. Right. You're perfect. 21:37 Wes: Exactly. You're perfect. Yeah, she's perfect. She's a perfect. Right. So he's perfect, the financial manager, in the sense. He's such a perfect idiot. Obtuse ass. She's perfect in the sense that she's the perfect object of exploitation, but really she turns out to be the perfect complement in the sense that her helplessness arouses his care. 21:57 Erin: I absolutely love that scene in the Cunliffes' sitting room. 22:01 Wes: So I was thinking that was like a country club, but that's. 22:04 Erin: There are scenes in country clubs, but yeah, that's Gloria Cunliffe's sitting room. I pay attention to the names. 22:09 Wes: Yes. The whole Hitler thing is hilarious. Yeah. 22:12 Erin: Oh, do you know the Boston Hitlers? No, we're from Glen Cove. 22:18 Wes: Yeah. Actually, let's just give it a little bit of that. This is Lucy Sylvester and our neighbors, Dr. And Mrs. Darrell Hitler, Johnny Sylvester and Freddie. And of course, you know, excuse me, you're not by any chance related to the Boston Hitlers. That is perfect. That is so perfect. So I think, you know, part of it, of course, is a send up of the obliviousness of the rich. But we expect someone to react to that name and then they do. But it's. It's not the Hitler Hitlers, but the Boston Hitlers. Not the Adolf Hitlers. 22:54 Erin: Yeah, there's another Nazi joke when the little girl who sort of represents Elaine May's character, you know, invades what she thinks is the bathroom. And it's, it's Henry getting ready to, you know, and having a freak out over actually having to marry this woman. And she turns out to be Professor Himmler's daughter, Dodi. 23:10 Wes: Dodie. Heinrich. 23:11 Erin: Heinrich, yeah. And it's Professor Heinrich. That's it. Yeah. It wasn't Himmler, it was Heinrich. There's a Nazi in my. Anyway, someone's in. 23:21 Wes: He's invited some Nazi to the wedding. Yeah, his relationship, that little girl is really interesting because he calls her the little woman. A woman and a little woman, they're all the same. He's worried that she's a spy, she's an intruder, she's touching his things. This little girl brings out his most extreme paranoia. 23:41 Erin: This'll be what it's like. She'll be there touching, touching things, talking to me. Always talking. 23:47 Wes: And it's the flower girl, I think. Right? Dodie is the flower girl. This is right before he's about to be walked down the aisle by. Who walks him down the aisle? 23:57 Erin: Her lawyer. 23:58 Wes: Some guy. 23:58 Erin: Jack Weston walks her down. 24:00 Wes: No, she's walked by her lawyer. 24:03 Erin: He's with the friend with the plane. 24:05 Wes: Oh, that's the guy. Okay. 24:06 Erin: Yeah. And then the one with the crown. Gall is also. Is also in attendance. And Gloria Cunliffe is there. So apparently they got over the interesting. Her being slighted by told that her erotic obsession with her carpet was certainly the most boring thing he'd ever witnessed. 24:25 Wes: Madam, I have seen many examples of perversion in my time, but your erotic obsession with your carpet is probably the most grotesque and certainly the most boring I have ever encountered. 24:36 Erin: That's it. 24:39 Wes: So it's that ability. Yeah. That ability for condescension somehow turns out to be a redeeming quality. 24:45 Erin: Yeah. Because it's really. 24:47 Wes: It helps him save her in that moment he's slaying the dragon, so to speak, with that. Yeah. 24:52 Erin: He doesn't take crap, and she takes too much crap, and somehow between them, they get it done. The sweetness of her character and the moments of. What's excellent about the verbal comedy is, I think, matched in her physical comedy. It is so funny when she's trying to take the cup and saucer. No, the glove out of her hand and. Or keep holding on to the glove and she's taking the cup and saucer anyway, like, there's this great moment where her glasses are falling off her face and this cup is, like, repeatedly falling out of her hand. And we watch, like, the spoon slowly go over the side. And she's watching it, and she just has this hopeless look on her face, like she knows it's happening and there's nothing she could do about it because she's just such a klutz. 25:31 Wes: Yeah. She really. It's. For her. Her. It's almost all physical comedy. Right. That's what she's trying to do with that character. 25:38 Erin: She's really adorable. 25:40 Wes: The klutz. Playing up the. Playing up the klutziness. 25:43 Erin: Yeah. So, you know, maybe we should talk about the moment. Well, where they really connect, actually, in the car. Because I do think they end up having a conversation that he enjoys when they're. You know, he's actually batting the ball back to her when she talks about wanting to discover a true species. And he seems to get into that idea. 26:00 Wes: Yeah. 26:01 Erin: And says, oh, you know, like. Like Parkinson's disease being named after James Parkinson and bougainvillea being named after Louis de Bougainville and then. Or Bougainville and then Brussels sprouts, I think. Yeah. And so he's. He's. He's getting into it. He's. He gets what she's saying. He. This. This appeals to him, the idea of naming a new species of plant after oneself. 26:24 Wes: Yeah. Carbon on the valves. Right. Also turns out to have a redeeming quality because it's because his car has broken down that they can get to know each other in this way. And I think they spend the whole night right before it's towed in the car. So it creates an unexpectedly romantic moment. And of course, he's not aware of the romance yet, but that's actually what is happening. And part of how that happens, you know, he says, tell me about yourself, Ms. Lowell. Your work, your hopes, your dreams. And there's almost a cliched quality to that. And again, at the conscious level, he just needs to know those things so he can exploit her. He's going to find out that she's in the botany, and he's going to go try to learn everything he can about botany. And then as a side project, he can use that to try to poison her. 27:09 Erin: Too bad she's into the organic method, right? 27:12 Wes: Right. There you go. He needs to know what she likes in order to use that against her. But there's something very, very connecting about the sharing of aspirations. Because when people in that moment share their aspirations, there's kind of an implied possibility of a shared future that's inherently romantic. So you know her. She says, my hope is to discover a new fern. I don't know what my dream is. Do you think it could be the same as my hope? Right. Which calls out the cliched quality of that. You know, what are your. What are your hopes and dreams? Wait a minute, aren't they the same? 27:47 Erin: But she's never heard this cliche. But she doesn't know it's cliche because nobody ever bothered to ask her before, you know, and so she takes it. She reads it totally at face value and takes it seriously. 27:57 Wes: And then she says, my work and my hope in any way. That is my work and my hope, except for my dreams, which I'm not certain of. Really Great, great line. So innocent and so, so cute, honest and vulnerable. But she, you know, her hope is to have something named. Have a discovery named after her. So it's. It's quite an aspiration. But, yeah, what I wanted to do, point out, I think this is spot on to kind of focus on this scene because unbeknownst to him in yet another way, the carbon on the valves is actually working in a kind of transformative way. It gets him stuck in a car with this woman, and then things are happening that will ultimately lead him to not murdering her. 28:38 Erin: It's important when she very excitedly comes home and announces to him that she has found a true species, he takes some consideration for her. He's worried about her because he. She's so overexcited and, like, has lost her breath and can barely talk. And he encourages her to sit down and calm down and tell him what's going on. So he kind of helps her regulate her emotions in that moment. And then she finally gets it out that she found a true. A true species that the Alsophila grahamii, as she calls it, that they found on their honeymoon that she found while he was. Fantastic shot. It's my favorite shot in the whole movie where she's tied to a rope and hanging off the edge of. Of a cliff. And he has his back turned to her and is reading a book on toxicology and doesn't see that if he had just turned around that he could have just gotten rid of her right then. Anyway, so she finds this fern. It's a true species. And then she tells him he's very proud of her. Before he even knows what the punchline is. He's very impressed. You could see that she's done something worthwhile, and he feels that, and he takes a kind of delight, which is totally unselfinterested, I guess. I mean, maybe it isn't, because I 29:46 Wes: got the same thing from this. Yeah. This is kind of a breakthrough moment for him. Yeah. 29:50 Erin: Yeah. And they're. And they're married, so that, too, you know, maybe that. Maybe that also shed some light on him. I mean, I don't think he's thinking of that in this moment that, you know, that he cares about having bragging rights over this woman. But. But it is a reflection on him in a way, I think, not in a way that he. He's conscious of. Quite. And then she. She gives him the credit and says that he's. She's named it for him. He at first thinks that she's named it for herself under her married name. And he says, you fool. You know, he immediately, can't you do anything right? And she says, no, no, no. I