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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Deep Thoughts About Ladyhawke
I talk to God all the time, and no offense, but He never mentioned you.
On this week’s episode, Tracie traces some of her earliest ideas about romance to the 1985 Richard Donner film Ladyhawke. Although both contemporary and retrospective reviews are scornful of the anachronistic, Alan Parsons-produced, synthesizer-heavy soundtrack (so unrealistic in a film about a woman cursed to live as a hawk during the day!), Tracie and Emily are more interested in why the film takes away the leading lady’s agency when it otherwise gets a lot right about equitable romantic relationships.
If you are neither flesh nor spirit but sorrow, listen and laugh along with the Guy girls.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
We've got this reciprocity. We've got this sense that they genuinely love one another and they take care of one another, even though they only have like split seconds when they're both human each day and they're not always in the same space. When that happens to Navar, completely taking her agency from her, in that moment, I mean he's doing it for, I guess, like the right reasons I'm putting quotes around that Because he thinks he's doing it for her benefit and for her best interest. But like I'm sorry, fuck that. She's an adult, she's a human I mean a hawk human but still, have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Speaker 1:I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1985 Richard Donner film Ladyhawk with my sister, emily Guy-Burken, and with you. Let's dive in. All right, em. I know you saw this because we saw it together probably multiple times when we were youngins, when it was new. What do you remember about Lady?
Speaker 2:Hawk. So I remember Matthew Broderick's haircut and learning that they made it to look like kind of like an old-timey monk tonsure and by old-timey, like 14th century. And then I learned later on that it's not possible without like modern clippers Modern clippers which actually I think will come up later in our conversation. So I remember that. I remember dad pointing out to us there's a point where he steals someone's purse by cutting the strings and he's like that's where the word cut purse comes from and I remember thinking that was super cool. So I remember that.
Speaker 2:Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer I remember her name is Isabeau, because I thought that was a beautiful name and it was around when I started being a Francophile and they're cursed by a bishop or something she is a hawk by day and a woman at night, and he is a wolf at night and a man by day, and they are very deeply in love and they're're together but they can't, they're not actually together because there is no way for them to like. I remember there's a scene like just as the sun sets or rises, one of those where, like they're transitioning for just a second, they get to see each other as human beings and there is an eclipse at the end, which which is how the curse is broken.
Speaker 1:So those are my Damn. You remember a lot. I don't even have to do a synopsis.
Speaker 2:Okay, Apparently this is a well-remembered film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you remember a lot. All those things are accurate. So tell me, why are we talking about this today? You remember more than I did. I did not remember the cut purse thing, although there were things that while I was rewatching I was like oh yeah, oh yeah. But yeah, I loved this movie when we were kids. I loved it, and so my last lead I looked at SpongeBob, squarepants. So I wanted to go back further and so I was trying to think of something that was. You know, I've been looking at romance a little bit lately and I think that, you know, after the little detour of SpongeBob, I wanted to go back and look at romance again and sort of see what's in there, because I just didn't remember I certainly don't remember the way that you did.
Speaker 1:Some of the things that I'm going to bring to you are about gender, but specifically gender in romance, and also like the way that Pfeiffer embodies Isabeau and like kind of how she shows up there it's better than I thought it might be. I'll say it that way. Like she very easily could just be a trophy and I think she is a more fully formed character than that, which is a testament to Donner and to the screenwriter and also to Pfeiffer. I think she really did a great job. I mean the woman's gorgeous, I mean like, and her presence in this film, like her gorgeousness, like she's gorgeous no matter what she does, but in this film in particular, like it is a plot point, but it also is just there for anyone to see just real quick.
Speaker 2:You said donner just wanted to. I don't think we we've said oh sorry, thank you.
Speaker 1:Richard donner directed this film and I did open with that way and uh and he's, uh.
Speaker 2:He's a friend of the show because we've already talked about his film superman the movie.
Speaker 1:We talked about superman the movie. We talked about the toy. We talked about go film, superman the movie. So we talked about Superman the movie. We talked about the toy. We talked about Goonies. Yes, those are all Richard Donner films. Yeah, so I believe this is our fourth Richard Donner film.
Speaker 2:So he like I didn't know this, but he basically directed a lot of our childhood Totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I want to talk about gender and specifically gender and romance. To talk about gender and specifically gender and romance because there are, there are ways in which, despite the fact that they are not actually together in human form, there is reciprocity between these two, and there are ways in which there is not. So I would like to talk about that and sort of what that separation and the romance of that separation did to little like baby cooking brains of ours. I also want to talk about the actual craft of the film.
Speaker 1:The film gets a lot of flack from people who are like well, so the music is like Alan Parsons produced, as in the Alan Parsons project, and he's not the one who wrote the score, somebody else did. But it's super synthesizer heavy, it's very 1980s. So there's a lot of folks who kind of really give it a hard time for having this so-called anachronistic music for this movie that is set in the 14th century. Broderick's performance. Broderick plays basically the narrator and he's the character who is the bridge between these two people who can never actually be together. And this is before Ferris Bueller's day off, but it's sort of like he's getting ready for Ferris Bueller.
Speaker 2:It's Ferris Bueller's 14th century.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it kind of is he has this running monologue with God. I mean he's talking directly to God, so it's not a direct camera address in the way that Bueller is, but it is sort of like it does feel like a 14th century John Hughes movie sometimes. So people find that bothersome somehow as well. I actually think it's cool and it works and it's kind of like none of it is realistic. So why would I like these people turn into animals like? Why do I care that there's synthesizer music?
Speaker 1:You know it's also the case that it is shot in Italy, I believe the like Donner's, like the cinematography is really gorgeous. The actual landscape feels much bigger than this goofy 80s fantasy romance. So all of that together to me just works as a whole package. But I want to kind of unpack some of that. But before I do I'm going to give a little bit more of a synopsis than you gave from your memory. But I actually am going to rely on Wikipedia to try and get it done relatively quickly and concisely if I can. So thank you to Wikipedia editors here. I've heard that one before, I know.
Speaker 2:I know We'll see if I can do it.
Speaker 1:We'll see if I can do it. So I am reading from Wikipedia In medieval Italy it says Italy I think it's supposed to be France. It's Frank Italy. It says Italy I think it's supposed to be France. It's Frank-Italy, it's Italy-Frankia, it's Europe.
Speaker 1:Philippe Gaston, a thief known as the Mouse, is captured and sentenced to death but escapes from the Bishop of Aquila's dungeons through the sewers. He is apprehended at an inn by Captain Marquet and the bishop's guards. Former captain Etienne Navarre arrives on the scene and he and his pet hawk attack the guards and then escape with Philippe. Navarre and Philippe ask for lodging at a farmer's barn At dusk. The farmer ambushes Philippe with an axe but is killed by an enormous black wolf. Philippe runs back to the barn to get Navarre's help, but instead finds a beautiful young woman dressed in Navarre's cloak, who calmly approaches the wolf and walks into the woods with it.
Speaker 1:The next day Navarre reveals he needs Philippe as a part of a plan to kill the evil Bishop of Aquila. Philippe refuses, so Navarre ties him to a tree. That night the young woman reappears and Philippe tricks her into cutting his bonds. He flees but is recaptured by Marquet and the guards, who learn Navarre's location from him. Navarre once again fights off Marquet and his men to free Philippe. In the process, his hawk is shot with an arrow, Traveling slowly due to injuries of his own. Navarre orders Philippe to go on ahead of him and take the hawk to the castle of an's, like a ruined castle of an old monk named Imperius. Philippe obeys and Imperius sequesters the hawk in a locked room. Philippe picks the lock and discovers the young woman now with an arrow protruding from her chest. Ah, your suspicions are confirmed.
Speaker 2:I remember the monk saying like I have a hawk from Navarre and he's like, oh, then we shall feast. He's like, no, no, no, no, it's his hawk. And the monk's like, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. After Imperius treats her wounds, he explains to Philippe that the woman is Isabeau of Anjou, who once refused the bishop's unwelcome advances. After learning from a drunken imperious that Navarre and Isabeau were married, the bishop called down a satanic curse upon them, dooming them to be quote always together, yet eternally apart. That's what Philippe says about it when he hears the story. Navarre therefore takes the shape of a wolf each night, while Isabeau becomes a hawk by day. The bishop guards attack the castle shortly before daybreak, but the sunrise turns Isabeau back into a hawk, allowing her to fly to safety. She's actually like falling, like as Michelle Pfeiffer falling from the top of the tower and like just as the sun hits her, like she, like, narrowly escapes. Navarre catches up to the castle and dispatches the last of the guards. Imperius tells him that the curse can be broken if the couple can both face the bishop as humans on a day without night and a night without day. Within three days' time, navarre dismisses Imperius as an old drunk and continues his way to Aquila, intent on simply killing the bishop. For revenge, philippe volunteers to join Navarre and Lady Hawk. That's what he has. Philippe has nicknamed the hawk and bids Imperius to follow them. After the group survives an encounter with the bishop's hired wolf trapper, cesar, and several other adventures, philippe finally convinces Navarre to try to break the curse before killing the bishop.
Speaker 1:When the group arrives at Aquila, navarre, seeing no divine signs in the sky, once again decides to kill the bishop and orders Imperius to euthanize the Issa Bohawk if the church bells ring, as would signal Navarre's failure. Philippe, having snuck back into Aquila through the sewers the way he had escaped it, infiltrates the cathedral and unlocks its doors. Navarre rides in and duels with Marquette. It's not a duel, it's a um. What's it called when they run at each other on horses? Oh, joust, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a joust. Like in the cathedral, like the mass worshipers are all just like around the sides Like they're jousting. Thank, you.
Speaker 2:That's one of the official sports of Maryland.
Speaker 1:Okay, during the fight, marquette, the current captain of the guard, tosses his helmet up and through this roundel window, and through the broken window we see a solar eclipse. So Navarre realizes that Imperius was right, but he fails to stop the bishop's men from ringing the bell. So he thinks Aesau is dead and in fact we see Imperius holding the hawk. She's got like the hawk, has the hood on that like covers its eyes, and he's holding a knife and he says may God forgive me. So we viewers are meant to think she's dead too. So Navarro, excuse me, navar is about to kill the bishop. And the bishop says ah, but if you kill me, the curse will never be broken. What about Isabeau? And he says Isabeau is dead. And then behind him he hears her voice, navarre. So then he realizes that he can break the curse. So he forces the bishop to look at her and then look at him, and then look at us. And then Imperius, it's over, it's broken.
Speaker 1:Navar turns to approach isabo and the bishop says the line that we hear in so many movies if I can't have her, no man shall. And he's like about to like ram his. He's got like a sharp point on his bishop's staff and he's gonna, like you know, as one does. So he's gonna I mean, he also made a deal with the devil, so so he's gonna stab navar. But somebody warns him I don't remember who and so navar turns around and like throws his long sword and, like it flies through the air, impales the on the I don't know what it's called like a piece of A churchy thing. A churchy thing, yeah, and then we're nice Jewish girls. Yeah, it's like a churchy wooden thing, like a panel, a wooden churchy panel thing, it's part of the bima.
Speaker 1:It's got a cross on it. Yeah, it's the cross panel thing on the bima. It's got a cross on it. Yeah, it's the cross panel thing on the bima. So so we watch him die and then the lovers embrace and he picks her up and she's laughing and he's like you cut your hair and like all the people who are in the cathedral room are just sort of watching. And then there's like a navar calls imperious and philippe over and the four of them kind of hug.
Speaker 2:And Navar doesn't Imperius like kiss Philippe or something, or like they?
Speaker 1:well, when they are watching the two of, like the whole thing go down like they kiss, they kiss not romantically but no like thank goodness, sweetly, yeah, yeah, well, and like, and Philippe's like crying.
Speaker 1:Yes, philippe is actively crying, we see, we see tears running down Matthew Broderick's face and then the four of them together. More kisses are exchanged, navar kisses, philippe first and then Isabeau does too. So, yay, happy ending, yeah. So a couple of key moments that Wikipedia didn't name that I want to name in terms of like pieces of dialogue that kind of stuck with me, that I think appealed to me as a child.
Speaker 1:The first one is fairly early on, marquis is telling the bishop that Maus has escaped and no one has ever escaped from the dungeons of Aquila before and he was just a petty thief. So like it's not a big deal, like they got much worse criminals down there. And the bishop is like, no, no one escapes, you need to find him. It's like it's not a big deal, like they got much worse criminals down there. And the bishop is like, no, no one escapes, you need to find him. It's like the kind of power. And Marquis is like I mean, all right, but it would take a miracle for him to have survived with the way that he like because he went through the sewers. And the bishop says I believe in miracles, captain, it's a part of my job. I believe in miracles, captain. It's a part of my job which I find like, as an adult, I find absolutely ridiculous and hilarious and like beautiful, and I think as a kid I probably, like unironically, loved it. Oh God, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Another was the one that Wikipedia does name, although it doesn't credit him, which is like when Philippe first hears the story, he says something like always together, eternally apart, him. Which is like when philippe first hears the story, he says something like always together, eternally apart. Which is like like, unironically, when I was like came in now like wow, wow. And the other one in the same vein is philippe, is is like really like weirded out as one is, when the hawk that they were minding turns into a beautiful woman and so he's, he's looking at her, she's got this crossbow bolt sticking up out of her like chest shoulder area, and he's like what are you? Are you? Are you flesh or are you spirit? And she says she like looks at him and then kind of looks away and says I am sorrow. And the thing is like, certainly in 85, I believed her. Oh God, yes, even in 2025, I was like oh.
Speaker 2:It takes someone of the caliber of michelle pfeiffer to sell that she really did too.
Speaker 1:I mean, anyway, I am sorrow. The last one that I remembered while I was telling the the I am sorrow one is so philippe's talking to god the whole time and he's making deals with god and it's it's actually, I think, pretty funny so because, like, while he's like escaping with God, and it's actually, I think, pretty funny, because while he's escaping, he promises God he'll never pick another pocket for as long as he lives. And before he's even fully out of Aquila, he cuts that purse that you remember and he says to God I know I told you I wouldn't do this, but I know, you know what a weak-willed person I am, but I know, you know what a weak-willed person I am. And then at the end, as he's sneaking back into the dungeons, he says I wonder if this is what your plan was all along.
Speaker 2:I have to say it would reflect well on you.
Speaker 1:He says to God, which, again, like I don't know, I just found pretty delightful. So anyway, those are just a couple of, like specific dialogue pieces that I wanted to name before I get too far into analysis. So all done. So let me start with gender. So this film doesn't even pass the first question of the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1:Isabel is the only named female character. There are a couple of other women who appear on screen, like the farmer that they stay with that first night that Philippe is with Navarre has a wife or sister or something, A woman who lives with him, yeah, but she is an extra. And then at one point we see in his garden, we see women sort of dancing for the bishop, again, completely extras. So she is the only named woman and we are meant to know that she is extraordinary in every way. We're meant to know that in part because of the way the other characters treat her, in part because, you know, they cast michelle pfeiffer in 1985, so she was like at the height of her magnificence by societal standards and like, even as a hawk.
Speaker 1:Somehow we like feel her presence.
Speaker 2:I don't know, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't pass Bechdel, it doesn't even pass the first Bechdel question and in many ways so, as I said, like in some ways, that there is a reciprocity about this love that we are meant to believe. So he, navar, etienne Navar, cares for her, you know, when she's a hawk, and he also, as a wolf, protects her. We see the wolf protect her, but there are ways in which she also cares for and protects him. So in a very early scene, the hawk like startles and kind of attacks some of the attackers, the would-be attackers of the bishop's guard, and helps them get away. And as a woman, we see her protect the wolf as well.
Speaker 1:And in fact, in a very key scene, near the end, they've convinced Imperius, believes, he thinks I don't know if he knows the eclipse is coming, but he knows that God spoke to him and he knows that they can break this curse if they can keep Navarre from screwing it up by killing the bishop too soon. And so Imperius and Philippe convince Isabeau that they should do this, and so they're going to trap him as a wolf to keep him from going to kill the bishop too soon. And they try to lure him into a trap, but he crosses across ice to get to her and falls through the ice and she like risks everything to try and save him while he's in the water. In the end, philippe actually gets him up out of the water and gets all scratched up. And that's when navar sees the, the scratches on his chest the next day. That's how he changes his plan and decides to go along with them.
Speaker 1:There's another moment where the wikipedia named that the bishop had hired this like wolf hunter and isabel and philippe see the pelt and she takes the horse navar's horse and goes off in the woods to try and find this trapper to protect, to protect navar, and in the end she like ends up killing the. I mean he kind of kills himself, but she, she helps the trapper get killed in his own wolf trap like a bear trap claw thing that ends up on his head.
Speaker 1:It's pretty gross so there's a sense in which there is a reciprocity in that way, which I think is actually kind of rare, especially for a story set, you know know, in the distant past.
Speaker 2:Well, it's presented like kind of a fairy tale, almost, yes, and so it would be rare for a fairy tale, and if you're like taking on the trappings of fairy tales, you often take on those kinds of expectations and rules too, right.
Speaker 1:And then there's like two moments where it sort of challenges in the reciprocity but in interesting and in some moments problematic, I don't know we can unpack it. So one thing I actually did remember, that was one of the scenes that was like oh, I remember that when I rewatched it was at one point Navar and philippe are talking in the morning and the hawk comes flying from a distance and navar puts his arm up for her to land on his forearm and philippe is kind of like stretching and the hawk lands on philippe's arm like passes navarre to land on philippe's arm and they're both like um and like there's like clear jealousy here. And then there's like what happened last night, and it's the night after the killing the wolf trapper, and that's actually the moment too when he says when philippe says she's the most amazing woman I've ever met, and yeah, I've had my fantasies, but the truth is she only ever wants to talk about you. Whatever, it's unclear to me. Philippe tells each of them things that the other one said that we, the viewer, did not see them say. It's unclear to me whether or not we're meant to think he's pulling a Cyrano and lying to like strengthen the romance, or if we just didn't see them say those things. It's unclear to me. I, as a kid I think I thought the first that he was lying it was Cyrano, I think.
Speaker 1:Probably I'm leaning toward that with this as well, cause Philippe has like a loose relationship with the truth. That's yeah, that's pretty clear, that's been made clear. And when he does tell the truth he says something to God about having told the truth, yeah, yeah. So I think there's like that moment of like jealousy. But then it is in the end when both Navar and Isabelle kiss philippe in sort of gratitude. It's like there's there's that moment of jealousy, but it's less about sort of possessiveness and and more about like. I mean he even says navar says like every moment that you spend with her I'm, I'm jealous of, but not in the how dare you be with my girlfriend, just like I can't. So there's something like alive for me in that. That feels a little bit more nuanced and interesting than the sort of traditional gender roles and romance that I might have expected from a fairy tale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and then this is where we always get At the end. They've got this plan and, as Wikipedia told us, navar doesn't see the signs. He tells Imperius, and Wikipedia says euthanize. He says, make it quick, quick, because I don't want to condemn her to a half-life without me. Nobody asked the hawk what she wanted, right, like it's not even that.
Speaker 1:I think that, like this, the, the film or the story shouldn't be willing to take suicide, as you know, as an option that one of these characters might take, but surely she should be allowed to choose it and not be euthanized, as as wikipedia put it, and like, thank god, like imperious says. Imperious says to navar I can't do it, I don't think I can do it, and navar's like no, you have to, because this is your fault, because initially imperious was the one who, he was the confessor to both of them and that's how the bishop ended up finding out that they were together. So and we are meant to believe he's done it, like we see that cut scene where he says may God forgive me, and he's got the hawk in his hand and a knife in the other. So we've got this reciprocity, we've got this sense that they genuinely love one another and they take care of one another, even though they only have seconds, when they're both human each day and they're not always in the same space.
Speaker 1:When that happens and then we're meant to like I guess I feel like we are meant to be sympathetic to navar, completely taking her agency from her in that moment. I mean he's doing it for I guess, like the right reasons, I'm putting quotes around that because he mean he's doing it for I guess, like the right reasons, I'm putting quotes around that because he thinks he's doing it for her benefit and for her best interest. But like I'm sorry, fuck that. She's an adult, she's a human, I mean a hawk human, but still now.
Speaker 2:Is there any sense that he is aiming to protect her from the bishop's lasciviousness or anything? Not that that makes it okay either?
Speaker 1:No, no, it's protecting her from a half-life that she didn't choose, or something like that. Yeah, no it's about. Yeah, it's unacceptable, it's kind of ableist in a weird way. Yeah, and I guess. So I mean one, and he had his own version of it, you know. So one imagines that like that's what he would want in the, if the inverse were happening, except that, like again, let her transform and then choose. Yeah, yeah, so I, yeah, so that that one piece, like that one plot point, which was essential.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I was thinking like they had to do that because navar needed to think she was gone, yeah, and that all hope was lost so that he, or there was nothing left for him but the revenge that he came for in the first place. Like we needed to have that moment so that we could have the big reveal and the like very dramatic. Look at her, you know.
