After a rocky relationship between Deep Cut and Mr. Pablo Larrain, we come back to the final film in Larrain’s “important 20th century white women” trilogy (as Ben describes it). Will Larrain redeem himself with a portrait of the final days of Maria Callas’ life? Or will he and Stephen Knight sh*t the bed again? Wilson praises Angelina Jolie’s comeback performance, Ben praises how pretty the film is, and Eli praises the prop glasses, but is all that enough to get the film over the line? Listen to find out.

Links:

Thomas Flight: Do Musical Biopics Have a Fatal Flaw?

Sing our praises at our free patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

03:33 General reactions

10:05 Saving graces of the film

14:10 Narrative

22:33 The Mandrax of it all

24:53 Supporting characters

27:36 Flashbacks and musical biopics

30:50 We pitch Maria Callas biopics

33:01 Pablo Larrain power ranking

38:18 Outro

We are joined by Asian Film Archive programmer Alexander Lee for our second installment in our Hong Sang-soo series! Alex talks to the guys about pairing Hong Sang-soo deep cuts with Eric Rohmer classics, and specifically the pairing of Night and Day with Love in the Afternoon. Eli chats about the narrative motifs that are on display in this film, Wilson tries to unlock the secret of Hong’s use of zooms, and Ben contends with the slimy protagonist of this film.

Singaporean listeners to Deep Cut you can catch Night and Day on July 13th at the Oldham Theatre. Buy tickets here!

Links:

Hong Sang-soo Notarized: Night and Day

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:17 Alex introduces Twin Tales

00:06:45 Film Context

00:10:21 General Reactions

00:20:58 Hong’s big stylistic choices

00:23:22 Narrative Motifs

00:28:30 Yoo-Jung

00:31:55 Sung-nam

00:33:14 Odd patterns

00:37:22 Night and Day vs. Love in the Afternoon

00:40:41 Tech and sex of the 00s

00:42:42 The male mess of Hong

00:45:52 Dream sequences

00:50:54 The look of the film

00:56:18 Being married?

00:59:16 Hong notarized

01:00:40 Opening of the film and Hill of Freedom

01:02:43 Music

01:04:30 More on zooms

01:05:35 Paris

01:07:52 Other small odd things

01:09:24 Preview of Twin Tales

01:13:11 Outro

Deep Cut partners with Asian Film Archive which is presenting Twin Tales: Éric Rohmer and Hong Sang-soo, a special programme featuring six pairings of films by French New Wave director Éric Rohmer and prolific Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo. Buy tickets here!

We’ve teased this for YEARS! And it’s finally here. The DC Trio break the ice by introducing notorious Korean director Hong Sang-soo to the canon by talking about a 2006 deep cut, Woman on the Beach. We talk about the pairing with Rohmer’s The Green Ray (our ep. 24), discuss why this feels odd in Hong’s filmography, and debate on what shape this movie looks like. Join us for a lively first foray into the work of Hong Sang-soo.

Links:

Film at Lincoln Center: Hong Sangsoo on Woman on the Beach

The New Yorker: Hong Interview with Dennis Lim

Hong Sang-soo Notarized: Woman on the Beach by Ryan Swen

Get drunk on soju at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:13 Twin Tales: Hong x Rohmer

00:05:00 Our journeys with Hong

00:15:34 Hong Sang-soo Overview

00:24:02 Woman on the Beach Summary and Reactions

00:31:40 Notarized Hong

00:34:03 Whose story is this?

00:41:31 Men vs Women

00:43:09 Some scenes

00:45:06 Characterizations

00:47:28 Comparison with The Green Ray, and others

00:54:38 Cinematography

00:57:21 Diagrams

01:00:54 Restaurant scene

01:02:32 Triangulation

01:05:58 The Ending

01:10:36 Outro