Mother Mary: More Than Religio-Goth Gestures?

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. See any standard two D movie anytime with no blackoutdates or restrictions. Sign up now on the Regal app or at the link in our description and use code film spot twenty six to receive fifteen percent off.

00:00:45
Speaker 2: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?

00:00:48
Speaker 1: You're not interested in art now? So look, we're going to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation.

00:00:55
Speaker 2: Hey, film spotters, Adam and Josh. Here, busy week at Film Spotting HQ, and we're doing what we've been doing Josh, which is to give listeners an in depth discussion separately from jamming it into the big show. Rather than jamming it in or giving an abbreviated discussion. We realized, you know, we have other days of the week to put episodes into our feed. Why not you?

00:01:21
Speaker 1: This is true? Absolutely, yeah, a little bit of a new strategy, but hopefully listeners have been appreciating it, maybe getting to It's not that fire hose. We've been dropping on folks every Friday for well over a decade.

00:01:35
Speaker 2: Now exactly, and we do have I'll tease it. We've got some other new stuff in the works that we're excited about. Can't give you more details yet, but you have something to look forward to. You also have some immediate content to look forward to this week coming in our normal Friday episode, you will get the Forties Madness Champion. That's right, we didn't. We didn't trip the lever that gives you the results. Can't find it on Challenge, you can't find it at filmspotting dot Net. We are saving it for the Friday episode when we reveal the greatest film of the nineteen forties according to film spotting listeners. Is it Casablanca or is it Citizen Kane? Josh, you don't even know the answer at this point, do you.

00:02:17
Speaker 1: I'd be very tempted to spoil it right here and now for a listen. Yes, except I'm in the dark as well. I'm trying to read your face. You had a vested interest in this outcome. I definitely did, but you're yeah, you're keeping it pretty cool, so I'm trying. I have to wait for a little bit myself to learn.

00:02:35
Speaker 2: We will also share our summer movie preview so look for that in our normal Friday slot. Here, though, we wanted to make sure that we talked about the new film from David Lowry, Mother Mary.

00:02:51
Speaker 3: I hadn't seen Aerona for ten years, but I could tell she was coming from one thousand miles away. Why didn't you thought with why you're here? Sam?

00:03:10
Speaker 2: I need a dress? Josh sitting in the theater recently watching the trailer for Mother Mary, and about the precise moment I was thinking, I'm really going to have to go back to my notes for a ghost story for this review. Huh. A headline pops up on screen emphatically informing me this is not a ghost story. Soon the winking marketers would tell me this is not a love story either. What then, is Mother Mary? Because correct me if I'm wrong. There are ghosts, and there is love, or at least the remnants of a passionate romance between Anne Hathaway's haunted pop star looking to mount to comeback following a mysterious accident, and her costume designer Sam. The couple are estranged as lovers and creative partners, but still seem to be caught in some kind of codependent web. It's also occasionally a full blown concert film. Daniel Hart composes the music, with Jack Antonof and Charlie XCX composing original songs, along with a contribution from English singer songwriter Fka Twigs, who also turns in a very memorable performance during a late night Dublin seance. And It's a chamber play. Hathaway and Cole spent almost the entire first half of the movie embroiled in a cat and mouse conversation in an expansive barn slash studio that's so dark and intimately shot that it often feels like there's no space between them at all.

00:04:38
Speaker 3: They've come cooling back to me. I nowhere else to go, So tell me what do you see in your head? Me? Oh, I guess I remember this is all about not singing. I'll laugh for you if you want. I want to break my streak.

00:05:00
Speaker 2: But what I'm not listening to your music On top of all that, Josh Mother Mary is a movie about the making of art, collaboration and the thorny question of ownership. Not unlike Cole's other film out Now, discussed recently here on Film Spotting, Steven Soderberg's very good The Christopher's did you enjoy David Lowry latest on all these levels? Some none?

00:05:26
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of the trailer, saw this with Debbie and we were I forget what we were at something recently and saw the trailer before we saw Mother Mary together and her response coming out of the trailer was, what in the world is that all about? You know, intrigued, We were both eager to see it, so we went to see it. She came out of the movie itself and said, what in the world was that all about? So there you go. You know, I think this is not a movie that offers a clear necessarily experience or reading, but to your specific question, all those things it dabbles into. Me it did intriguingly well enough to, if not add up to a coherent whole, made me glad I had the experience and tried to piece it together and am still trying to piece it together. I do think it's absolutely ghost story that's you know, pretty pretty literal, and we can talk about, which I think we will, what sort of ghost we mean by that?

00:06:28
Speaker 2: I think the essentially show it in the trades.

00:06:31
Speaker 1: They show it, but there are also maybe a few different sorts of ghosts that Lowry could be suggesting here. The concert scenes I found, you know, enrapturing, honestly, and partly because they were a bit of a breakaway from that two hander, that intensely claustrophobic nature, where this feels for long stretches like it could be a play, and then we'd break away to a flashback or something or a vision of one of Mother Mary's concerts, and it kind of busted things open, allowed Lowry to indulge in some of the visual flare that he's done in other films, particularly I would say The Green Knight, but maybe the Ghost Story a little bit too. That was a little more stripped down but visually interesting. So yeah, I did enjoy this. I don't know that it it felt like a series of I guess religio Goth gestures, and that might sound like, oh, well, then there's nothing there. I think there's a little more there, if not exactly as much as I might have hoped. It's interesting to hear you describe. Let's start with this, maybe their relationship between Sam and Mother Mary as clearly having a romantic foundation or past. That was one of the questions that I felt was being teased back and forth. Was this an intense friendship. They reference having known each other. I think since they were kids. There is definitely an electricity between them that suggests potential romance, but at the same time, not necessarily. The movie I felt almost didn't give us a firm sense of whether they were just very intense artistic collaborators and friends, or this actually at one point was a romantic situation. And maybe if I had a reservation, it's it's that the fuzziness of that for me made the final moments a little bit of a letdown, where, without saying more in spoilers, I think it makes a quick turn back to that potential right reading without laying a lot of the groundwork that might have made that more rewarding. So, but it sounds like you were pretty firmly in the they had a romantic past camp and that was part of the dynamic at play here.

00:08:47
Speaker 2: Well, I said that in the intro, so that's where I was leaning. But I do think it's fair to say that there is enough ambiguity that, even though I'm pretty sure that I recall correctly, at one point a character says it's Hathaway's character says to Cole's character something about love uses the word love specifically, and how do I show it to you? That does? I think for most viewers conjure the notion of romance. But it doesn't have to be that. There is enough ambiguity that perhaps the collaborative nature of their relationship and the bond that they have the combination of friendship and creative collaboration is so strong that that is something like love that isn't of a romantic nature. I am willing to go down that path with this movie, because you're right that the movie doesn't spell it out that it is necessarily of a sexual romantic nature. We don't necessarily see that, do we. So yes, the movie. The movie leaves open those doors. And to its detriment or to its credit, we really did see this movie. It seems exactly the same. Dabbles is a very good word to use, Josh. At this point, I haven't rated it yet on letterboxed. I'm also behind by about fifteen movies rating them on letterbox I don't know if I'll get to it. Maybe that's that's what I'll do. I'll just hold off and so I don't have to commit to a ratio one way or another. Because I was having that experience. This is one of those films. I'll say it it's a conundrum, and it's not because it's too confounding to follow or it necessarily leaves you with too many big, unanswered questions. I just can't think of too many cases where I've watched a movie and my experience with it is such that I'm aware as I'm watching it of a certain scene where I think it's the movie's high point and simultaneously the movie's low point, or the moment where it becomes completely fractured, and that happened here, and I don't want to get to it yet. I wonder if you can speculate and know what's scene you think it is. But what I do think, to echo what you said, Josh from the start, what's ultimately disappointing about this film is that it works a little bit and maybe just enough, on all of those levels individually. You use the word electricity. There is an electric charge to their conversations. Certainly initially when we're learning about their relationship, I felt a little bit like a detective sitting there in the theater, trying to put all these pieces together. Right, What exactly happened to Mary, What is the nature of this relationship in terms of their dynamics. Like we were just discussing, you're trying to put it all together. How far back did they go? All of those things are at play, and it's really fun to think about, and it's fun to listen to them banter with each other, and it was fun for me as well having seen The Christophers, and Chris Klemic alluded to this during our review, it's fun to see MICHAELA. Cole in the opposite side of this two hander, because there are parallels between this film and The Christophers, but she's now in that other side where she's the one that's dominating the relationship and doing all the talking as opposed to being more nonverbal and doing more observation. That's Hathaway here. So there is a charge to those conversation scenes, and I agree there's a charge to those performance scenes too when we get them. I also think there's a charge listening. You know, I'm going to be a sucker for those scenes that are about the creative process. So I got a charge listening to Sam talk about her work and prod Mary about the dress and what she's looking for, and then watching her visions for the dress, and I use visions intentionally. I found it very arresting. For example, the moment when Cole's character turns Sam and sees Mary walking down some stairs. This is just in the barn, the studio, but she sees her in that costume that she made for her famously. We come to learn later it's that Joan of Arc costume. And it's incredible, right, It's just an incredible costume with the white and the blood. And that's how she sees her in that moment. And so those scenes where creativity is treated almost like it's supernatural, that's when the movie is at its most interesting. But I'll say somehow, and I'll try to articulate as best as I can at some point here, But all of that it just never quite coheres for some reason, does it. None of those things truly pay off in a satisfying way.

