Transcript

Maurice · This Film is Lit

0:04
Speaker A: This Film Is lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book.
0:15
Speaker B: And I'm Katie, I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
0:22
Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers, because this film is lit. I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me. But I'm someone else's now and he's mine in a way that shocks you. But why don't you stop being shocked and attend to your own happiness? It's Morris, and this film is Lit. Hello and welcome back to this Film Is lit, the podcast about movies that are based on books. Katie, this week we're talking about maybe the less the least known James Ivory film, potentially. I don't know, it's got to be one of his less popular ones. It's no Room with a View or Howards End or whatever, but it is Morris and we have a lot to talk about, so we're gonna jump right in. If you have not read or watched Morris, we'll give you a summary of the film in. Let me sum up. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. The summary is sourced from Wikipedia. During a trip to a beach, Morris hall, an 11 year old schoolboy, receives instructions about the sacred mystery of sex from his teacher, who wants to explain to the fatherless boy the changes he would experience in puberty. Years later, in 1909, Morris is attending the University of Cambridge where he strikes up a friendship with two fellow students, the aristocratic Viscount Risley and the rich and handsome Clive Durham. Clive falls in love with Morris and surprises him by confessing his feelings. At first, Morris reacts with horror, but he soon realizes that he feels the same. The two friends begin a love affair, but at Clive's insistence, the relationship remains non sexual. To go further, in Clive's opinion, would diminish them both. Clive, a member of the upper class, has a promising future ahead of him and does not want to risk losing his social position. Their close relationship continues after Morris is expelled from Cambridge and begins a new career as a stockbroker in London. The two friends keep their feelings secret, but are frightened when Risley is arrested and sentenced to six months hard labor. After soliciting sex from a soldier, Clive, afraid of being exposed as a homosexual, breaks up with Morris after his return from a trip to Greece. Clive, under pressure from his widowed mother, marries a naive rich girl named Anne and settles into a life of domesticity at his estate of Pendersley. Pendersley, I think, is how they say it in the movie. Morris seeks the help of his family physician, Dr. Barry, who dismisses Morris doubts as rubbish. Morris then turns to Dr. Lasker Jones, who tries to cure his homosexual longings with hypnosis. During his visits to Pendersley Pendersley, Morris attracts the attention of Alex Scudder, the under gameskeeper who is due to immigrate to Argentina. Morris not only fails to notice Alex's interest in him, but initially treats him with contempt. This does not discourage Alec, who spies on Morse at night. Simcox, the butler at Pendersley, suspecting the true nature of Morris and Cly's past relationship, has hinted to Alec about Morris's nature. Morris's nature Reading Maurice over and over again. It's not hard when I'm just saying it in my head and obviously watching a movie, but reading it here over and over again, I can't. It's impossible to say Morris over and over again for people who don't know it's spelled Maurice, but it's pronounced Morris in Britain, apparently. One night, Alec climbs a ladder and enters Morris's bedroom through an open window. He kisses Morris, who is completely taken by surprise, but does not resist his sexual advances. After their first night together, Morris receives a letter from Alec proposing that they meet at the Pendersley boathouse. Morris wrongly believes that Alec is blackmailing him. Morris returns to Lasker Jones, who warns Morris that England is a country that has always been disinclined to accept human nature and advises him to emigrate to a country where homosexuality is no longer criminalized, like France or Italy. When Morse fails to appear at the boathouse, Alec travels to London and visits him at his offices, causing some surprise amongst Morris colleagues. Morse and Alec go to the British Museum to talk and the blackmail misunderstanding is resolved. Morse begins to call Alec by his first name. They spend the night together in a hotel room, and as Alec leaves the next morning, he explains that his departure for Argentina is imminent and they will not see each other again. Morse goes to the port to give Alec a parting gift, only to discover that he has missed the sailing. Morse goes to Pendersley and discovers and confesses to Clive his love for Alec. Clive, who is Hoping Morris would marry, is bewildered at his account. The two separate and Morris goes to the boathouse looking for Alec, who is there waiting for him. Alec has left his family and abandoned his plans to emigrate to stay with Morris, telling him now we shan't never be parted. Meanwhile, Clive is getting ready for bed and briefly reminisces about his time with Morris. There is your summary of the film. No guess who this week. But I do have a lot of questions. Let's get into them in. Was that in the book? Gaston?
5:21
Speaker B: May I have my book, please?
5:22
Speaker A: How can you read this? There's no pictures.
5:25
Speaker B: Well, some people use their imagination.
5:27
Speaker A: So the first scene of the movie as we open is a flash. Well, I guess not a flashback. It's just because there's nothing to flashback to.
5:35
Speaker B: But it is.
5:36
Speaker A: We start in Morris's childhood. He appears to be like an 1112 year old boy, something like that. On a school trip to the beach or something.
5:46
Speaker B: I'm not exactly sure what's going on.
5:48
Speaker A: Yeah, but he's on the beach and his teacher is there. And his teacher, Morris does not have a father. Father passed away when he was young, I believe. Yeah, he doesn't really have any like male.
5:59
Speaker B: Doesn't have male relatives or anything.
6:01
Speaker A: And so the teacher needs to decides this is the time to awkwardly explain sex to him and puberty and all that sort of stuff. And he does this by like drawing a penis in the sand as well as like a uterus and other things. It kind of looks like nonsense when they show it. I kind of see the uterus, but I really couldn't see the penis. I don't know. Anyways, which is funny because there's like literal penis. Multiple actual human penises in the movie. So it wasn't like a, you know.
6:31
Speaker B: Well, I think I saw the penis.
6:34
Speaker A: Oh, did you? I was having trouble discerning from.
6:37
Speaker B: Well, it was flaccid.
6:39
Speaker A: Was it? Was it?
6:40
Speaker B: Yeah.
6:40
Speaker A: Okay.
6:40
Speaker B: Which was funny to me. Cause it's supposed to be like the sex talk.
6:43
Speaker A: What? And you.
6:44
Speaker B: And then you drew like a vagina next to it.
6:47
Speaker A: I just. There were too many lines when they showed it. There were so many lines that I couldn't discern what was what like. I was like, what is. Where's. Okay, anyways, does that come from the book? Does Paul's or more I don't know why hall is his last name. Does Morris's teacher try to awkwardly explain sex and puberty to him by drawing dicks in the sand at the beach?
7:07
Speaker B: Yes, the scene is Pretty much accurate to the book, although I do think it benefits a lot from Simon Callow's performance and the sheer amount of awkwardness that he was able to squeeze into that 10 minute scene.
7:21
Speaker A: He does absolutely crush. He's in this movie for five minutes total in two different scenes. And both of them are incredibly awkward in a very funny way. Then we jump forward and we are now at Cambridge, King's College, specifically within Cambridge, which if you listen to our learning or a prequel episode, we talk a little bit about how Cambridge works because I did not realize that there was a bunch of colleges within broader Cambridge University. Anyways, he's at King's College at Cambridge University and he. He's in like a class or he's in like one of his. He's hanging out with some people and we're introduced to some of the like other fellow students with him and he's. I don't know how old he's supposed to be. He's in college essentially, so he's probably 20 or 18. 19. 20.
8:08
Speaker B: I was between like 19 and 20, I guess.
8:11
Speaker A: Yeah, something like that. Anyways, they're discussing culture or. I don't remember exactly what they're discussing, but it's a group of like the students like sitting around in a room discussing. I think the dean is there.
8:21
Speaker B: Yeah, he's there. They're having lunch at the dean's house.
8:23
Speaker A: Yes, that's right. This is like that classic, like they're having like. It's like the, the choice group of pupils, like having lunch and conversation and.
8:31
Speaker B: Conversating to be absolutely insufferable and eat food.
8:35
Speaker A: Yeah. And while they're there, they're talking about music comes up or something. And one of the other, one of the students says, I can't stand concerts or music halls. I don't go in for being superior. Basically saying like all that stuff's like very like, you know, pretentious and I don't like that kind of stuff. And one of the other. This is where we're introduced to Viscount Risley, who is one of the other students there. And he is. Does go in for being superior. And he responds when the guy says, I don't go in for being superior. Viscount Wriothesley turns to him and says, don't you? I do. Which is very funny. And he's just the most obnoxious character for these handful of scenes when we first introduced to him. And I wanted to know if that line came from the book because I thought it was funny.
9:21
Speaker B: The very, very close. The Line from the book reads, finding Wriothesley adored music. He began to run it down, saying, I don't go in for being superior. And so. And then Risley's response is, I do.
9:36
Speaker A: Okay, there you go. Then. I think it's even in a later class, we jump forward a little bit. We're kind of just like, seeing. It's like a bit of his day to day, and we're introducing these characters. And I think it's a separate class. Also in the dean's office or whatever, they're doing, like, their Latin translation class. It's what I assume. At first I was like, is that guy just a really bad reader?
9:59
Speaker B: I know. That's what I thought, too, at first. I was like, damn, how you get into Cambridge? None of these Cambridge students know how to read.
10:07
Speaker A: Well, the first guy. And then, like, the first guy. And then I had the thought, like, halfway through, as he was stumbling, I was like, okay. Oh, I bet it's Latin. This is back when they still did Latin.
10:18
Speaker B: Yeah. So they're, like, translating on the fly.
10:20
Speaker A: And then once the second guy came in and was also kind of stumbling, I was like, okay. It's definitely that they're translating Latin. And not that these are a bunch of Cambridge students who don't know how to read English aloud. Like British Cambridge students who don't know how to read English anyway. So they're translating Latin in. From. From Latin into English and reading this aloud. And they're reading from Symposium, which is Plato, I think, or Aristotle. I can't remember one of those guys. And as they're reading this, the section they're reading in this part is. Is recounted. I don't know enough about Symposium to know what the context of this is, but it is something related to masculine love.
11:02
Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I think they mention Ganymede, who's, like, a character that was loved by Apollo. I want to say.
11:11
Speaker A: Sure. I don't remember, like I said, but they're reading this end at one point, they're kind of reading through it, and it's getting kind of awkward and is, like, more and more alluding to, like, love between men and blah, blah. And at some point, the dean chimes in and he says, as one of the students is reading, he, like, stops him and says, omit the reference to the unspeakable vice of the Greeks, meaning, I assume, sodomy or something along those lines. And I wanted to know if that scene and that line specifically came from the book.
11:42
Speaker B: Yes, that line is directly from the book. The only difference is that they aren't reading aloud in the book. They're just, like, quietly doing their translations. And the Dean chimes in with that.
11:55
Speaker A: And again, we're just kind of setting the scene here of. I guess. Not that we needed to know that in 1913, the Brits weren't like, super chill about being gay, but we're just. Again, we're laying that groundwork and setting up the temperament of Cambridge and the people there and that sort of thing as a backdrop for our torrid gay romance that is coming. Gay love triangle, or love biancle, I guess, as we discussed in the last prequel or whatever. So getting to the romance, one of the other characters we're introduced to, who is actually, I believe, Risley's roommate, potentially, or friend, maybe just friend.
12:40
Speaker B: I think they're just friends.
12:41
Speaker A: Lover, maybe. I don't know. Or not lover, but, like, canoodler. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if that's implied, but he's. Risley gives Morris, who is our main character, a letter or, like, invites him back to his room. At one point, that I think was like a. Oh, yeah, a romantic overture. And then when Morris comes to visit, Wriothesley's not there, but Clive Durham is, who, again, is either his roommate or friend or whatever. And they get to talking and they strike up a friendship which then kind of blossoms and moves from there very slowly. It's a lot of just kind of, like, longingly looking at each other and, like, gentle touching of hair and stuff like that. But ultimately, eventually, Clive Durham, played by Hugh Grant in the movie, does confess his love for Morris. He pulls him aside. At one point, they have. Right after the tender hair touching, they're interrupted by a bunch of other students coming in and they, like, quickly separate. And then as they're leaving, as Morris is leaving to go with his friends to go somewhere, Clive pulls him aside and, like, confesses his love to him and says, like, I love you. And Morris does not know how to respond initially and just says, you talk rubbish. And this immediately shoots down Clive, and he's very offended by it. And I wanted to know if that exchange came from the book.
14:08
Speaker B: Again, very, very close. Here's how it reads. In the book, Maurice was. Oh, my God.
14:15
Speaker A: I know. Reading it is really. Yeah.
14:19
Speaker B: Morris was scandalized, horrified. He was shocked to the bottom of his suburban soul and exclaimed, oh, rot.
14:28
Speaker A: Oh, rot.
14:29
Speaker B: Oh, rot.
14:30
Speaker A: I think you talk rubbish translates better.
14:33
Speaker B: For us, but I think so too. But I also really, like. He was shocked to the bottom of his Suburban soul.
14:40
Speaker A: Yes, that is very funny. Yeah. But then later, so initially that is his reaction. Morse rejects him. But then very quickly thereafter, he comes back and he tells him that he loves him. And Clive doesn't really want to hear it. He's like, whatever, you already made your feelings clear, blah, blah, blah. But so then that night, in a dramatic romantic gesture to make it clear that he's not lying, at least that's how I interpreted the scene, he sneaks into Durham's room in the middle of the night, comes in and, like, kisses him briefly, and then immediately leaves again. And I thought that was very funny, and I would have known that happened in the book. He doesn't stick around. He, like, comes in, kisses him, and it goes right back out the window.
15:21
Speaker B: Yeah, that is exactly what happens in the book.
15:23
Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny. And I think it makes sense, too, in the. From this moment of that, you know, exploring the very first inroads of a. Of a relationship that he never considered before, having it be this. That, you know, like, he doesn't really know what to do, so he just comes in and he kisses him and he leaves. It's like, I don't know, what, am I gonna stick around? Like, what am I. Yeah, because he kind of feels awkward about it. I feel like.
15:49
Speaker B: So.
15:51
Speaker A: So their relationship then blossoms from there and they spend more and more time together and. Including taking motorcycle trips, adorable sidecar motorcycle trips to the countryside to sit in a field of, like, wheat or whatever.
16:05
Speaker B: And, like, eat crushed bread and read poetry.
16:09
Speaker A: Yeah, it is. Yes. And I wanted. But during that. During that scene, while they're laying out in the field, Morris tries to, like, get more physically intimate with Clive. And Clive stops him and says, no, we can't. But his argument for it is that he thinks it will spoil everything he doesn't want. I think it's also the movie. I don't know if it ever explicitly says this, but I thought also part of what maybe his reasoning for it would be, and I think he might allude to it in this scene, but that it's like that physically, he says something along the lines of the scene, of it, like, tainting it or spoiling it. And I think, obviously, I think deep down it's just him struggling with his own sexuality and being scared of, like, if I'm actually physically intimate with him.
17:03
Speaker B: Right. That makes it.
17:04
Speaker A: That makes it very real. And then we could get in a lot of trouble. We could get in a lot of trouble. Whereas if we don't do anything, like, explicitly intimate Romantically, then it's not, you know, we have plausible deniability. And even he has plausible deniability, like, to himself. But I think there's also an added layer to it of, like. I think it's set up by this scene earlier where they're reading from symposium of, like, the types of love between men and, like, the way that. I don't know enough about Greek gayness, but I do know that there was, like, kind of rules about, like, the type of physical intimacy and what was, like, gay and what wasn't. You know what I mean? Like, there was, like. Yeah, types of. So, like, laying together in a field, like, rubbing each other's chest and feeding each other grapes is, like, not gay, but, like, kiss it, like. But, like, doing, like, an act. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like there's that layer of it, too, of. Of like, he can. There's like, this plausible deniability of, like, what counts as doing, like, being gay or whatever. Anyways. Does that come from the book Durham's desire not to be physically intimate?
18:15
Speaker B: Okay, so I don't think that the specific conversation that they have in the field in the movie is from the book. I tried to find something similar, and I couldn't. If anybody else knows, feel free to chime in in the feedback. But the plot point of Clive not wanting to be physically, physically intimate is definitely from the book.
18:42
Speaker A: Yeah.
18:43
Speaker B: And I like. And it's so kind of vague in the book that I honestly wasn't sure for a long time, like, how intimate they had been.
18:52
Speaker A: They had been.
18:53
Speaker B: Right. Because they do kiss every now and then.
18:55
Speaker A: Yeah. And they do in the movie too.
18:56
Speaker B: Yeah. But there was a line on page 151 that spelled it out for me. It had been understood that their love, though, including the body, should not gratify it.
19:10
Speaker A: Right.
19:11
Speaker B: So.
19:12
Speaker A: And see, that line, to me, kind of harkens back to what I was saying of, like, that idea of, like, what almost. It's almost like this stoic idea, idea of love that hearkens from that kind of Greek philosophical camp of giving in to baser desires is somehow weakens you as a man or whatever. And it's not even about it being gay necessarily. It's just this broader idea of rejecting physical vice kind of is, I think, part of that.
19:40
Speaker B: And I do think that that is a big part of what Clive's whole thing is here. Because then later on, he's the same way. Like, we get the same kind of sentiment as this repeated about his wife as well, which you could also interpret as him not being attracted to women. But also, like, I don't know, maybe he's just not interested in sex.
20:06
Speaker A: Yeah, he could be Ace. So that's another reading of it, is that he's just not into sex. Like, that's just not a thing that interests him. I think that it is interesting because you don't know from the movie, at least. Again, it sounds like from the book, which of the. Because it could be in the first instance, like, I think the. The straightforward reading and the one I'd be most inclined to draw from the film is that he is gay and is probably not Ace, but is deeply claws or, like, deeply shameful of his homosexuality. And so does not want to be physically intimate with Morris for this. For. For multiple reasons. One of those being, like, it makes it very real to him, then that he's gay. And then two, it's. It's then also a specific thing that, like, if they have sex together, then it's like, well, we've done this thing that could be. However it would get out. Or, I don't know, if somebody found.
20:59
Speaker B: Out about you, whatever, you've done a crime at this time period.
21:04
Speaker A: Whereas the other things they've done to this point aren't really criminal. And then later, when he gets with his wife and doesn't want to have sex. I think the reading would be that he's just. He's not. He's gay. He's just not into women. So that's why. But I do think there is a perfectly valid reading that is, maybe he's. We don't know what his sexuality is necessarily. Maybe it's more complicated than just being, you know, like, closeted and gay and not Ace. Maybe he is Ace. Maybe some flavor of Ace. Maybe he's bi and, like. Yeah, and Ace. We don't know. And I think that does kind of. I think that can actually muddy the ending a little bit if you. I'm going with the idea of the more straightforward reading mainly because of when the book was written. And, like.
21:47
Speaker B: No, I agree. But I do think. I think it's interesting that there are kind of like multiple layers to it and multiple ways that you could angle yourself and read his character and his reactions.
21:59
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I think they all come across as perfectly plausible. Like, none of it feels like if you read him as, like, a bi Ace character, I'd be like, yeah, no, that actually kind of tracks, like, from the movie. The Ace part for sure tracks from the movie. Him being bi. Maybe not. I Don't know. It feels like he's not really into women, but. Or, you know, not like he doesn't feel like he wants to be in a relationship with a woman, but.
22:24
Speaker B: And I will say that we do get, like, a little bit of his perspective in the book. And I agree with you in the book. I still think that the more like, obvious, broad reading is he's gay and closeted and terrified to be intimate with another man for multiple reasons. But I also felt like there was even more of a case in the book specifically to read him as maybe, like, experiencing romantic attraction, but not necessarily sexual attraction.
22:57
Speaker A: And I think that's. Like I said, I think that's very. That is what we see in the film. That is the way their relationship is depicted from his end. So I think it's a perfect. It makes perfect sense. And I'm not. I would just be. Like I said, I would just be kind of. I'd actually be pleasantly surprised if that was the angle they were going for because it just doesn't strike me as, like. I think in the broader context of the movie. The movie is, in a lot of ways, the. The story is kind of like a very straightforward, classic version of this type of story. Like, it's. There aren't really any interesting twists or turns. It's kind of exactly what I expected this kind of story to be. And it's kind of like the first version of this story I would. Or like the simplest version of this story I would imagine reading. Two guys kind of like, fall in love with each other and realize they're gay. Well, Clive knows he's gay, I guess.
23:52
Speaker B: Yeah.
23:52
Speaker A: It's funny because we kind of do that. They kind of end in. Clive knows he's gay, and Enderman is more confident with it initially. And then they kind of go in opposite directions where Clive rejects it.
24:04
Speaker B: They're almost like two ships passing in the night.
24:06
Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I think that's very intentional. But my point was that, like, I think, oh, God, I lost the thread on what I was saying, that I can't remember where I was going. I literally just completely blanked on where I was going. You looked like you were gonna read.
24:21
Speaker B: Something, so I'm looking at. So the copy of the book that I have has a note from the author in the back that was written September 1960, so many years after this novel was initially written. And in this final endnote, he goes into a little bit about the characters, because really, what we're talking about here kind of is like an authorial Intent versus a reader response.
24:53
Speaker A: We are talking about authorial intent because, like, honestly.
24:55
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I was trying to look and see if I could find a good passage about Clive here. If Morris is suburbia, Clive is Cambridge. Knowing the university or one corner of it pretty well, I produced him without difficulty and got some initial hints for him from a slight academic acquaintance. The calm superiority of outlook, the clarity and the intelligence, the assured moral standards, the blondness and delicacy that did not mean frailty, the blend of lawyer and squire, all lay in the direction of that acquaintance. Though it was I who gave Clive his Hellenic temperament and flung him into Morris's affectionate arms. Once there, he took charge, laid down the lines on which the unusual relationships should proceed. He believed in platonic restraint and induced Morris to acquiesce, which does not seem to me at all unlikely.
25:47
Speaker A: Yeah, okay, so I still. Yeah. Anyways, what I was getting at was the story as presented in the film is a fairly simple, straightforward, like, gay romance. Like, these two college kids kind of both realize they're gay, fall in love with each other. One of them wants to be more physically intimate than the other one because the other one. And the one. The first one who started the relationship maybe is a little more closeted or something and isn't as comfortable being physically intimate. And the other one, who kind of just now realizing he's gay, is very excited to, like, you know, explore this new part of his personality. Ultimately, it ends with the Clive, the guy who was kind of closed off from the relationship and ended the relationship because he got scared of, like, the, you know, living his true life because of the. What it could do to his name and his, you know, political aspirations and all these other things. He gives up his true personal, you know, like his. He gives up living his. His true life of being gay with or being with Morrison, being gay openly or not even openly necessarily, but just, you know, being, like, living that life.
26:55
Speaker B: As open as one. As open as one could be.
26:57
Speaker A: He gives that up. Morris decides to embrace this and he gets to go be, like, live a happy gay life with the gameskeeper or whatever. It's like a very, like. Okay, that's. I don't know, that's like the simplest version of, like, a gay romance I can kind of imagine. And so my point, I guess, that I was getting at was that if there is the added layer of, like, if the intent was. But there's this wrinkle of Clive is not just like a closeted gay person who is scared to, like, be intimate with a man, but as it is, in fact, just is. Is Ace or some flavor of Ace and has this, like, deep, moral, kind of Hellenic, like, or Platonic code about sexuality. That is a more interesting story to me. Like, there's a. It's. It's got more layers than just the initial version, which is kind of like. Yeah, that's what I expect this to be. You know, like, the guy who is gay and rejects or, you know, doesn't. Doesn't embrace his sexuality, has to live this life trapped in straight. You know.
28:05
Speaker B: Yeah. In a straight marriage.
28:06
Speaker A: In a straight marriage, which. Which, if that's the case, like, there's the other layer of, like, that being the case if he is just, like, you know, a closeted gay man who is trapped in this straight marriage by his own doing. The ending feels less sad and more like we just get to feel happy for Morris for, like, finding himself living his truth and living his truth. And we get to, like, kind of be annoyed at and, I guess, upset for Clive, but, like, also, like, well, you made your bed and you're sitting and, you know, you're sleeping in it. But if there is the added wrinkle of, like, it's not just that he's, like, embarrassed or closeted or, you know, like. Like, too cowardly to be in a gay relationship, but if it is, in fact, a thing of, like, he is, like, Ace and does not want to be physically intimate with anyone, there's like, this added layer of sadness that his life has to be forced into this other, different box that he doesn't want. You know what I mean? I don't know. I don't know. I think that's really compelling if that.
29:14
Speaker B: Anyways, it's definitely. It makes it a slightly different story, but I do think that, like I said, like, the different ways that you could interpret this, to me, makes it really interesting. Yeah.
29:26
Speaker A: Yeah. So we jump forward a little bit and Morse gets expelled from Cambridge for seemingly skipping one day's worth of class. Well, he does, I think, say that it's not the first time he's been.
29:37
Speaker B: Skipping quite a bit.
29:38
Speaker A: Sure. But he. And he doesn't, like, argue or anything. And I guess we're just supposed to mean this as, like, he just has realized that, like, Cambridge isn't for him. It's not his scene or whatever. But I wanted to know if that came from the book, if he just gets, like, expelled from Cambridge for skipping classes and, like. Well, all right.
29:54
Speaker B: Yeah, it does. The dean, they said that they call it sending him down Yeah, I didn't know what that dean sends him down to the minor league.
30:05
Speaker A: That's what I was like, what does that mean? I'm going to have to send you down? I'm like, what? And I assume it's like a thing where, like, is. Is Cambridge, like in the northern part of. I don't know where something.
30:13
Speaker B: I have no idea.
30:14
Speaker A: Like down to London or. I don't know, whatever.
30:16
Speaker B: Yeah, down. Down the island. I don't know. I don't know. But he does. He gets expelled. And the dean says that unless he apologizes, he won't recommend him for re entry. And in the book, we're told that part of the reason Morris doesn't care about this is because it was Clive's last year anyway, so what would he want to go back to Cambridge for?
30:39
Speaker A: Okay, fair enough.
30:41
Speaker B: They do actually both end up going back in the book, though, which is kind of neither here nor there. So I was fine with the movie. Cutting that.
30:52
Speaker A: So then we get to see a little bit of Morris's home life. He lives with his mother and two sisters, I think.
30:58
Speaker B: Yes. Kitty and Ada.
31:01
Speaker A: Yeah. And they do not get along. He argues with them constantly. And they have this one exchange in the movie that I thought was really funny. And I want to know if it came from the book, which is they're chastising him for something that he did. I think it's related to him getting expelled.
31:17
Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
31:18
Speaker A: And he comes back at one of the sisters by saying, little girls don't see clearly. And his sister. I think it's Ada. I can't remember. Kitty, one of them responds, I see more clearly than some little boys who think they're little men, which I thought was a great comeback. And I want to know if it was in the book.
31:36
Speaker B: Yep, that line is directly from the book.
31:38
Speaker A: Nice.
31:39
Speaker B: Most of the really good lines are directly from the book. E.M. forster, famously really good writer.
31:47
Speaker A: No, it makes sense. But it is. I was impressed to see that so many, you know, at least so far, so many of the, like, the lines that really stood out to me because sometimes it's really hard to tell because sometimes I feel like some of those lines are very much like movie writer lines. Like these are lines written to be spoken in a movie very intentionally. And it kind of felt like one of those lines. But that doesn't mean there aren't. Obviously there's lines like that in books. It's just. I don't know. Anyways, we move forward in time a little bit more, and Clive and Morris are still together at this point. Point, kind of, I think. Right?
32:27
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
32:28
Speaker A: And they. They're. They're out at some dinner with friends or whatever. They're always, like, hanging out, having like a dinner party with friends. And we've jumped forward at like six months or something like that. This takes. The whole movie takes place over the course of like three years or four years.
32:42
Speaker B: Yes.
32:43
Speaker A: Well, if you don't count.
32:44
Speaker B: If you don't count when he's a little kid. Yeah. It's not a super long time for the main bulk of the story, nine.
32:49
Speaker A: To like 1913 or something like that.
32:51
Speaker B: Yeah.
32:52
Speaker A: Basically leads right up to World War I, which I think is.
32:55
Speaker B: And then conveniently stops.
32:56
Speaker A: Yeah. Which is why our happy ending is probably not so. Happy ending. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so they. They're hanging out and Morris has grown a mustache. He has a mustache. He's trying out a mustache. And they're like one of his, like, women friends is, like, joking or teasing him about or whatever. And she asked Clive and Clive is like, well, I think it's revolting or something like that. And I wanted to know if Morris grew a mustache in the book and if Clive thought it was revolting.
33:29
Speaker B: Morris does grow a little period appropriate mustache after leaving Cambridge, but I don't believe Clive ever calls it revolting.
33:37
Speaker A: Okay.
33:37
Speaker B: I did do a word search for revolting and it returned, no results. So.
33:43
Speaker A: So then we get a little side plot moment which is count by count Wriothesley from the beginning, the obnoxious guy who we assumed was maybe gay because it seemed like he was inviting Morse back to his room for some canoodling. He is out at a bar or whatever, and he buys some drinks for a soldier there and then slides the soldier some money. And then they go down an alleyway together. He's trying to, like, hire the soldier as a prostitute. But then it was all like, a trap or a ploy. I don't know. We don't see how this all happens because I guess at some point the soldier told some cops, or I think. Or was it a trap from the beginning?
34:29
Speaker B: I think it was, okay, don't come for me history people. But I think. I think that that was something that they, like, did back then, was, like, set traps.
34:41
Speaker A: Like honey pots.
34:41
Speaker B: Yeah.
34:42
Speaker A: Okay.
34:42
Speaker B: Like, for, like, gay men trying to solicit sex.
34:45
Speaker A: I had not heard. I didn't know about this. But anyway, so they go down to the alleyway and they start. Risley starts trying to, like, kiss him and stuff. And then the cops show up and arrest them. So Risley gets arrested and sentenced to six months in.
35:00
Speaker B: Six months.
35:00
Speaker A: Six months hard labor in prison or whatever. Which is the magistrate or whatever is that. I think that's the term for judges over there. Says that he's willing to be lenient because Risley has already lost his political aspirations and all this other stuff because obviously his reputation is ruined. And I wanted to know if that plot line came from the book. And this really freaks out Clive specifically, but also Morris a little bit, but.
35:26
Speaker B: Clive specifically, but Morris a little bit, but not nearly as close. Not nearly as close as Clive. Yeah. So none of that happens in the book. That plot point is not in the book at all. And I have a lot of thoughts about it, but I have filed them under Lost in Adaptation.
35:41
Speaker A: Okay. All right.
35:43
Speaker B: Because I want to talk about it.
35:44
Speaker A: Well, we'll get to that here momentarily.
35:46
Speaker B: So stay tuned.
35:48
Speaker A: So, as I said, Clive has become very, you know, very nervous about this whole thing. And basically this is where he chooses to break up with Morris. He's like, we gotta stop this. Cause you saw what happened to Risley. Like, that could happen to us and it would ruin my name. Blah, blah, blah. And he's like. He basically asks, like. And Morris is like, well, I don't care. And he's like, you don't care about your name or your whatever. Like, he basically is like. Or your prospects and this, that, and the other. And Morris responds with. And I want to know if this line came from the. From the book says, I risk everything and gladly, because the only thing I fear losing is you. I want to know if that came from the book.
36:25
Speaker B: So that one is actually not from the book. I do like it, though.
36:29
Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good line.
36:29
Speaker B: It's a good line.
36:30
Speaker A: It's a very good line. Okay. There's at least one movie original. Then. Despite thinking. And I think there's a little bit of a. Intentional play there, despite thinking that Morris's mustache was revolting, Clive. Well, there's a lot happens here. We gotta jump forward quite a bit. Clive goes to Greece, decides he's straight, actually, while in Greece, mainly because, again, the whole Wriothesley thing kind of like scares him straight. Or at least scares him to pretend to be straight.
37:01
Speaker B: Scares him straight with scare quotes around. Straight.
37:04
Speaker A: Yeah. So when he gets back, his wife, or his wife, his mom sets him up with this woman named Ann and they get engaged to be married. And as the first time we see him after finding this out that him and Anne are getting together and are Engaged. We see Clive and he looks very different. He has. He now has a mustache.
37:27
Speaker B: Yes. A period appropriate mustache and like slicked.
37:30
Speaker A: Back hair, which we'll get to. But he has a mustache. And I wanted to know if Clive literally grew a mustache when he was pretending to be straight. Like, if this is this. It's not the. Was. Was Morris the novel the first instance of growing a beard? Like, was that. You know what I mean? Except it's a mustache.
37:49
Speaker B: So there's no mention of Clive having a mustache at any point in the book. But I liked this a lot. I like that after they break up, Morris shaves his mustache. He shaves his off, Clive grows one. I think it's an interesting visual way to show that they aren't in sync with each other.
38:08
Speaker A: Yeah. Which the movie goes to great lengths numerous times towards the end to do, which we'll talk more about later. But.
38:13
Speaker B: And I also like the idea of mustaches being like the boy version of getting bangs after a breakup.
38:20
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well. And he. I like the idea too that he's just. He looks so different because I mentioned earlier. He. His hair is like super, like slick back and combed. And he's like always wearing a tux now. And it's all because he's he. So he inherits when he marries a woman we set up earlier. His mom says that when Clive marries, he will inherit Pender's leave.
38:41
Speaker B: He inherits the entire estate.
38:42
Speaker A: Yeah. So he gets to run the estate. And so he has to, like, put on that costume now, basically. But he's so much less attractive as this version of himself. And I think that's very intentional that he. With the slicked back hair because, like, I had a note about it later, but Hugh Grant's hair in this absurd.
39:03
Speaker B: It looks not real.
39:04
Speaker A: It doesn't look. It looks like it's like a cartoon, like, Disney character.
39:09
Speaker B: He's got cartoon Disney prince hair.
39:11
Speaker A: Yeah. It's absurd. Like, it's truly ridiculous how great his hair is in the early parts of this movie. And so I think it's very, very intentional that, like, his. One of his most kind of attract, like, aesthetically appealing.
39:26
Speaker B: Yeah.
39:26
Speaker A: Features is completely like slicked back. Like, again, his hair is like pressed down to his head, covered in like whatever they wax or whatever they used back then. Yeah. And then he grows this mustache that just does not suit him at all.
39:41
Speaker B: No.
39:42
Speaker A: And it's very much the idea that he's putting on this costume at the same time he's putting on the costume of being straight yeah.
39:48
Speaker B: And there's also visual language of, like, restraining the, like.
39:54
Speaker A: Yes.
39:54
Speaker B: The wild kind of boyish charm that he has in the early part of.
39:58
Speaker A: The movie because his hair is very floppy and messy.
40:00
Speaker B: Floppy and tousled and tumbling every which way. Very, like, sexual.
40:06
Speaker A: Yeah. And so you imagine every. I'm actually surprised. Surprised. We don't see this scene, but that scene of him in the mirror in the morning, like, shellacking his hair, like, grimly, like. Yeah. Putting it. Just smashing all of his hair down and covering it with, you know, whatever. Pomade or whatever. Dapper Dan. He's a Dapper Dan man. Yeah. But I mentioned that Clive gets engaged to Annie. Annie Anne.
40:32
Speaker B: I think it's Annie Ann.
40:34
Speaker A: And they then called all of their friends to let them know that they're engaged. And he calls Clive to tell or not Clive. He calls Morris to tell him he's engaged. And as he gives the phone to Anne so she can, like, introduce herself, and as she's talking, she says something like, oh, yes. All of the. The seven other friends we've called before, you were all very surprised or something like that. And Morris is like, you called Sith. I'm the eighth person you call. He gets very offended that he was the eighth person that Clive decided to call and tell that he was engaged. And I wanted to know if that came from the book because I thought that was very funny.
41:16
Speaker B: Yeah, all of that comes from the book. And I was offended for him reading the book.
41:21
Speaker A: Yes.
41:22
Speaker B: I was like, eighth. Really?
41:23
Speaker A: Really Eighth. Okay. All right.
41:25
Speaker B: Just barely making the top eight. Okay.
41:28
Speaker A: Yeah. So at this point, because of what has happened with Clive, Morris decides that he needs to address his homosexuality. So he goes to the family doctor. It's like an old family friend or something played by. I can't remember the guy's name. He's the guy from Indiana Jones movies. Oh, no, I can't remember. It doesn't matter. I had it because he's great. But the only thing I've ever. I think the only other thing I've ever seen him in is Indiana Jones. He's in the first and the third one. I'm pretty sure he goes to his family doctor. And he's basically trying to, like, tell him, hey, there's something wrong with me. And initially it's clear that the doctor thinks he's, like, got an STD or something. He's like, there's something wrong with me down there. Blah, blah, blah, this, that and the other. And so the doctor has him drop his pants and he very Awkwardly inspects his junk with, like, a pen or something, holding a little, like, baton, and is, like, using it to move his junk around. And he's like, no, you're perfectly healthy, you're fine. And then he just outright says it. He's like. Without saying it, but he implies that he's gay. And the doctor, the old family friend doctor just is like, no, that's rubbish. Doesn't. He doesn't believe him. He's like, nah, you're just, you know, you're in your own head. That's not true. And I wanted to know if that played out that way.
42:55
Speaker B: Yeah, the scene plays out pretty similarly. First Dr. Barry assumes that he has an STD, and then he assumes that he's struggling with erectile dysfunction. And then finally Morris has to tell him kind of point blank that he's gay. He says, I'm an unspeakable. Of the Oscar Wilde sort.
43:14
Speaker A: Yes, he references Oscar wilde.
43:16
Speaker B: Yeah. And Dr. Berry says, Rubbish.
43:19
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So meanwhile, Clive, as I said earlier, has inherited the family estate Pendersley. Pendersley, however you pronounce it. And we really only see a couple things, but the main thing we see is that when it rains, the leak has started. Roof, or the roof has started leaking and Clive is still. Or Morris is still hanging out with Clive quite a bit. Goes over to Pendersley quite often and just kind of like hangs out as a friend or whatever. But we see that the roof has started leaking and there's like cracks growing in the ceiling. And he kind of is talking about. And Clive just specifically mentions that the estate is, like, crumbling or, like, falling into disrepair. And I wanted to know if that came from the book. In the book, because it's a very literary, like, oh, the house, his house, crumbling around him because he's, you know, he's not living his truth or whatever.
44:16
Speaker B: Yeah, that does come from the book. In a very gothic illusion. From a not very gothic book, the old family home in the countryside begins to crumble and fall apart.
44:26
Speaker A: Yeah.
44:27
Speaker B: An outward manifestation of the rot within.
44:30
Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. So because the first doctor, the family doctor, was no help, Morris decides he needs to try a different guy. And he finds Dr. Lasker or something or another guy in London played by Ben Kingsley in the movie originally, that. Which I think I could totally see. I read in the prequel that this character was originally played by John Malkovich, which I could totally see as well. But Ben Kingsley does a good job. But he's a hypnotist who is going to try to help Hypnotize the gay out of Morris. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
45:05
Speaker B: Yes, it does. And again, mostly book accurate. I think one of the main things that's missing from that first scene with him in the book is the hypnotist telling Morris, 75% of my patients are your type.
45:21
Speaker A: Wow. There you go.
45:22
Speaker B: Which is bleak.
45:23
Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. So then. And we have. I haven't really set up this character much. We're. We're introduced to, as I mentioned earlier, that Morris has been spending quite a bit of time at Pendersley. Pendersleigh. Pendersleigh, however you pronounce it, the estate that Clive owns. And one of the people there is the under gameskeeper because it's a big estate, they have a bunch of help. And one of them is the under gameskeeper whose name is Alex Scudder, but everybody just calls him Scutter all the time.
45:54
Speaker B: Terrible name.
45:55
Speaker A: Yeah. Played by Rupert Graves.
45:57
Speaker B: Looking amazing.
45:59
Speaker A: Yes. Inspector Lestraude, if you're a Sherlock fan. Which was like, oh, my God, it's him. As like a child. Not child. I think he's probably like 20 or something.
46:08
Speaker B: Yeah. Also a lot of boyish charm.
46:10
Speaker A: Yes. He looks younger than any of them. I don't know how old he's supposed to be, but he. He. I would. If they had said he was supposed to be like 16 or 17, I would.
46:19
Speaker B: Yeah, I would have bought that.
46:20
Speaker A: Yeah. But I think he's probably supposed to be like 19.
46:23
Speaker B: I think he's supposed to be a few years younger. Years younger than Morris at this point. Morris not like that much younger.
46:29
Speaker A: And Morris is like 22 or 23 at this point. So, yeah, I think they're supposed to be around. He's just a few years after them. Yeah. But so they. They kind of. Initially there, they have a bunch of interactions, but it's just as with Scudder as the help, essentially. But Scudder kind of starts to. He finds out that Morris is gay, probably from hearing stuff through the grapevine from the other help and stuff like that, and kind of starts trying to, like, flirt with him a little bit. And then ultimately one night he just climbs the ladder up to. He literally Romeo and Juliet's in, climbs the ladder up to Morris's room, comes in through the window and just starts kissing him. And then they do it. And Morris is like, okay, wow, I wasn't expecting this, but. And I wanted to know if the groundskeeper comes up to. Oh, sorry, the undergroundskeeper comes up to mor. Gameskeeper, not groundskeeper. Different things, I think. Comes up to Morris's room and takes him.
47:32
Speaker B: Yes, he does. I did slightly prefer the movie's take on this. So the book has this kind of semi recurring theme where Morris once. Stay with me here, had a dream that the universe, I guess, told him that he would one day have a great friend. And then before this romantic tryst happens with Alec, he leans out the window and yells, come out into the night. Trying to summon his. To summon his great friend.
48:12
Speaker A: He tries to do what what's her name, Hutter, did in the beginning of Natharatu.
48:18
Speaker B: Yeah. And it's very literary and it was kind of hard to parse in a more like literal sense.
48:26
Speaker A: Yeah, I got it.
48:27
Speaker B: I think so. I have to admit that I liked the movie. Just omitting that.
48:31
Speaker A: I think it would be hard.
48:32
Speaker B: Think it would be hard to explain.
48:34
Speaker A: Show it a movie. Yeah, come across.
48:35
Speaker B: But I also, I really like the idea of Alex seeing Morris, like, leaning out into the rain and like yelling and laughing and thinking, oh, that's the guy.
48:45
Speaker A: For me, that is. Because that is kind of the thing. He sees him and he's been crushing on him for a bit, but he. He sees him one night, like just stick his head out of the window while he's. While it's raining and just kind of like, you know, enjoy the rain.
48:58
Speaker B: A little. A little manic pixie dream boy kind of a moment.
49:02
Speaker A: Not a little bit. A lot.
49:03
Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of it.
49:04
Speaker A: A lot of. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
49:07
Speaker B: But I really liked that scene in the movie. I really liked how the music shifted and changed during that scene. He was almost ominous at first when he like, comes through the window.
49:17
Speaker A: Well, because we're not. We're supposed to not know.
49:18
Speaker B: Right.
49:19
Speaker A: And especially continuing from here, we're supposed to not know his true intentions.
49:23
Speaker B: Yes. But then it changes really subtly and becomes very sweet. And I just. I also, I love the Romeo and Juliet, like, fairy tale illusion of Alec scaling the tower to meet his lover. Yeah, it's good stuff.
49:39
Speaker A: Absolutely. So they have now kind of kicked off their relationship. We then. The whole reason that, that Morris is at the estate right now for this current trip he's on was to go there for the cricket game.
49:52
Speaker B: Yeah.
49:53
Speaker A: Which is. I thought it was going to be like a game between, like, teams or something. Because the way they set it up, I thought it was like. But no, it's just like the estate cricket game they have like.
50:02
Speaker B: Well, I think it was supposed to be like between the estate and the town.
50:07
Speaker A: Oh, is it? Or something. Like that or. Yeah. Or I thought it might even been like, yes, it is. Because the. Yeah, it's something like that where it's like the state. Because, like, all the help plays on the team of, like, the family or whatever. Yeah. Anyways, so they have a big cricket game. So they're there for this cricket game, but Clive is out of town for.
50:26
Speaker B: He was supposed to be the captain or whatever because he's the head of the estate, but he's out of town.
50:31
Speaker A: So they try to get Morris to be the captain, but he's like, well, I'm not any good at cricket. Why don't you have Scudder do it? Or I think he know. I don't remember how he knows, but.
50:40
Speaker B: Anyways, he asks who their best man.
50:42
Speaker A: Is and they're like, scudder is the best. And he's like, we'll have him be the captain anyways. But he still plays. And so they're playing, they play cricket together and they share a moment where they're like, I had a note later. I don't know how cricket works.
50:58
Speaker B: Could not even begin to tell you what is going on in this cricket scene. But I do know, like, nonsense.
51:04
Speaker A: It does look like nonsense to an American or, you know, to somebody who doesn't know the rules of cricket. And I, I'm sure, based on baseball feels similarly to people who know cricket and don't know baseball. Baseball.
51:14
Speaker B: I'm sure a lot of our sports just look like a mess.
51:17
Speaker A: I completely understand that. But to me, cricket. When you're coming from baseball to cricket, I feel like it's. I could be wrong about this. I would be super fascinated to know people that have gone the other direction. If you're coming from baseball to cricket, cricket looks like the insane version of baseball. Like the. Like, it looks like the Calvin Ball version of baseball. Whereas I feel like if you're coming from cricket to baseball, you're like, okay, it's like cricket, but, like more confined and like. Like the. Like a little more, like, I don't know, there's more rules or so I don't know, maybe there's not more rules, but like the. You can hit the ball any direction in cricket, which is great. It just feels crazy. Anyways, but they're playing cricket and Scudder and Morris are, like, doing a good job together. And you can tell that they're doing it even. And that was my note, was that even if. Though I have no idea how cricket is played, I can tell that Morris and Scudder are like, do it. Are good at playing cricket together.
52:16
Speaker B: Yeah.
52:17
Speaker A: And then when Clive shows up, him.
52:19
Speaker B: And Morris ruins everything.
52:21
Speaker A: Not good at playing cricket together. They do a very bad job playing cricket together. But when Clive does show up, he's like, oh, I guess I should come play. And somebody in the crowd or whatever says, scudder's holding the fort for you. He's doing very well. Which I thought was a fun little double entendre, because obviously he's playing cricket for him, but he's also.
52:44
Speaker B: He also holding the fort. He's also tapped in somewhere else, if you know what I mean.
52:48
Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. He's holding the fort. You know, a different fort for him as well. And I wanted to know if that line came from the book, because I thought it was funny.
52:59
Speaker B: So Scudder does captain their cricket team in Clive's absence, but I could not find this specific line in the book.
53:06
Speaker A: Okay, so Morris is still trying to cure his. His homosexuality by going to this doctor in London. And ultimately, it's not been working. It's not been going well. And Ben Kingsley basically tells him, like, look, I don't know if this is going to work. You may just want to move to, like, a more enlightened country. He's like, you know, homosexuality is not illegal in France or Italy anymore. Maybe go to one of those places. And so I want to know if that. If he just tells him to move somewhere else. And also he caps that off by saying England has always been disinclined to accept human nature. I wanted to know if that specific line came from the book.
53:46
Speaker B: Yes, it does. That specific line does. And also when he tells him to move to France or Italy.
53:53
Speaker A: Yeah, that line is such a. Such a James Ivory movie. And I guess EM Forster. But that line, I think, kind of quintessentially captures a spirit of every James Forster or James Ivory movie that I've seen, which is that England has too many rules. In a movie that is, you can tell, deeply adores the country of the UK or England and its esthetic and its culture. These movies are the most British thing.
54:33
Speaker B: The most British thing you will ever see, ever taken in your life.
54:37
Speaker A: There's just deeply, deeply British feeling, which again, is one of the reasons I was so taken aback, at least to me. And maybe that's. Maybe I'm wrong, because again, when I found out James Ivory was American, I was like, wait, what? But the movies feel so deeply British to me. And this specific line to me really captured that essence of England has always been disinclined to accept human nature. There's this deep hatred of what the core of English culture can be and its restrictive nature.
55:12
Speaker B: And it's at its worst.
55:14
Speaker A: At its worst, it's judgmental nature. It's just the iron vice grip it holds onto tradition and its refusal to move into modernity and accept new things like people are gay and to your.
55:37
Speaker B: Point, themes that we also saw in both A Room with a View and Remains of the Day.
55:43
Speaker A: Yes. And so it's. It's deeply critical of this rot, like you said, at the core of English society, which is this refusal to progress while also being. The movies are also effusive. Love letters to England. You know what I mean? It's very fascinating to me that it's a movie that is in love. They're movies that are in love with the assumption, aesthetics and the. And a lot of the culture and the weird.
56:19
Speaker B: Yeah.
56:20
Speaker A: Like, boys clubby, rulesy stuff. Like, it's all. All of the, like, most Britishy stuff you can imagine, like dinner parties and. And the Help and cricket and like all of this stuff. It loves all of this and it just wants to. It loves, like showcasing it in beautiful cinematic images. But also it. You can tell, it's just like. But fuck. Like, I don't know, it's. I find that so interesting.
56:47
Speaker B: I will say that kind of like viewpoint as an American. I can totally relate.
56:54
Speaker A: Absolutely.
56:55
Speaker B: I don't hate America.
56:56
Speaker A: No. Yeah.
56:57
Speaker B: You know, I love America. America at its best.
57:00
Speaker A: Yeah.
57:01
Speaker B: Is fucking amazing. Yeah. But I do not love what America is at its worst.
57:05
Speaker A: Yes. Which it tends to be a lot of times.
57:07
Speaker B: To be a lot of the time. Yeah.
57:10
Speaker A: No, and I think that's very true. And I think most people. Or at least I would say at least most progressive people feel that way about their country. Regardless. It's.
57:17
Speaker B: Yeah.
57:18
Speaker A: It's kind of inherent to a nation into states is that it's kind of hard for states to exist without having that. I don't want to say it's hard. You can do it. But it's. It's uncommon for states to exist without having a deep attachment to tradition and, you know, a lot of regressive ideas. And that is something. And so, yeah, I think it's a universally applicable idea that regardless of where you're from, I think that people can feel that way about their country. But it is very fascinating to me that it's so laser that all of Ivory's movies are so laser and because they're adaptations of E.M. forster's books, the ones that we've talked or some of the ones we've talked about. It is so laser focused on England. I think it's interesting.
58:07
Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and I, you know, to the point too about James Ivory being American. Obviously it helps that his writing partner.
58:17
Speaker A: Yes, for this one. Yeah.
58:18
Speaker B: Yeah. But also adapting deeply, deeply British novels.
58:26
Speaker A: Yeah. So the next moving forward a little bit after the Alec and Morris spend a night together. Alec writes Morris a letter that says, hey, meet me in the boathouse tomorrow night or tonight or whatever. And it's vague enough intentionally I imagine so that if it's were to intercept it, it's not like you know, immediately damning or you know, will get them immediately in trouble. But it's vague enough that this letter asking for Morris to come meet him, that when Morris gets it, he interprets it as blackmail. He thinks that Alec is saying come to this boathouse because of what we did. You know, I could tell people but like he thinks he's trying to blackmail him basically. Ultimately, after he doesn't show up at the boathouse, Alex comes to London to find or Alec comes to London to find him and they have a conversation and basically Morse realizes, oh, he wasn't blackmailing me. He was like actually sending me a sincere letter and I wanted to know if that blackmailing mix up stuff came from the book.
59:45
Speaker B: Yeah, this exact same misunderstanding happens in the book. Very well written in my opinion because I was there right alongside Morris. I was like, oh my God, he's trying to blackmail it.
59:58
Speaker A: I mean the movie very much sets it up that way and you would assume that is the case. And I still, it actually took me longer than I think the movie wanted it me to read.
1:00:07
Speaker B: I think it took me longer than the book wanted me to realize because.
1:00:11
Speaker A: The exchange they have in the British Museum when I read the Wikipedia article after it says they go to the British Museum and they resolve the, the, the misunderstanding understanding about the blackmail. And that was not what I got out of the scene at the British Museum because I, I literally, to be fair, Rupert Graves accent in this movie. He has like a thick. He's the help. So he has like a. He's not cockney, but whatever the.
1:00:40
Speaker B: Yeah, he has like a quote unquote like lower class accent.
1:00:44
Speaker A: So it's a, it's rougher and harder to understand for my American ears, everybody else in the movie. And so I think if I were better at understanding poor person English British, I would, I think I would be able to understand that what he was, what was going on there. But I literally could not parse that. Oh, they're. They. They've worked this out. But then it was. It becomes clear in the scene after that when he, like, takes him back and they get a hotel room.
1:01:13
Speaker B: Right.
1:01:13
Speaker A: But I was like, oh, okay. So I guess they worked through that issue. I. I did not tell that that was what was going on. But yeah, so they get together. The issue is that Alec is going to go to the Argentine, as they say in the movie, which I assume is how they referred. That's a very British thing. They would always refer to other parts of the world as the Something. The Orient.
1:01:33
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:01:34
Speaker A: You know, I don't. They didn't say the India, but whatever. You know, the Argentine is just the Americas. The Americas, exactly. But he's supposed to be going to Argentina with his family to start a. I think his dad's a butcher or something like that, they say. I think they say, yeah, maybe. Anyways, he's going with his family to start like a new life in Argentina. So Alec or Morse comes to the boat to give him a gift. As he's leaving, he's not there. Realizes, oh, he's staying. He's staying because of me. Rushes back to the estate, to the boathouse to go find him. But first he stops off to talk to Clive. And I wanted to know if anything from the scene where Morris tells Clive that he is in love with Alec comes from the book. Because I loved every single second of that scene. I don't even have any lines written down because every single line I thought was great. And I wanted to know if that scene came from the book.
1:02:33
Speaker B: Yeah, it does. There are, like some small changes to the dialogue, but pretty similar. There's one line that I loved from the book that I don't think made it into the movie. I don't remember catching it. Was Morris telling Clive, you belong to the past?
1:02:50
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There's so many different. I'm gonna see if I can find any of that exchange because I. Some of those lines in that scene were just. I was. I was like, man, all of this is so good. It is again. Yeah, I. Hold on. This is when he comes back. Which. The first line is great. Which is in the trailer. Morris, I hope nothing is wrong. Pretty well. Everything is. What Morris responds with. I'm in love with Alex Scudder. What a grotesque announcement. Which. That already. What a grotesque announcement. Was so funny to me. Most grotesque. But I felt I should tell you, Morris, Morris, we did everything we could when you, er. We did. We did everything we could when you And I clashed out the subject when you brought yourself to kiss my hand. Don't allude to that. Come in here. And they lower their voices. Uh, Clive, I am more sorry for you than I can possibly say. And I do, do beg you to resist, to return on this obsession. I don't need advice. I'm flesh and blood. Clive, if you'll condescend to such low things. I've shared with Alec. Shared what? Everything. Alex slept with me in the Russet Room when you and Anne were away. Oh, God. Also in town. I love that he hits him with the also we fucked in town. Get it? Clive, the sole excuse for a relationship between two men is that it remains purely platonic. Surely you agree to that. I don't know. I've come to tell you what I did. And I love that exchange when he says, sure. He's like. The sole excuse for relationship between two men is that it remains purely platonic. Surely you agree to that. And Morris responds with, I don't know. I've come to tell you what I did. Not like, I've come. I'm not here to, like, argue about, here to philosophize about, like, what should be or blah, blah, blah. I'm telling her to tell you what happened. And like. And I. Oh, I just love that exchange so much. Well, Alex Gutter is, in point of fact, no longer in my service. In fact, he is no longer in England. He sailed for Buenos Aires this very day. He didn't. He sacrificed his career for my sake without a guarantee. I don't know if that's platonic or not, but it's what he did. Missed his boat. Morris, you're going mad. May I ask if you intend. No, you may not ask. I told you everything up to this minute. Not a word beyond. Ugh. It's. I just. I don't know. I. And there is a sadness to that scene. A weird letter, layered, of added sadness. If it's not Morris or if it's not Clive being a. If, more, if Clive is in fact ace. That scene is not the fun, triumphant scene that it. You know what I mean? Which is why I hope it is like the more of the reading that it's just again, which I really do think is what we're supposed to get from the movie, that Clive is just too attached to his stature, to his name, to his political aspirations to risk any of that for somebody he loves. And so we are supposed to judge him for that. And so. So that scene does get to feel triumphant and we get to Be like, fuck, yeah. For, like, Morris in that moment. Whereas, again, if it's not. If he's ace, then it's just like he's kind of like, you know. Then it's like, huh. That adds a layer that doesn't make it fun and triumphant. So I think that's maybe an inclination of how we're supposed to read it, potentially. I don't know, but I love that scene so much. Almost. Some final question. The boathouse. I've mentioned it several times, but Alec told him to meet him in the boathouse. And I wanted to know if meeting at the boathouse came from the book because it's so literary. It almost has to be meeting your secret gay lover in a dilapidated boathouse. This portal on the water to your new life. It has to be from the book.
1:06:36
Speaker B: It is from the book. The biggest change is that in the book he goes to Alec first and then he goes to talk to Clive after. I liked that the movie flipped it around, though. I think it gives a better sense of Alec being like, the future, the happy ending, whereas Clive is now part of Morris's past. But I also like that we get. We pop back to Clive for a minute at the end and see him, like, regretting how things played out.
1:07:04
Speaker A: Yeah. Speaking of that moment when we go back to Clive, one of the first moments I really liked is that when he walks in, the butler or whatever, who's been kind of an ass this whole time, who's, like, knows what. That. What's going on. But it's, like, not saying anything. But it's clearly very judgmental of them. When. When Clive comes back in, he says, are you done for the night or are you done? Or something like that. And Clive says, yes. And he goes. And he, like, shutters the door. Like, he shuts these big, like, storm. They're not storm. I don't know. There's some sort of interior doors that, like, cover the windows of the door that he came in or whatever. So that moment happens. But then he goes in and he talks to her. He sees his wife, Ann, who's sitting at her vanity. Vanity. That's the word. I almost said armoire. She's sitting at her vanity. And this is a recurring motif in the film since Anne has made it into the film. We don't exclusively see Clive in mirrors when he's with Anne, but in almost every scene where Anne is in the movie, we see Clive in a mirror at some point. And very often it is just him in a mirror. And it felt like a Very intentional choice. It's very clearly a visual choice to represent the idea that this version of Clive is like a false version. We get him in the mirror.
1:08:24
Speaker B: This is like, it's not real Clive.
1:08:26
Speaker A: It's not real Clive.
1:08:27
Speaker B: It's funhouse mirror Clive.
1:08:29
Speaker A: And that moment. And then Clive goes over and after reminiscing about Morris, he shudders his storm window things, whatever they're called, dormers or whatever, and shuts out, shuts himself off from Morris. And I wanted to know if either the mirror thing or the window shuttering, either of those visual moments felt like they were inspired by something from the book.
1:08:52
Speaker B: I don't think that either of these are anything from the book, but I totally agree with you. I think it's great visual language on both counts.
1:09:01
Speaker A: Yeah, I thought it was a fantastic ending, the movie. Overall, I liked. Generally, I thought it was a fun watch, but the ending, really, like. I thought it really stuck the landing. Like, the final scenes were, I thought, really good. So those are all my questions for. Was that in the book? But we do have some stuff that we're gonna talk about in Lost. An adaptation.
1:09:23
Speaker B: Just show me the way to get out of here and I'll be on my way.
1:09:29
Speaker A: Yes, yes. And I want to get unlost as soon as possible.
1:09:33
Speaker B: Okay. So I want to take a minute to talk about something that I have conflicting thoughts about, which is also the biggest change from the book to the movie. Because overall, this is a very, like, accurate adaptation.
1:09:48
Speaker A: Yeah, it seemed like most of your answers to my questions were yes, but.
1:09:52
Speaker B: The big change is having Risley get arrested and sentenced to hard labor for immoral acts, quote, unquote. So in the movie, this plot point, like we discussed, directly precedes Clive deciding to break things off with Morris and go straight, quote, unquote. Now, he also does do that in the book.
1:10:20
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:10:21
Speaker B: But there's no specific thing or event that happens that seems to directly motivate that decision.
1:10:30
Speaker A: Which tracks because I mentioned in the prequel that there was one specific change that the Wikipedia article mentioned. So I mentioned in the prequel that Ruth Jabvala. I don't remember. She has a third name that I don't remember. But Jabvala, who is James Ivory's normal co writer on all of his films, Room With a View, Howards End. The other one we did Remains of the Day. Remains of the Day. She co wrote on all of those. She was not a co writer on this. Which for Wikipedia article says was because she was writing another book. Other sources say, including One of our patrons said that in the commentary on.
1:11:08
Speaker B: The commentary on the dvd, Ivory says.
1:11:10
Speaker A: That he thinks it was because of homophobia, which is interesting because she was very close friends with James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, who was his partner throughout his life. But apparently because of her homophobia, she didn't want to write on this movie, but she did do notes for it. So the mind of a bigot is an interesting. I say bigot. It's clearly more complicated than that. Whatever. The mind of people with bigoted ideas is a very messy place that doesn't always make sense and add up necessarily. But she didn't want to write on this, but she did add notes and apparently this was one of the notes specifically mentioned on the Wikipedia article. The inclusion of Wriothesley being arrested for this and that being the thing that precipitates Clive's decision too. That was her idea, basically.
1:12:02
Speaker B: Okay. So I appreciate the movie's decision to explicitly show the audience the kind of danger that Clive and Morris were in. I think that's something that could get a little lost on some modern viewers.
1:12:17
Speaker A: I think for sure. I think it definitely makes sense for.
1:12:19
Speaker B: It to be that. Yeah, you know, the, the actual, like, oh, here's what could happen.
1:12:24
Speaker A: Because it's one thing for like a modern audience to be like, oh, they, we know back then, like they like, you know, if you're like a dumb audience goer who doesn't know anything about the laws or anything back then. And I don't even mean dumb, I just mean like ignorant. Like you just truly haven't, don't know like what the rules and stuff were back then. You might go, oh yeah, yeah, they couldn't be gay. But like you didn't know like, right.
1:12:44
Speaker B: Like what the consequences were.
1:12:46
Speaker A: And it's like literally get thrown in jail and, and he, his, his, his reduced slap on the wrist sentence is six months of hard labor in prison.
1:12:56
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:12:57
Speaker A: Whereas I think originally the guy said like, like five, six years or something and like I can't even. Yeah. So yeah, I think, yeah, it is a good point or a good idea to make it very clear for audiences like what the stakes were here.
1:13:12
Speaker B: And in a sense I also appreciate a clear cut explanation for why Clive suddenly does this heel turn away from Morris. However, I do think that in the book we're meant to understand that Clive has the same or at least similar motivations for doing this. Right. His fear of getting caught, fear of the consequences, and then like the pressure of his family and position in society and his reputation but the way that his sudden about face comes out of nowhere in the book blindsided me so badly that I have to assume that was the point. I think the reader is meant to feel confused and betrayed right alongside Morris. I definitely did. There was a point where I was reading and you were like, oh, how is it? Da da da da. And I was like, I'm not sure. Something that I wasn't expecting just happened.
1:14:21
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:14:22
Speaker B: That was the thing that I wasn't expecting. And while I don't at all dislike what the movie did, I do think that we're losing something with that change.
1:14:33
Speaker A: I would agree with that because I think there's definitely a layer of, especially from that time period, I would imagine that was, was an experience of somebody living that kind of lifestyle that would happen routinely of just like, oh, I'm in this romantic relationship with this guy. Obviously it's all very, very hush hush. And we like, you know, we steal moments away.
1:14:56
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:14:56
Speaker A: Every, every three months we get to like kiss in a field for five minutes or whatever. And then one day he just never talks to me again.
1:15:04
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:15:04
Speaker A: And I don't know why.
1:15:05
Speaker B: No, I'm, you know what I mean? Positive that that was probably something that if, if em Forrester did not experience that exact thing himself. That it was like a very common thing that happened a lot and that.
1:15:19
Speaker A: Would make total sense. Like that idea. Like, like, you know, it is. And it is always, I imagine precipitated by things like this. Of that.
1:15:30
Speaker B: Yes.
1:15:31
Speaker A: By like oh, they saw like somebody they know got arrested or they saw in the news some random person got arrested or whatever and it just scares them or you know, their, their, their wife or whatever started getting a little too suspicious or what. You know, whatever the reason, you know.
1:15:46
Speaker B: My, my parents are bearing down on me to get married and I can't take the pressure anymore.
1:15:51
Speaker A: There's a million of reasons, societal reasons that, that you know, men in these relationships in this time period, one of them may just literally ghost the other one completely out of nowhere for again, for not even bad reasons necessarily for potentially safety reasons or whatever. And so that is a very, feels like a very vivid real experience that the book would be trying to portray. And so I feel like that could have worked in the movie. But I, I get, so I get what you're saying and I think I come down in a similar spot of you of like, I get why the movie did.
1:16:26
Speaker B: Yeah, I get why the movie did what it did. I don't even dislike it.
1:16:29
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:16:30
Speaker B: But I really appreciate that E.M. forester was, you know, over a hundred years later able to recreate that experience for me.
1:16:44
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:16:45
Speaker B: Not a gay man living in turn of the century England.
1:16:49
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. All right. That was all we had to discuss in Lost in Adaptation. It's time to get into what Katie thought was better in the book. You like to read?
1:17:01
Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read.
1:17:03
Speaker A: What do you like to read?
1:17:07
Speaker B: Everything. All right. I'm gonna run through some stuff. A lot of these are just singular lines that I really enjoyed.
1:17:15
Speaker A: That's fair.
1:17:17
Speaker B: One thing right off the top, there was this moment where a baby Morris, when he's like a kid at the very beginning, goes home and he's upset that his mother has dismissed their gardener, George. But he doesn't understand why he's so upset about George the gardener having left. And overall, I thought that the book did a really good job of subtly describing the experience of having a same sex crush, but not at all understanding that what you are experiencing is a crush.
1:17:49
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:17:50
Speaker B: This description of Morris, in a word, he was a mediocre member of a mediocre school and left a faint and favorable impression behind.
1:18:01
Speaker A: Nice. Who says that about him?
1:18:04
Speaker B: The narrator. Oh, okay. Also this line about Morris, he was constitutionally lazy. Though none of his difficulties had been solved, none were added, which is something, bro.
1:18:17
Speaker A: Was he writing this about me? This feels like I'm being called out by this.
1:18:21
Speaker B: The amount of the first part of this book that was just like a roast of Morris was honestly really funny. I think EM Forrester wanted us really, really to leave with the impression that Morris is not an impressive person. He's by all accounts an average Joe.
1:18:43
Speaker A: That's interesting.
1:18:43
Speaker B: He's just a guy.
1:18:45
Speaker A: Cause I was almost wondering if it wasn't a. I. I assumed that Morris was like a self insert character. Like the vibe that I got. Maybe.
1:18:54
Speaker B: Maybe at some level, maybe.
1:18:56
Speaker A: And maybe not. I have no idea. I truly like, I was wondering, like, I. I went into this kind of thinking, like, okay, maybe Morris is like. Especially after watching the movie, like, Morris feels like it could be maybe like the. The author's insert character. And I was almost wondering if this was like a. An author who is. Which it seems like from again, from what you've said of the book and stuff that is like very deeply introspective and self critical. And so he's like kind of roasting himself. You know what I mean?
1:19:27
Speaker B: I'm gonna read from the author's note at the end again because I think you're wrong.
1:19:31
Speaker A: Okay. Very, very possibly even.
1:19:34
Speaker B: No here's what he said in Morris. I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I was or what I supposed myself to be. Someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid. Not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Okay, so.
1:19:54
Speaker A: Okay, so then nevermind. I, I don't know.
1:19:57
Speaker B: Yeah, but he's like, literally, he's just, he's just a guy.
1:20:01
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:20:01
Speaker B: You know, also this line, this is also about Morris, but it's kind of more from Morris's perspective. And this is like after he gets to Cambridge and starts to experience like some of the self actualization that you start to get in like your early 20s.
1:20:20
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:20:21
Speaker B: When you're branching out. He saw that while deceiving others, he had also been deceived and mistaken them for the empty creatures he wanted them to think he was.
1:20:32
Speaker A: Yeah, Yep.
1:20:34
Speaker B: Yeah, yep. There's also a side story close to the beginning of the, of the novel where he takes this girl out named Gladys and he's trying to woo her and doing everything kind of by the book, but she can tell that something is off and is like, you're weird. I don't want to go out with you.
1:20:56
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:20:58
Speaker B: So we did see the romantic motorbike picnic in the movie. What the movie does not show us is that they actually have to leave the motorbike behind after that scene because it breaks down as they're driving over the rough country terrain because I imagine it was not made for that. And it becomes this kind of interesting symbol of also leaving their happiness behind in that place. Also in the book, Clive and Morris travel to Italy together. We don't spend time with them in Italy. It's mentioned that, it's just mentioned that they go and travel Italy together. But this line really got me in Italy, which he, Morris, had liked well enough, in spite of the food and the frescoes, in spite of the food and the art. And I was like, oh, this man is British. British. You don't even like Italian food, my guy.
1:21:59
Speaker A: What in the world? That's. I don't, I don't buy that. There's people who go to Italy and be like, this food sucks. I don't buy it. I don't buy it.
1:22:13
Speaker B: Food sucks. The art sucks. Can't wait to get back to England.
1:22:17
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:22:20
Speaker B: This really sad line after Clive leaves him and he's kind of in denial about it. Clive must love him because his whole life was dependent on love. And here it was going on as usual. Also this line. One cannot write these words too often. Morris's loneliness it increased.
1:22:45
Speaker A: Morris's loneliness. It increased?
1:22:48
Speaker B: Yeah. Morris's loneliness. Colon.
1:22:50
Speaker A: Yeah, colon.
1:22:51
Speaker B: It increased.
1:22:52
Speaker A: It increased. It's like a status effect in a video game. Morris's loneliness in, like, plus two.
1:23:02
Speaker B: Oh, no. I thought you would appreciate this line. So there's this super minor character most of the way through the book who's a friend of Kitty's, his sister Kitty, and her name is Violet. And so this is when they're at the house and the mother gets the letter that Clive is engaged to be married. And she says something about like, oh, she's a. She's a lady. Like, she's, you know, gentry or whatever. And Kitty goes, that won't impress Violet. Mother. She's a socialist.
1:23:45
Speaker A: That's good.
1:23:47
Speaker B: There's also a point in the book where Morris considers that Clive turned to women shortly after his 24th birthday and also that few men married before 24. So he thinks to himself that perhaps 24 is like a magic age.
1:24:06
Speaker A: He's gonna get his letter from straight Hogwarts. Surprise, you're a straight Harry.
1:24:15
Speaker B: He's gonna wake up on his 24th birthday not gay anymore. Unfortunately, that does not happen. He's pretty upset about that. But I mentioned earlier that there was a part in the book about Clive and his relationship with his wife, Anne, that also made me think, like, maybe there could be an ace reading of his character. And that line was, though he valued the body, the actual deed of sex seemed to him unimaginative and best veiled in night.
1:24:49
Speaker A: But this is in relation to Anne, right?
1:24:52
Speaker B: Yes. Which again, like, further.
1:24:54
Speaker A: So, yeah, you could go either way.
1:24:55
Speaker B: It could go either way.
1:24:57
Speaker A: Yeah. Is he ace or is he. Is it just that he's gay to not want to be with a woman? Yeah.
1:25:02
Speaker B: Again, interesting multiple readings.
1:25:05
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:25:08
Speaker B: This line is. The context of this, is that Morris is thinking about how dumb it is that you have to wear specific jackets for different types of dinners. And he thinks to himself, what did the clothes matter as long as you got your food and the other people were good sorts, which they wouldn't be.
1:25:28
Speaker A: Yeah, that's true.
1:25:29
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:25:30
Speaker A: Been to those dinner parties enough.
1:25:32
Speaker B: I also thought this is kind of an overarching note. There is some class commentary in the movie, obviously.
1:25:40
Speaker A: Like, that's kind of. It's not like an overt class commentary, but it is the undergirds, like the entire.
1:25:47
Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of baked in in a way that's like just under the surface.
1:25:52
Speaker A: Because we get the. And we get the dynamic of Clive is the upper class, like, Landed gentry.
1:25:58
Speaker B: Whatever.
1:25:59
Speaker A: Whatever. His. I don't know if he has a title or whatever.
1:26:02
Speaker B: So they say in the book that he's a squire.
1:26:06
Speaker A: Okay.
1:26:06
Speaker B: Which I don't know exactly what that makes you in the, like, say.
1:26:09
Speaker A: I only know what that used to.
1:26:11
Speaker B: Be of British gentry. You wish.
1:26:14
Speaker A: Knights put their armor on. But I don't know yet.
1:26:16
Speaker B: But he has, like. He has an estate and he's supposed to be, like. Like, responsible for, like, the people who live on the estate. So whatever that makes him.
1:26:28
Speaker A: But. Yeah, so. Yes, so he is that whatever he is. And then. And then Morris is like.
1:26:34
Speaker B: Morris is middle class. Like, he's like the modern emerging middle class where he had, like. He. He's suburban is how they describe him. Like, his family lives in a house outside of London and he has, like a city job.
1:26:47
Speaker A: Yeah. And they. I think they have help a little bit. Yeah, but they don't have, like. Like, you know, a whole.
1:26:52
Speaker B: Yeah, they don't have a country estate.
1:26:53
Speaker A: A country estate with like, 30 staff or whatever. They have, like a man.
1:26:56
Speaker B: And then obviously Alec is.
1:26:58
Speaker A: And Alex is the help. Yes. And so you get this kind of. Yeah, three different.
1:27:03
Speaker B: Yeah, but I thought there was more class commentary throughout the book. There's a lot of, like, discussions and mentions of, like, how hard it is to find good help these days. You know, nobody wants to work. Nobody wants to work anymore. There's one specific line that I noted to his meaning Morris, to his suggestion that servants might be flesh and blood like ourselves. His aunt proposed aloud. They aren't.
1:27:40
Speaker A: They aren't. That's good. We love a. We love a shitty aunt.
1:27:45
Speaker B: They're always fun.
1:27:48
Speaker A: All right, time to find out what Katie thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.
1:28:02
Speaker B: All right, back from the top. I really liked that. We actually see the other people on the beach, see the teachers insane diagrams and drawings.
1:28:11
Speaker A: A nice little family walks up and.
1:28:14
Speaker B: They'Re horrified, clutching their pearls. I appreciate that. The movie skipped straight from that opening scene to Morris at Cambridge. There's some other stuff that happens in the middle, like, in between those in the book. Like, we see him graduate from. They call it public school in the book. I think it's.
1:28:37
Speaker A: I have no idea how the British school system, what the levels are.
1:28:40
Speaker B: Okay, so here's what I gleaned from the book is that when it. It starts out, he's at prep school and he leaves there at 14. And then he goes to public school, which I gathered was like high school.
1:28:54
Speaker A: Right.
1:28:55
Speaker B: And then he goes to Cambridge at like 18 or 19. So we see him go to public school in the book, but it's literally like. Like we really race through the whole schoolboy thing. In the book he gets to. To Cambridge on like page 29. So I appreciate that the movie was like, we're just not going to mention that. We're just going to go straight to Cambridge. It's fine. Yeah, I don't remember exactly what this is about, but I wrote. I like the addition of the little flirtatious scene between Risley and Morris.
1:29:28
Speaker A: Yeah, that's just when he invites him back to his. I assume. Yeah.
1:29:31
Speaker B: Yes, yes, you're right. Yeah, that's not.
1:29:33
Speaker A: We mentioned that earlier, but yeah, he invites him back to like his room to like hang out or whatever.
1:29:39
Speaker B: I also appreciated that the movie showed Morris and Clive and Wriothesley like all hanging out together. Like the scene where they're in the boat because Wriothesley actually kind of falls off the face of the earth in the book. He's in that first scene where they're having lunch with the dean and then we don't see him again until the very end when Morris happens to bump into him at a concert or something. So I appreciated that they were all hanging out and being gay together.
1:30:16
Speaker A: Yeah. Having a gay old time.
1:30:18
Speaker B: Yeah. We don't see a lot of Morris's mom in the movie. But I really. I liked when after he gets kicked out of Cambridge and Dr. Barry's like dressing him down and calls him a disgrace to chivalry and his mom. His mom does this little like at the door.
1:30:39
Speaker A: Yeah. She gets all up in her whatchamacall.
1:30:42
Speaker B: She gets a fit of the vapors.
1:30:44
Speaker A: Yes, Fit of the vapors.
1:30:47
Speaker B: I liked that the very first time Morris goes to Pendersley and Clive comes running in and like they jump on the bed together. Having the maid then come in and see them on the bed. Because that explains why later on all of the servants know about them.
1:31:06
Speaker A: Yeah. I thought it was interesting that Morris or not Morris. Clive is not remotely.
1:31:13
Speaker B: Yeah. He doesn't seem remotely concerned about. Yeah.
1:31:17
Speaker A: The help seeing. And I don't know if that's a class. Like probably is supposed to be like a. He doesn't see them as people.
1:31:23
Speaker B: So. Yeah.
1:31:24
Speaker A: He doesn't. Doesn't care that they see. I. Yeah, I assume that's probably what it was because I was like. It's either that or he doesn't think that behavior is like evocative of them, you know what I mean? Like he doesn't even realize that that behavior is like somebody might interpret that as. As them being like, you know, together or something. I don't know. But yeah, I think it's probably the first thing. I think that is like a kind of a subtle class commentary, if I had to guess.
1:31:52
Speaker B: We actually see the scene where Mrs. Durham can't remember Scudder's name. He mentions it in the book when he's like complaining about the family. He's like, they can't even remember my name. So we appreciated that. We actually see that happen.
1:32:06
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:32:08
Speaker B: The scene where Morris tells Ada that Clive leaving was her fault. Yeah, I thought, yeah, she like came on to him. The movie really like ratcheted that up to 11. I thought it gives.
1:32:24
Speaker A: It's just giving Morris. It's really giving him that moment to lash out because he's mad about the situation.
1:32:32
Speaker B: He's mad and hurt and he doesn't really have any outlet for it because obviously he can't be like, I'm sad because my boyfriend and I broke up.
1:32:41
Speaker A: So he just foists it off on her to make her feel bad because he doesn't have an outlet for it. Yeah.
1:32:49
Speaker B: The movie leaves out that Morris's grandfather invents a new religion in his old age. That was weird. I didn't know what that was.
1:32:57
Speaker A: That sounds awesome.
1:33:00
Speaker B: Well, he invents a religion about God being in the sun and like when you die, you return to the sun. I don't know.
1:33:09
Speaker A: That's like half of all religions.
1:33:11
Speaker B: Well, listen, Morris's grandfather was bored in retirement and invented it. Okay.
1:33:19
Speaker A: No, I just said, and that may be intentional that he feels like he's inventing this new religion, but it's like, oh, a sun based religion. Real original. Breaking new grounds with that one.
1:33:35
Speaker B: The sun for Religion. Groundbreaking. I like that we see Morris actually go to Clive's wedding because I don't think he does in the book. I don't remember it being mentioned. I don't think he goes to the wedding.
1:33:51
Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, he does. He's a usher at the wedding in the movie.
1:33:56
Speaker B: I also like that we see Morris help Alec move the piano away from the leaky room. He like stays back and helps him. Yeah, I thought the little moment where Anne tries to sneak a peek at Clive as he's getting ready for bed, I could.
1:34:13
Speaker A: It's like she's sneaking a peek. But also it's that like, I couldn't tell if she is sneaking a peek or if she was looking and then getting it, like, it's both, I guess. Like, she's, like, getting embarrassed to see him naked. And then, like. Yeah, yeah. It is funny, though. She looks back, like, three times.
1:34:27
Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. Clive doesn't know how to play cricket. I don't think we actually see him play in the book. I think he gets there, like, after the game is over. But we see him try to play in the movie, and it's frankly embarrassing.
1:34:43
Speaker A: He immediately messes up. Well, he's like. He starts to run, and again, I don't know how cricket works, but he starts to run and then he, like, stops. And that causes Morris to mess up. Because I think the thing. There's, like, two batters based. If that's the weird thing, like, in cricket, there's, like, two batters that stand on opposite ends. Only one of them bats at a time, but you can trade places. And that's how you, like, score runs is, like, one of the ways you score runs is that the two batters trade places. And every time they trade places, you get, like, a point or a run or. I don't know what it's called in cricket. And so what we were seeing in that was. I was getting to earlier. What we were seeing when Scudder and Morris were playing is that they were, like, looking at each other and, like, instinctively knowing when they were gonna run and, like, trade places. And as soon as Clive shows up the first time he hits it, like, he starts to run, and then Morris starts to run, and then he, like, stops and goes, oh, wait, never mind. And goes back. And then. So Morris has to turn around and go back, and they end up getting out, I think. I don't. I don't know the rules, but it's. Yeah, it's something like that.
1:35:50
Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, I mean, as someone who knows nothing about cricket and is also bad at sports, the scene was embarrassing to watch.
1:36:00
Speaker A: Yes.
1:36:01
Speaker B: Really?
1:36:01
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:36:02
Speaker B: And my last note here is also kind of a general overarching thing. And it was something that I didn't like about the book. Something that struck me a bit ill about it is that Morris is so consistently awful to the women in his life, particularly his mother and sisters. And it feels like the text wants me to side with him about how stupid and dumb they are. It's got kind of big, like, they're just dumb women energy coming from it, which was weird to me because I did not get that impression at all from a room with a view.
1:36:45
Speaker A: No. Well, and it's interesting because that. So I didn't get that vibe from the movie. I think in the movie, we're supposed to be like, he's a dick. And we're supposed to be like, they put up with him being a dick. That's fair and well. And I asked about that specific line earlier where he's like, you're. What was the line? Where's that at? Hold on, let me find it. The little girls don't see clearly. And then she comes back with, I see more clearly than some little boys who think they're little men. And you said that line was from the book, which. That is a clapback line. That feels very much like we're supposed to be like, she got him.
1:37:22
Speaker B: And that could be that I'm just, like, misinterpreting different parts of the book. But I don't. I don't know. I. I can't really explain it. There were just, like, different points throughout where it felt like the text was coming at me with this weird energy of like, well, they're just dumb women.
1:37:43
Speaker A: Sure. I don't know.
1:37:44
Speaker B: Yeah, but let me know if you disagree. Anyone who also read this, like, I.
1:37:50
Speaker A: Said that one line. The fact that's in the book, to me would imply. But I am basing it on that one line that felt like the. The book being like, she gets. Like she gets to jab back on him and, like, it's the punch back. And we're supposed to, like, agree with her in that moment is how it felt in the movie. And I don't know. I'm saying that's how it should have been. I'm not saying that's how it was in the book, but that's how it felt in the movie. And it's. That line came from the book. It feels. I don't know. So, anyways, all right, that was everything for better in the movie. It's time to find out what the movie nailed. As I expected, practically perfect in every way.
1:38:28
Speaker B: Well, we already talked about a lot of things.
1:38:30
Speaker A: Yes.
1:38:31
Speaker B: But I have some more things, one of which, a moment that I really enjoyed when I was reading this is that immediately after Morris's teacher gives him the sex talk and is like, this is going to be important when you're married. Morris is like, I don't think I'm going to get married.
1:38:48
Speaker A: Yeah, maybe I just won't get married. Then solve that problem.
1:38:52
Speaker B: Another little moment. And this is from the lunch with the dean where Risley is like, oh, I just can't think of what I would say to that. And I think the Dean is, like.
1:39:03
Speaker A: The dean roasts him a lot.
1:39:04
Speaker B: Yeah. The Dean is like. What about saying nothing?
1:39:08
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
1:39:12
Speaker B: Morris practicing greeting Risley, like, as he's going to his room. He, like. He does a little, like, practice run of, like, what he's gonna say when he gets there.
1:39:20
Speaker A: One of the prettiest shots in the movie that I was. That just kind, like one random shot. He's, like, walking down that hall. Like, it's that big. Like, there's pillars lining both sides. And the light. There's, like, light pooling, hitting the back wall.
1:39:32
Speaker B: And.
1:39:32
Speaker A: Yeah, he, like, walks up to one of the columns and, like, talks to the column.
1:39:36
Speaker B: And then you see, like, some people in the background, like, look at him, like, okay. But then Risley isn't in his room, but Clive is there sorting through sheet music.
1:39:47
Speaker A: Yeah. That his scrolls, like, roll up in.
1:39:49
Speaker B: Little boxes or something.
1:39:51
Speaker A: Looks like. Yeah.
1:39:53
Speaker B: Another line, right from the book about Risley. A little of him certainly goes a long way.
1:39:59
Speaker A: Yes. They're like. Yeah, you're not wrong there.
1:40:01
Speaker B: Yeah. This exchange between Morris and Clive. My mother doesn't make a row about anything. That's because you've never done anything she'd disapprove of, I expect.
1:40:12
Speaker A: Yeah. Fair.
1:40:14
Speaker B: Also, Morris's mother being scandalized that he doesn't want to go to church and invoking the name of his father, to which he responds, I'm not my father, and further scandalizes her. Clive does sit with his head on Morris's knee and Morris strokes his hair. That's a thing that they do in the book. Also the scene where then Clive basically sits in his lap. Yeah. It's the same scene. Clive's line, most men would have reported me to the Dean or the police. After he confesses his love, they do toodle off on Morris's motorbike and the Dean tries to stop them by saying, don't you have a lecture? And Morris is like, I overslept. As they're driving away, Morris surmises that if he had cut class to spend time with a girl, he probably wouldn't have gotten the boot from Cambridge. That's kind of like a blink and you miss it moment in the movie.
1:41:13
Speaker A: But he does.
1:41:14
Speaker B: He does say that.
1:41:14
Speaker A: Does he say that?
1:41:15
Speaker B: I think it's as he's getting on the train to leave, he says something about, like, if you'd been a girl, he probably would have looked the other way.
1:41:23
Speaker A: Oh, yes. I do vaguely remember that. Yeah.
1:41:26
Speaker B: This incredible line, I believe, from Kitty. When. When Morris's mom is upset about him refusing to apologize to the dean. And Kitty's like, don't cry. You'll only make him think he's important. Which he isn't.
1:41:43
Speaker A: Yeah. Which I. That's. That line got me.
1:41:47
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:41:47
Speaker A: It was very funny.
1:41:49
Speaker B: Also, this exchange when Morris is having dinner at Pendersley and Clive's mom as asking him if Clive has a girlfriend. He's like, pippa declares there's a girl. And Morris is like, pippa had better ask then.
1:42:06
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:42:08
Speaker B: Also the scene where Clive faints at dinner and Morris kisses him and then has to, like, smooth it over with his mom. Like, just. Just don't mention it again. Okay?
1:42:19
Speaker A: Just.
1:42:20
Speaker B: It was a moment. It happened. We don't have to talk about it. Kitty and Ada do practice their nurse bandaging on Clive.
1:42:29
Speaker A: It's like the one allusion to the coming war.
1:42:31
Speaker B: Yeah. Because they're taking an ambulance class.
1:42:34
Speaker A: Yeah. In case there's a war again. Yeah.
1:42:38
Speaker B: Morris apologizes to Ada after he made her think that she was the reason Clive left. And specifically the lion for two people in love to marry strikes me as very jolly.
1:42:51
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:42:53
Speaker B: The old man on the train tries to proposition Morris, which causes him to freak out. Clive's line, I just wanted to show that I haven't forgotten the past. But I agree. Let's not talk of it again. The Morris and Alec do go to the British Museum and they run into Morris's old teacher. There's. And have another awkward scene with him.
1:43:15
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:43:17
Speaker B: Morris and Alec do get a hotel room for the night after that. And Morris does go to the docks to see Alec off, but he doesn't show up because he decided not to go.
1:43:28
Speaker A: All right. We got a handful of odds and ends before the final verdict.
1:43:42
Speaker B: This is the very first thing I wrote down. I wrote this approximately 0.3 seconds into the film. This is already so British.
1:43:51
Speaker A: And I think it's the theme. The theme kicks in immediately.
1:43:55
Speaker B: The theme kicks in and then it's just like boys in breeches running on a gray, rainy beach.
1:44:02
Speaker A: Yeah. You're not wrong. It is about as British as could as could be. But I thought the theme was very memorable. Like, I. As soon as it plays, I was like, oh, that's a nice little theme. The composer is Richard Robbins, who is the same composer who did like all of James Ivory's movies. But it did specifically Remains of the Day in a Room With a View as well, which we have done.
1:44:23
Speaker B: We talked about this as we were watching the movie. But the scene where they're having lunch with the Dean and they're talking about art and literature and music and it's just absolutely insufferable. I need to know if people ever actually sat around and talked like that or if that's just something we see in media because I don't know if I believe it, but I guess if I believed it of any setting, it would be Cambridge in 1913.
1:44:50
Speaker A: I was gonna say. I think they. I think yes. And I think this is where that happened the most. Is this exact place in time is. Yeah. A bunch of white guys in Cambridge in 1913. And I mean to be fair, academia, it's different now, but there's still like. It's very different the way it goes down. But that sitting in a room, you know, being pretentious to each other. It's a thing academics do. It's. You know, I don't even think it's that bad necessarily. As long as it's not the only place you exist. But the thing that. Another thing we thought was very funny about Cambridge is that we're like, oh. Cause you're like, they're wearing graduation caps. And I was like, yeah, this is back when the graduation cap wasn't a thing we Americans appropriated to just wear at like high school and college graduations. This is like it comes from. It was like the uniform of colleges and universities in the UK back in like the turn of the century and before that and whatever. And so yeah, this is when they wore graduation caps and robes just like that was the uniform of being a student.
1:45:58
Speaker B: You know. I do feel like this movie kind of made me understand, I think how I was supposed to visualize Hogwarts when I was reading the books.
1:46:09
Speaker A: 100% that is what Hogwarts, Hogwarts is based on Schools like.
1:46:13
Speaker B: Yes.
1:46:13
Speaker A: Yeah. They even filmed I think some of Harry Potter in.
1:46:17
Speaker B: Yeah, the, the big, the big hall in this looked like very familiar.
1:46:21
Speaker A: Yeah. And there. And there's some of the other like place like hallways they walk through and there's some very specific. I know the Cloisters which are not at Cambridge. I don't think are they filmed a lot of scenes at for here. But yeah, absolutely. This is what. And that's why the, the, the school uniforms in Harry Potter are the very similar kind of vibe. Yeah.
1:46:42
Speaker B: I totally get why Morris immediately falls for Clive when Clive is a young Hugh Grant. Yes. Message received. I understand.
1:46:54
Speaker A: Yeah. Like I mentioned earlier, this. I don't know how you cannot fall for that hair. It is legitimately. I could not get. I had to write a note down.
1:47:03
Speaker B: I was like.
1:47:03
Speaker A: Every time he was on, I was like, good Lord is heir.
1:47:06
Speaker B: The boyish charm is truly off the charts.
1:47:08
Speaker A: It really is. I thought it was fascinating that when Hugh Grant goes to Erwin Clive goes to Greece, I think he goes to the Parthenon. Yeah, sure looked like it. Maybe it's not. Maybe it was some other ruins, but he goes. And I was like, wait, in 1912, could you just, like, go to. He just walks up to the Parthenon and there's zero other people. He just, like, wanders up a hill and is like, at the Parthenon. And then he goes and he sits at one of the amphitheaters that I think is near the Parthenon. But I was just like, was it not a tourist attraction in 1912 where they're not, like, people just, like, going to the Parthenon a lot? Because he's the only person there.
1:47:50
Speaker B: I mean, I'm sure fewer.
1:47:54
Speaker A: Right.
1:47:54
Speaker B: Tourists, because.
1:47:55
Speaker A: Not from all over the world, because you couldn't get there as easily, obviously.
1:47:58
Speaker B: Yeah. And it was much more expensive to travel and harder to travel.
1:48:02
Speaker A: Right.
1:48:03
Speaker B: You could really only do it if you had money.
1:48:05
Speaker A: So. Yeah. So maybe I just thought that was fascinating that I was like, that. That that would have been a wild time to just, like. Just, like, there. And he's like, oh, I'm just gonna go sit on the Parthenon for a while.
1:48:15
Speaker B: I mean, also, let's be real, he's British, and British people kind of just go wherever they want and do whatever they want.
1:48:22
Speaker A: It's not even that. It's. That there's. There's no people. Like, it's empty was my thing. Like, there's no other people. There's not like, any. You know what I mean? That was. What was crazy to me is you go to the part of the island today, no matter. Pretty much anytime you're there, there's gonna be thousands of hundreds of people there or whatever. Yeah. And I just kind of surprised, and I, like, legitimately was unsure, like, was there a. Surely there was. Cause like you said, traveling and getting there was way harder. So it wasn't a thing that tons of people just did every year. But I just was astounded that the idea of, like, oh, yeah, in 1912, you could just go to the Parthenon and be the only person there, potentially.
1:49:02
Speaker B: I thought that the little bit where the ladies at the cricket match were thirsting over Alex Cutter was funny.
1:49:10
Speaker A: Yes.
1:49:11
Speaker B: They're talking about how handsome he is. And how athletic. Also, Helena Bonham Carter in more of this movie than I thought she was gonna be. Based on your note in the prequel.
1:49:23
Speaker A: Yes. She has a line.
1:49:24
Speaker B: She has lines. Yeah.
1:49:26
Speaker A: I thought it was literally just like she was gonna get a crowd.
1:49:28
Speaker B: Yeah, I thought she was gonna be like, in the background and we were gonna like, like pan over and see her sitting in the crowd.
1:49:34
Speaker A: The opening shot of the cricket scene is a closeup on her giving a line, like, oh, okay. It's not like you can miss it. Yeah, she's just. She's just in the movie for now, to be fair. Yeah, she has one line and then we don't see.
1:49:48
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's still technically a cameo, but it's like way more of a cameo than I was anticipating.
1:49:55
Speaker A: Yeah. And my last note, I really liked, and I kind of alluded to it, but the final scene, when Morris comes back to kind of confess to Clive his feelings for Alec and tell him what's going on. I really like the blocking. You know, it kind of reminded me of reverse of the end of Knives out. And I. There's lots of different movies that do this, obviously, but he comes back and. Because as we've mentioned, the whole time that class has been this huge undercurrent of their relationship. And Clive being the upper crust landed gentry or whatever, and Morris being, you know, a normal upper middle class, but a normal person. And when he comes back to talk to him, Clive is up on this balcony lording over him. Kind of in that moment where they have. And I just, you know, I thought it made a lot of sense. And then also it. And I think it also hearkens a little bit to kind of that Romeo and Juliet vision. And then they like, literally when Clive comes down, he, like, sits on the stone bench. I felt like I was watching like a. Like a Shakespeare, like, play. Like the type of stone bench in the garden they're sitting in. Just felt very Shakespearean to me. But. All right, before we get to the final verdict, we want to remind you, you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, any of those places interact. We'd love to hear what you had to say about Morris. Or you can call it Maurice if you want. We won't tell anybody. You can also do us a favor by heading over to Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to us, drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review, and if you really super duper want to help us, head over to patreon.com thisfilmislit where you can support us to get access to bonus content. We just put out our bonus episode for last month or this month. What month are we in for last month?
1:51:39
Speaker B: We're last month. Yeah.
1:51:40
Speaker A: Yes, we did a quick change, but we did a little episode on Dinner in America which was a lot of fun to talk about. If you want to hear our discussion on Dinner in America, go check that out for at the five dollar level on Patreon and that's at the fifteen dollars a month level. You get access to priority recommendations, patron requests. If there's something you would love for us to talk about, subscribe for 15 bucks a month and you can request it and we will talk about it eventually. And this was a patron request from.
1:52:09
Speaker B: This was a request from Eric, who.
1:52:11
Speaker A: I believe has requested all of our Ivory films. Right. Or all of maybe. Was Eric also for Remains of the Day and I don't remember.
1:52:20
Speaker B: I would have to go back and.
1:52:21
Speaker A: Look back and look. But anyways, thank you Eric. Really appreciate it. Katie, it's time. Time for the final verdict.
1:52:30
Speaker B: Sentence passed. Verdict after. That's stupid. I would be lying if I said I enjoyed reading this book. It had its moments, but overall not the most enjoyable reading experience. I hate to agree a little with the reviews that we discussed in the prequel, but I suspect that this book might not be Forster's best work at the very least. I personally didn't find it nearly as good as A Room with a View. And I also hate to say that part of what made it a bit of a slog for me was the title character. It was not always fun or interesting being inside Morris's head, which sounds intentional.
1:53:15
Speaker A: Which is weird based on the author's note.
1:53:18
Speaker B: He's just kind of a drag a lot of the time. I did enjoy watching the movie more at times. I also found it kind of slow and dragging. I also have mixed feelings about its big change with Wriothesley, as I discussed in Lost An Adaptation. I'll be honest, I'm not really sure how to call this one. I think the movie might be the more enjoyable way to consume the story, but Forrester's novel strikes me as a unique and singular perspective on same sex relationships in that particular time and place. For me, I have to call this one a draw and I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of verdicts you all get from this.
1:54:09
Speaker A: All right, Katie, what's next?
1:54:12
Speaker B: Up next, we're changing tracks.
1:54:15
Speaker A: Yeah, big pivot. Pivot.
1:54:17
Speaker B: Big pivot to Salem's Lot.
1:54:20
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:54:21
Speaker B: Novel by Stephen King. And we're going to be talking about the 1979 made for TV. I think it's technically a miniseries, but it's only, like, a tiny bit longer than a movie.
1:54:34
Speaker A: Those were often, like, three hours or whatever. Yeah.
1:54:38
Speaker B: So that's what we're gonna do next.
1:54:39
Speaker A: All right. I literally have no. I've heard of Salem's Lot. I have no idea when. What the plot. Like, I couldn't even tell you, like, what the, like, conceit is like.
1:54:49
Speaker B: Is it. I know what the conceit is.
1:54:51
Speaker A: Is it a dog? Is it a. I don't know, like, you know what I mean? Like what.
1:54:55
Speaker B: What?
1:54:55
Speaker A: The haunted thing. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the spooky thing in this is.
1:55:00
Speaker B: Is it a house?
1:55:01
Speaker A: Is it a dog? Is it a clown? Is it a witch? I have no idea. I'm just saying I don't know what it is. Is it ground Salem's Lot? Is it like a field? I have no idea.
1:55:13
Speaker B: Oh, I'm gonna die. Okay, I do know what the spooky thing is, but I don't know anything else about it.
1:55:20
Speaker A: All right, so there you go.
1:55:22
Speaker B: We're gonna get to that.
1:55:23
Speaker A: We'll find out on the next prequel episode in one week's time. Until that time, guys, gals and the Binary palace and everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies, and keep being.