Speaker 2:But it would have. For the writer and Donner. All it would have taken was one moment of we're agreed.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I talked to her about it.
Speaker 2:this is what she wants too. Yeah, yeah, I told her your plan. She agreed. And then, like even philippe, like checking with her, like is this what you? Want yes I don't know whatever well, actually, I guess the navarro and isabelle can't actually speak no, they can't, so they would have to agree through an intermediary, intermediary or like I don't know, so they would have to agree through an intermediary Through their intermediary, or like I don't know if they're able to write because it's the 14th century, that's not a part of the story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like they would have to agree through an intermediary. All they'd have to do is have said that they did.
Speaker 1:Have said that they did, yeah that they did yeah, yeah and like yeah would have taken two seconds, yeah, yeah. So that's there. That's that's in there as part of the furniture of the mind. The other thing, that's that's. You know, I don't think I, I'm I'm certain I didn't catch in 1985, I just thought of it. There's a moment where, after philippe has learned the whole story, he's talking, talking to Navarre, and Navarre says do you know that wolves and hawks both made for life? He didn't even leave us that. He didn't even leave us. That. Like they can't get it on in their other forms, you know, like their non-monogamy, like her with a boy hawk and him with a she-wolf. They, they can't do that because wolves and hawks made for life. I guess. I guess that's what I'm interpreting what that's like. Initially, when he first said they made it for life, I was like oh, yeah, there's something. And then he said yeah, and then he said the bishop didn't even leave us. That. That is what that means, right?
Speaker 2:I can't think of any other right.
Speaker 1:I can't think of any other reason like why you would say the bishop didn't leave us, that sorry, okay, all right, I'm just thinking about, like hot lupine and hot, I don't know what the, what the latin word be hawkeye sex would be anyway.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's funny, so. So that's that's basically what I wanted to talk about. On the romance piece of it, I will say that little baby Tracy thought that this was just so romantic. This being separated but being together but not being able to be together. Separated but being together but not being able to be together, like that is like so deep down in the like romance DNA, like maybe from this movie or others like it, you know, but like that idea that this unrealized, requited but unrealized longing as like some sort of model for true romance is like deeply resonant and I don't know if it's because of this movie or this movie is just like. I think I things the bell.
Speaker 2:I would really like to dig into this a little bit, just because I definitely feel that as well, that mutual pining. It just lights something up inside of me and I have spent time thinking about that, because that is not what a real healthy relationship can ever be and in fact it's kind of toxic to be in a situation like that and like this film gives you like an okay reason for it, like because it's outside of their control, whereas, yeah, completely outside of their control yeah whereas like a lot of the so you know, we talked about x-files early on and like they were kept apart for you, you know Chris Carter's reasons.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which removed their agency when it came to like and there's like there are points at you know, I have been reading like long series where it's like will they, won't they like book series, and eventually I lose my patience because it's like just freaking talk to each other, because it's trying to recreate that mutual pining that is so deeply satisfying and I wish I understood why and so that it can stretch it out to five books. But at some point adults need to talk about their feelings. Adults need to to talk about their feelings no, no, I won't.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and so like there's, there's, uh like I can definitely understand why this film in particular lit you up, because it's not stupid why they're apart it you up, because it's not stupid why they're apart.
Speaker 1:It's magical. It's magical and that that also, like that's another one of my, one of the stars in my constellation is the magical and then and they can also do the loving things for each other.
Speaker 2:That is another thing that I find deeply satisfying, while still mutually pining. So I think there's a very good reason why this lit us both up as children, like why we both really love this. I also think there's something very human about being drawn to these kinds of tragic love stories because your spouse leaves the toilet seat up and socks on the floor and you know you have bad breath in the morning and you know life is not romantic yeah pining, pining and not being able to be together that is romantic yeah, yeah, yeah, I bet you.
Speaker 2:I think you're on to something for sure so but it it is, it does worry me. We, before we started recording, I was saying like it worries me because I like the pining so much that I, we, our sister, podcast, light bringers. I talked about how like, uh, devastated. Lucifer is my favorite lucifer and at the very last episode they gave a lot of fan service with like the two of them just like hugging each other and like snuggling it. I'm like squirming with discomfort, like that's enough now. It's like I want them apart and like in pain. I'm like what is wrong with me?
Speaker 1:well, I think maybe what's wrong with you is michelle pfeiffer saying I am sorrow because damn, she looked good saying it yeah all right.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm gonna move us on to my final bucket here. So the final bucket is actually a pullback away from the content and looking at the actual form. So this movie gets a lot of. I read one commentator who said I'm going to write about a cult 80s film, which is actually a redundant statement because every 80s film is cult for somebody. So this one it does have a lot of people who love it, but a lot of critics at the time and since give it a really hard time for so-called anachronisms, right. So it's meant to be set in 14th century Franco-Italy and, like I I said, the score is very 80s like it was pretty cutting edge in 85.
Speaker 1:I mean it was like damn damn, it is really. And so people, people give it a hard time for that sort of anachronistic music or so-called, and I mean it is. But they also and then they give a they. And then they give Broderick's performance a hard time. They say he was sort of doing his Biloxi blues thing because it was pre-Ferris Bueller and you know he is.