named it for you, for Henry Graham. And he's very impressed by that. And then says, are you sure that you want to do that? Because it's not right, actually, you know. And she says, no, no. Remember when you. When we got together and you said that if being with you was going to give me confidence, then I would be a very confident botanist. And that confidence had allowed her to find the fern in the first place. And this is. Yeah, this is the real turn that she would be so generous as to give this to him, that she kind of recognizes something he's done for her, and he gets a reward out of it. In the atlases under G. And as A footnote. So what can we say about that? I suppose he. One of the things that appeals to him about this aspiration of hers is, you know, he expressly says it involves having a sort of immortality in an extremely minor way. But it's immortality. It has to do with status, maybe, or just feeling as though. I mean, maybe he recognizes the transience of not having any kinds of attachments to relationship, anything based on relationships. So maybe he recognizes on some unconscious level the hollowness of a life which for all intents and purposes, he seemed completely satisfied with. And, you know, his whole motivation for getting into the marriage was to perpetuate it. But maybe this shows that he's actually more about relationships. And maybe the immortality piece has to do with a desire for procreation and actually being in relationship with people. Maybe. 31:52 Wes: Yeah. I mean, the way I saw it was he was kind of touched by the element of sacrifice in that. And in general, up to this point, you know, beyond having money, he has tended to be the one to take care of her, quote, unquote, in various ways, including, right. Cutting tags off of clothing or whatever, because she's childlike. So I think this is a moment where she has a power that he doesn't have and she can use that to confer something on him. There's almost like a Wizard of Oz element to this. Like, you know, when the. The wizard is handing a medallion to someone, here's your courage, here's your brains, here's your whatever. So it's as if when she gives him that token, she's handing him the capacity to love or to feel something. He says, it's very thoughtful of you, Henrietta. I believe. I am pleased. So in a way, maybe it's her thoughtfulness being given to him and it's the token capacity for thoughtfulness. And it's also interesting in light of the fact that it comes after a scene with the butler. It's a very funny scene in which he's packing for the trip to the Adirondacks and there's all kinds of weapons that the butler is, just knives and hatchets and a gun that the butler is handling very casually. And the butler is becoming increasingly concerned about what's going on here. And then gives him a bit of therapy. So Henry, right, says, she's not good natured, she's regressed. And then the butler says, do you remember some weeks ago, sir, when you told me that you'd lost all your money and you had no skills and no ambitions, but it seems you do have skills and ambitions. I mean, look at how you've taken over the house. You've learned to handle the accounts and grapple with taxes, and you've tidied up Mrs. Graham. 33:40 Erin: There weren't so many crumbs around Mrs. Graham. You know, like, if she had a different name that wasn't a cracker that created so many crumbs, maybe she'd be. 33:47 Wes: Yeah. 33:47 Erin: Sorry. 33:50 Wes: Well, they even said, was she free of crumbs? Only slight sprinklings, sir. I brushed her up. But he goes on to say that this very helplessness has been the stimulus of your own amazing new competence. We asked that as a question. Don't you think, I mean, very often, sir, that what we dislike most in other people is only a reflection of our own inadequacies? Sir. So the butler just lays out a whole bunch of thematic stuff that you might have let the audience figure out on their own, but just puts that out there. And then is also playing psychologist and therapist. So we're in the third act here, and there's a lot happening that's supposed to make his transformation believable, which, weirdly enough, I think it is in the end. But this is one of those moments. Of course, it's not enough. Right. So he's being given a little bit of. Bit of a talk about what's going on psychologically and how she's changing him, but that's not going to be enough. And then the next moment, she's giving him the credit for the fern and the token, and that gets him even a little bit deeper, hits him at an even deeper level. And then it's the. The final straw, so to speak, is. Right. Seeing the species that she has discovered as she's drowning. And then that all brings it somehow together. And he can become conscious of. I think love is. Love would be a strong word above. But not wanting to let her drown, he reluctantly comes to that. 35:14 Erin: Well, he's been loving her all. 35:16 Wes: What does he say about that? I know. Yeah. I think. Yeah, yeah. 35:20 Erin: I'll make the dinner. And what will I do? You'll eat dream. 35:24 Wes: Right. From now on, I'm going to make the coffee. From now on, I'm going to make the dinner. Right. 35:28 Erin: Even though he's miserable. Yeah. Now, we would call this weaponized incompetence. Yeah. 35:33 Wes: His pompousness and his concern about form and quality, all that. Right. That's what lures him into that position. You can't do it. Right. So I'm going to do it for you. 35:43 Erin: I mean. Yes. There's that. And then there's also real necessity that. I mean, I think most listeners will have been in a situation, I'm sure you too will have been in a situation where, you know, especially in a foreign country, maybe where you're with someone who's freaking out and all of a sudden you have to just step up to the plate and you become excellent at dealing with whatever, whatever problems arise and you just become. I mean, this happened to me and, you know, I took control, took the reins and dealt with everything. And somehow like having one person be in a state of need and be in a state of, you know, be in a freakout or something, I think naturally inspires the other person to step up and take control and help, even if they were scared in the first place and had no, you know, they have no aptitude for it. Like, this is just, I think, a true dynamic about the way, the way that people work, that when in a vacuum, something happened like, like there's something ignited in, in someone where they step up and didn't know they were capable of it. I mean, and this is like immensely gratifying, I think, for the person in his position. He's not getting nothing out of it. You get the feeling that you can handle things. And that is a much bigger reward, I think, than being. Because I've been on both sides of this, this equation, right? And I think like the self satisfaction of feeling competent and feeling like you can handle things, that when everything is going wrong and your flight got canceled and you have to suddenly come up with something, the feeling of satisfaction in oneself that rising to the challenge creates is much deeper and I think more meaningful than the person who's just freaking out and somebody else is like, okay, I've got this. So there's a tremendous reward for the person, I think, who's able to step up in that moment. And the whole relationship, I think, is just an expression of this phenomenon of, okay, both of us can't be floundering, so I'm going to be the. I'll do it, you know, and next thing you know, you're an expert and you feel great. 37:41 Wes: Yeah. When the movie begins, he's exploiting himself, in a sense, and he's also relatively helpless. He's not the guy who can take care of the family. 37:50 Erin: The finances aren't hired to do. 37:54 Wes: He's just taken care of. Yeah. By servants. All right, we're almost out of time. But before we. I just wanted to point to one more speech. When he's proposing marriage and he's talking about what they have in common. And he goes through a list of biological categories. We are both of the same division. Vertebrata, class, order, family, genus, homo, species sapiens. And then the same variety of class, by which I think he means they're upper class. So he's gone from biology to money status. And she's like, I don't think there's a class of variety. Or a variety of class maybe, is what she says. And then he goes on to say, in fact, the only difference between us is that I'm a man and you're a woman. And we don't have to let that interfere if we are reasonably careful. That's great. So I couldn't resist reading that, even if that's a little bit of a non sequitur. 38:49 Erin: That is one of the best lines. Yeah. I mean, it speaks to the really. The real asexual element. And I mean, even at the very end, I mean, just before the sweet moment where he uses his body heat to warm her up, as we've already talked about. I mean, just moments earlier, he has fished her out of the river by her hair. Like he's pulling up a weed, actually. But. 39:14 Wes: Right, yeah, great point. I didn't think about that. Yeah. 39:18 Erin: Yeah, it's weird. Yeah. So what do you think, Wes? Is it romantic movie? Is it the most romantic movie you've ever seen? Am I right or am I just as disturbed as you always knew? 39:28 Wes: Is it romantic? Could I call it romantic? I mean, I guess it is. It's 10. I guess the word I want to use is tender for some reason relative than romantic. Such a tender word because Henry is so stiff and curmudgeonly. Oh, well, it's for both of them, because they're such characters. The word romantic somehow doesn't. I mean, it is romantic, don't get me wrong. But I mean. Right, so let's contrast it to what. What's a more straightforwardly romantic movie? 