The Neon Demon script and other thoughts

Hey, everyone! Another FREE script for my patrons in case you ever need it. I ended up leaving out something from both the script and the episode.  Sometimes I have a thought or a theory or something I wish to add to an episode, but I find that I may not be on solid ground.  So, I'm left with a choice between adding it to the episode but  prefacing it with "Now I'm not so sure about this, but..." or nixing it. 

The former isn't particularly authoritative, and the latter kinda sucks too.  I mentioned this on social media, but I felt that it bears repeating.   In The Neon Demon episode, I left out something about what the women were wearing. Refn said that the two models  and Ruby represent three different kinds of beauty, and we also see a  diamond made of three triangles in the film. In the bathroom scene,  one model has a necklace with a point that is shaped like a trinagle,  Ruby has a loose necktie that comes down like a triangle, and  the other model is showing a lot of decolletage that points down like a triangle too.  So, it might be something, or it might just be, you know, TRIANGLES. Triangles happen sometimes.  

I was also worried about people saying "ILLUMINATI TRIANGLES!" The Illuminati does not exist, but I still somehow hate it. I swear, every time I do an episode on Kubrick, someone wants to talk to me about The Illuminati. 

Anyway, here is the script:

 [MUSIC CUE: Neon Demon]
 AUDIO 1
 [3:51] The Neon Demon is a 2016 film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. [5:25] Jesse is a sixteen year old aspiring model. [32:05] After arriving in Los Angeles, she finds that she is revered by photographers and the fashion industry, as her beauty is seen as pure and not manufactured. [50:00] This instant fame and fortune greatly upsets other, more experienced models who fear that their time on top is running out. [1:15:55] After a series of mishaps and dangerous incidents, [1:24:24] she goes to live with her friend, Ruby. However, after Jesse rejects her sexual advances, [1:34:40] the models and Ruby attack, kill and devour her.   
 [1:50:00] The models suddenly get more work after eating Jesse, but one of them becomes physically ill, vomits up part of Jesse and then commits suicide. [1:52:00] The other model happily eats what was thrown up, and walks away, back to her work. [1:03:17] The Neon Demon is a tapestry of symbols, arcane references and mythology – both mytho-historical as well as birthing a mythology all its own.
 AUDIO 2
 [4:20] The three women who conduct black magic are akin to The Three Weird Sisters [overlay] from William Shakespeare's Macbeth. [Weird] In the play, they actually speak to Macbeth in riddles and prophecize both his rise and fall. [8:00] The three women – two models and a makeup artist – foreshadow future events as well, although not as explicitly. [9:35] One model says that lipstick is often named after food or sex. She asks Jesse “Are you food or are you sex?” This foreshadows Jesse quite literally becoming food for them. [10:35] One model says that her lipstick is Red Rum. [The Shining] Anyone who has seen The Shining knows that Red Rum is Murder backwards. [9:30] This is even said in a room full of mirrors.
 [8:55] The “food or sex” question has another meaning. In the film, sexual desirability – beauty – it said to be the world's greatest commodity, the value of which is growing more and more. [9:40] If you are not desirable, according to some characters in the film, you are nothing. So, when the models ask [5:25] Jesse if she is food or sex, they are asking whether she believes that she is beautiful or worthless.    [11:00] Later, the models debate whether or not they will eat. One model tells the other not to bother even reading the menu because she will not eat, but the other is unsure. [12:00] Then the topic of Jesse comes up immediately afterwards. Subtextually, they are debating whether or not to eat Jesse.   
 AUDIO 3
 [23:00] Jesse says that as a child, she would look up at the moon and think that it was watching her, like a great eye. The moon is connected to numerous mythologies. [24:53] For example, werewolves are said to be tied to the lunar cycle. [30:20] Throughout the film, we see many predators, one in Jesse's motel room, [1:25:59] another one – stuffed this time – in the lavish home [1:38:40] and then finally, the wolf itself, seen only after Jesse's murder. These predators predict future events and marry themselves to Jesse's ultimate fate.
 [clip]
 [MUSIC CUE: Don't Forget]
 AUDIO 4
 [23:40] In Ancient China, people believed that there were twelve Moons as there were twelve months in one year. It was believed that the Moons were made of water and that there was a Mother of Moons. [1:40:09] The moon is also often associated with aforementioned witches as well as the feminine in general. [1:41:03] After the murder, Ruby writhes on the floor in the moonlight and bleeds to death from between her legs in a way that could be considered menstrual. [1:37:32] If you want to see the more graphic scenes, you will have to watch the film.
