The Most Interesting Scene In The Devil Wears Prada

[Music] when you first read the title of this video you might have thought it was referring to this scene the famed blue sweater scene and you select i don't know that lumpy blue sweater for instance which is a great scene don't get me wrong but there are enough videos about that one maybe you're thinking it's the scene where miranda reveals her impending divorce snow queen drives away another mr priestly or maybe nigel's rebuke of andy's work ethic because this place where so many people would die to work you only gain to work or the final

scene in the car in paris everybody wants to be us all great scenes 10 out of 10 but no the one that really fascinates me is this one [Music] the conference room scene february back of the issue miranda priestly meets with her senior staff they suggest ideas for the upcoming issue and she rejects them no it's not a particularly noteworthy scene it's only two minutes long and only one of its lines has been made into a meme laurels for spring groundbreaking as scenes go it's pretty routine except for one thing where is andy andy or

andrea as played by anne hathaway is our lead character she's our fish out of water the lens through which we view the world of runway and meryl streep's miranda priestly andy is present in every scene literally every single one except this one the entire plot of the film hinges on the relationship between andy and miranda even in scenes where andy is not the target of miranda's malevolent machinations she's still present to observe and react to her so why feature a scene about miranda which doesn't affect andy at all in the script this scene is numbered

119 a suggesting it wasn't in the original shooting script and was added later what's more according to director david frankl this was a sequence that was actually much shorter in the screenplay in which we expanded on the day we shot elene wrote some additional dialogue what was so essential about this scene that compelled them to include and develop it it doesn't further the plot in any significant way there are two sort of story beats the first is emily's illness at the end of the scene she appears coughing and sniffling this leads to andy being forced

to attend a work event and missing her boyfriend's birthday party i i thought that only the first assistant went to the benefit only when the first assistant hasn't decided to become an incubus viral plague but emily isn't present for the bulk of the scene either she has to enter the room in order to establish this detail which is re-established in the next scene anyway how's the call doing like death warmed up you don't need the conference room scene to get this point across it can't be what the scene was invented for the other story beat

belongs to nigel while every other suggestion is rejected nigel is the only person present who receives miranda's approval zach posen is doing some very sculptural suits so i suggested that testino shoot them at the naguchi garden perfect thank god somebody came to work today this is part of a running thread that nigel is the only person who consistently impresses miranda they seem to be on the same wavelength but do you think it's too much like from july i thought that but no not with the right accessories it should work he's not intimidated by her you

might actually call them friends so when she saves her own neck by giving her rival a dream job she'd already promised to nigel when the time is right she'll pay me back these little touches make the betrayal hit that much harder you sure about that most of nigel's scenes are with andy rather than miranda so i can buy this scene as an excuse to give them more screen time together reinforcing the nature of their relationship but like emily the bulk of the scene is not about nigel he has one line and a few sassy reaction

shots the scene was an opportunity they used to tell some of his story but it's not his scene okay so if the scene isn't about narrative then it must be about character so what is this scene telling us about miranda that we don't already know on my first watch i assume this scene was a thinly veiled excuse for miranda to abuse her underlings for our amusement and that's all that's all that's all don't you know what this is but the truth is there's more to it than that the more i examine this scene the more

i realize it exemplifies precisely what is so great about this film the devil wears prada was incredibly influential it inspired a whole host of copycats it launched emily blunt's career it sold anne hathaway as an actress for adult dramas the movie was in production before the original novel was finished and it's still being quoted 15 years later wait it's been 15 years but above all the devil wears prada is a fascinating example of how to do adaptation well at a glance the film and the novel are fairly similar they share a lot of the same

dna the largest set pieces paris delivering the book the love triangle with christian the harry potter manuscript are all lifted practically wholesale many of the smaller touches too are directly from the novel the coats on the desk the beeping phone miranda forgetting andy's name as well as some of the more choice quotes million girls would kill for this job bore someone else with your questions that's all that's all that's all and yet the film tells the same story in a very different way for starters andy's emotional arc is more complicated than in the novel though

they both take a similar shape both start with andy as an aspiring writer who knows nothing about fashion accepting the job as miranda's assistant because of future opportunities it could lead to being miranda's assistant opens a lot of doors however she quickly learns her new boss is demanding rude and impossible to please subjecting andy to a series of increasing indignities and outright abuse in the book andy responds to this with mounting incredulity i still don't believe she expects me to do this she reaches this emotional plateau fairly early and remains there until the very end

with each trial she faces her feelings don't change they just intensify oh my god this wasn't happening i would surely wake up in my own unglamorous negative thread count sheet at bed in just a minute and discover that the entire day hell the entire year had just been a particularly hard dream for book andy the job is something she is subjected to for phil mandy it's something she responds to for the first half of the film whenever andy is met with a new and greater challenge she fails and is subsequently punished however she pushes through

the punishment learns and ends up exceeding miranda's expectations by the second half she stops failing she overcomes each new challenge and is rewarded professionally instead paying the price in her personal life both versions of andy decide to embrace fashion but for different reasons book andy does it out of peer pressure 12 miserable long weeks of feeling stupid incompetent and all-around moronic and so i decided at the beginning of my fourth month of runway to be a new woman and start dressing the part phil mandy does it because she realizes failing to engage with the industry

