what's the worst double bill you've ever sat through?

The TFS Hotline post. See you in the comments ☕️

When I was still living in Athens, I was determined to become the city’s most dedicated double feature connoisseur. There is an open air cinema near my parents’ house that still shows old movies from time to time, and the sweet siren song of “€10 for two movies” practically had me in a chokehold. I’d plop down in my seat with a carton of overpriced nachos and spend an entire afternoon watching other people’s breakups and eras gone by. I never once considered that this might be too much cinema, although after hearing myself say “Wes Anderson film” out loud again and again during a back-to-back of The Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox, I did earnestly think about maybe switching it up.

I’ve always believed watching a movie can change your mood. I watch You Hurt My Feelings and I’m angrier than Julia Louis-Dreyfus (my brother says I’m always angry, which is not true). Or, conversely, I watch Hoosiers and I’m like, wow, basketball is incredible! The same goes for how movies can change your perspective on the day or week you just had. Now think about what happens when you watch TWO movies back to back: we’re feeling feelings on steroids.

But back to bu$ine$$ with this edition’s TFS Hotline: We have a reader submission about this concept coming right up, so get excited! I know I am.

• Upgraded subscribers: You’ll get my full response to Madeleine below, plus comment access to answer this month's question: What’s the worst double bill you’ve ever sat through?

• Free subscribers: You get the submission, I get to keep my lights on, everyone wins. Upgrade if you want my response and the group therapy session in the comments.

As always, send your confessions to sophie@thatfinalscene.com or record your voice message for a chance to be featured in next month’s edition. People who send a submission get a free 3-month membership to TFS.

Here are the categories of the Hotline:

• Plot armor: The show or film that got you through a difficult time.

• Spicy take: Your most controversial film opinion that you’ll defend with your life.

• Reality check: The film or show that completely rewired your brain.

• Triggered: When something on screen or in the theater hit you unexpectedly hard.

TRIGGERED

From Madeleine:

Dear Sophie,

I’ve come across your writing recently and I really enjoy it. I too think August is one of the cruellest months...Thanks for introducing me to the David Foster Wallace speech!

When I was 17, I didn’t have that very specific curatorial instinct I have since honed, so my movie nights with my (indulgent, super film fan) dad were loosely held together double bills. One Friday night, I said we were going to do single title films set in California: Vertigo, followed by Clueless. (Now I know that this is a) totally the wrong order and b) still a valid double bill but it would need to be called Compelling California Blondes or Let’s Drive Around Real Carefully or Edith Head vs Mona May.)

At this point in my life I had seen Clueless probably 20 times and Vertigo 0. I knew it was one my dad’s favourites and he had warned me that I was going to see Jimmy Stewart in a very different light than I was used to and I might not even like the movie. He told me it was slow and cruel, and he was not wrong. I watched Kim Novak in her multiple guises; I watched James Stewart scrambling for control amongst his desire and grief; I felt Bernard Hermann’s score winding around me. And then the movie was over and my dad turned to me: what did I think? I can’t remember my answer now but it was something along the lines of: Wow that was a lot, I need a minute. So we paused before we put on Clueless.

Then we started Clueless and Cher, sporting some of cinema’s greatest hair, was driving around in glorious California sunshine like I’d seen many many times before and suddenly I could not cope. I needed my dad to turn it off, it was like we were watching Vertigo again. Thinking about it now I realise how sort of ridiculous it sounds that I was experiencing the film’s title for real, that I had been so taken aback by Hitchcock’s tricks that I had lost my (not equal to my dad maybe in terms of years but certainly up there in terms of enthusiasm and a broad education) super film fan footing.

My dad said he would think about something really different we could watch and went into the kitchen to make tea. I followed him in there and burst into tears. I’ve cried in movies before but I’ve never had a movie take over my body in quite that way. That’s what it felt like; I couldn’t control it and I couldn’t even understand why I was feeling such an intense way.

My dad says you can only watch Vertigo every five years and I agree. I’ve since seen it in the cinema, I wrote about it as part of my finals at university, and I can talk about it without breaking down. But that first experience is wired into me in a way I still don’t understand and which has not happened with any film since.

All best,

Madeleine

From Sophie: