1993 was a HUGE year. We got JURASSIC PARK. We got DEMOLITION MAN. We got THE PIANO. Yes. THE PIANO.
You knew this day would come. It was inevitable. We're covering Jane Campion's THE PIANO.
How does Ryan feel about this one? This was the one film of the filmography that he remembered quite fondly but now, decades later and now a co-host of an alternative film review podcast, with an active dislike for the other films we have covered of this particular filmmaker, how will it fare? I guess you're going to have to find out if this classic and most revered film of the time passes that gauntlet. (Don't worry about Laura, she loves everything.)
Laura: Well, hello there. Welcome to On the BiTTE the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura, and I am joined by my co host, Ryan.
Ryan: Mm mhm hmm.
Laura: Here he is.
Ryan: We're back.
Laura: And here we are.
Ryan: Yeah, we're back here doing this.
Laura: Here we are talking about the 1993 historical drama the Piano, directed by Jane Campion. Yep, you're doing a voice, but I know that you like this movie despite everything that your body is telling you.
Ryan: How do you know that, though? You can't.
Laura: Because I watched it with you.
Ryan: Yeah, but you can't just.
Laura: And you owned it before.
Ryan: Yeah, but you've even met. You've ruined the sense of suspense is what you've done. Or have you?
Laura: Have I? I don't know. You have opinions. You're a human being that can change their mind.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, I guess.
Laura: I guess during the course of this episode, you might come to hate this film. We don't know.
Ryan: I mean, I guess we'll find out from the. The quality of my note taking and whether or not, uh, the. In the cut, what other film did we cover it? Power of the dog. Jesus. Um, yeah, we'll see. We will see. We will see.
Laura: This film stars Ryan's favorite, holly Hunter.
Ryan: She is one of my favorites.
Laura: One of your top ladies. Yeah.
Ryan: Uh, I mean, it also has Harvey Keitel, who I think is fantastic in.
Laura: Everything, and Sam Neill, who is also fantastic in everything.
Ryan: Jurassic park. Well, jurassic park came out the same year, right, as the piano.
Laura: You're better at that than I am.
Ryan: I think it did. I think it came out in 93. I think it did.
Laura: Anyway, counting on Anna, uh, Paquin.
Ryan: Also rogue.
Laura: That's right.
Ryan: What other movies has she been in, though? Because I only remember her from, uh, from. From the Bryan singer x Men movies.
Laura: Fly away home. No idea. Uh, she's a young woman, uh, who finds a lot of ducks, and they become friends with all the ducks.
Ryan: Fuck, yeah.
Laura: I think Jeff Daniels is in it, too.
Ryan: Yeah, he is in it. And don't they do, like, the flying, like, they teach them to fly and stuff like that? Right. Got you. Yeah, I remember seeing the trailers. I don't think I've actually seen the movie.
Laura: I used to own that film. I've seen it many times.
Ryan: Oh, Jesus. Um, yeah, no, I think I've never seen it, but. Okay, that is.
Laura: Well, I know what we're doing tonight. Instead of watching X Men 97, we're watching Flyaway home. That's right.
Ryan: I'm just gonna go to bed like I'm just, yeah, we're gonna wrap this up early and I'm just gonna go to my bed.
Laura: I want to mention that Cliff Curtis is also in this movie that you might know from the Meg two. He's in a lot of other stuff.
Ryan: He's in a ton of stuff. Well, you brought up once for warriors. At least. At least the first time that you've brought up once for warriors. Um, yeah, he's very good.
Laura: He's great.
Ryan: But he's also. Yeah, he's one of those actors who you find doing small parts in mostly everything.
Laura: He's great.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So the synopsis from Letterboxd for the piano is, after a long voyage from Scotland, pianist Adam McGrath. Ada. Ada McGrath and her young daughter Flora are left with all their belongings, including a piano on a New Zealand beach. Ada, who has been mute since childhood, has been sold into marriage to a local man named Alastair Stewart, making little attempt to warm up to Alastair. God, this is long. Ada soon becomes intrigued by his maori friendly equipment acquaintance George Baines, leading to a tense, life altering conflict.
Ryan: Jesus Christ.
Laura: I kind of ran out of breath there. I just couldn't say words anymore.
Ryan: Sounds like we don't even need to watch the movie after you've said this.
Laura: Yeah, let's just shut it down.
Ryan: Yeah, let's just shut this down. How much more of the synopsis is to go?
Laura: That's it.
Ryan: Oh, thank God. Right? Yeah. No, a synopsis should be just a couple of lines. Like, that's what I learned from school. Just a couple of, yeah, just a couple of lines. Because otherwise, if it's not a couple of lines, it's not a synopsis anymore. It's a, ah, it's like a proposal. It's like a treatment. Yeah. It's like you're going in depth into what it is that you're making. Um, yeah, it's an interesting character piece. There are certainly elements in it. Certainly there's a Scots element that I kind of totally forgot about, even though it's kind of highlighted in the movie. Uh, and obviously the accents are there. The accents aren't terrible.
Laura: I do Maria Paquin doing an amazing accent.
Ryan: Well, Anna Paquin's probably the standout role in the whole film.
Laura: And she's ten years old and she's.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Amazing.
Ryan: She's a child. I did wonder, is Holly Hunter mute because she can't do the accent? Because her accent's so, you know, very unique on its own. Um, but, uh, yeah, no, um, just to kind of point out as well. Jurassic park and the piano came out the same year.
Laura: Great. So what a great year.
Ryan: It was a big year for Sam. Big Sam.
Laura: Love Sam.
Ryan: Yes. Um, yeah, here's the thing.
Laura: Oh, God.
Ryan: Before we got into the whole, like, oh, my God, we're doing Jane Campion. Because obviously we did end the cut. Um, and we're not going to be going through our filmography because you'd have to go all the way back to episode three. Three for in the cut. And it has the whole list of everything. Yeah. Because this is.
Laura: What is this? 77.
Ryan: 77.
Laura: Wow.
Ryan: So much we have. Yes. Not only as people, but as, uh, cinematic entities.
Laura: Um, can't wait to do in the cut again.
Ryan: We're not doing in the cut again. Yeah, no, we're not. Nope. Nope. I put my foot down there. As hundreds of other films we would much rather do than ever touching the cut again.
Laura: Maybe I like that movie a lot more now. I do. I'm excited.
Ryan: I think you're lying because that's obviously what you like to be, like a.
Laura: Bit of the rough.
Ryan: You like to be contrarian for no reason whatsoever.
Laura: Bit of the, uh, rough.
Ryan: The only thing I'll say that, like, at least in the featurettes for the piano, no one comes across, like, what they're making is a total joke. Like, that's kind of how I felt within the cut, you know? And obviously you've got Jane Campion, who's obviously the writer and director of the piano. You also have, uh, Jan Chapman, which is also kind of. Again, it's a weird thing where the producer is also very similarly named to the director. Um, that was only one thing. But obviously, I think Michael Nyman is the other notable crew, uh, name on this because it has that legendary score attached to it, which was the addition to many a dozen, uh, advert and commercial at the time. I think it was British Airways that might have used the music score actually, uh, for its advertising campaigns. Well, that was back in the nineties where advertising meant something.
Laura: Wow. Well, the original title of the film was the piano lesson. Wow. But they had to change it to the piano because the rights to that name were held by an american play.