she works in is making her bad at the job andy be serious you are not trying you have no idea how many legends have walked these halls and what's worse you don't care okay so i'm screwing it up in the end both versions of andy attend paris fashion week in emily stead for book andy this is a cruel twist of fate emily contracts mono and only when her doctor convinces miranda that it's a real disease does miranda decide to take andy instead she said something about the assistance they give her abroad being idiots and that

even you'd be better to have a round than them phil mandy replaces emily because she has surpassed her professionally which miranda recognizes i need the best possible team with me that no longer includes emily so while both versions of andy end up in the same narrative place the places they are emotionally couldn't be more different book andy's antipathy towards miranda has only grown her paris and fashion shows and marathon games of i'm so fat all the people who believed that miranda's behavior was justified because she could pair a talented photographer with some expensive clothes and

walk away with some pretty magazine pages whereas film andy's opinion of miranda has progressed in the complete opposite direction she is vicious oh and you know she called me andrea i mean she didn't call me emily isn't that great okay she's tough but if miranda were a man no one would notice anything about her except how great she is every job miranda will be devastated her whole life is about runway he can't do that to her and yet when andy quits both versions do it for the same reason however even though both versions are making

the same point they're not exactly saying the same thing bookendy learns her terrible roommate has entered a coma after a bad car accident despite pressure from her family she initially decides to remain in paris but when miranda finds out andy is disturbed by the way she praises andy for her commitment to her career in a move that was so fundamentally out of character for this woman on every level she placed her hand on top of the one i had resting on the seat between us and said you remind me of myself when i was your

age whilst reeling from this unexpected endorsement and grappling with the worry for her roommate and a crippling headache andy has pushed one indignity too far when miranda makes a demand that is truly impossible renewing her daughter's expired passports less than three hours before their flight andy snaps there's a small chance i wouldn't have gotten fired if i'd immediately pleaded and explained and lost the defiant attitude but i couldn't seem to muster one single tiny shred of self-control andrea you realize what you're doing do you not you do know that if you simply leave here like

this i'm going to be forced you miranda [ __ ] you the way phil mandy quits is one of the larger departures from the book she learns of a coup against miranda and attempts to defend her only to learn that miranda has already protected herself by betraying nigel nevertheless miranda praises andy for her loyalty i see a great deal of myself in you like book andy phil mandy is distressed by the comparison what if i don't want to live the way you live both andes quit out of a fear the job is turning them into

miranda but with bookendy i don't feel there's much danger of that though she has overvalued her career she quits because there is a line she will not cross throughout the course of the book she gets better at dealing with the job but doesn't really get better at doing it that's partly because book miranda has impossible expectations that nobody could ever meet but also because book andy never fully compromises her identity for the sake of the job don't think i haven't noticed your lack of enthusiasm or those sighs or faces you make when i ask you

to do something you quite obviously don't feel like doing phil mandy has compromised she has changed her fear is not of what she might become but of what she has become already i could do what you did to nigel miranda i couldn't do something like that you already did to emily it's not quite the same as miranda's betrayal but it's much more convincing as a step on the road to becoming miranda this frightens film andy not because she hates her but because she has seen the life miranda lives and realizes it's not the life she

wants this is a little bit less about a sadistic person picking on someone else and it's a little bit more of a foul story book andy is tortured by the devil phil mandy makes a deal with her so let's talk about the devil in the book miranda is undoubtedly a band manager she gives tasks with incomplete information and refuses to answer follow-up questions she has a poor memory but gaslights others into thinking their recollection is at fault she is supremely wasteful throwing money at expensive dinners she doesn't eat and stockpiling designer scarves she keeps losing

reduced to one key fault she is disconnected from reality miranda didn't seem to understand that the latte i presented to her each morning could not only not be delivered but could easily take half an hour at prime time to purchase she spent 20 minutes refusing to believe that there wasn't a single plane available i assured her that it wasn't that they were all taken just that it was a difficult time of night to be attempting to charter a flight i cannot [ __ ] pull a run-through together in 30 seconds do you understand me it's

[ __ ] impossible film miranda shares some of this lack of awareness please it's just i don't know drizzling but for the most part she seems to know exactly what she's doing when she sets truly impossible tasks she does it as a punishment if you want the unpublished manuscript well we know everyone in publishing it shouldn't be a problem should it and you can do anything right when she gaslights it's a sort of power play what's that oh i don't want that i'm having lunch with irv i'll be back at three i'd like my starbucks

waiting and if you don't have that harry potter book by then don't even bother coming back and when she misremembers andy's name it's not because she doesn't realize she's doing it she simply doesn't care to learn it there you are emily how many times do i have to scream your name uh actually it's andy did the martial yeah confirm to marshall to marshall yeah did he get him on the phone uh okay and emily yes that's all film miranda is not disconnected from reality she simply insists on reality conforming to her exacting standards the only

