Resurrection

Pete Wright
I’m Pete Wright.

Andy Nelson
And I’m Andy Nelson.

Pete Wright
Welcome to The Next Reel when the movie ends.

Andy Nelson
Our conversation begins.

Pete Wright
Resurrection is over. Go carefully, with peace in your heart, with love in your eyes, and with laughter on your tongue. That’s where I’m gonna stop it because lemons and lemonade, that the whole line is just it’s too much

Andy Nelson
But it’s a good line. I actually was like, I should learn that and I should just start saying that to random people.

Pete Wright
Yes. Like at drive-thru?

Andy Nelson
yeah.

Pete Wright
Just when you get your drive-thrus

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
That’s Sonic.

Andy Nelson
Yeah. Pick it pick it up, yeah.

Pete Wright
You probably do Sonic. Yeah. Resurrection, Andy. it’s Ellen Burstyn. We’re filling a hole in our Ellen Burstyn series, and we get charming Ellen Burstyn in the land of the dust bowl as the healer extraordinaire.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
What do you think?

Andy Nelson
Well it’s a it’s an interesting one and I you know it’s I like going back to our Ellen Burstyn series. We haven’t we haven’t added anything to this Since for quite a long time. And I mean Ellen Burstyn is a fantastic actress, and I feel like she is one of those people who I have seen too few of her films. Especially in these early days. You know, I feel like the later work I’ve seen more just because he started popping up in all sorts of things. But I really enjoy what she brings to the table and This was a film I had never heard of before, so I knew nothing about it. I’m I’m gonna be curious to see I want to hear your story as to how you kind of found it and decided you wanted to build it into our list. Because it’s a really interesting one. And honestly, I kind of loved it. And so I am really, really glad that you put it on the list and got me to watch this one.

Pete Wright
Well, so I had never seen it either, and that’s how it ended up on the list. Right? It’s like I was just I was cherry picking things that looked like films we should probably have represented. And so The log line of the film, a woman enters the afterlife briefly after a car crash that kills her husband, but she survives and finds herself possessing strange powers. Now What do you think I thought those strange powers would be?

Andy Nelson
Well, in the in the era of superhero movies, I’m sure you thought that she was gonna be her own little Captain Marvel whizzing around in the skies and taking down enemies.

Pete Wright
Yeah, that’s accurate. I wanted her and I also wanted her to have like a freeze ray. And maybe go invisible. And like that’s a like certainly telepathy. Telepathy or telekinesis is like just a bare minimum fire starter. Drew Barrymore could do it. Why not Burstyn? So I probably went into this with my expectations a little different. What I got was a movie that dances around some religious dogma and expectations and institutions and puts her at the center of what ends up being a sort of microcultural growing to massive like a larger cultural debate. And what does this do to this character who claims none of that mantle, right? That’s the thing that’s interesting about Ellen Burstyn’s performance in this movie. And I have to say, going in, just to get it all out on the table, I don’t usually do well with movies that dance around religious dogma and stuff like that. Like this. This could have gone away that would make this movie deeply unpalatable, but I really don’t like faith healing movies I don’t usually connect with. This movie scared me that it was going to be in that camp. And I think saying that’s what this movie is sells it short And makes it sound much cornier than than it is. But so much of what is not corny about it sits squarely on Ellen Burstyn’s charisma as a performer in this movie. And I and so it’s in there that I kinda waffle about my feelings for the film.

Andy Nelson
Interesting.

Pete Wright
I expected to kind of love it like you. I expected to love it. I don’t hate it. Between the two.

Andy Nelson
Well, it’s an interesting one because you know, in the realm of I mean it of very small subgenre of faith healing films, I feel like most of them are about hucksters, you know, like. Steve Martin and Leap of Faith. You know, it’s it’s it’s these people who put on a show in order to kind of like get money from people. You know, you can even go back to films like Elmer Gantry, which isn’t necessarily faith healing, but it’s the It’s the big, you know, Bible thumping revivalist tent sort of stories. And I was actually curious about that very point. after watching this and I was trying to find some articles or something that talked about when the film came out, like what were the reactions and in general This film kind of seemed to avoid blowback about anything religious one way or the other because of how it was constructed, I think. And there doesn’t seem to be any agenda with what she is doing. And it kind of takes this neutral position. And I think You know, I mean we’re talking about late 70s when everybody was into like there were you know, this is I mean post-60s into the seventies, they’re still talking about psychic auras and near-death experiences and And, you know, those photographs that people would take of your soul, of your spirit or energy, or whatever, all those sorts of things. It was very new agey, kind of the post-hippie sort of thing. And so it’s avoiding all of that. And it just it kind of turns it into something. I mean, some people definitely would say it’s it’s a little soap operatic as far as what it’s doing, but I think largely the way that I read it is it’s it allows her ability to create miracles to be and to kind of heal to be its own thing and The point of the film, as far as what I could see, is that none of these people, like they’re all trying to pin their own explanations onto it, whether it’s Cal based on his father’s religious beliefs and everything, as far as like there’s a number of people kind of pushing to get a religious explanation from this as far as if it if you’re not saying God, then you’re the devil sort of thing. You have doctors who are confused by it. You get into science. And all of these people are trying to figure it out and explain it away. And the film refuses to do that. And I think that’s for me why it ended up succeeding.

