Director Watch Podcast Ep. 44 – ‘The Beguiled’ (Sofia Coppola, 2017)

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision-making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 44 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by Lead News Editor for Collider Maggie Lovitt to discuss the next film in their Sofia Coppola series, The Beguiled (2017).

Four years after her most modern film to date, Sofia Coppola swerved back into a historical dramatic setting with The Beguiled, a remake of the 1971 Southern Gothic thriller set in Virginia during the American Civil War. When a young girl finds a wounded Union soldier right outside her all-girls school where she lives with several other women of various ages, the ladies nice, quiet way of life is turned upside down by the arrival of this sensual, seductive, ultimately menacing presence. Led by an all-star cast that includes Nicole Kidman, Kristen Dunst, Elle Fanning, and Colin Farrell, Coppola dives beautifully and patiently into the physiological nature of what it is like when a figure like this infuriates these women’s lives and how their nature and unnatural responses to this soldier’s inclusion in their life speaks to their basic human desires, and how temptation can overwhelm and get the best of them when it is all said and done. Ryan, Jay, and Maggie break down their reactions to the film, its connections to the original film, where it ranks in Coppola’s filmography, Farrell and Kidman’s career retrospective, how devilish Farrell’s character is in the film, and if her second attempt at a period piece is just as successful as Marie Antoinette.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h01m. The guys will be back next week to continue their series covering the films of Sofia Coppola with a review of her next film, On the Rocks. You can stream the film on Apple TV+ rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro)