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Clip description
Stephen quotes Proust, Angela paints her toenails and the two discuss whether or not to watch Contempt on television.
Curator’s notes
Back in 1982 it wasn’t easy to hear Proust being quoted in an Aussie accent without flinching. It’s not much easier now, but if anyone can get away with it, it’s the late John Hargreaves. Hargreaves had to deliver many an undeliverable line in his day and no-one ever thought the less of him. In this scene, Stephen reads capital-L-literature while Angela reads the room service menu and TV guide. He wants to watch Contempt for Godard, she for Bardot. Stephen brandishes Proust like a stick, berating Angela for only ever reading menus and motel service guides. When Angela points out that she often enjoys the menus more than the meals, she nicely shifts the ground beneath the men read tomes while women read trivia maxim, making it merely a question of modernism vs postmodernism. But when it comes to relationships, she’s old fashioned and wants her narrative structure – something Stephen the scriptwriter seems unable to provide.