Pete Wright
Yeah, I absolutely hear that. And that’s why when you know, and I’m on a talk about Cal specifically because I think Cal represents the biggest problem I had with the movie because that becomes—I don’t know, I was always ahead of Cal and I don’t like processing the character’s emotions before they do. You know, like it just he felt like a leading indicator for what was what was coming and super kinda predictable spiritual fever that he got into. It it feels to me underwritten because He’s deeply in unstable and his entire sort of gestalt is about escalating quickly. And and I recognize that part of that may be the point. But the fact that he doesn’t so much fall in love with Edna as he attaches to the meaning that her gift gives him as a human being is I f I felt the one of the most predictable kind of low hanging fruit characters in the show and I was just or in the film and I was just a little bit distracted by it. He just didn’t seem like a fully developed character. more just blunt instrument than incisive introspective potential for her to bounce off of. Same thing with her father, what really

Andy Nelson
Well, yeah, let’s I mean let’s stick with Cal for a minute because I think there there’s definitely a lot to talk about in that relationship as far as these two people because

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
He is the son of the kind of the crazy religious guy, as as as we find out. And I’m blanking on the crazy religious guy’s name, but we see him confront her at one of her healings and start kind of going on about he’s the one who says, if you’re not even saying God’s name, then you’re the devil Cal is there. Cal kind of like walks out is just like, I don’t want to listen to all this and then talks to her afterward because He had been healed by her, as you were kind of saying. He had been stabbed in a in a bar fight, and she kind of healed him, it sounds like enough to get him to the hospital so that he could be actually saved. And from that point, he I don’t know. I guess I’m curious about this, because I’m I’m a little I also think that there could be more to the way that this the their relationship was constructed. But I’m I’m wondering if there is intent there or not. And so I it’s it’s worth picking at it a little bit because the way that I kind of think that they were trying to do it is less him really ever feeling like he was truly in love with her and just having this draw to her because he was it was a it was this I don’t know. What was it? Like a fascination with with the fact that she saved him and brought him back and he was kind of drawn to this this strange energy? I’m not exactly sure, but he’s you’re right. He never really does seem like he actually is as in love with her as she seems like maybe she is with him. So what is that in the relationship that kind of keeps him and and cause even like he he he keeps going to many of her healings and she tells him at one point, she’s like, I wish you would stop coming to these because you always end up this way. You end up Angry, you don’t want to talk, and you just you you he like it clearly bothers him seeing her do this sort of stuff And so I think that’s the line. And for me, the way that the film is constructed is she is absolutely a steadfast character in our story. She is one who has her beliefs and keeps practicing them and is changing those around her. And he is our change character as the antagonist of the film. He’s the one who ends up changing over the course of it. And it’s that perpetual battle he has of Can I really be drawn to this woman, or am I going to fall back to the beliefs of my father? Which he does, because he ends up pulling out his Bible and finding obscure passages that he uses against her. and decides this is why I’m gonna come after you sort of thing. And so I don’t know, I guess does that help at all? Does that confuse things?

Pete Wright
You’re describing m exactly how where I sit with this character. Like i it is it feels like this is what I what do they call it? It’s the it’s that is it like survivor attachment where you know, people who fall in love with their nurses and doctors after they’ve been, you know, m saved from a horrible crash, right? The paramedic who pulls you out of the car or the firefighter who pulls you out of the car, you suddenly you have an immediate attachment to them. That’s that is what I was reading into this relationship. Right. She saves Cal just enough, and he develops an attachment that is based on her ability, not her character. you know, maybe that is the underwritten part that they’re that they they never say the quiet part out loud. They barely say the quiet part at all. And the quiet part is the part that is deeply non-spiritual, the part that is he’s broken because he’s misattributing his relationship with her for a spiritual You know, he’s trying to put spiritual labels on it because that’s the only grammar he understands. And the film there thereby misses the deeply human problem. that comes with these sort of survivor attachment disorders. It’s sort of maladaptive behavior disorder. And I think that I think the movie is kind of less than for it. It makes it a little bit too easy.

Andy Nelson
It’s interesting because I guess I’m not seeing it as being too easy. In i in some ways it feels very 70s where it’s, you know, it’s definitely of the era where it’s not gonna give you easy explanations.

Pete Wright
Yeah

Andy Nelson
And it’s just It’s just putting stuff out there and we just are kind of reading in whatever it is that we’re gonna read into it and maybe that’s an element of It’s era where it’s just gonna give you enough to kind of take what you will out of what they’re giving us.

Pete Wright
Yeah, that’s a good point. And and the and the bigger complication is that Sam Shepard I’m a fan, right? I really enjoy Sam Shepard, and I think again you talk about charisma on screen, like the guy exudes it, and I also think this the character is for me Yeah, I’ll call it underwritten. I’ll stand by that, but I think your point stands that he might be underwritten in a distinctly 70s, you’re on your own kind of way.

Andy Nelson
I think that might be it. And and also, I mean, you know, I mean Sam Shepard is one of those actors who is a close to your chest sort of performer where you’re not going to get much from him anyway, you know? I mean, look at this, look at Days of Heaven, especially in this era. I mean, we’re seeing a very quiet sort of performance. I mean he he I mean he’s playing a brash kind of small town hooligan sort of character, long-haired character who’s just running around causing problems, fighting in bars. And I think that yeah, it kind of pushes it pushes at these buttons in his life because I mean he is somebody who’s grown up with this crazy reverend of a father who I mean when When Edna first comes to town, she’s she’s kind of hanging out with her huge like the brood, as she said, this huge family of of hers that she hardly knows anybody. She’s talking to her cousin, played by Lois Smith, who’s always great to see. who’s kind of filling her in on who everybody is and she’s she’s the one who’s like, Oh, the wi they moved to town recently. The wife is really nice, but watch out for him ’cause he is this crazy rel religious reverend guy who’s kind of hi his own s r kind of spiritual beliefs that he pushes on everybody. That’s what Cal grows up with. And so it’s interesting to think that this is really the first opportunity he’s probably had in his life to kind of like Think outside of his dad’s box.

Pete Wright
Absolutely. And his dad, again, you talk about characters who just sort of lean into the trope that his dad is the is the one. And was it surprising? I mean, I I part of the area I struggle is that his demand for her was that she acknowledge it was God, right? And that becomes kind of the father-son unity debate, right? Acknowledge that this power that you have is a gift from God. And that’s why they wanted to throw her out because she wouldn’t. I couldn’t rationalize that.

