#221: Home Sickness, Pt. 1 — Safe (1995)

The Next Picture Show

Filmspotting

Tv & Film, Film History, Film Reviews

4.6 • 858 Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2020

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We continue our shelter-in-place film series with a pair of films featuring magazine-perfect housewife archetypes struck by mysterious illnesses that are inextricably linked to their oppressive environments: Todd Haynes’ 1995 feature SAFE and Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ debut film SWALLOW. In this half we dig into the many shifting metaphors at play in SAFE, how they reflect both the film’s era and our current moment, and how they’re all held together by Julianne Moore’s remarkable central performance. And what to make of that ending? Is there any sense of optimism or closure to be drawn from Haynes’ film? All that, plus some feedback that uses specific movies as jumping-off points for some big, sprawling questions about film. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about SAFE, SWALLOW, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Show Notes Works Cited: • “Todd Haynes on the unsafe world of Safe,” by Scott Tobias (thedissolve.com) • “Safe: Nowhere to Hide,” by Dennis Lim (criterion.com) Outro Music: Tom Lehrer, “Pollution” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, next picture show listeners. Here's a friendly reminder that if you enjoy the next picture show,
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0:15.8	about the Kino-Lorber Virtual Cinema Release of Baccarau and Amazon Studios cinematic
0:20.8	new series Tales from the Loop
0:22.4	To subscribe to our Patreon, please
0:24.6	visit patreon.com slash next
0:26.6	picture show.
0:29.0	It's very difficult to keep
0:30.7	the line between the past and the present.
0:32.9	You believe that someone out of the past
0:35.2	can enter and take possession of a living being.
0:39.6	We may be true with the past, but the past is not through with us.
0:47.6	Welcome to the next picture show, a movie the week podcast devoted to a classic film
0:51.6	and how it's shaped our thoughts on a recent release.
0:54.0	I'm Tasha Robinson, here with Genevieve Kossacki, Scott Tobias.
0:57.8	Thank you, Phipps.
0:58.7	With American movie theaters largely closed, we're continuing our Shelter in Place special
1:03.0	series, pairing films you can find on VOD or streaming services.
1:06.8	And this week, we're continuing the theme with two films about disease, although this time
1:11.1	on a much more personal scale than our last pairing of the global pandemic movie Contagin
1:15.8	and the local epidemic thriller Panic in the Streets.
	...

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