Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine" (2010) remains one of the greatest and most realistic depictions of marriage on film. It eschews melodrama in favor of granularity, avoids the typical pitfalls of "relationship films," and probes both characters' psyches, ensuring that neither of them can avoid blame for the state of their marriage. Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) deliver great performances that the film's psychological realism demands. You can also watch this discussion on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI9c95zSC7A Become a Patron and get the show ad-free: https://www.patreon.com/c/automachination

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Timestamps:

1:05 -- introducing Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine"; who's that white girl???

2:59 -- initial and later impressions of the film; the effectiveness of its time-jumps; the symbolic and imagistic power of the opening scene; does Dean have a stronger relationship to Megan than her mother?

8:45 -- biases against Dean from female viewers; Dean is a playmate but not really a parent; Alex defends "feral children"; Dean is oddly good with women, but also fears them; Dean's alcoholism; Cindy might not be a drug addict, but she has other addictions and emotional dysregulation

15:49 -- she buys a lot of alcohol for the hotel; Cindy's many sexual partners and inability to connect emotionally; self-loathing & self-abnegation; how people pick and choose their addictions and patterns

21:16 -- substance vs. emotional abuse; Dean's romanticism kills him; personal neediness in both creates this relationship; limerence and projection

26:24 -- Dean says women settle, yet he settles; Dean only begins to drink after this marriage; do they have a deeper "reason" to be together; if she did not get pregnant by an ex, they would have broken up; why did Cindy refuse to go through the abortion?

30:28 -- men's simulated selflessness; Dean and Cindy knows each other's vulnerabilities; impulsivity in both; male/female hero complex; doing your best in the face of hypothetical "meaninglessness"

35:51 -- male sexual strategy in "Blue Valentine"; lack of attraction in this marriage; Alex: the male point of view is idealistic, but not innately unjust; relationships are the ONLY place for cosmic justice

40:36 -- their courtship is sweet and charming, but not necessarily romantic

44:48 -- Dean should have never made his offer; genuine moments of tenderness in "Blue Valentine"; is there an actual "good partner" for Cindy out there

52:12 -- don't start with relationships based on ambiguity; the bus scene soundtrack is rather creepy and ominous; "Blue Valentine" is one of the best depictions of relationships on film

57:42 -- "Blue Valentine" is tied to the times; the "meet cute" inversion; the endpoint of Millennial hipster culture; the Lena Dunham connection

1:00:44 -- the dangers of love at first sight; how fast crushes tend to flame out; Alex shares a GRIM story from his youth...

1:05:13 -- why Alex thinks their marriage might have ended; the anti-symbolism of the film's ending; why Dean has grown more than Cindy; filming around a dying battery; the conversation in the love motel

Tags: #film #review #relationships

Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" was never meant to be an erotic thriller, but a supreme glimpse into human psychology. Alice (Nicole Kidman) and Bill (Tom Cruise) are well-suited for each other's inner dreamscapes. In fact, the entire film should be seen as a kind of dream: from the improbable action, to the way that certain characters mirror one another, to the ways in which even fantasy is ultimately defanged. This is Kubrick's only real "relationship" film, and it remains one of the greatest depictions of marriage on screen.

More recently, Stanley Kubrick and "Eyes Wide Shut" have been the subject of conspiracy theories. Jeffrey Epstein's crimes entangled many otherwise "respected" elites, and filmmaker Alex Sheremet and actress/producer Christina Behnke break down the implications.

You can also watch this discussion on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnDZNmplQzE

Subscribe to Patreon and get the full show ad-free: https://www.patreon.com/c/automachination

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEV Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxB Podbean: https://bit.ly/3yzLuUo iHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3AK942L

Learn about our debut film, "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.automachination.com/cityboy-bruce-ario-great-american-novel/

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex Sheremet's (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Timestamps:

0:51 -- Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" is not an erotic thriller; Lolita vs. Kubrick's peak film psychology; the relationship film; picking at the Jeffrey Epstein connection

03:34 -- Christina Behnke's lifelong relationship with "Eyes Wide Shut"; identifying with the characters; "Eyes Wide Shut" is a much better title than its source material, the novella "Dream Story"; the autopilot of marriage

9:05 -- "Eyes Wide Shut" as a dreamscape; the mirroring of characters & situations; the lack of consummation; the film's many blondes; Stanley Kubrick's NYC is like his dream of New York City; impossible physical dimensions; this is not the real Greenwich Village

16:06 -- Tom Cruise as actor and character; playing with the public marriage of Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise; connecting to Mia Farrow in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives"

21:40 -- the use of ambient vs. diegetic sound via Shostakovich; logical vs. illogical action; "Nicole Kidman's lovely body"; Alice is bored at the party; the Hungarian vs. "two models" sequence; is Alice really in control while dancing; superficiality in Bill & Alice; Catullus vs. Ovid

30:20 -- the overdose scene; Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman get home; "plain" cinematography furthers the dreamscape; jealousy

38:20 -- is Alice's fantasy a form of infidelity; Christina on Alice's psychology; Alex thinks Alice's fantasy is out of bounds for her own true self; how Kubrick makes "marital psychology" digestible and understandable

49:33 -- Alice should not be taken literally; are men more romantic than women; is a lack of jealousy an issue for relationships; Alex identifying with Bill; PEACH, Alex, PREACH; do women pity men

1:02:00 -- Bill get propositioned by his patient's daughter; Tom Cruise is further fed the worst fantasies; cultivating fantasy

1:06:00 -- the Jeffrey Epstein connection; dismissing the Stanley Kubrick & Eyes Wide Shut conspiracy theories; the Epstein class is bored and boring; Ziegler is crude & rude; Nick Nightingale calls forth sexual imagery in Ziegler

1:12:20 -- the "boring" orgy as a critique of the POINT, rather than on the film; 1999 tabloids for Eyes Wide Shut; the edited vs. unedited versions; is there such a thing as a non-boring orgy; the symbolism of the password, FIDELIO; the ceremony feels more exciting than the action

Patron show topics: Stanley Kubrick and "Jewishness"; more on Epstein psychology; Alex gets REAL about his super knavish year; the importance of the bed-mask scene; "Eyes Wide Shut" has a great ending...

Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men" (2006) is enjoying a renaissance not only for its aesthetic qualities, but also its prescience. In the 2000s, overpopulation was still being discussed, and immigration wasn't the major topic. A post-racial America was declared, but ultimately dismissed.

Taking place in 2027, "Children of Men" depicts refugees, fascism and domestic repression, a fertility crisis, Islam-as-rebellion, and a post-racial world in 2027, where one's place of birth is the great hierarchy.

In ArtiFact #66, filmmaker Alex Sheremet and critic Keith Jackewicz tackle Alfonso Cuaron and his artistic philosophy.

You can also watch this discussion on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/bDptk-kq01g

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEV Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxB Podbean: https://bit.ly/3yzLuUo iHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3AK942L

Learn about our debut film, "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.automachination.com/cityboy-bruce-ario-great-american-novel/

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex Sheremet's (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 -- a looming post-racial hierarchy?

1:00 -- futurism in sci-fi; why a filmmaker must critique films; technical greatness vs. artistic greatness

2:51 -- Keith on social vs. artistic accomplishment; why Britain "survives"; aesthetic vs. artistic greatness; why Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend" is the supreme example of sci-fi greatness; the realism of civil war in "Children of Men"

11:55 -- world-building vs. art; assessing the characters; Michael Caine is uncharacteristic as the hippie Jasper

16:16 -- why prescient art tends to be greater; the realistic assessments of technology in "Children of Men"; 1970s vibe to technology and militancy; cybernetics; by contrast, David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" fails; Barack Obama's "post-racial moment" was false, whereas here it seems to exist; class stratification; native-born vs. foreign-born; did Britain have anti-migrant talking points in the 2000s; missing Ethan Pinch

28:20 -- the use of keffiyehs, Islam, and Arab militancy in "Children of Men"; prefiguring Hamas; the film is more plot-driven than narrative-driven; the writing isn't very memorable, but there aren't many cliches either; one example of cliche-inversion; cliches vs. predictability

36:40 -- the use of religion & Christianity; although not subtle, the manger scene is better than expected; Theo & Jasper in conversation; "Children of Men" could have used more off-the-cuff conversation; Baby Diego as a "wanker"; creating a distinct world through difference

45:43 -- predicting infertility & the refugee crisis as the "serious" issues of today

50:04 -- great color grading in "Children of Men"; the use of handheld camera for subject/object transitions; purpose of blood drops on the lens; long shots in a way that isn't showy

56:14 -- assessing Alfonso Cuaron's aesthetic philosophy; film in search of narrative vs. narrative in search of film; doing one's own cinematography; what else "Children of Men" does well; Alex: everything is downstream of the written word, PERIOD; the Au Hasard Balthazar connection

Tags: #film #review #filmmaking