Andy Nelson
Well, in the world of religion, and I you know, I think our backgrounds are probably different because I don’t think you grew up going to church I grew up going to church and it’s I mean, I was never going to like these crazy sorts of churches, but I think that there’s something about when you talk to people who have these fervent, fervent beliefs. If you’re not saying one thing and you’re doing something like this, then it seems like a sign that you’re On the side of the other, you know? And I mean it’s like The Handmaid’s Tale, right? It’s people who pull things from the Bible and they they take these passages and they warp it into something to mean something for themselves. And I think that’s what Cal’s father does. I think that he is saying, like, you refuse to say that it’s God. Therefore, and he pulls some I can’t even remember what quote he pulls from the Bible, but something about how that means the devil is gonna come and is gonna Create these miracles and all this sort of stuff. And I think that’s exactly what how these sort of these this mentality operates is they pull these things out. to sell their to sell their beliefs and to to make it something that they can buy into.

Pete Wright
Right. Absolutely true to form. That’s that’s what the character certainly does. I think it I think it supports my w view of the film that becomes kind of the one note right predictable sort of approach from these guys. It is frustratingly binary and m maybe it’s because my experience with going to church was in one of those l the less as an adult where the doctrine was very like we go always, we welcome everybody, no judgment, no l no doctrine, like everybody can stand up and do the thing and we’re very chill. a and that church still fell apart when the minister was arrested. Like it right?

Andy Nelson
Oh yeah.

Pete Wright
Like it’s kinda hard not to see what those what what doctrine in inevitably led to.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
And that’s kind of where the movie sort of traps itself. But again, it is around Burstyn, who is decidedly a religious in this movie, right?

Andy Nelson
Well, that’s what I was going to say. Because I mean I can see your point. about how these elements are kind of one-sided, but you can say the same thing about the scientists, right?

Pete Wright
Yes

Andy Nelson
Each of these different viewpoints that are coming at her are coming from their own worldview, which I think by the nature of this story are going to be binary. But it’s not just a battle of the religious beliefs against this. We also have the scientists who are are putting her in a lab and trying to figure out can you bend light and all of this sort of stuff and they do this this healing in fr in front of a crowd that felt very much like the old, you know, seventeen hundreds, you know, doctor’s labs where they had the doctor in the center showing all the people how to use the or, you know, cut w into the cadavers and all that.

Pete Wright
Yeah. We’re about to take out an appendix.

Andy Nelson
Exactly.

Pete Wright
That’s what it yeah.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, it felt exactly.

Pete Wright
Don’t worry about sterile stuff.

Andy Nelson
That’s right. It felt totally like that And then you also have like the doctors who are perpetually confused about what she’s doing. And I mean it’s it’s there’s not as much pushback from the doctors. They’re usually just scratching their heads like, I have no explanation for this.

Pete Wright
Right.

Andy Nelson
Like that’s basically all we get from doctors over and over. But I think that’s I think that the story isn’t about the binary side of the people who are pushing at her. I think the story is about her and what she’s doing and how these different binary things are kind of unable to unable to see past their own simple one-sided beliefs

Pete Wright
Well, and I think that’s that’s actually interesting because you’re right, the scientists are head scratching, but that is a decidedly non-binary response. Not understanding something is different from taking a position on something. And I think that’s that is the movie’s answer to the binary experience on the on the religious side. It’s We’re gonna paint the religious side as doctrinal and the scientific side as dumb. They’re not gonna be able to figure it out. Right. That’s that’s gonna be the mystery. And in between the two is gonna be this person who also doesn’t understand it and doesn’t need to.

Andy Nelson
And that’s that’s the message of the film. It’s like these sorts of things happen. Why is there this two-headed snake that is born? No idea. I mean I’m I’m

Pete Wright
Why didn’t she heal the two-headed snake and make it live forever? Because that would have been dope.

Andy Nelson
We never see her heal the dog, but I’m sure she did at some point.

Pete Wright
I’m sure she healed the dog.

Andy Nelson
We just off screen because cause Clancy certainly gets a little more pep. in his step after he starts hanging out with her. So but yeah, I mean it’s it is interesting like the what this the story is saying about like Things happen. Like these things are out there where you’re gonna have randomly a two-headed snake is gonna be born. It’s it’s just like that’s the way the world works. Is there always an explanation? No. And and you just have to kind of go with that and everything. And I think that’s what I for me made this work because of how the story is from her perspective. looking at these sorts of things as you know what there’s really no scientific explanation for this. The sci I mean, we leave the scientific story before it really kind of it’s able to go too much farther, but I mean it’s clear they have no explanation. Every time they see her do something, they’re just looking at like, what the heck? How do we explain this? And that’s where we kind of leave them. Same thing with the religious people. Like no one can really explain it. And and she’s just like, it’s just I it’s just love. Love is all you need.

Pete Wright
It’s just that love is all you need.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
That’s that’s the whole thing.

Andy Nelson
The Beatles had it right.

Pete Wright
And the punctuation on the end of the film, the fact that she exists for however long the runtime is. and isn’t able to satisfy anyone’s needs except for the people who she heals.

Andy Nelson
Seventy percent

Pete Wright
Right, right. and Lois Smith, who I would watch actually in the title role of this film also because she is wonderful, she is she essentially self-exiles.

Andy Nelson
She’s so great. Yeah.

Pete Wright
In at the last chance, she takes over and just pumps gas with her dead two headed snake. What is the movie saying? about putting Edna Mae in the gas station to age out and eventually die

Andy Nelson
Well let’s let’s talk about that in a minute. First, let’s take a quick break

Pete Wright
Nice tea, Sandy.

Andy Nelson
But first you can find the show on YouTube and you can join us live when we record. We’ll even take your questions in the post-show chit-chat, and members get the full post-show conversation and always know what to listen to next. Subscribe to The Next Reel on YouTube. The link to this episode is in the show notes. We’ll be right back.

Pete Wright
All right, so what do you think? What does her exile mean to her character path?