Ryan: Okay, that's fine. I mean, it barely. Barely matters.
Laura: Um, no, it doesn't matter. I think the piano works better anyway.
Ryan: It does. Because the piano lesson just is a title on its own. Because there's not really any teaching going on.
Laura: No, he don't want to learn a thing.
Ryan: He doesn't want to learn a thing.
Laura: Except how her body looks.
Ryan: He does he wants to learn the grooves and crevices of her naked bodice? Um, with these dirty fingernails? Yeah.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Yeah. There's a lot of accents in this movie, let's put it that way. Um, a big old, greasy old Sam neill as well, who's, you know, he's from New Zealand. He doesn't have to put an accent on everybody else. Bloody does.
Laura: I didn't real. I don't think Harvey Keitel is doing much of an accent. I think maybe he grabbed a couple of words and that's it. He's just speaking normally for the rest of it. He doesn't say that much in this movie either.
Ryan: He doesn't. It's kind of garbled and mumbly for the most part because I don't really understand him. Um, when he says anything in the movie, um, he is. I mean, you do. There are certain elements about his character which feel a little bit slimy, but he is interesting. I don't think he's a very convincing love interest, but as a character, I do find him, um, interesting. Certainly his backstory is interesting. Like, he's a sailor and he's adopted the Mori lifestyle. And he's kind of set up shop on this, uh, you know, on this island and adopted the traits and culture and, you know, the people's ideology, um, you know, from obviously spending a lifetime on the sea. So I do find his backstory interesting. Um, I find Holly Hunter's character, at least, her backstory to be less interesting.
Laura: Well, you just don't really get to learn that much. I think you kind of have to read between the lines.
Ryan: There is? Yeah. Well, yeah. Cause she doesn't see anything.
Laura: She doesn't say anything.
Ryan: Well, she's dumb.
Laura: Mute. Is it mute or is it.
Ryan: I think it's dumb because she does get referred to as being dumb. So, like.
Laura: But she can speak.
Ryan: She can speak, but obviously she refuses to speak. So I guess the assumption is that she's dumb and that she can't speak. She does. I mean, one thing I do like is as the film opens, there's a voiceover of her. Her voice is obviously the last time that she spoke, which was when she was six years old. So the voice, that voiceover, I think, is accurate. I quite like that little addition to the storytelling. The only other thing is she effectively uses her daughter, uh, who's Anna Paquin, as her voice through the course of the film. Because the only, like, her emotional, the bridge for her emotions is through the piano. And I think the one thing I forgot what I was going to say, but I've remembered it now. The only piece of backstory that we remember, and I'm not 100% sure if this was true or not, was that her late husband, um, was struck by lightning and caught on fire.
Laura: Oh, that was just a story that her daughter had made up, obviously, because he was maybe a german count or something that was a pianist. And the night that they were going to get married, he got struck by lighting. Caught on fire. But they were never married. She was going to get married to somebody and he got cold feet is what the actual story was, I believe. Or the story, at least, that the mom that Holly Hunter tells.
Ryan: But then she's married, sight unseen to Sam Neill, and then obviously transports to New Zealand. All the way from Scotland.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: Which is a hell of a trek.
Laura: Oh, my gosh. No wonder she wanted to get off the boat.
Ryan: Yeah. Cause that's by ship. Cause God knows how long that takes.
Laura: That journey from Scotland to New Zealand would take three to four months.
Ryan: Geez.
Laura: On a boat.
Ryan: Yeah, no, that's. I wouldn't be particularly happy about doing that trip myself.
Laura: No, I don't think she was either.
Ryan: No. Well, she's got a poor face the entire time. She doesn't look particularly happy the entire stretch of the movie.
Laura: No.
Ryan: Um, certainly by the time, you know, she settles for Harvey Keitel, I mean, it's. She basically has a choice of two men at that point, and she's not going to pick the guy that fucking cuts her finger off.
Laura: So I think we're getting quite a bit ahead of ourselves there. Maybe you maybe went to the end of the movie there. Oh, no, we haven't started the movie.
Ryan: Hopefully you haven't listened to this episode without watching it, because that would have been a spoiler. But you should know by now I'm gonna go back. Yes, please do.
Laura: I do a rewind because I have things I want to talk about before we talk about the film.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Okay, so there was a couple of choices before Holly Hunter for Ada Sigourney Weaver was Jane Campion's first choice.
Ryan: Wow. Okay. That would be interesting.
Laura: Interesting. She turned it down. And then Jennifer Jason Leigh was in the running, but she had a conflict with her commitment to a film called Rush. Okay, so she also was out. And then Isabel Hubbard was talking to Jane Campion about it, and she said later that she regretted not fighting for the role like Holly Hunter did. So.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: She was bummed out about it.
Ryan: I mean, that could have been her second piano movie.
Laura: Nice.
Ryan: Yeah, it could have been. Yeah.
Laura: Lessons she was accustomed to, the teacher. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: There were 5000 girls who submitted tapes for the role that Anna Paquin ended up getting. Mhm, which is an insane amount. And Sam Neill was offered the part. He was offered the part by Gene Campion, offered the part of Stewart, but he thought he was a better fit for Barnes or Baines. Sorry, not Barnes, Baines. Which I think I mentioned while we were watching it. Uh, I think I would have liked to see Sam Neill in the, and Harvey Keitel switch roles, but then I think that's too easy.
Ryan: It's maybe.
Laura: Yeah, maybe too obvious because Harvey Keitel isn't the natural love interest necessarily, but Sam, um, Neill kind of is.
Ryan: No, he's not. Yeah. Not to say anything against Harvey Keitel, although every time we bring up Harvey Keitel. I was watching Father Ted again recently. There's an episode where they get inundated with like a bunch of rabbits and the bishop is there and he's afraid of rabbits, but they end up having like 500 rabbits in the house for whatever reason. And one of the rabbits looks like Harvey Keitel.
Laura: Um, okay.
Ryan: Yeah, they're like, one of them looks like Harvey Keitel and it does.
Laura: That's very weird.
Ryan: Yeah, it's very strange. Um, no, I would say, yeah, no, that does make sense. Because if you have someone who's. Because again, it's like, how do you phrase it without seeing that fucking, fucking Harvey Keitel is like, he's, you know, he's ugly.
Laura: No, because I don't think he is. He's not ugly and he's not an unattractive person. But Sam Neill has a softer face and a softer personality. So for it to have been switched, I think it would have been too obvious.
Ryan: He doesn't look like a weather worn sailor, that is for sure. So I don't know if Sam Neill would have been the perfect fit for that. Personally, I think. I think they are. I think they are cast accordingly with who they've got in those roles.
Laura: I think that Sam Neill brought a nice amount of softness to Stewart.
Ryan: Yeah. Because he does try his best.
Laura: If Harvey Keitel was in that role, I would have been scared right from the get go. I would have been freaked out.
Ryan: Harvey Keitel's very intense. Yeah, he's a very intense individual. I feel, um, um, you can tell from the featurettes he, he takes his fucking job very seriously.
Laura: So Sam Neill wrote a book where he talked about some of the things that happened while they were filming this movie. And he had some things that he said about working with Harvey Keitel.
Ryan: Wow. Oh, good year. Here we go.
Laura: He said, since we were working in my country, I felt incumbent upon me to be even more than usually hospitable and friendly. It didn't work. Harvey was truculent and hostile for the whole film. Even in rehearsals, it was difficult. And then he said that when they were rehearsing the scene where Stuart comes in with a gun, Sam Neill said, he holds it over Baynes and tells him to leave. Weirdly, Harvey would unbidden, seized the bloody gun out of my hands. Jane would ask him why he was doing that. Harvey would reply, because I can. Jane would explain, well, yes, but that's not what's written in the script. It never got better. Thankfully, we didn't have many scenes together in the film, and I was happy to say goodbye to him.
Ryan: Holy shit. That is some gossip.
Laura: Even when they were at Cannes, Sam went up to Harvey Keitel and was saying, you know, even after everything, he was being really nice and sweet. He goes, you know, this was great. You were amazing. Congratulations. And usually you would expect someone to reciprocate that kind of compliment. And he just goes, thanks, and walked away.
Ryan: Okay. Yeah, yeah. Harvey Keitel still sounds like someone I would have a pretty decent relationship with, though I think I would be all right with him being like that.
Laura: I don't think I would want to be alone in a room with Harvey Keitel while he just talks about Dante's inferno and myths and weird. I mean, he's a weird christian mythology.
Ryan: He's a well read, uh, intelligent man.
Laura: Absolutely.
Ryan: But here's the thing that comes at.
Laura: A price, which doesn't sound fun.
Ryan: Level of intensity. Yeah, well, Harvey Keitel is not known for his funness. I don't think. I don't think he's known for being, like, the happy go lucky fun time. Like, he's not doing the duncachino, let's be honest.
Laura: Well, that's a damn shame.
Ryan: Yeah, he's not doing the. I don't know what you would call it, the. The Keitel cup. Like, who knows what he's doing?
Laura: There was another interview with Harvey Keitel where apparently they interrupted his lunch and he was complaining that he had a sore throat. And so he was just, like, eating little lozenges. And on the couch next to him was literally a plate full of hot dogs. I'm not. I swear, I'm not talking, like, one or two. You know, you could have two hot dogs. There was probably, like, eight hot dogs on this plate. On the couch next to him. Yeah.
Ryan: Oh, right.
Laura: Like dry hot dogs and buns on a plate. Yeah.
Ryan: And he had a sore throat.
Laura: And he had a sore throat.
Ryan: I like the idea that he's like, it's just the hot dogs and no buns, and he's just letting them slide down his throat so he can't chew.
Laura: No. Um, he wanted, apparently, a plate full of hot dogs. I watched the same series of interviews with Holly Hunter and Sam Neill. There were no hot dogs on the couch after that. They were only when Harvey Keitel was doing the interview. So I'm thinking, you know, maybe there's a hot dog couch for everybody to have hot dogs. But no, it was only during Harvey Keitel's interview.
Ryan: I mean, I mean, I don't know, Mariah Carey. Or was it Mariah Carey? Or was it, uh, Jennifer Lopez, who was like, you need to pull out everything but the blue m and Ms. And just give me a big bowl of blue m and Ms. And they kind of devious thing. Maybe that's just his thing. I mean, at least hot dogs are easy to attain, and you just get them in a bun.
Laura: Um, you know why people do that?
Ryan: Yeah. Megalomania.
Laura: No, because they want to make sure that they're reading their list. So they put that kind of weird shit in the list.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Backstage, so they know that people are actually reading the list of things that they want.
Ryan: But he didn't maybe. What do you think? He didn't want those hot dogs, or.
Laura: He just, I don't think he put.
Ryan: Them on a list.
Laura: Um, in my mind, Harvey Keitel was out to lunch, and he went to craft services, and he got eight hot dogs, and it ran over time, and maybe it took too long to get the hot dogs cooked. And then he had to bring him into the interview, and he had to wait to eat a hot dog.
Ryan: The fact we're extrapolating this for a good five minutes, this is more interesting than the actual film. So, like, in the, hold on. Cause I didn't see this. So in the interview, there's a t, there's a table, and on that table, there is a plate of hot dogs on the couch. It's on the couch.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: And he's doing an interview, and there's just a plate of hot dogs sitting next to him.
Laura: Yeah. So he's not on the couch. He's in a chair. The couch is adjacent. They're in chairs facing each other and adjacent to him on a couch. Like, just m a set couch. I'm fascinated there's a plate full of hot dogs.
Ryan: Laura, you need to scream this. And we need to put it online as soon as possible. This is insane. So your tidbits like that is maybe the greatest tidbit I have ever heard in my fucking life.
Laura: Um, okay, so in that same interview, um, the interviewer was saying, it doesn't matter. She said, vanity Fair wants you for the new cover and saying that Stallone is on the COVID and he's nude. And Keitel, immediately, you could tell, puts a little wall up and he goes, oh, wait, they want me for the COVID but nude? And she says, yeah. And I think she's just maybe kind of messing around because literally that month, in the November 1993 cover of Vanity Fair, Stallone is naked. He's just doing like a cute little pose, right?
Ryan: And he goes, what was Stallone in in 93, though?
Laura: I don't know, off the top of my head, but you can look it up while I tell the rest of the story.
Ryan: Yeah, because it could be any. It could be like, because he's naked.
Laura: In, uh, demolition man, maybe.
Ryan: Yeah. Ah, maybe. Demolition man.
Laura: The movie I watch more than any other movie for some reason. Demolition man.
Ryan: Yeah. It's a film that ends up going on more, uh, more often than not. Time for something new and improved. Um, yeah, I love that movie, actually. Like Wesley, uh, snipes. Yeah, it was 93. Demolition man. Yeah, yeah, that movie. Yeah, that movie's damn good because the version that we have is, uh, the european version because it's dubbed over because it was Pizza Hut in Europe and it's Taco Bell in, uh, the US because Taco Bell didn't exist in Europe.
Laura: True.
Ryan: So there is that. Anyway, yeah, it was 93. So it was a demolition man.
Laura: Okay, so to wrap that up, Stallone is nude on the COVID of Vanity Fair in November 93. The interviewer's kind of making a joke that they want Keitel because he's naked in this movie to be on the COVID Right. She's just making a funny.
Ryan: Mhm.
Laura: He's not taking it very well. And he goes, if they want to use a photo from bad lieutenant, that's fine, but I'm not posing nude. And if Stallone wants to pose nude, that's his own journey.
Ryan: Wow.
Laura: Yeah, he's very. I have more words on kind of his thoughts on nudity in film, and I'll talk about it a little bit later. But he's very, uh, he picks his words very carefully. If you watch him in any interviews, he speaks very slowly, very precisely. There's not a word out of place. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't mean to say. He's very careful.
Ryan: He looks like he's constantly thinking.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Which I think also adds to, like, the level of, like, you know, apprehension you might have towards him because he looks like he's calculating, like, every single second of, uh, the moments that, uh, he's being forced, forced to endure. Um. Yeah. I still think I'd be fantastic friends with Harvey Keitel. I honestly do. Even. Even just off the back of bad lieutenant. And that film is fucked up beyond belief. But, I mean, I fucking love it. Yeah, I would easily. Yeah. Ah. I would easily go on a fucking drug fueled experience with Harvey Keitel.
Laura: I doubt Harvey Keitel even does drugs.
Ryan: I mean.
Laura: I mean, he's very old now.
Ryan: I mean, yeah, it's a shame I wasn't around in the nineties in order to do that. But anyway, um, um, if only, if only.
Laura: So we have a mother daughter pair, right?
Ryan: We do, yes.
Laura: Show up at the beach, gotta meet the new husband, which is Sam Neill. And they also meet George Baines, which is a, uh, pal.
Ryan: He's. I guess he's like the cohort. Like, he's the. He's like the concierge, effectively, between Sam Neill and the Mori people.
Laura: Yeah. Cause he rocks up full Mori style. He has the traditional permanent markings. Uh, they're called mokos on his face.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And he's integrated and made friends with the Maori people. So, yeah, he's the go between between.
Ryan: He's pretty much the go between. But the thing is, is Sam, um.
Laura: Neil, the white colonists.
Ryan: Yeah. Sam Neill is effectively a white colonist, and he's looking to try and buy up as much land as he possibly can.
Laura: They are having trouble getting the piano, her beloved piano, off the beach because it's heavy. And they have to kind of go through. They have to go through the New Zealand bush to get back to where Sam Neill lives. Yeah, they can't get the damn piano. Even though literally the thing she loves most on this planet.
Ryan: Probably more than.
Laura: More than her daughter. Yep. She loves her daughter, don't get me wrong. And Anna Paquin is adorable and wonderful. And like we said before, doing everything right.
Ryan: It's her voice. Yeah. She's the voice of the mother.
Laura: So. And Holly Hunter did all of the piano sequences in this movie. Did you know that?
Ryan: Hmm.
Laura: M she's been playing since she was nine years old.
Ryan: Oh, well, yeah. I mean, well, then why wouldn't she be a great fit for the role anyway, just on that basis. Well, no, there's not. Here's the thing. That's a gripe. Now that I know that, why is there not any more kind of wandering shots of actually showing her playing the piano?
Laura: You're not wrong, because in the beginning, even on the beach, and she's playing and she's really going to town, it doesn't look like she's actually playing.
Ryan: It's edited as if it's like a stand in.
Laura: I do think maybe it has to do with the fact that the film is set in 1850 and the piano is from that era. So it's an age appropriate piano, but because it's 100 years old, more than 100 years old, it doesn't actually play properly. So the music that you're hearing is obviously not from that piano. So maybe it had something to do with that question mark.
Ryan: I mean, if you hit the same notes and you overdub it anyway, then why is that a, uh, concern? That's a poor choice.
Laura: I was trying to fix it and I didn't. And you're right. I'm sorry.
Ryan: Yeah, no, I think if she's capable of playing the piano, and you should be using long, like, long shots of her actually playing that piano, you do.
Laura: See it a few times. But you're right.
Ryan: It's unforgivable.
Laura: Oh, shut up. You're just trying to find something to be mad at.
Ryan: No, no, I'm just saying, um. Just saying so.
Laura: Right. So it gets to the point where they can't get the piano off the beach. Sam Neill is uninterested in getting the thing off the beach for whatever reason.
Ryan: Which is very odd.
Laura: It is odd.
Ryan: His whole thing is about trying to establish a connection between himself and this woman who has been forced into marrying him.
Laura: And he doesn't seem like a dirtbag person. He seems like he's really trying to take it slow, and he's really trying to understand her and what she needs and take his time with her so that he. That she does come to understand him and like him and potentially love him, he is trying to be a good person. But the one thing she really wants, and she says it over and over again. The daughter says it over and over again. She wants her piano.
Ryan: She just wants her fucking piano, dude.
Laura: And he won't do it.
Ryan: Yeah, it's like the. Like, I know it's gonna be hard, like, picking it up and carrying over there, but for the love of. Fuck, like, just. Just help her out. You know what I mean? Like, get her the piano and you might get some ass out of it.
Laura: Yeah, that probably. There it is. I mean, that's it.
Ryan: Yeah, it's easy peasy.
Laura: The person that has the piano gets ass.
Ryan: Yeah, he does. Or gets his man titties sucked.
Laura: Jesus Christ.
Ryan: That's certainly something that happens in this movie.
Laura: Wow. Okay. Well, yeah, if you have the piano, you have the power.
Ryan: You do. You do. You have the sexual power.
Laura: That's right.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So who gets it? Baines.
Ryan: Baines? Yeah. Mister kite.
Laura: He trades 80 acres of land for the piano. Even though the piano, like. Anyway, it's not his to give. No, but whatever, it's fine. He gets the piano and wants, quote unquote, lessons from Ada. Um, what was the point where he says he likes to. He wants to do things while she plays?
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And I looked over at you because I haven't seen this since I took film classes in junior college.
Ryan: I'd only seen it once before. I was like 20 years ago. Yeah. When he did say that, I was like, is he gonna start masturbating?
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: While she's, like, playing.
Laura: Do things while you're playing.
Ryan: Yeah, some tunes. Yeah.
Laura: I mean, it doesn't not happen necessarily.
Ryan: This is where, like, in terms of the storytelling, this is where I'm like. I'm like. There's this kind of black male element that comes into the film. Certainly from a woman who's not able or unwilling to communicate her actual feelings.
Laura: And the thing is, at least verbally, she can definitely.
Ryan: She can communicate.
Laura: People know how she feels.
Ryan: This is also a man who. He can't read. So she has a notepad around her neck. So even if she does that, he can't fucking read.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: And her only sounding board is, um. Her only sounding board is her daughter. And obviously she doesn't want her daughter in there because as you know, as we soon come to find out, um, you know, they start. They start having carnal relations with each other. And the thing is, when it gets to that point, it's kind of. Yeah, you're like, oh, uh, you know, I'll give you five keys for this. And it's like, if you lie with me naked, I'll give you this many keys for this. And it's kind of. It's kind of slimy. It's a little slimy.
Laura: You don't see him nude when he dusts her piano. Right? Like, you don't see him full frontal, but you see him naked.
Ryan: Oh, he's definitely naked.
Laura: He is naked.
Ryan: Yeah. He's naked when he's dusting that piano.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: So you know exactly what his motives are, um, for having. I mean, it's as plain as day. Like, it honestly couldn't be any more.
Laura: He bas he does explain it pretty much, but then it just progresses from there. You know, he wants to do things while she's playing piano, and then he starts touching her. And then he starts asking her to take bits of her clothing off while she's playing. And then he doesn't really want her to play anymore. But there's that point where, huh, she's over there.
Ryan: Her obsession with the piano and her attachment to the piano completely clouds her judgment. To the point where Sam Neill is a complete and utter afterthought. You know, she's not giving him any attention whatsoever.
Laura: She doesn't give him a chance in the beginning, middle or end. At no point does she give that man a chance. And he isn't as disgusting as you would have expected, being in that role. You know, as the, you know, she's the unwilling wife to this guy.
Ryan: But he does eventually kind of force some things on her that does make.
Laura: Him, um, he inches closer and closer and closer to being horrible. Okay? But we're not there yet. But she's not giving him a chance. But she goes over to Baines house, and she's playing piano. That's all she wants to do. And he doesn't want to learn. He's not interested. He keeps asking her to lift up her skirt higher. And lift it up higher. And lift it up higher. This poor woman just wants to play her piano, okay?
Ryan: She just wants left alone to play her piano.
Laura: And then she's got a hole in her, like, in her stocking, right? And he just gets on the ground, and he's rubbing that hole in her stocking. And it's 1850, right? He lives in a cabin. There's no running water out there. He's filthy, okay? He's got that filthy little thumb rubbing her leg. And it just made me feel sick. And I know that that's not what, that's the intention of that. I know the intention of that is to be very sensual and, uh, erotic. And it's supposed to show their connection and getting closer. But I couldn't stop looking at those dirty little fingers.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, here's the thing.
Laura: Like, it was lost on me.
Ryan: I'm sat at a table right now. I would be a little bit freaked out if I looked under there and Harvey Keitel was there.
Laura: I don't want Harvey Keitel anywhere near me. I'm sure he's not.
Ryan: Like, if I just.
Laura: I don't know if he's a nice person. I've never met him, so I can't, uh, say, are you checking for him?
Ryan: Harvey?
Laura: God, he'd better not be in this house.
Ryan: Oh, uh, it'd be awesome if he was in this house. It'd be great. I'd be like, Harvey, do you want to get fit? Fucked up?
Laura: My God.
Ryan: Let's read some literature. Um, yeah, and take some meth. Um, Les. Yeah, that'd be crazy.
Laura: Okay, so let's get to it. At about 59 minutes and 20 seconds into this film, we get a penis scene. Here we go.
Ryan: It completely undresses.
Laura: You gonna yawn? You gonna yawn that?
Ryan: Yeah, I did. I'm tired. I'm a tired boy.
Laura: So Ada comes over to play the piano again, and Baines, uh, is all butthurt because he saw her holding hands with her husband.
Ryan: Yeah, I saw this.
Laura: Yeah. Uh, there was acting like a player.
Ryan: Yeah. He's acting like a baby.
Laura: He's all whiny.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, he says, play whatever you want. And to me, that makes it seem like he's just going to listen to her play, right. But no, he goes, play whatever you want. Walks away. She doesn't know where he went. It's a very small cabin. He's behind a curtain. He takes all of his clothes off. And then she goes to look for him because he isn't there and what is going on? And he's got his wiener out. It escalated quite a bit. You know, there's a lot of scenes of her playing piano and him getting touchy feely. And you can tell over time that she's not against it completely, but it is uncomfortable. And she doesn't know what to do because she is married to a man. She's not giving a chance at all to this guy. But there's something about George that she's interested in, right? Because at first, you go, he's blackmailing her. He's being really creepy. But she could have left, right? She could have done something. Yeah, but she is getting. Her feelings are softening, uh, towards this man.
Ryan: She is. Yeah. But she's also, like, she's there with the expectation, the promise of getting her piano back as well. So that's where the kind of the blackmail comes in. That's where everything gets a little bit murky, for sure. Um, yeah, certainly when this happens and she looks past the garden and is like, oh, she could have.
Laura: She could have left. She could have done a lot of things. But she didn't. You can tell that she's not against the situation because he asks her. Because there was the moment, right, where. How many of these piano keys am I gonna give you? It's kind of a weird thing. Like, every lesson was supposed to be one key on the piano, right? But then she was saying, well, only the black keys, which is less than half of all the keys on the piano. So she has to do one, uh, lesson for every black key. And then she gets her piano back. Yeah, that's the game. So he's standing there fully naked, full frontal. That guy's got his wiener out, the whole shebang?
Ryan: Pretty much.
Laura: He's not wearing socks or anything.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Okay. And he asks her, how many keys is this going to take? Because he wants her to lie down with him naked. And she says, ten, which is a lot of keys. But she could have said all of them.
Ryan: She could have, yeah.
Laura: And he probably maybe would have been like, you know, all but one or something. But yeah, maybe had a little negotiation, but yeah. Um.
Ryan: They lie together.
Laura: They sure do.
Ryan: But they literally just lie together. They don't have sex at that point. Right.
Laura: I feel like the very first time they get naked together, Flora sees them. There's a thousand little holes in the wood of his cabin. So anyone can really look in and see what's going on.
Ryan: Even if you have the door lock. Yeah. Cause.
Laura: And they do.
Ryan: Yeah. There's no insulation or anything.
Laura: Um.
Ryan: Um. I don't. I can't remember. There is a moment where she does. She goes back and then they have a full blown sexual encounter.
Laura: Uh, yeah, but that only happens the.
Ryan: Once because it either happens here or it happens. It happens after. But does it only happen once? Because then Sam Neill also catches them?
Laura: Yeah. So I think this very first time, Flora, the daughter, sees them and then she runs off and she's all angry.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: About it. She doesn't like it because she's starting to really have, you know, feelings towards Sam. Um, Neill's character, of course. Calling him papa.
Ryan: Yeah. Or trying to make a good go of it, I suppose.
Laura: Absolutely. Yeah.
Ryan: Uh, because this is their life now.
Laura: She's the only one with their. Yeah, well, she's also a big tattletale.
Ryan: She's a, uh. Fucking.
Laura: Because after that. After that whole. She catches them naked together, even though her mom doesn't know, Ada doesn't know, Baines doesn't know that they were caught. Right. So do you remember that scene when Flora's in the woods with all the kids with all the maori kids. And they're like, humping trees and kissing the trees.
Ryan: They are, yes.
Laura: And then Stuart's like, don't ever, ever do that again. And that's how he kind of figures out that maybe something is up. So he goes to check on them again. He goes to Baines cabin.
Ryan: Well, Stuart's busy hanging out with New Zealand's answer to guns n roses. Because there's that guy that looks like Mori slash as well.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: And he's out, uh, there dealing with these, these punks, so to speak. And you know, his wife is, you know, getting busy with old sailor boy.
Laura: Yes. Yeah.
Ryan: He is not best pleased, let's put it that way. And he kind of continues to not be best pleased as much as his emotional arc kind of goes in peaks and troughs. And he thinks things are getting better. They really aren't.
Laura: No. She's distancing herself more and more. Because he really isn't that interested in getting that piano back.
Ryan: No. No, not really.
Laura: So Holly Hunter said regarding kind of the nudity. Because that's what people are asking about. This was Holly Hunter's first nude scene in a film. Um, obviously it was not Harvey Keitel's. But they asked her kind of about how was it on the set and everything. She said, uh, we were all really unhesitating. Me, Harvey and Jane, we talked about it a lot and joked about it a lot. Jane and I would figure out what it is we wanted to do, like in the love scenes. And then Harvey would come in and say, hey, I'm not doing that. I want to do this. So it was kind of fun. She said, um, okay. But Harvey Keitel, regarding nudity in film, he says, I never do naked scenes. An actor does not do nude scenes. I told a story, and it's my obligation to tell that story as honestly and as deeply as my ability will allow me. He said, actors create events and stories. It's up to their conscience and artistic tastes to render those events in whatever way they think is right. That's right.
Ryan: All right. Good for you.
Laura: And every time someone asks him, he basically says the same thing. He goes, I don't do it. I'm an actor.
Ryan: I think I could still be very good friends with Harvey Keitel.
Laura: That's fine.
Ryan: I still think at this point, I still think I could be friends with Harvey Keitel.
Laura: It's interesting because there's a lot of kind of journals and articles about this movie. You know, this movie is pretty popular and fairly well regarded. But there's a lot about the female gaze being quite prevalent in this film, which makes sense. It was written and directed by a female.
Ryan: Of course.
Laura: The main character is a female, and it's her, you know, kind of not really choosing between two men. She's not interested in one, and she's interested in a different one.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: But you can kind of see how the camera kind of lingers on Baines, especially, like, when he's dusting the piano naked and, you know, the little finger rubbing the hole in her stocking. Just like this very, uh, they're putting him in a very, very sensual light.
Ryan: They are definitely putting him in a.
Laura: Position like, that does not happen with Holly Hunter's character, with Ada at all.
Ryan: No.
Laura: And it's not that they're shying away from it. It's quite natural the way that it's done. But they're really using.
Ryan: Well, we're also seeing from her perspective. Exactly.
Laura: That's what she's seeing. So, you know, so, yeah, I'm down with that. Okay.
Ryan: No, I think that's. That seems understandable. Uh, it seems reasonable. Um, I just. Yeah, I just think overall, I have issues with just the blackmail element and kind of how weak, um, like, holly hunter's character kind of comes across as, you know, she's kind of just a pawn. That's not so much. She's not really passed about, but she's, you know, she's been sent on a journey probably, you know, against her will to a certain extent.
Laura: Oh, for sure.
Ryan: And, uh, she's kind of, you know, she's throwing into this particular position where, you know, she's trying to get what she wants. So she's gonna go with the person who's gonna get her what she wants. And in this case, it's a piano. But obviously, as you might expect, you know, in terms of the, you know, where the story goes, she realizes that the piano is not as important as it once was. So, you know, she does discard it.
Laura: When at the point where Baines does give the piano back to her. And this is after, uh, Sam Neill catches them. Right. He doesn't say anything either. No, no one says anything. He's just hoping that she'll suddenly love him for whatever reason. But, yeah, Baines gives the piano back, and she's about to give her next sexy lesson, you know, which isn't really a lesson. But Bane says, I've given the piano back to you. I've had enough. The arrangement is making you a whore and me wretched.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And it's like, man, you know, you're not wrong.
Ryan: It's a weird amount of self awareness after he's gotten what he's.
Laura: Yeah, he's gotten everything he wanted. Yeah, actually, that's kind of fucked up. He finally has sex with her and he's like, you know what?
Ryan: I'm, um, dumb.
Laura: You're a bit of a whore. I think I'm gonna get out of here. That's messed up.
Ryan: Says that about poor Holly Hunter, man. Like, that woman was in her prime. Yeah, he's had a hard time. He just casts her off. He's like, take your piano, you fucking slutty bitch.
Laura: Yeah. Do you remember that dog licking Sam Neill's hand while he's watching them do it in the cabin?
Ryan: Yeah, that's a nice dog.
Laura: That's pretty great.
Ryan: That dog only had three legs, too. Yeah, real cute.
Laura: Cause the end of the movie is insane.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: You know Sam Neill? Really? I always do this. I need to call him by his character's name, but Alistair Stewart, the husband, he sees her having sex with this guy, right? And then he catches up with her in the woods as she's on her way to meet him again. And he tries to have sex with her in the woods, but he doesn't. I don't know how far he would have gone. Uh, it's impossible to tell because Flora shows up, right? The daughter shows up, so he has to stop his advance. Yeah, but you're like, what were you gonna do? Because he does it a few times where he just is seeing how far he can get, and it's pretty creepy. The worst one is after she does the dumbest thing ever. Uh, if I may just talk about the end really quick, where she takes one of the piano keys, draws on and says, you know, something like, to Baines, you know, my heart is yours forever or something.
Ryan: Yeah, something weird like that.
Laura: And wraps it up in a little thing. Has her asks her daughter, demands that her daughter go deliver it to him. And the daughter's like, you know what? Fuck you. Fuck this. I know what you're up to. I'm giving it to my new papa. Gives it to papa. And he's fed up. He's absolutely fed up with it. And I don't disagree.
Ryan: Yeah, because does she deserve that, though? Does she deserve to have her finger lopped off?
Laura: Absolutely not. No woman deserves any sort of abuse or dismemberment at all. No one does.
Ryan: But good. I'm glad that we were able to keep that. Keep that, right, you know?
Laura: But I know that.
Ryan: Well, I do have a. I do have.
Laura: In the scheme of the film, okay.
Ryan: I do have a note here where it was only boners from dismemberment.
Laura: Only boners.
Ryan: Only boners from dismemberment because he is afraid of the booty touch.
Laura: Yeah, well, she does. Before he chops off her freaking finger.
Ryan: Try and finger his booty hole.
Laura: She, you know, she's trying to sauce him up a little bit. Trying to. Trying to get in there. She was rubbing his butt a lot. I don't know how much he liked it. I'm sure he was happy for the.
Ryan: Touch, but, yeah, get your fingers out of there head. And he's just like, no, I don't know.
Laura: But what I'm saying that, no, she didn't deserve to have her finger cut off. But she was cheating on him and she was not being very nice to him. And in the scheme and the time, there could have been a lot of rape in this movie. There could have been, uh, like, murder. He didn't even destroy the piano. Okay. That would have been the worst thing. And he didn't do that. But he did take away her ability to play the piano really well because she's missing a finger, you know, I.
Ryan: Mean, she's still able to play the piano at that point, though.
Laura: We'll just have to learn to do it without that one finger.
Ryan: Well, then she gets a replacement finger.
Laura: Like Margot Tenenbaum.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah. Gets a replacement finger.
Laura: But then there's after the whole dismemberment. Right. And she's recovering, she's in bed, she's basically passed out. And Stuart tries to stick it in there again. Yeah, it's wild. I'm like, are you really trying to stick it in after you literally cut her finger off earlier today?
Ryan: Earlier that day, the film felt like it had several different endings. And I don't know if I said the exact same thing for power, uh, of the dog, where I felt like it was a little bit of a lord of the Rings thing where it should have just ended one way and one way only, but you feel like it just drags on a little bit. And certainly the piano feels that way. It does not need that final scene where they return home. It should have just ended with the fucking piano at the bottom of the ocean. I don't know why they had to show them at a, uh, fucking house, God knows where. Well, back in Scotland. To come all the way back to Scotland and they're like, kissing each other and I'm like, no, I'm not fucking interesting.
Laura: I doubt it. I highly doubt they had a happy ending.
Ryan: I'm like, what the fuck? Like, seriously.
Laura: What's interesting is that Jane Campion said, like, fairly recently about the film. She goes, I thought some of it was really good, but I thought, for freaking Hell's sake, she should have stayed under there. It would be more real, wouldn't it? Would, uh, it be better? I didn't have the nerve at the time. What if Ada just went down? She went down with her piano. That's it.
Ryan: Yeah. It would have been a large bar.
Laura: That would have been awesome.
Ryan: Yeah, it would have. It probably would have achieved a half star more for me if that was the case. I think the ending is a little bit of a cop out. I think it's trying to satisfy an audience rather than actually satisfy the story.
Laura: Yeah. Um. Yeah, no, I mean, she can recut it if she wants to. I don't know.
Ryan: Too late.
Laura: But I like, I mean, I like it as it is. It's fine. You know, it's a little. It's a little too sweet at the end for me, but I can appreciate, and I do like the fact that it strayed away from tons of rape, which it could have been.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Just to make this woman's life even more hellish than it already is.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I guess. Um. But, yeah, I don't know. It's. There's a weird. Yeah, there's weird kind of tonal things going on. It's not as bad as some stuff, but, I mean, it was, it's still kind of just like. Yeah. I did find myself rolling my eyes a little bit.
Laura: Okay, we're not at the ratings yet, so hold your horses.
Ryan: I mean, I'm just annotating things that you said.
Laura: Um, Harvey Keitel also said the piano exists on many levels. It's a complex text. One of the levels most apparent to me is that Jane has done what I have often seen men do. That is a woman gathering herself up, taking responsibility for herself and her sexual needs and her spiritual needs and taking action to fulfill herself. He said that a few times where he goes, he calls Jane Campion a goddess. Says that she does something that men could never do. She put a woman in a situation that men are usually in where you've got a man m and he's got to choose between two women. But no, Jane flipped it.
Ryan: What a load of shit.
Laura: She flipped it and put a woman between two men off.
Ryan: Fuck her.
Laura: He loves her. I think. Jane, I like, I don't know. I'm back in the Jane camp right now.
Ryan: Never less the Jane camp. Laura. Uh.
Laura: For God's sake, I'm not a Jane champion, necessarily, but I don't dislike Campion. I like this movie a lot. So.
Ryan: All, uh. Right, yeah, I mean, I think. I think. Yeah, there's a lot of praise that gets thrown around and I just don't know how phony days.
Laura: I feel as though. And, uh. I think a lot of people probably feel this way, that Hollywood, as the entity it is, is championing a very small selection of female filmmakers. There are. And you can't even count how many there are. And amazing ones as well, that they've got their handful of women. They're like, yep, these are the chicks.
Ryan: These are the ones we'll deal with. Yeah, we can't.
Laura: Which is insane.
Ryan: We can't risk having any more.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: Um.
Laura: We can't have the women take over.
Ryan: No, no, but there are. Here's it. Like, here's the thing. There are. So I said this before. There are better directors than Jane Campion.
Laura: Of course there are.
Ryan: But female ones.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there are. But, you know, she's allowed to have the accolades and the praise. Anyone's allowed to have praise for when they do a good job.
Ryan: No, she's. Yeah, no, that's. That's. That's. I think that's fine. And the only reason I feel like I can't completely shit all her is because she made the piano. The piano is not about.
Laura: She wrote this as well. Like, it's great. It's a weird movie and it's great.
Ryan: Yeah, but she's also written most of her films, Laura.
Laura: Well, this one's my favorite.
Ryan: I mean, she's also written most. I mean, in the cut was obviously an adaptation of a terrible fucking book. And, uh, you know, she's basically written most of her material that she's committed to films, so there is that. But, um. Yeah, she will probably, you know, within the pantheons of cinematic history. She will be remembered primarily for the piano, of course.
Laura: Um, this film was the highest grossing New Zealand film of all time, and it surpassed the former highest grossing film in New Zealand. Foot trot flats. The dog's tale from 1986, an animated film based on a comic strip about a farmer and a sheepdog.
Ryan: Oh, wow.
Laura: That's a gross of NZd3.8 million.
Ryan: So bad taste didn't.
Laura: No, no, I don't think so.
Ryan: That's weird. Yeah.
Laura: Uh, as you all probably know, as we do, many, many accolades were thrown upon this film in terms of Academy Awards, it won best actress, best supporting actress and best original screenplay.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Anna Paquin became the second youngest person to win an Academy Award after Tatum O'Neal won't for Paper Moon. If you want to read some weird stuff, just look up Tatum O'Neal online. That poor woman. BAFTA's won, uh, for best actress, best costume design and best production design. And it won the Palme d'Or.
Ryan: Yeah, that's the main one.
Laura: Yeah. And best actress at Cannes, Jane Campion, was the first female to win the Palme d'Or, which we probably talked about.
Ryan: Before we said that in the first episode. Yeah.
Laura: But, you know, it's worth mentioning, again, ratings. Unless you have anything else to bring up.
Ryan: Well, Julia DeCarno was the one that followed in her footsteps and won the Pandora for Tehran. When we mentioned that before. I just want to keep on mentioning to people, there are other female filmmakers out there. You don't have to. Yeah, you just don't have to fucking pin your horse to the. To this one. Um, calm down. Ratings. So we talking about. You want to talk about the scene in general?
Laura: Visibility and context. Yeah. Of the penis.
Ryan: I need probably like a three and a half because this is not the strongest of my Harvey keitels, obviously bad lieutenants up there.
Laura: Um, you just wanted to see him cry a little bit more in this film.
Ryan: He only cried a wee bit. Yeah, he did a wee bit of crying when he finds out that our fingers been lopped off. And he's like. He does that thing that he usually does. He's overwhelmed with fantastic emotion. Um, but, yeah, no, I give it like a three and a half, I think, like, contextually. Yeah. And it's also. It's like. It's a weird moment where he's like. He's like, positioning her and stuff on the bed, and it's like, this is how it's getting. Yeah. So it's kind of creepy. Yeah. I mean, I guess it depends on who you are. You might be like, wow, that's the sexiest thing I've ever seen. Well, what do you mean? I do that all the time. But no, it's kind of. It's. It's kind of. It's odd. It's inappropriate. Um, but again, it's Harvey Keitel. So I gave it. I'm probably gonna. I'll give it three and a half because I don't really want to kind of delve too much into it. It's kind of just. It's one of the watershed moments of the story. Um, but like, I kind of feel like I don't want to over explain its death either, so.
Laura: Okay. I gave it a four and a half the scene. Yeah.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Well, in terms of visibility, totally.
Ryan: It's a little dark.
Laura: It's not too dark. Uh, it's not too dark.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: And Harvey, for, uh, an actor who doesn't get naked, you know, he's known for getting naked. His character, his characters tend to get naked quite a bit. And this is no exception, obviously. He, he gets out there telling the.
Ryan: Intensity of the story. He himself is not naked.
Laura: That's absolutely correct.
Ryan: It is the story that is naked. It is laid bare there in front of you.
Laura: It is his obligation to tell that story honestly with his penis out.
Ryan: And it is because he ain't no liar.
Laura: Oh, God. I don't know. The more like, and we, because the characters that Harvey Keitel plays happened to get naked quite a bit, we're gonna have to talk about it more. And I'm just gonna learn more weird stuff about Harvey Keitel that honestly can't.
Ryan: Fucking weird.
Laura: I'm not interested in love it. He is getting weirder and weirder, um, the further we go, and I don't know how I feel about it.
Ryan: It's Hollywood, Laura, they're all fucking sickos and weirdos. They're all weirdos. It's great. That's why we love it so much.
Laura: He disrobes. In terms of context, I want to look at this through more of the female gaze. Harvey Keitel is not my preferred, um, person to gaze upon necessarily. There's nothing wrong with him. It's just, I just, I think him as a person is just clouding my jealousy.
Ryan: Let's just take a minute to admire Laura walking on eggshells, trying to make.
Laura: Sure, because it has nothing to do. It's just in terms of you're putting a female gaze on this. And I think it's amazing. I think it's great. We don't get it as much as we should because, uh-huh. I think that it was handled really well. And I think that Jane Campion did a great job of really putting those scenes in a way that a lot of people would maybe find sensual that I didn't. Okay. But I can appreciate it for what it is. Four and a half. The whole positioning in the bed was weird, you know, but it is awkward. You have a woman who has been sheltered, who had a, you know, looks like she had a kid out of wedlock. She's definitely done this before because she has a kid. But she's discovering herself. She's discovering her sexuality. She's discovering her sensuality through this weirdo in the woods. And she's into it, and I should be into it, too.
Ryan: Um, that was something to watch.
Laura: Oh, God.
Ryan: You fucking spin this yarn, the way you spun it, that was fucking phenomenal. Oh, uh. God, I wish this was a video podcast. That was.
Laura: I didn't even look at you.
Ryan: I was smiling so hard, it's hurt my jaw.
Laura: It didn't help. All like that hot dog interview I watched did not help. How I feel about.
Ryan: You are, uh, the biggest bullshitter I've ever met in my fucking life.
Laura: Thank you.
Ryan: You are lying to all of these listeners.
Laura: I'm not. I'm not. I appreciate Harvey Keitel. I'm glad he gets naked. I think that it should happen more often. And he is an honest actor. He might not be a nice person. According to Sam Neill.
Ryan: Um, that's not for us to say.
Laura: I said, according to Sam Neill.
Ryan: I don't know if Sam Neill's awful.
Laura: Doubtful. He has pigs and stuff, and he makes wine. He's adorable.
Ryan: Yeah, no, he's actually probably very, very nice. I don't see Harvey Keitel making videos with his pigs, if he has any.
Laura: What are you reading? The film, Ryan.
Ryan: I gave it three and a half. Probably deserves more of a the damn. But it's not boring.
Laura: You're going. I knew you would maybe go backwards a little bit while we talked about it. That's funny.
Ryan: Well, yeah, because when we start to break it down and we really kind of get into the meat and the potatoes of it.
Laura: Hey. Oh.
Ryan: Um. You know, you kind of. I'm like. Because for something, I feel. Here's the thing. When. When I found out about the piano, that's when I. That's when I found out about Jane Campion. And she was just like, this darling of cinema. She'd made all these award winning short films, and then she made. Then she has the piano, and you look at it, and there's a young, aspiring filmmaker you look at, and you're like, oh, my God, it's so beautiful. Just the way that this story and every. And then when you kind of really think about it and you watch it and you look at it, you go, hmm. I don't know. I don't know about some of the stuff in this. It's not terrible, but I'd say it's like. Yeah, it's like a three or a three and a half. It's our. It's our best film that I've seen so far. Um, but, yeah, I have, like, I have questions, you know, like, I have questions about it.
Laura: I knew we were gonna do the piano and I watched holy smoke a couple weeks ago, which is another Harvey Keitel movie, uh, with Kate Winslet. Have you seen it? It is weird. Really weird.
Ryan: It's very orange.
Laura: Yes. Ah, it's very orange, which is fine. But it's very strange movie that is kind of gross as well. Um, it's way grosser than this. This movie is trying not to be gross. It just happens to be.
Ryan: This film's trying to be. At least this film's like. It's trying to be like a romance, um, in a kind of classical sense.
Laura: It is. It's still very 1990s, you know, and that's totally fine. I don't have a problem with that at all. But, yeah. Okay.
Ryan: In comparison to a lot of films that were coming out in the nineties of this kind of ilk, it's very original. It stands out a little bit. But, yeah, certainly you're looking back on it, it's slightly different, at least from my perspective. I didn't think I would like it as much as I did. I was kind of hoping that I would have loved it, but, uh, I'm kind of somewhere in the middle with it now.
Laura: Uh, okay, so I didn't even get to it. I gave it a four and a half. I complained a lot during the movie. I was yelling a lot.
Ryan: I don't think that's disingenuous. I don't really understand. Um.
Laura: I know it is weird, but I did like it a lot.
Ryan: You've read this film that you are complaining about so much to almost a near perfect score.
Laura: I know maybe it is more of a four, but I watched it and even though I yelled a lot and I was asking a lot of questions and some of it annoyed me. But overall, the feeling throughout, it is not boring, it does not feel long. It is incredibly interesting. Maybe that extra half star is just because Anna Paquin is fucking incredible as this little kid who's doing a pitch, uh, perfect Scott's accent.
Ryan: But I started at four, it went down. And then she gets a star just on her own.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Joanna Paquin. It's amazing without her in it. The film's a two and a half. It also only has like a 3.8 or nine or something on letterbox. It's a decent score. I think anything that is revered as a classic on Letterboxd has to have a four and over.
Laura: Well, you know, you're not helping bump it up.
Ryan: Well, I'm being honest. I'm being honest with myself. If there's anybody out there, and I do have my detractors, like, if there's anybody out there that has a problem with the way I rate things, then, uh.
Laura: Oh, well, that's no one's business.
Ryan: Deal with it.
Laura: I can give you crap because we do this podcast together. Absolutely.
Ryan: No, because you think I'm being disingenuous and I'm just hating.
Laura: I'm not. No, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying if you want to bump up those numbers, and I'm just saying you can. I would watch this again.
Ryan: I'm a harsh critic. I would expect people to be harsh of my stuff as well.
Laura: I was feeling fine and feeling great when I rated it, and I still feel great about it. I liked it four and a half. Last time I watched it was in film class 20 years ago. And I, uh, remember being in film class and seeing a penis, and I was like, cool. This is awesome. And it really, like, I remembered that so hard in my brain. The piano. I remember the beach, and I remember that dick. I didn't even remember Sam Niels in this movie until watched it again. And I go, holy shit. That's awesome.
Ryan: If only. Yeah, uh, if only. I do remember the piano had a penis in. And it's one of the few films that I do remember having a penis in it.
Laura: Yeah. Because it's like, whoa. When he's wiping that piano down, you're like, what?
Ryan: I thought that was another scene. I thought that was this scene. Yeah, but I was like, it's not.
Laura: It's great.
Ryan: Disappointing.
Laura: I loved it.
Ryan: Yeah, he did a very good job of making sure that narratively, he. His character story was not m showing more than it needed to. I kind of feel like maybe that's how I should describe these moments, uh, the entire time we do these episodes. Like, maybe what a word salad that is as well, though. It's like he basically could have just said, no. You know, he could have just David lynched it. And no, I don't tell you anything.
Laura: This is a great opportunity for future merch for our podcast, actually. You know, like, super Yaki has those funny bumper stickers about the mummy, and maybe we'll just have a long ass quote from Harvey Keitel talking about how he doesn't get naked in films.
Ryan: I would have that on a t shirt easily. Like, that is something I would just have on the front in small lettering so people would have to read it.
Laura: All right, watch out, everybody. If you want a bumper sticker, send us a message and maybe we'll make some.
Ryan: Or like, that long quote is, like, in a drawing of his face, in his mouth, and that's his teeth.
Laura: Wow. Okay, well, you're the designer, not me.
Ryan: M in the bad lieutenant pose.
Laura: Oh, my God.
Ryan: From my favorite shot of any film. Really?
Laura: If Stallone wants to do that, that's his own choice. All right? Stallone's like, what's like?
Ryan: What fucking problem?
Laura: What's going on?
Ryan: What's this fucking problem?
Laura: Who's in demolition man? Goddamn it. Uh.
Ryan: You mean I'm just a very faint, almost stuck.
Laura: All right. Coming to you from a small cabin, naked, in a remote part of New Zealand. I've been Laura.
Ryan: I've been Ryan. Yeah.
Laura: What are the three seashells?
Ryan: They're for gripping the poop out, uh, of your asshole, which is so impractical because for one. What if you had a soft poop?
Laura: Hopefully they have a bidet.
Ryan: There's no such thing as that in the future. No, they're not even allowed to curse.
Laura: Fucking murder, death, kill.
Ryan: It's stupid.