Speaker 1:But like, so, like it's, I find it now. I loved it at the time and I was a child. And looking back now as an adult, all these years later, I find it now. I loved it at the time and I was a child. And looking back now as an adult, all these years later, as you say, it's a fairy tale, right, it's a fantasy. Like it's not a real place, it's not actually based on a real fairy tale. Like I think I read somewhere that there was like a sense that it was kind of like based on an actual medieval tale. It wasn't Like they let that be like the mythos around it, because that, you know, that sells movies. But it was just some dude's idea, you know. Like the writer just was like, oh, this would be a cool story. So he wrote the story and it was made for 1980s american audience.
Speaker 1:You know so like already, like they're all speaking english well, and it's american actors uh-huh, and they've got like even like what's funny to me like broderick has just his normal whatever accent through most of it, but then there are moments where he has this kind of like Shakespearean stage actor kind of an accent presentation. Yeah, I don't know if that was on meant to like if Mouse was supposed to be doing that or Broderick forgot that he was doing the accent. You know what I mean. I'm choosing to believe that mouse was doing it, but I don't know honestly. Yeah and the like, if we, if we stop trying to ask it to not be what it isn't and just enjoy what it is, I think the 80s score really works.
Speaker 1:I think the Biloxi blues treatment of Philippe Gaston, known as the mouse, really works. Like he's a ridiculous character. Like in the very first moment we meet him we're just seeing like this, like mud and sewage and like fingers sticking through, and he says nothing is impossible, mouse. And he's like pushing his shoulder and head through this like opening. He says nothing is impossible, mouse. And he's like pushing his shoulder and head through this like opening. He says it's just like leaving mother's womb. Now, that's a memory. It's ridiculous. And it's ridiculous from moment one. And when the guards come to get him.
Speaker 1:His cellmate speaks in rhyme Like to ease the pain he went down the drain. It's just ridiculous and I think if we can just let it be what it is like. I feel like we put a lot of pressure on things that claim to be set in the Middle Ages to somehow be like historically accurate. I'm putting quotes around that because we don't actually know a lot of things about the way things were in medieval times, and the things that we do know like I don't want to see on screen.
Speaker 2:I don't want to see no bubonic plague, thank you.
Speaker 1:Like I mean they make mention of the plague when, like, the bishop calls the wolf hunter to come in, he's got all these pellets and the bishop's looking through them and he's like, no, that's not it. That's not it. Like these are not the wolf I'm looking for and the the hunter is like, well, since the plague, there's more wolves than people you know. And like they mentioned crusades and and saracen, like it's like vaguely in our universe but, also like kind of like I don't know.
Speaker 1:So I think there's something really interesting that like and you, before we hit record we're talking about, like what it is that as an, as audiences, we're willing to suspend our disbeliefs about, and what we're not, and so yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I mentioned about the like kind of tonsure haircut that Broderick has. That is not possible with tools at the time that this is supposedly set. But the thing is not a single person who complains about the soundtrack says boo about his haircut because his haircut fits what we think that time looks like, and so what we call realistic is just what confirms our preconceived notions about history. And so I mentioned before we started recording, about the Tiffany problem, which is Tiffany is actually a very old name and it was a relatively popular name in the Middle Ages and in English-speaking countries. But modern audiences read it, hear it, as a modern name, and so if we had, if Isabel had been named Tiffany, people would have been like what the hell is this, even though it would have been period appropriate. So there's that tension of what we expect versus what actually was. And then there's the tension of, as you mentioned, what are we willing to suspend our disbelief about. Consistently, when you have fantasy stories that are set in some kind of history, historical period so I'm thinking specifically Game of Thrones people will say yes, yes, dragons, yes, women giving birth to monsters, yes, yes, all of that, and we'll say why does there have to be so much rape in it. They're like well, it's historically accurate. And, to be honest, I even can see this in some modern takes as well. I can remember our stepfather complaining about how they changed the ending of Pretty Woman to be a happy ending instead of the more realistic ending where Julia Roberts' character ends up strung out on drugs at the end instead of it being a happy Hollywood ending, and he'd be like it's just wrong, it should be the realistic ending. I'm like why, like this isn't based on like a real person, like you know? Okay, I'm down with like getting annoyed at them changing like the story for a movie when it is based on like historical events actually happened. But like why is that more realistic? But like, why is it more real?
Speaker 2:And another moment that I like really helped me with this, this viewpoint is Roger Ebert, our friend, the movie A Knight's Tale, which came out, I think, in around 2001. I remember seeing it right around when I graduated from college and the music. There's a dance scene and I can never remember which one's diegetic and which one's non-diegetic, but it's the music that the characters can hear, not just what the audience can hear Is, I believe. I think it was a Queen song. I think it was like Another One Bites the Dust, but I might be misremembering but it was definitely a 20th century song and Ebert in his review talked about how, like, yeah, people have a problem with that, but the thing is, if we put the kind of like Bach or classical music that you think of as appropriate, it's still anachronistic because it's 400 years too late, right, you know.
Speaker 2:So what if it's you know, 600 years too late, right, right. So what if it's you know, 600 years too late? Right, right, we're making, we're creating an enjoyable story that includes things like like music and you and like the thing is everybody's speaking modern english, right, so why? Why do there need to be rules about what the, what the soundtrack sounds like? If it works for the story, it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really interesting the way like what, as audiences, we're willing to accept and what we're not. So I think that's, and this movie, I think with the soundtrack, with Broderick's performance and dialogue, like what's written for him, is sort of kind of tests, that. And at the same time I think I mentioned before we started like it's filmed, I think, in Italy or Ireland or I don't know some beautiful sprawling country land and like some of the landscape pieces behind this ridiculous fantasy like are gorgeous. I mean, they're just really gorgeous, like you expect them in a much more serious film, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And so I think I find that very interesting that Donner and the other filmmakers sort of took these gorgeous landscapes and these big, big shots that belong in a different film, mm-hmm, and this music that was really very contemporary and very now, and these actors who were very contemporary and very now and decided to sort of put it in this story from then but it's not really because it's not actually an old story Like I find all of those tensions and all of those yes and yes and yes ands to be very, very interesting.
Speaker 1:And then what comes out on the other side, like I actually really loved it, like I enjoyed watching it both as a 9-year-old and now as a 49-year-old. I don't like those contradictions, don't bother me, because I don't think they're contradictions, because they're all in service of this one little story and so I think that's. But I think it's an interesting thing to ask why for some of us it's like okay, cool, whatevs, and for other people it's like I mean, I was with you with the curse, but Alan Parsons music no.
Speaker 2:I draw the line at synthesizers yeah, yeah, kind of it's. I think it's also interesting to know, like who, who gets to gatekeep this stuff?
Speaker 1:yeah, right, well, that's yeah, because that's that's part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah I do. I I would like to, um, like, kind of ask you about one other thing before sure, before you you wrap up, before I wrap up. So I find it really so. It is kind of a fairy tale. There's magic, but the magic is still within the Christian ethos. Sure, because he's a bishop and he like makes a deal with Satan.
Speaker 2:And so like I find it like fascinating that our narrator is a faithful ne'er-do-well, like he truly believes in God, truly he's having these regular conversations with God and similar the monk who is kind of a screw-up, it sounds like too, but also is truly faithful, and it's giving us this kind of like dichotomy between the faith of imperfect people and then, like the greed of of those who are in charge, like the greedy faith of those who are in charge. I believe in miracles because it's my job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, and he's. He has shown to have a lot of power, and, and, and, and he wields it over people Like I am power.
Speaker 1:He doesn't say those words, but he, he makes that very clear yeah yeah, he makes that very clear to marquet, who is the captain, the guard, and to others. So, yes, I that's a very interesting point. So we're we as an audience, are meant to see sort of an authentic faith of a thief and of a disgraced priest, and that's where the authentic faith is, because imperious says god, mm-hmm, anything, god's made you mad, so like he doesn't believe. So I think that's thank you for sort of lifting it up. But there is definitely an interesting like tension and like the ultimate lessons about God and faithfulness. I mean, at one point Navar says something about God as well and Philippe says no offense, but I talk to God all the time and he's never mentioned you.
Speaker 2:So, oh, my God, that is delightful, yeah.
Speaker 1:What's interesting when you ask it that way, though, is because this faithful ne'er-do-well, this faithful thief who makes a promise to God and almost immediately breaks it while saying to God, you know what a weak-willed person I am. So there's definitely something very interesting, and those are the folks. They get rewarded. There was a beautiful sort of symmetry around Philippe's escape and then re-entrance, and, in fact, that's why Navarre picked him in the first place, because he's the only person who ever escaped, and so he can help him get back in. So, yeah, that's, I think there's. There's definitely lessons in there about power and greed, and even feminist ones to an extent. About about the bishop's desire to control and own azebo that he.
Speaker 1:He had no right, not just because he was a bishop, but then that need is really ultimately, that desire to control her, to own her, is ultimately what caused him to make a deal with the devil and then die and we see him sort of tortured by it. We see him having fitful nightmares, like nightmares and things. So I think, yeah, there's definitely some. Thank you for bringing that up. There are definitely some lessons about faith and cosmology and like it's also right living.
Speaker 2:yeah well, it's interesting because the, the, the thief and the disgraced priest are practicing like a Christianity that expect that that forgives, and the Bishop is clearly practicing one that has no forgiveness.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's all about loyalty. Yes, one way, loyalty, yes To him.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's also. There is also something very, very clear about faith in love, not just faith in God, but faith in love that imperious and philly both have. I mean that's why they're crying like. That's why they're crying and like kissing one another at the end is because they have so much faith in the love between these two, these two people, and and they want to see it get to the point where he's leaving socks on the floor and she's got. Yeah, well, they want to see it realized and healthy.