 [23:00] When Jesse says the moon is watching her, this connects to another visual motif in the film: [10:30] mirrors. They appear everywhere in The Neon Demon. [20:12] Few scenes go by without seeing one. Their reflections allow them to do their makeup, but mirrors also reflect the self. [47:40] They are revealing, but they are also dangerous. [1:24:24] Spend too much time in your reflection, and you may not like what you see. The moon, the eye, the mirror. It's all connected. [1:25:44] The gaze of the world. The feeling of being watched and judged, especially based on appearances.  [1:07:57] One character calls Jesse a diamond in a sea of glass. She wants to look into the glass of the mirror and see a diamond reflected. [1:01:31] She is seen in the blue diamond during her transformation.   
 AUDIO 5
 [3:24] Red and blue reoccur many times in the film. [5:02] Red means danger, blood. While washing off fake blood, Jesse meets Ruby. Her very name means danger. Red. Danger. Blood. [1:01:19] The blue during Jesse's transformation from naïve girl to egomaniac is actually a reference [overlay] to the myth of Narcissus, [1:46:55] but that only becomes clear later when the photographer tells the model to stop staring into the water. [1:03:29] Although the transformation scene – the titular Neon Demon scene – is clear in its intent. [1:04:46] And at the end of the scene, the red and blue are fused into purple. Jesse is now both dangerous and narcissistic.      
 [53:38] Flowers appear in the film, the petals sometimes used to imply sex, but in this case, innocence. Jesse's boyfriend Dean brings her flowers, but they fall and scatter, and she dreams of blue instead. [1:14:40] She is safe in her motel room, the wallpaper a pattern of flowers. [1:16:37] When she no longer feels safe in the room, darkness covers most of the flower pattern, and we zoom back to reveal more and more shadow. [1:39:58] In this scene, after the murder, Ruby lies in a grave, surrounded by flowers – their meaning changed and distorted. Innocence lost.   
 [clip]
 [MUSIC CUE: Gold Paint]
 AUDIO 6
 [9:04] The black magic of the three women is not the only Shakespeare reference. [1:05:33] In this scene, the fashionista, Robert, exclaims [text] “Let pry through the portage of the head like the brass cannon.” He is interrupted, and then continues [1:06:15] “Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit to his full height.” [1:08:03 SLOW] The film doesn't acknowledge the source of the quote, but it is from [overlay] Henry V [1:06:35] This casts Robert in the role of the character who will explain the core of the film, much as Henry V was a great orator.   
 [1:07:57] Robert proclaims that “Beauty is our greatest currency.” For Robert, this is a positive and and a credo. [1:03:17] For Refn, this is a nightmare. In an interview, he said “We live in a very sexualized society. Men want to sexualize youth, women want to consume it. If you’re 25 you’re not 17, but what [1:03:50] happens when you’re 17 and you’re not 14? It’s going in that direction whether we like it or not. It’s scary, especially when you have two young girls who are starting to experience the world.”
 AUDIO 7
 [1:08:22] Robert says that beauty is not everything, it is the only thing. Dean, Jesse's boyfriend, disagrees openly, but Robert counters, saying that if Jesse were not beautiful, [1:08:55] Dean would not have given her a second look. Dean, though outwardly claiming no superficiality, is attempting a [1:09:40] romantic relationship with a sixteen year old. Dean's age is never given, but when Jesse's age i[22:02] s revealed, he is clearly surprised, suggesting that he is an adult, and she is a minor. Robert, though revolting, has a point, and Dean's intentions are not pure.      
 Nicolas Winding Refn said “I always wanted to make a film about the 16 year-old girl inside me. … I’ve always felt that every man has a 16-year-old girl inside them, and I wanted to make a movie about mine. Going from Drive to re-entering my mother’s womb in Only God Forgives, I lived out that fantasy, so now I can make a movie from the point of view of the teenage girl inside of me.” He also once remarked that filmmaking allows him to explore his feminine side, as he believes that creativity is in some way feminine – giving birth to something – and directing a film is as close as he can come to being a woman.
 AUDIO 8
 Refn also recognized that there is sometimes a difference between a man writing women and a woman writing women. He hired two women playwrights to co-write the screenplay, particularly the dialogue. Refn is one of three people credited with the script, but the other two are women. He also hired a woman to be the cinematographer, and of course, most of the characters are played by women.     
 [1:49:03] In the end, one model cannot stomach what she has done. She vomits up Jesse's eye, and [1:51:00] and another eats it, hoping to gain her strength. [5:10] This harkens back to the opening line “Am I staring?” [1:53:06] It ends on what resembles a perfume commercial set to a pop song. [50:40] The cannibalistic ritual of the models is not unlike the Wendigo myth of Algonquin folklore or the vampire myth. [1:34:40] But more than that, the women eating Jesse is simply allegorical. A world built on sexuality and youth will eat us alive.