39:53 Erin: Casablanca. 39:55 Wes: Because I think when you say it's the most romantic movie ever, you understand the irony. 39:59 Erin: Right? 39:59 Wes: So what's it. What a. More obviously, let's try to get at what the difference is. What's love actually? Or what's a Hugh Grant movie? Or. 40:10 Erin: Oh, like that. Notting Hill. 40:12 Wes: Notting Hill, yeah. And that's one where it's rags to riches type. Right. So he's working at a bookstore or. 40:18 Erin: Yeah, no, I don't think that's as romantic at all because she's already famous and he gets his sort of like wish fulfillment Thing, you know, like, what makes this romantic is that he hates her until he doesn't. I love the hate to love track. That's a. That's a. That really does it for me. Yeah. And. And she's a. You know, the Julia Roberts character in Notting Hill is a fantasy and she's not real. You know, the people. Like, I love the fact that Walter Matthau is so stiff in this. And so, you know, like, that's what makes it special, is melting someone like that. 40:53 Wes: Yeah. What's a paradigmatically romantic movie? What is. I guess they're all romantic comedies unless 40:59 Erin: they're a tragedy, like a. 41:00 Wes: What is the eidos of romantic comedy? What is the ideal romantic comedy? 41:05 Erin: I mean, most of them involve some kind of. When they're good, they involve some kind of triangulation usually. So, like Philadelphia Story or Harry Met Sally. 41:14 Wes: What about that? 41:15 Erin: Yeah, sure. Yeah. 41:16 Wes: And that's also. That's another one where. Well, is it a comedy of remarri. I mean, that's the ex lovers coming 41:21 Erin: back together, and they both have personality quirks and foibles and various other things that they have to kind of get over. I like the sweet, adorable, mousy woman who is sort of like inherently lovable with an unlovable curmudgeon. It's not a great analogy because she's quite different, but there's something very, you know, he's kind of a latter day Spencer Tracy in certain ways. He's less attractive Matthau, but he has some of that gruff, rough, curmudgeon energy. Right. And so there's a. There's a real yin and yang element to, like the Tracy Hepburn films. You know, he's gruff and rough and curmudgeonly and she's refined and, you know, and she has the tomboy stuff and she had, you know, there are things that align with him where they work really well together, but mostly it's playing off the contrast of her being sort of upper crust and being a little prickly and uppity and. And him being salt of the earth. Right. And so obviously that's not a. That's not a perfect parallel here, but I like the fact that they're, you know, Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, I don't think are that far apart. They are in certain ways. And they, you know, I think the film uses that to advantage, obviously, but they're both like yuppies, you know, of the same kind of general. You know what I mean? Whereas, you know, they're of the same class. Henry and Henrietta. But they're such different physical types, and they're so. There's such different personalities, and I really like that. That contrast was very, very Tracy Hepburn for me. And they're kind of my ideal, those two. So I like that intense contrast. I like the fact that he's a big curmudgeon who's melted by this strange little girl woman who's so cute and has to be vacuumed every time she eats. 43:06 Wes: All right, so next we are doing Wyatt. 43:09 Erin: Yes. Thomas Wyatt. We're doing Whoso List to Hunt. And they flee from me, probably. 43:16 Wes: And then after that, I think we'll do Beetlejuice. 43:19 Erin: Yes. 43:20 Wes: Is that okay? 43:20 Erin: That's great. 43:21 Wes: Like Beetlejuice. 43:22 Erin: Love it. Don't say it again. 43:22 Wes: Have you seen the new one yet? 43:23 Erin: No, I haven't. I'm excited, though. 43:27 Wes: The new one is great. 43:28 Erin: Oh, yeah? Is it? I didn't even realize it was out yet, actually. I'm so disconnected from. From what's happening. 43:34 Wes: It has another great musical scene. Oh, cool. Which really takes the cake, so to speak. 43:41 Erin: Yeah, that's something I'm excited about. 43:43 Wes: Cool. All right. Thank you. 43:45 Erin: Thank you, and thanks to everyone who listened. For an easy way to do that, go to subtextpodcast.com patreon.com subtextpodcast Please send your questions, feedback, and episode requests to [email protected] if we get enough questions, we'll do some bonus Q and A shows for subscribers. You can also find us on Facebook @subtextpodcast and on Twitter enjoysubtext.