00:13:58
Speaker 1: I want to return to the idea of creativity as a supernatural force. And maybe it's tied into that scene you're referencing where you enjoyed it, But sounds like things maybe have fallen part a little bit. Both of those elements involve spoilers, probably, so let's save that to the end, and I just want to go back to a few of the things you touched on and the performances here. I think that's the second element that made me finally come out glad again that i'd seen this and appreciative of this movie, because it's not only their dynamic. I think Hathaway is quite good, but for me, Cole is the revelation here, and this is really the only extended work of hers I've had a chance to experience. And the way she carries both of these monologues you already reference to, the one which is about fashion and what they're trying to do, what designing the right dress for the right person, costume really for the right purpose, was just fascinating to hear her go go on this kind of lengthy monologue about it. And then she also has a great monologue about to Mary about a pop star's burden carrying other people's emotions, and you know, this is something that's been commonly understood with the recent like mega concerts we've had in recent years from the likes of Beyonce and Taylor Swift, and just trying to get behind the psychology of these, you know, religious experiences people are having at these concerts, and and this has been one of the things that's that's you know, often pointed out, is that, well, the pop star is channeling these emotions someone feels but doesn't get a chance to maybe express in their daily life, and they're holding that for them. And Sam gets a speech about that that's one of the most succinct yet on point summations of that that I've heard. That was fascinating, And just to hear the back and forth between them on these topics. So the performances are good, and then the other thing is is sort of what I've already mentioned why this movie did have a poll for me, there's electricity in their performances, but otherwise in a lot of the filmmaking, it's almost it's woozy in a way that's entrancing. It It's doesn't make you sleepy, but it makes you feel like you're experiencing some sort of dream or the characters are this could ease. It feels like this is could easily this whole movie could easily be a dream that Mary is having about Sam, or Sam is having about Mary the entire time.

00:16:27
Speaker 2: The logic then makes more sense when you look at it that way, if you apply dream logic, we're doing just fine, right, We're okay.

00:16:36
Speaker 1: So I think that's all of that stuff with which Lowry does sustain throughout the movie that had me on board for it, even if I couldn't quite put all those pieces together, and even if I don't think it came together all the way at the end, I do want to call out one filmmaking moment that was a highlight for me. And there's this sequence where we're starting to understand related again to the burden that Mary carries as a pop star and why she's reached this point of exhaustion one of the reasons. And again we leave the quote unquote stage of this barn, the studio barn, and I don't even know if this is a flashback, if this is a dream a memory, but we see Mary being dressed for a performance backstage, going up some stairs onto the stage. We hear the crowd, and then the door. We're parallel to this. We see her come out the door, which is essentially her coming down the stage. So the camera never leaves or goes quote unquote on stage. It's stain fixed. Mary comes down, completely broken and exhausted from the performance, all her handlers start taking her costume off, and right in front of her is another set of stairs that they dress her again. This is all in one take. I think it's certainly one sequence. They dress her again, she goes up the stairs, same thing. We don't go on stage. Should we see her come down the stairs exhausted. I don't know if it happens a third time, but that was just in terms of the staging and the imagination and the way to capture, you know, that sort of burden that a pop star might carry and how they might feel after it was kind of it was just kind of thrilling to see it envision that way.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: Thrilling is the right word. That's part of that incredible sequence that's maybe about what two thirds of the way through this movie that also includes this this extended take at one point and at various points incorporates different unless I'm thinking of a different scene, Josh. That's that long sequence, right, the main concert sequence that leads up to the moment where we learn about what really happened to her.

00:18:43
Speaker 1: As that course, only remember where it is in relation to that reveal. I feel like it might be distinct from it. I feel like it might be closer to when they're talking again about a pop star carrying the audience's emotions.

00:18:57
Speaker 2: But because you're right my sense of that, because I had something similar in my notes around that portion and what it depicts either way, either in that sequence or later the film itself, what it seems to get right and that wooziness. I like that word, what it captures about that that life of a pop star that obviously I don't understand, but from seeing so many movies and what it imparts to us that experience. Is this idea that you just described of Mary being both within and without her body at all times, it feels like the best way that it could possibly be. It's not something that could be described, certainly not described with words, and the only way it could be done is with imagery like that. And there's a phrase we do here a couple times. I think she says it. I think maybe one of her handlers says it, or maybe it's even Sam, but it's something along the lines of this is what you do, this is what I do. That when you are feeling overwhelmed, when your psyche feels like it's at its endpoint and you can't go on. Somehow you just keep doing it, and the sequence, the stairs, the endlessness of it. Somehow they can keep going through the motions, but go through the motions quite convince they can still keep doing the performance, this loop of performance after performance while still and here's one of those films, right, the Todd Haynes film, while still somehow not being there, still somehow not being fully there as a presence. And that sequence the sequence I'm thinking of where we do finally get a pretty big reveal and where the movie does fully go into immersive concert scene mode and we do get different shots scales in addition to the long take that we get and that immersiveness of the sound that I mentioned and the graininess of different film stock. I mean, lowry is you know, the kitchen sink is, you know, everything is there and it all works. That sequence was where I was I was most thrilled by this film. But Josh, that's also the sequence that I was referring to earlier where I felt like I was riding so high with the film. And I also the more it went on, the more I was acutely aware that the longer I spent in that concert world, the longer I entered that portal and was with this this Mother Mary ghostly versional. Not really, but you know what I mean, this other alter ego version of Mother Mary, not the one that's in the studio with Sam in this vision in the past, in the flashback. The more we're spending with her, and we spend a long time with her, and we barely even cut back to them after spending so much time with them in this play, in this twohander, the more we're with her, the more we're losing our grip on the foundation of this film, the more we're losing our grip on what is the core of this movie, which is their relationship. And so all of these different elements of this movie, there should be this real mystery at the core of them all. There should be these ideas. I think that you're left to consider the art story, the ghost story, the love story, and a movie this bold shouldn't feel so disposable, I guess in terms of there should be more to linger leave you lingering on beyond some of the imagery, and some of the imagery definitely does. And I think I'm thinking as I left the theater, I'm thinking about Coal and Hathaway and Lowry and all of these talented collaborators that they're all working with, and I was legitimately concerned, maybe I miss something. Why does this never cohesively pay off the way I wanted it to? And the only thing I could think of is that there's a precise moment when the love story, the ghost story, and creative feud directly converge, but the film can't supply the connective tissue to hold them together. And it's that moment. It's when it's when we go into the past, and it's when we get the concert scene, and it's when we get the Dublin seance, and the longer we spend in the past, that's when I felt myself. That's when for me, that's when I felt myself disconnecting from the characters and disconnecting it felt myself detaching from the film.

00:23:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, that long sequence where Cole's Sam isn't a part of it because these are Mary's flashbacks. I think your issue with it speaks to is related to the one I have too, where the relationship does get a little left behind there and the relationship, to me is what needed to be explored more in depth beyond there, just back and forth conversation for the movie. You have the weight I think it's going for, but maybe you know, maybe on this question of does it all come together? I think perhaps in the final scene that is what it's going for, and perhaps we can move that way. This is not a spoiler, but I want to talk about because we see this vision fairly early on. But both women, at different points and in different ways, have this vision of this undulating red fabric. Okay, and I want to I want to talk about what you made of that, but I want to do it without having to hold anything back. So I don't know if we're ready to do that yet. And this is enough of a warning for listeners. But how does that sound to just jump into the red ghost fabric? Let's call it.

00:25:05
Speaker 2: I think I think we have said all we need to say about the movie proper. I'm comfortable getting into spoilers, though. I am going to follow your lead because I don't have I don't have a deep take on the red on the Red Jem either, Josh.

00:25:20
Speaker 1: But I have proposals and see if any of these some good. Okay, Yeah, so yes, this is as I said, both women have a vision involving this fabric, and I'm not gonna go into detail explaining in what way or any of that. I'm just going to give you some possible theories. One is related to the just religious iconography wallpapered over this thing, right. I mean, one of Mary's songs is titled Holy Spirit. I think there's a reference at one point to the day of your Pentecost. I think Sam says and Red is you know, the color of Pentecost and the church calendar. We're coming up on Pentecost and a little over a month here, And yeah, I could list the halos in her costumes. I mean, I could go on and on. This is not something I'm placing on the film. This is something the film is placing on itself. So one possibility that Lowry is going for here is that this is some sort of unorthodox understanding of the third person of the Trinity according to Christian doctrine, the Holy Spirit. Exactly what is in the title of Mother Mary's song. That's a possibility. I don't quite know to me where the movie is going with that, beyond gesturing toward it in a way that say Madonna built much of her career on. Maybe that's all it is maybe this is just like the Madonna influence. Maybe there's more to it. That's one reading. This red Fabric is supposed to be an unorthodox version of the Holy Spirit. Okay, let's go for a secular reading. And you already touched on this, And this is the one that I was grasping on to the most until the end, which is simply that the red Ghost is a metaphor for the call and the cost of creativity. Okay, it's just both of them have experienced this in different ways, and this is a metaphorical, even though there's a very funny aside where they say, let's stop talking in metaphors here. So I do think the movie is maybe employing a metaphor or this is the call and the cost of creativity. Last one, and this is the one where I think the movie maybe wants to be and where it fails goes with that final image, which is of Mary being elevated Sam below her, and the fabric leaving. If I'm remembering correctly, Mary and entering Sam. And it's going back to this relationship and the perhaps the persistent spiritual connection between the two women that has existed across their lives together. And has now, to your point about everything coming together met this moment of cohesion that I didn't quite follow. But I think maybe that third option is what the movie's going for.

00:28:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, of those three, maybe the middle one is the most convincing for me, simply because the spirit does take the form ultimately of fabric, and the fabric more so than the music. Here, the fashion is what the creative spirit of the film is. That's what it's all about. Really, what we're talking about when we talk about the artistry of the film, It's not really about her music. It's really about Sam's talent, Sam's art, which is fashion, and what she ends up making that dress out of it all literally becomes a dress, right, It becomes a dress. That's what I'm saying. And I will say that the more I thought about it, just as you sort of dwell on the film, the more I was kind of and I don't even know why. I can't fully explain it, but I was just sort of chuckling to myself about the silliness of that. There's something kind of silly to me about this spirit that the film seemed to be taking so seriously in this haunting and dark and even painful way, right, Remember where the spirit emerges from out of our wounds violently, and and it almost kills her, and she's tormented by it. That's why she shows up to have and she ultimately needs it taken out of her, whether she's prepared to have it taken out of her or not. And and then it it just it really is just this this nice, flowing red satney thing that eventually just comes out and gets turned into address. There was something about that that I found, I don't know, a little a little silly ultimately, but I like that second reading. The thing that complicates the other reading I would throw out is what you said, which is the last image, because you're right that at the end it's outside of them. But it is connecting them, isn't it Isn't it? Isn't it effectively connecting them.

00:30:09
Speaker 1: My memory going from Mary back into Sam perhaps.

00:30:15
Speaker 2: For sure? Is it going back into or is it simply connecting, you know, from outside of their bodies right to each other. Because I was going to say that, going back to the notion of the wound, how it comes out from inside them, it seems to be causing pain. Is it about the cost of talent? And or is it about hanging on to pain? Is it about not being able to let go of bitterness and needing to be able to move on from that in some way, And at the end they have both finally expelled that from themselves.

00:30:56
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think that's I think that is what it is going for, because they have this exorcism together. We have the moment, which I think is nicely handled, where Mary is leaving and says to Sam, I'm sorry, I think three times right. I think she says, you know, we're back to more biblical reference, which is a call back to earlier and in call back to earlier in the film. Yeah, And I thought that was a nice moment, Like it was. It was a sincere you know. So I think you're right. I think that is what I think. This would have been a more cathartic experience if we didn't have to retroactively put these pieces together with the help of each other so many it would have been an epiphany if we had both maybe gotten here in the moment in the film. So this would then not be a puzzle movie. I don't think it wants to be a puzzle movie, sure, but it kind of is and maybe that's one of the ways it's a bit disappointing.

00:31:52
Speaker 2: Let me throw something into the knicks as far as what was the phrase you used about the religio goth What did you say? It was great?

00:32:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, olidio goth gestures.

00:32:04
Speaker 2: The thing that I looked up that I want to have you consider, even though I don't know what to make of it. But if you if you hear my definition, you can't say or what I'm going to quote back to you, you can't say it doesn't it doesn't work with the film. What is do you remember because it's a very distinct name. Do you remember what Sam's last name is? Yeah?

00:32:26
Speaker 1: Anselm. Isn't that an archbishop of Canterbury?

00:32:30
Speaker 2: Right, the Archbishop of Canterbury?

00:32:33
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:32:33
Speaker 2: Okay, So what was the Archbishop of Canterbury known for? This is on your final exam. Josh, yeah, you've got me there.

00:32:41
Speaker 1: Fill me in. I only caught the reference.

00:32:45
Speaker 2: Well, I had to look it up myself. But here I'll read it to you. The originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God based on the idea of an absolutely perfect being. The fact of the idea being in itself a demonstration of existence and the satisfaction theory of atonement or redeption. So two things do unpack there sam Anselm and Mary coming to her and through this dress and through this process of reconnecting and collaborating again seeking forgiveness, which is absolutely what she's doing, and her comeback is absolutely about redemption, is absolutely about atonement. Seems almost certain that is at least a partial explanation for the name, but also this idea of the ontological argument for the existence of God and an absolutely perfect being, the idea being in itself a demonstration of existence. And does what does Mary say about the dresses she doesn't like and the dress she wants and she can't really articulate it other than her say it's not her.

00:34:04
Speaker 3: She needs a.

00:34:05
Speaker 2: Dress that is her, as if there is something there is something that simply encapsulates her being. It feels to me like something there's some kind of tension there with this definition that might be at play.

00:34:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's very possible. And yes, she goes on to say it's or they together they figure out that it's a stripping away of her until she gets to her right like clarity. I think that's where they talk about clarity. So yeah, I mean I think there are more than gestures going on here with the religious references. I think there's definitely been thought put behind each visual iconography that's been chosen and every name that's been referenced. It's probably just gonna mileage is going to vary for every viewer, depends on how much that actually adds up to.

00:34:58
Speaker 2: Well, we would love to hear how your mileage varied. You can let us know because David Lowry's Mother Mary is out now and it's out and wide release, so let us know your thoughts. You can email us feedback at film spotting dot net.

00:35:13
Speaker 1: And a reminder before we sign off that there is more Film Spotting dropping in your feed very soon. We have our summer movie review, the announcement of the nineteen forties Madness Champion, and more coming up on Friday show for Film Spotting. I'm Josh Larson and.

00:35:29
Speaker 2: I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening.

00:35:31
Speaker 3: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. The Barn