Andy Nelson
It’s funny. When Richard Farnsworth shows up early in the film who I just always love and he is just great in this small but very memorable role as this guy who owns a gas station called Last chance gas. I just loved that. And he is, you know, in the middle of nowhere. He’s got this two-headed snake. Their conversation was so sh kind of like simple and touching and there was such a connection there. that I knew at the end when she drove off that she would end up at that gas station. I didn’t realize we were gonna cut to like seven or eight years later after he had gone off to Machu Picchu and who knows retired, passed away. We don’t we have no idea. But she’s kind of taken over the role and is now this A crazy haired lady kind of in the middle of nowhere running this gas station. What I love about that is she pulled herself away from all the people who were tugging at her shirt sleeves, trying to get her to say, This is the power of God, say this is to prove that there is some scientific explanation for all of this. She stepped away from all of that and found a place for herself where she could just be and exist. And when the opportunity arises, still use her powers to help those who need it. in ways where they may not even know that they had just been cured by a miracle and a miracle worker. And I think that’s what I took from it is she wanted to be in a place where she just wasn’t getting all the pushback and all the confrontation all the time for people and found a place that was that let her be who she was with somebody. I mean I’m assuming that they spent some time working together, she and and is it Esco, and that they kind of create this this safe space for her to do what she needs to do in a in a simpler, quieter way. That’s how I kind of took it.

Pete Wright
The final scene is my favorite scene in the movie, and I like it because it recontextualizes the first time we experience. with Esco. The first time we meet Esco, he gives her something that she needs to be able to rebuild her life after a absolute tragedy. In a way, maybe he has his own ability, right? Maybe he doesn’t take, you know, physical illness away from someone, but he certainly has an ability to take grief from someone to take something that is in the way of this person. This is their last chance to figure out how to heal and grow, whatever. And he he does that for her. He does that for her before she goes back to her old family. And somehow she’s able to thrive in a way there, in her way there. in spite of many obstacles, and then eventually she runs into some that make her make a change. But what is beautiful about it is she chooses to take that gift and become the last chance for others. And I think that looping mechanism is my favorite thing in the movie. First of all, headcanon, I love Richard Farnsworth having some sort of a superpower. Like that’s amazing and that needs to be the truth But the fact that we get her becoming the thing that he was to her for a child, for someone else, for whoever, right? I think that is a lovely lovely way to cap this movie and to cap the movie which is which you know otherwise I think is is has kind of a It’s not it’s not for me. This was not a movie for me, and yet those sequences are absolutely for me. I thought that was just beautiful.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, I absolutely I it’s hard to disagree with how great those two sequences are. Like they play so beautifully in the film. I mean and they’re they’re just wonderful little touches that I think speak so much to perhaps the way she takes on her view of the world, right? Like when she’s talking to her grandma, Pearl She says, Oh, we stopped at this gas station and he had a sign or there was this sign up that he said and clearly she thinks a lot about that sign about the message, like it was God is love and versa vice, I think, is is what the sign said. And All of those little details that stuck in her head helped kind of create her worldview. And I think that’s really what we get out of that. that whole place. And I think it’s interesting to see how much she is touched by it. And then just going back to her father, which is an interesting relationship in our story, because his reaction as they drive away is like. Well, that guy was a strange one. You know, like i he’s just he is instantly dismissive of any of that connective power that Esco had with with Edna.

Pete Wright
Yeah. Yeah, I mean that I don’t know, I feel like that’s the there’s a movie buried in here. that is the movie that lives up to Burstyn’s performance and those relationships. And the rest of the movie, she’s better than the movie for me. She is she is more compelling than the than the rest of the movie.

Andy Nelson
That’s so interesting. I don’t know. I just find the relationships, everything in this film to be so strong and so everything drew me in. I it just it really worked for me. Can we talk a little bit about her relationship with her dad? Because that’s a it’s it’s an interesting relationship. Her dad is always fairly reserved. You know, when he first When we first meet him, it’s when she has woken up in the hospital and she is there and this is Roberts Blossom who is a great face. I always think of him in close encounters. But you can tell like he was never really sure of her and her husband. We haven’t really talked about Jeffrey DeMunn, who’s of kind of a shock to see him as such a young man. I’m used to seeing him in kind of like the Green Mile Walking Dead era of his career. So it was nice to see him as her husband at the beginning of the film. But he dad already seemed like he wasn’t a huge fan of her husband. wasn’t a fan that they moved to California. He’s trying to say, you know, hey, if you need time you can come back home, but kind of doesn’t seem like he wants her to. And then he and then she says, yeah, I will, and she comes back home and And he’s kind of okay with it while she needs help. But once she kind of figures out this healing ability and what she can do and she kind of heals her own legs so that she can start walking again and starts healing people. He instantly has has issues with her. And one of the first things he says is like, Well, I suppose this means you’re gonna be leaving soon. Like he’s just really dismissive. And over the course of the story, it’s always this this push back that he gives her and seems to like as it comes out later She had gotten pregnant when she was young and he forced her to have an abortion. And when they did that, it like destroyed her uterus and so she could never have babies after that. And And he’s always judged her and thought of her as kind of a harlot. And I don’t know. you know, i all the way up through the kind of the end where he is is dying. I mean, how what how do you read the relationship in what it’s doing for the story here?

Pete Wright
Well it’s y you know, it’s interesting, and I almost wonder if the movie I think Cal gets in the way of the relationship with her and her father that is m that is, I think, has more to say, right? Because She doesn’t just have an ability.

Andy Nelson
Wait, wait. You think we sorry, you think Cal has more to say or her the

Pete Wright
No, I think the relationship between her and her father is a richer playground for i you know, for deciphering the m the mysteries of human relationships, particularly father and child. The fact that she can heal bodies, she can take pain, she can heal herself from paralysis, like she can do all this. but she cannot reach the old damage, the old rot that exists in her fat between her father and her. That I think is a really compelling vector for approaching the duality of her existence is somebody who has this fantastic ability for others and can’t touch themselves, right? This relationship with her dad. it’s so much more than a story of some supernatural ability and I find it actually really touching. It it near the end, you know, what is he reacting from? or re is he reacting from the simple place of you know, oh, y you’re not calling what you have a gift from God, so get out. I don’t no, he’s not. He’s reacting from this place of, I don’t understand my own child. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to understand my own child, and nothing that she does or has experienced aligns with my expectation as a father, what I thought I was gonna get. w in my kid. Every turn has been something that I haven’t been able to internalize and make normal and rational in my life. And now I’m an old man. and I’m sick and I’m dying and I still don’t have it. And that is so supremely sad and such rich territory, I think, for the movie And it’s so much more rich than you better call it God, or else you’re you’re damned.

