It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.

Do you believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living being?

We may be true with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Welcome back to the next picture show, a movie of the week podcast devoted to a classic film and the way it's shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

I'm Tasha Robinson here again with Keith Phipps.

Genevieve Kosky.

Scott Tobias.

On the first half of this episode, we discussed Gus Van Sants to Die for, a 1995 black comedy based on the real 1991 story of Pamela Smart, convicted of seducing a 15-year-old high school student and persuading him to kill her husband. In this episode, we'll bring in I-Tanya, Craig Gillespie's look at figure skater Tanya Harding, convicted of conspiracy in the attack on her Olympic skating rival, Nancy Kerrigan. Like Pamela Smart, Harding was a tabloid fixture for a while in the 1990s, as the dawn of the 24-7 news cycle and the rise of tabloid TV series like Hardcopy, created an unending appetite for lurid stories of crime and punishment, regardless of the actual truth of those cases. I-Tanya, scripted by Stephen Rogers, and based on actual interviews with Harding, her husband Jeff Galilee, and other players in the Tanya Harding case, is based around the idea that the tabloid truth wasn't the actual truth, and that it doesn't do justice to Harding's real story. The media version of the story had Harding as a kind of white trash thug violently lashing out against a more talented rival because she couldn't compete against her on the ice. But Rogers and Gillespie present the story from Harding and Galooly's perspective

through sympathetic performances by Margo, Robbie, and Sebastian Stan.

And their movie outright says that the Thug v. Princess narrative started long before the

attack on Carrigan, and that Harding's lower-class origins had always held her back,

limiting her success in the eyes of snobby figure-skating gatekeepers who would never admit her talent or give her an even shot at fame because they disapproved of her origins. Is that the truth? Gillespie and Rogers are very frank about the way that they're presenting conflicting stories from players with very different perspectives, and that all of this may be self-serving. But like to die for, I-Tanya takes a light, playful tone with a lot of ugly events, and the film is enjoyable and accessible, even at its most painful. And as a side note, the attack on Kerrigan happened in 1994, and the resulting media frenzy was actually going on as Gus Van Sant was making to die for. In interviews, he's talked about being aware of the story and how Harding was demonized by the press, which may have colored how he made to die for, and it especially

may have influenced the inclusion of figure skating as a major sideline in Van Sant's movie.

It would certainly explain why these stories echo each other so strongly. We'll talk about

what I Tanya and to Die For have in common after this break.

Thank you. die for have in common after this break. The haters always say, Tanya, tell the truth.

There's no such thing as truth.

Everyone has their own truth.

I was the best figure skater in the world at one point in time.

Call that a clean skate?

Stop talking to her.

That girl is your enemy.

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