The Other Side of Mistrust

For days I’ve been wondering about what happened to a line from McCabe & Mrs. Miller. The scene where McCabe tells Mrs. Miller: “I don’t trust anybody but you.” A line that has always resonated with me. Instead he only tells her, half-crying: “I guess I ain’t never been this close to anyone before.” Intimacy as the other side of mistrust. In the theater last weekend, I waited for the line about trust to follow, but it didn’t. Where did it go, I asked Isaac. Where did it go, I asked myself. Where it go I asked Phil at a gallery opening last night. I put it in LOVE SOUNDS, so I can’t have just invented it. I’ve heard it over and over. In my film, in my head. Tonight, while recording for DECADES, I rewatched the end of Shampoo, which also stars real-life former lovers Julie Christie and Warren Beatty. Crouching at the top of a hill in Laurel Canyon, George begs Jackie not to leave him. Not to marry Lester. Half-crying, he tells her: “I don’t trust anybody but you.”

Crossposted with Love Dog.

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