Andy Nelson
Well, all right. I how does it well I already know how you feel about the cow side of the story.

Pete Wright
All right.

Andy Nelson
What does it how does it does it change anything for you, the fact that it’s not just her that he has issues with? He clearly had he he it’s clearly a him problem.

Pete Wright
Oh yeah, a lot of him problems.

Andy Nelson
Mom had issues with dad because he dad would never talk, and so she kind of withdrew herself and kind of like w just became somebody who she wasn’t until she finally died. Their son also was could feel the push from dad and that’s why he went off to fight in Vietnam and ended up getting killed over there. And now the one that is left who has been left, I don’t know how long ago mom died. I mean, obviously grandma is around, mom’s mom. And so there’s still a source of love for her there, but with dad It’s it’s just an issue that he’s always had with it seems to be everybody. Does that does that make it more of a struggle for you when it’s not just her that he that it’s a specific issue with?

Pete Wright
That sounds like a leading question, Andy. Do you have a problem with that? What do you think about it?

Andy Nelson
I think that it speaks a lot about his inability to to find ways to deal with people and to communicate with people and and always is is pushing against them for I mean, it was interesting to him it was interesting to me to see him as soon as she wasn’t needing him anymore. That was when he’s he kind of put the walls up again. It was just like, well, I guess you’re leaving again. You don’t you don’t need me around anymore. It’s a very I don’t know the personality type that you’d say, but it’s it’s it’s a type of personality that probably dealt with a lot of feeling not needed and now just feels like, you know, he’s he’s hurt again because he’s not needed again. And he probably felt that through all of his relationships. And it’s interesting because it’s not until that final moment between father and daughter when he kind of does need her and she helps him. understand what to expect with the afterlife, which does kind of help him as far as seeing the light and being able to kind of like pass over it a more peaceful sort of way. But I think that’s that’s I think just a general fear in his life of people leaving him and people closing themselves off to him. And so he just puts the wall up first. So I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem necessarily a problem. I think it’s an interesting element to his character that allows for a richer and more complicated relationship as opposed to just strictly a father-daughter problem. Like this is a man who’s always had problems and has never been able to figure himself out. Clearly not somebody who ever went to counseling.

Pete Wright
No, no, he never did. BetterHelp.com. anyway. no, he is i you know, because it I what is he what does he want, right? What does he want out of it? He strikes me as somebody who just has some deep control issues and he doesn’t seem terribly grandiose. Like he’s not a very big personality. He just seems shut down behind some You’re right, big walls, right? He’s super rigid and probably deeply emotionally stunted and inexperienced, and he has organized his entire life. around withholding from others. For what? I don’t know. I don’t know. Affection? Apology? Any sort of softness or or recognition? Like all of that is is unavailable. Like Edna comes home with this by all other words, impossible gift And yet this old family system is still there waiting for her. It is unresolved family trauma. And that’s I’m I mean in from from a narrative perspective it’s why the dad relationship is so useful because it is something absolutely relatable in family systems. Like you don’t have to go very far to find somebody who has somebody in their family who is who who has some of these traits. it is relatable. reunions are tough. And so he stands out as a non-metaphysical signpost in this movie. That relationship, as confusing as it is because of who he is, wow, is it grounded in a family dynamic that I think a lot of people relate to?

Andy Nelson
Yeah, and I it’s interesting that he does still I mean, I couldn’t quite get a sense of the scope of their property, but it seems like he still lives there with his deceased wife’s mother, Pearl, Eva Le Gallienne, I think is how you say her last name.

Pete Wright
Weird relationship.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, I mean, I’m assuming grandma just lives there because She’s older and he’s taking care of her. But it doesn’t seem like there’s any closeness there either, right? I mean it we don’t we don’t see them being like pushing back against each other at all. It just seems like they live together and that’s kind of the end of it.

Pete Wright
Yeah, we don’t see them in concert either.

Andy Nelson
Right. There’s nothing. There’s literally like no connective tissue between them at all, which is fascinating. And so I Yeah, it’s it plays in a very interesting way where it just seems like small town mentality where things are just gonna go on as they always have and there not gonna be any pushback against it. And and Edna changes all of that because she she creates such a whirlwind of change everywhere she goes with with all these healings that she’s doing. And I think that throws Dad into a place where he just can’t He doesn’t understand it, but also she’s clearly so much more than he is. And but it’s interesting because the real issue that ends up driving them apart again is the fact that she is with Cal. And he views that again as She’s living in sin. Sh he doesn’t say living in sin, but he’s just like he’s assuming that it’s gonna lead to where she was before, you know, where she ended up pregnant and all of that and views her in such a d diminishing way of of to the point of belittling her because she’s just you know, having a relationship. I’m I guessing outside of marriage, I’m not exactly sure even what his his gripe is, but especially because it seems like she and Cal had been together for a while. Like I don’t know how much time has passed, but clearly time is passing. I mean We get to a point where she’s walking around without even a cane, so

Pete Wright
Oh, time passed, yeah. It’s been a long time. Yeah, I hope it’s not that simple. You know, that would be, I think, maybe disappointing that he’s just grumpy because they’re together out of wedlock.

Andy Nelson
Well what how do you read that? How do you read it? Like why is he why did is or is it just bringing back the feelings that he had when she did get pregnant?

