What’s Aged the Worst?
Treatment of Shelley Duvall
In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:05:15Read transcript
- The old woman and bear-costume scene are offered as disturbing imagery rather than failed effects; the woman’s identity remains uncertain.
- Cutting the snowcat phone call is proposed and its length disputed; leaving the hotel occasionally is defended as making the return more intense.
- Stories of Duvall’s stress, illness and harsh treatment during repeated takes are discussed with concern and compared with Nicholson’s response.
- Conspiratorial readings are criticized; Room 237 is defended as a portrait of interpretation, and nostalgia for freer online film discussion complicates the objection.
- The treatment of Duvall becomes the final reluctant aged-worst selection after a debate about the social danger of conspiracy thinking.