Speaker 1:And not not like just a moment, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, let me see if I can wrap this up. So, 1985, richard Donner film Ladyhawk, we've got Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Broderick. John Wood is the bishop Super creepy, super creepy and Leo McCurran is imperious. So those are the key, key actors and, honestly, they all do a great job. They're very, they're very fun. This film does not pass even the first test of the bechdel test, which asks us are there at least two named female characters? Do they talk to one another? Do they talk to one another about something other than a man or a boy? The answer is no. There's only one named female character, isebo, and she is pretty amazing. Not just beautiful, which is made very plain I mean, it's Michelle Pfeiffer and also in the way the other characters react to her, but also she is playful, she's clearly smart, she is bold, she is courageous. We see all of these things. She has this very big presence and the love between her and Navar, which I don't know why we never call him by his first name. His name is Etienne. She gets a first name, he doesn't I don't know. Anyway, the love between them is clearly real and reciprocal and there is reciprocal caregiving and reciprocal guarding and protecting. That is really kind of cool and unexpected. I think we named it this the reciprocity between them feels unexpected and rare in a fairy tale, especially one set in the Middle Ages. Where we lose that reciprocity is in at the end, when Navarre unilaterally decides that if he fails in his mission to break the curse that Imperius should kill Isabeau in the hawk view and, as you pointed out, it would have been actually very easy narratively to fix that and to have given Isabeau agency and suggested that she had agreed that death by suicide or death at the hand of Imperius was better than a half-life. We didn't get that. He took that agency from her. We also saw a moment that was kind of interesting in terms of thinking about romance and gender roles in romance, where the hawk lands on Philippe's arm when we expected and he expected it to land on Navarre's. And so they have this conversation actually about jealousy, which is not the jealousy of possessiveness or not precisely any way that one might expect. There is no sort of I'm going to kill you because I think you slept with my girlfriend. It's more like tell me everything you get to spend time with her in ways that I can't. That was actually sweet.
Speaker 1:And then, lastly, we talked about sort of the storytelling and the medium of film and the sort of choices, storytelling and the medium of film and the sort of choices, the directorial choices to like, use a score that was very contemporary music with lots of synthesizer that now sounds very dated but sounded very hip. And now, in 1985. The choice to have Matthew Broderick with this sort of running monologue which is directed at God rather than the viewer, as it will be a couple years later in Ferris Bueller, from Matthew Broderick, but still kind of an 80s sort of feel narratively as well, because it was sort of the Biloxi blues that Matthew Broderick had been doing. And also some of the bigger things that I named, like the beautiful cinematography of the countryside, which I expect in a much bigger, more serious movie.
Speaker 1:This movie doesn't have a whole lot of dramatic gravitas and it never was meant to. I mean, that's not what Richard Donner did. Right, superman, goonies, the Toy was one of his movies that we've talked about. He was making entertainment. But the cinematography is not just sort of like a quick and dirty teen film. Right, the cinematography is something much bigger that has Oscar aspirations. So all of those things together, I think, are a really interesting mix that to both like little 10-year-old, or 9-year-old me and also 49-year-old me, is kind of like yeah, bring it. Like what's going to tell the best story with this? You know, michelle Pfeiffer, who's a hawk, and Rutger Hauer, who's this awesome black wolf, and like okay, who's this awesome black wolf?
Speaker 2:and like okay, it's the kind of thing that when you read shakespeare, there's a lot of stuff, there are jokes that were topical, that probably felt like that's not appropriate and hamlet you know, that's not how the danish do things, whatever. But now, because we're so many years on, they're not topical anymore, they're, they're historical. And so we're so many years on, they're not topical anymore, they're historical. And so we have so much trouble viewing things that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because we're close to them. I think you also named that there's a certain kind of confirmation bias, that we expect it to be a certain way that Roger Ebert helped, you see, with the Knight's Tale, where the music that we have come to expect in sort of Shakespearean or medieval or whatever like, is itself anachronistic. It's just that we've been doing that anachronism for so long that it feels somehow natural.
Speaker 2:I'm putting quotes around that word.
Speaker 1:And Alan Parsons did not feel natural for this medieval story.
Speaker 1:So that's like a really interesting thing just about the way that culture informs culture and then seems like it's not cultural, seems like it's somehow actually like baked in truth.
Speaker 1:So that's that's a really interesting question.
Speaker 1:And then you asked me to think a bit about faith in this movie and sort of what the lessons were about faith and I think the fact that we have this very faithful thief and faithful disgraced priest and it's very like not faithful, like literally satanic bishop are very interesting pieces in terms of thinking about cosmology and good and evil and whatever in this film. So much so so that one of the things that I think your question helped me to see was part of the faith that Imperius and Philippe have is in love, but also, I would say, in other people. So there is a faith in God. There definitely is, but it is expressed and manifest through their faith in other people. So there's something like really lovely about that that rejects the idea of the kind of high church faith which is based on power in one individual who can become corrupt, and much more in a kind of faith of the people, a faith of relationship yeah faith of the people, a faith of relationship, and it's expressed in the love between these two people.
Speaker 1:but then it comes outward too, because then they also express their love before the film ends for Philippe and Imperius and for the work that they did and the risks that they took in the service of love. So there's something really, really nice about that, you know, in this little throwaway fantasy film.
Speaker 2:That the scene of. I have visceral memories of Matthew Broderick crying and kissing the priest. Yeah, like that stuck with me. Yeah, because it's how I feel about other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, yeah, that's nice Well. So anyway, I'm glad we watched it. I'm really glad we put it on the list. I had a lot of fun. So next weekend, what are you bringing me?
Speaker 2:I am bringing you my deep thoughts about the Kevin Kline film In and Out, which is the other one that should have let me know I was neurodivergent, besides Chasing Amy.
Speaker 1:Besides Chasing should have let me know I was neurodivergent. Besides chasing Amy. Besides chasing Amy. Cool, Well see you next week.
Speaker 2:I'll see you next week.
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