Pete Wright
Yeah, I think so. I think I have to I kind of believe that’s where that’s where his his head and his heart are, you know, that it’s just it’s trauma he’s never been able to let go. Because yeah, I mean that’s all he is. He’s just a raw nerve of calcified experiences that he doesn’t understand. And any reminder of those things just bring up, you know, scratch old wounds.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, yeah. It is interesting that when she does that final like big healing in front of the scientists where she heals somebody who has some sort of a palsy or something, dystonia, I guess is what it is. It really puts her out where she’s actually like in a hospital bed unconscious for several days. At which time, the only other miraculous thing that’s that is in her story that it doesn’t relate to healing happens. But she sees that her father is dying. How do you read that?

Pete Wright
is that the oh man, I haven’t really I didn’t really pull that apart as I was thinking about the film. I’d kinda I guess I’d let go of the thread before I got back to that I is that a part of her ability to to finally attach to him? Is that her ability to say, look, I can I can finally get through old family system trauma? and see our shared pain is the I don’t know. How do you read it?

Andy Nelson
I’m not sure either. I it was a very interesting and a kind of surprising moment where I guess the way that I interpreted it is we know that she is somebody who has danced with the afterlife. She’s gone into this this place visually shot really interestingly where it’s kind of dark with kind of light shooting through kind of a smoky thing directly at us with figures from her past, all there, in the sense kind of welcoming her to the afterlife is kind of what it plays as. Like she sees these people that she last saw when she was two and a half years old, as her as her grandma tells her. Like there’s no way you would remember those people. The way that I read it is simply that She sees her father in that space as if he’s just about to cross over. And Because of the timing of having done that healing that put her back into essentially, I guess, a near-death coma where she kind of goes back into that afterlife space. That’s why she kind of is in a place where she kind of like connects with her father’s soul that is close to going there at that point. I don’t know. I guess that’s kind of how I read it.

Pete Wright
And that’s where, I mean, this this is definitely speaking y using the vernacular of 70s near-death experience kind of parapsychology. And I you know, it’s it’s interesting and I’m not a student of near death experiences. You know, I’ve only done sort of cursory interviews with folks over the years, but It it’s interesting or it would be interesting, I think, to look at the interpretation of this movie now after, you know, forty plus years of people writing about near-death experiences and how well the film captures w what could be interpreted as as a modern look at you know, what people experience. I i it still feels super seventies to me, the sort of visual again, the visual language of of the light. And so I don’t know.

Andy Nelson
It’s a little different than Carol Ann’s light, I guess.

Pete Wright
Yeah. Right.

Andy Nelson
either way.

Pete Wright
Yeah, I this there’s no this isn’t a gooey light. Carol Anne’s light was gooey. Had more of a residue.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, there’s a little more to it. Well, it is a really fascinating film. I I think it’s it’s saying a lot, but I think it’s doing it in a fairly simple way where Again, I I appreciated that it wasn’t pushing to try finding a way to kind of explain it all away It just made it something that, again, as she says, God is love and versa vice. So it’s like God is love, love is God. And that’s essentially the extent of her belief. It’s just like This is just something that I can do now and I’m just gonna do it because I wanna help people and that’s kind of it. And I think that By by putting that message out there, it was actually just really it made for a story that allowed it to sidestep all of the pushback from the kind of the religious fervor. viewpoints of it. And I think that’s what I appreciated about it so much. So yeah. For me it worked. It played really well.

Pete Wright
Yeah, I get it. And this is it’s hard to write a review about a movie that I feel so sort of just straight down the middle on. Th the bottom line is I find Ellen Burstyn fantastic. I just I just like her so much. And I struggle with so many of the little little pieces that orbit her, but the pieces that stand out, Ellen Burstyn, the last chance model, and her relationship with her her dad. exploring family grief, I think, really stand out and make this movie more than than what it could have been. And it didn’t end with her having a tumor that’s changing her brain You know, I mean it could have been John Travolta phenomenon all the all the way down.

Andy Nelson
Did you think when she got shot? that the powers were gonna go away.

Pete Wright
Yeah, of course. I’m glad they didn’t.

Andy Nelson
It seems to be kind of a trope in this sort of story where, you know, something happens to you again and oh, now they’re gone.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
I had my I had my time.

Pete Wright
Got a bonk on a head, you can fly.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
Get hit again.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, right, right.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
I was a little worried about that. So I’m glad I really, as you said, I mean it ended in the absolutely most perfect way possible. Like I just I could not get enough of that ending. It was so good.

Pete Wright
Yeah, yep, for sure.

Andy Nelson
What do you know about our director, Daniel Petrie? Is he a director you’re familiar with very much?

Pete Wright
No, no, I am not a student of Petrie.

Andy Nelson
I I let’s dish on Petrie, Pete. This is called the Petri dish.

Pete Wright
Did you did you do that just now?

Andy Nelson
I’m the one who would.

Pete Wright
Out loud? Like recorded

Andy Nelson
Yeah, yeah. I’ve seen Cocoon: The Return. I’ve seen that But I’ve never seen any other f I’ve heard of plenty of films that Petrie has directed. you know, a directing career in film from 60 nineteen sixty to nineteen ninety seven and then with T V before that starting in nineteen fifty all the way up through the two thousands. So

Pete Wright
Let’s just say an an extraordinary filmography

Andy Nelson
Yeah, yeah. Sybil is probably the other film that is a TV movie that I’m most familiar with.

Pete Wright
Yes

Andy Nelson
That was one my mom was c watched a lot. I don’t know, she seemed obsessed with it. And maybe is why like I think of her like have a connection between my mom and Sally Field because she just like that movie I think just she really, really liked it.

Pete Wright
I agree with that. My my parents were or or my I should say my dad in particular was a Marcus Welby, M.D. fan.

Andy Nelson
Oh, okay.

Pete Wright
And so I know that was it, but this was all of the films, even like films that I’ve seen, like A Raisin in the Sun, the his 1961 A Raisin in the Sun. I do I was not tracking at the time I saw that Daniel Petrie as the director. Like I have no I was not d retaining w what he was doing as a as a filmmaker when I saw that film. So this is effectively my first.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, I just very unfamiliar with any mo almost all of his career. So certainly somebody I’m curious about though. I know Lifeguard has kind of gotten a little bit of buzz lately with some re-releases and stuff. So as you said, raising the sun. So I mean I’m I’m curious to check out more, but I just I know very little about about Petrie. Anything else we want to talk about as far as like how it was shot or anything?

Pete Wright
Well, I’m actually you know, I mean so much of the film takes place in you know, this was Texas standing in for Kansas. And, you know, these are my people, Andy. Like I go to reunions and I go to places like this.

Andy Nelson
It it feels like this, yeah.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, because you’re Oklahoma, it feels it so you have got the same sort of yeah.

Pete Wright
It yeah. There’s a there’s a vibe.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
So I’m actually curious how well you thought this this captured it. I’ll I will tell you from my experience as a child. running around in places like this, getting wet in things called a crick, swinging on tire swings, catching craw ads. Like this this is what these experiences looked like. This felt very home turf to me. Captured well.

Andy Nelson
Same with me. I mine was a mountain town, but but still it was same vibe, these huge, huge gatherings, less oxygen, stronger lungs.

Pete Wright
Oh yeah. Same vibe though. Less oxygen.

Andy Nelson
but yeah, these these big gatherings of of all sorts of family and friends that we would often have and just kind of that vibe of of the little town gossip and all of that sort of stuff was very much the same sort of thing. So I loved the feel of this whole thing. I really kind of bought into this world and I think that it was fantastic. I really, of all of it though, I really, again, going back to that gas station, I don’t know where that gas station was. I don’t know if it was also in Texas, but it was just a fantastic little location that they had. It felt very southwest.

Pete Wright
It feels like they would not have built that.

Andy Nelson
No, it felt real.

Pete Wright
Today they would have built that.

Andy Nelson
It felt like a great little place, so Yes

Pete Wright
Yeah. Today it would be in the volume. Yeah. yeah, there there’s a lot of of solid texture here that I think Petrie and team captured. I thought it was I thought it was solid.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, yeah. The look, the production design, everything worked really well. So all right. Well, let’s move into the back half, but first let’s take a quick break.

Pete Wright
The Next Reel is a production of TruStory FM, engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Tzabutan, Veaceslav Draganov, Oriol Novella, and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at The-Numbers.com, BoxOfficeMojo.com, IMDb.com, and Wikipedia.org. Find the show and our full archive at TruStory.fm You can follow us from there too, plus you can find out how to become a member and go further with every episode. Check out our merch store at TheNextReel.com/merch, and if your app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show. Alright, sequels and remakes, Andy. Have you have you digested it all?

Andy Nelson
I was actually kind of surprised about this, but I mean I guess I wasn’t surprised about the fact that there was a novel novelization made.

Pete Wright
Okay.

Andy Nelson
No surprise there. But there was a TV movie remake of this. 1999 directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. Stephen Gyllenhaal, we know about his children. Dana Delany was the star of that one I didn’t see that one, did you?

Pete Wright
No, Dana Delany, she was she which one was she? ER?

Andy Nelson
Wasn’t she China Beach?

Pete Wright
Ch was she China Beach? What was f she was she had a big show. She was China Beach. She did do China Beach. Wasn’t she was that her big show?

Andy Nelson
I thought that was her big show. She was also in Desperate Housewives.

Pete Wright
True?

Andy Nelson
But but China Beach was the one that she was like one of the leads in.

Pete Wright
I never watched China Beach and I thought I knew her from something else.

Andy Nelson
Sixty two episodes she was in, so I mean that was that was kind of her show

Pete Wright
Wow.

Andy Nelson
She was also Lois Lane in Superman: The Animated Series. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.

Pete Wright
Forty-four episodes sounds like her show, too.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, so anyway.

Pete Wright
I could have sworn. I just could have sworn she was on a medical show. I guess not.

Andy Nelson
I don’t know. I don’t know.

Pete Wright
Medical or a law show. I don’t know. Was China Beach one of those? Maybe that’s what I’m thinking of.

Andy Nelson
It was a medical show, weren’t they all doctors?

Pete Wright
I d I never watched it. I don’t know. In fact, I you’re telling me China Beach, it feels like I’ve never even heard of it. I’m just making you’re just making it up.

Andy Nelson
They’re set it’s set at an evacuation hospital during the Vietnam War.

Pete Wright
No idea.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, so it was a medical show. So look at look at you.

Pete Wright
Okay.

Andy Nelson
You knew it and you didn’t even know it.

Pete Wright
All right. I didn’t even know it. Okay. Sixty-one episodes Okay, well, there you go. How to do it award season

Andy Nelson
Did okay for herself. Three wins with nine other nominations. At the Oscars, Ellen Burstyn was nominated for Best Actress, but lost to Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner’s Daughter. And Eva Le Galliennene was nominated for Best Supporting Actress as Grandma Pearl, but lost to Mary Steenburgen in Melvin and Howard. At the Saturn Awards, nice to see that this was caught the attention of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror awards. Ellen Burstyn was nominated for Best Actress, but lost to Angie Dickinson in Dressed to Kill Again, Eva Le Galliennene was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Eve Brent in Fade to Black. It was nominated for Best Writing, but lost to the Ninth Configuration and Best Music, but lost to Somewhere in Time. At the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival it won the Special Jury Award and was nominated for the Grand Prize but lost to the Elephant Man. Burstyn again was nominated at the Golden Globes for Best Actress in a Drama, but lost to Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People. At the National Board of Review, Eva Le Galliennene won Best Supporting Actress, and it was put into the top ten films of the year. Last but not least, at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Again, Eva Le Galliennene nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but lost again to Mary Steenburgen in Melvin and Howard. So yeah, it it had a good run, a lot of recognition.

Pete Wright
It it had attention.

Andy Nelson
It did have attention, indeed.

Pete Wright
Did that attention lead to anything good at the box office? Everything I’ve read about how this movie was released is that it was a confused release. How to do this.

Andy Nelson
Well, for Petrie’s drama fantasy, he had a budget of six million, or twenty-three million, in today’s dollars. The movie opened September 26, 1980, opposite In God We Trust, or Gimme That Primetime Religion, and the limited release of Gloria. The film landed in third place at the box office. It could never quite find its audience, though, only earning back $3. 9 million at the box office or $15 million in today’s dollars. That unfortunately lands the film with an adjusted loss per finish minute of almost 78,000. Too bad for this one, but at least it was recognized with some nominations and liked by the critics. What did you see? What did you see as far as its release, though?

Pete Wright
Well, that they that it was initially released, they they thought this is gonna definitely gonna be a Bible Belt movie. And it turns out the Bible Belt did not show up for this movie. So they said, okay, wait a minute Now it’s going to be a an indie prestige film. Let’s open it in LA and New York and try and get get people to show up as as a different kind of film. And I it sounds like by then it was just too late. Like it just missed its own window. And I think it highlights how hard it is to categorize this film and make it something that you can just say, oh, go see this movie because it’s a movie about what?

Andy Nelson
Yeah. And it’s interesting that this was still the era where they would say, let’s open in the Bible belt first, and then like it like no longer do you have like those localized releases, stuff like that. That’s interesting.

Pete Wright
Yeah. Yeah. So I think it w I think it struggled and I think, you know, you s what you s say well you see in the box office is exactly the result of of not understanding what this film is and that it definitely has a you know, filmmakers and a cast with things to say and it really struggled to figure out how to connect.

Andy Nelson
Did you watch the trailer? I didn’t look at the trailer. I’m curious if it’s one of those projects that also just had a trailer that didn’t know how to sell it.

Pete Wright
Yeah. I did not watch the trailer, but I same thing. I’m fascinated to to see what was the pitch they were making. I wonder, did the trailer change? when they change strategies too.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the critics did seem to like it, so it’s not like the critics were able to sell audiences on it either, so Oh well. Well, I really loved it. I had a great time with it. I loved the story. I loved the characters. I loved the journey. And for me, it was a great addition to this series. So even if it wasn’t something that struck you quite as well, I’m glad that you added it to our list.

Pete Wright
Yeah, I mean I appreciate it. Absolutely appreciate it. It’s not the ideology of the film the It it’s not a film for me, but I have a lot that I appreciate ab about what was going on in it and the performances. And so I’m glad it’s on the list too.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, absolutely. All right, well that is it for our conversation about Resurrection. Next week, we return to our Zhang Yimou series for more entries, starting with his 1994 film. To live, an epic family drama following a Chinese family across decades of turbulent history, from Civil War through the Cultural Revolution. And now let’s do our ratings.

Pete Wright
Letterboxd.com/thenextreel. That’s our HQ page. That’s where you can find all of the reviews. of all the films that we talk about across The Next Reel Family of Film Shows. Andy, what are you gonna do?

Andy Nelson
As I said, I really, really enjoyed this one. I’m going to give it four stars and a heart. It was just something that really struck a nerve with me, and it’s something that I will probably be thinking about a lot.

Pete Wright
It’s middle of the road for me. I’m gonna give it three stars. I’m probably not gonna return to it, even though I’m glad I saw it. I’m not gonna give it a heart this time. time because you gave it a heart so I don’t need to.

Andy Nelson
Okay, that’s how our hearts work.

Pete Wright
Today it is.

Andy Nelson
yes, that’s right. Three and a half is where this is gonna land on our chart with a heart. You can find the show on Letterboxd @thenextreel. You can find me there @sodacreekfilm and Pete @petewright. So what did you think about Resurrection? We would love to hear your thoughts. hop into the Show Talk channel over in our Discord community where we will be talking about the movie this week.

Pete Wright
When the movie ends

Andy Nelson
Our conversation begins.

Pete Wright
Letterboxd Giveth Andrew.

Andy Nelson
As Letterboxd always doeth.

Pete Wright
I went a little bit lower. Where’d you where’d you decide to land?

Andy Nelson
I also lower. I’m at two and a half.

Pete Wright
Oh, okay, good. Well I then I can guarantee we’re not doing the same one. Why don’t you go first?

Andy Nelson
Okay. I’ve got two and a half by Jerry Downey, who says, putting aside that his character is a crazy a-hole, this is some peak Sam Shepard hotness happening here.

Pete Wright
I really like that one. Okay, I’ve got Spaghetti Noir’s two store two store two star. After surviving the insane car crash car accident that killed her husband, Ellen Burstyn discovers she has healing powers and starts laying hands all over her religious Texas town. The film becomes a tonal mess as Burstyn, her family, and the community grapple with this new power. Is it a gift from God, the devil, or something else? Unfortunately, Resurrection can’t quite decide what it wants. It constantly feels like it was written to be much darker, possibly boiling over into horror, but never commits even as it races toward a somewhat downbeat ending. Worth checking out for the afterlife scenes, Think 2001 meets Insidious, and a brief appearance from Richard Farnsworth and his two-headed snake, Andy. Resurrection, first of all, resurrection is a horror movie. You look at that poster of Ellen Burstyn’s sweet face. And you think horror movie? I don’t. I didn’t see that coming. But now, now that it’s been planted in your head, can you see Resurrection, the horror movie?

Andy Nelson
That’s really funny as a surprising read of it.

Pete Wright
Right

Andy Nelson
I feel like I’ve seen a horror movie dealing with somebody who goes into the afterlife, but I don’t know. That’s funny.

Pete Wright
Is it a Stephen King movie?

Andy Nelson
Oh, I don’t know, probably.

Pete Wright
I don’t know There’s something about a movie where everybody she lays hands on, she curses and she doesn’t even know it and their lives fall apart in really awful ways. I don’t know. I’m just saying it’s out there. I would watch Resurrection, the horror movie. That may be what I needed all along.

Andy Nelson
That I feel like that is a Stephen King story. There is Revival, I’m pretty sure, is that’s really funny.

Pete Wright
All right.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
Thanks, Letterboxd