times book miranda is suggested to be aware of the effects she has on people is when andy suspects her behavior is born out of a sadistic pleasure she'd called to drive me a little crazier push me a little bit harder she called to dare me to defy her she'd called to make me hate her that much more but phil miranda isn't malicious not really she certainly doesn't care if she hurts people's feelings just as she doesn't care about making people feel appreciated all she cares about is the magazine i really do think that she stabs

everybody in the back at the end to stay there really not because it's what she wants selfishly but what she's telling herself is this is what's best for a runway and what's best for runway is best for fashion and what's best for fashion is what's best for everybody if phil miranda were reduced to one key fault it would be perfectionism the unreasonable expectations she has for her staff are the same expectations she has for herself she believes she's doing something that really matters and all the people in her life are either a help or a

hindrance every setback whether it's an entire clothing line that's not up to standard or her assistant taking a little too long to bring what she asked for by all means move at a glacial pace you know how that thrills me it's getting in the way of her doing what she needs to do i think when you're a taskmaster and very very disciplined and controlling that everything is not quite right all the time there are moments of satisfaction when work is done correctly and that's always surprising but um generally you're dissatisfied miranda priestly is good at

her job the novel makes this clear miranda was as far as i could tell a truly fantastic editor runway wouldn't be runway hella wouldn't be much of anything at all without miranda priestly however the novel also questions how valuable that job is why was the ability to put together a bellman evening gown and a brooding leggy asian girl on a side street in san sebastian worshipped so much that miranda wasn't accountable for her behavior in the film andy also questions this they all act like they're curing cancer or something the amount of time and energy

that these people spend on these insignificant my new details and for what so that tomorrow they can spend another three hundred thousand dollars reshooting something that's probably fine to begin with to sell people things they don't need but the film doesn't entirely agree with her on numerous occasions it makes the case for the value of the fashion industry and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when in fact you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room and

what they did what they created was greater than art because you live your life in it the film doesn't require you to agree but it wants you to take the fashion industry seriously in the film the magazine matters this is not just a magazine this is a shining beacon of hope for let's say a young boy growing up in rhode island with six brothers pretending to go to soccer practice when he was really going to sewing class and reading runway under the covers at night with a flashlight the novel suggests miranda's job is not particularly

challenging i'd yet to catch her doing anything that even resembled work including such pedestrian tasks as answering the phone moving a jacket from a closet or pouring a glass of water whereas the film goes out of its way to show miranda at work when she's giving instructions she's working when she's delivering a monologue she's working when she's reeling from heartbreak she's working any spare moment miranda has she spends working meryl makes the choice to work through this entire scene to look through the book through the whole scene even though she's asking something rather momentous i

think that's a really good choice to show that it just never stops for miranda she doesn't have a moment to waste now there are plenty of op-eds about how meryl streep basically made this film and i think that's a little unfair to the rest of the creative team filmmaking is a collaborative process no creative decision is carried out by any single person if meryl's ideas worked it's because the film had a good creative team director david frankel initially passed on the film because it had been written as a revenge story he and screenwriter aileen brosh

mckenna reinvented it together because they shared a strong vision they are the ones who wanted merrill to play the part nevertheless streep's influence on this film should not be understated miranda's iconic hairstyle was merrell's idea so miranda could be picked out in a crowd the hotel room scene also meryl's idea to see the woman behind the business woman the famed blue sweater scene wasn't meryl's idea but she encouraged the scene to be expanded and it was she who chose the shade cerulean and the way miranda is constantly at work that was meryl's idea well seeing

miranda do her job and and seeing miranda at work was a an important change that merrill made in the development of the scrim and it is this idea which brings us back to [Music] it came from merrell's imperative to see miranda at work and i thought it might be really fun to shoot a whole editorial meeting on some level it is true the conference room scene exists simply because it's entertaining to watch miranda abuse her staff but it also tells us a lot about what miranda is like as an editor she's rude and ruthless yes

but she doesn't reject anything without good reason either it's cliche laurels for spring or it's been done before no we did that two years ago what else which it should be noted she remembers off the top of her head or it's simply because it does not meet the proper standard for runway magazine not wonderful yet it's dull no no and that standard is not impossible to achieve she gives credit where it's due perfect in two minutes we learn more about why miranda is good at her job than we ever do in the novel and this

is more than a bit of flavor text miranda's skill is an important thing for an audience to understand because it influences how the film is read the conference room scene sits slap bang in the middle of the run time bridging the gap between the two halves of the second act this is the point where andy stops failing where she surpasses emily where she begins to respect miranda it's subtle but this scene also shifts our own perspective of miranda without it andy's change would be harder to comprehend what's more the conference room scene is crucial to

our reading of the film's climax truth is there is no one that can do what i do including her any of the other choices who would have found that job impossible and the magazine would have suffered this isn't vanity speaking it's true and we believe it's true because we've seen it for ourselves without the conference room scene miranda's betrayal might come across as the selfish act of an egomaniac with the conference room scene it becomes a ruthless choice done for the sake of the magazine it's probably clear by this point that i regard the film

as far superior to the novel that said i will defend the novel to a degree it's a solid starting point the film expanded on and author lauren weisberger worked with the filmmakers to make that happen by itself the novel is achieving different things to the film it's clearly meant as a criticism of vogue editor anna wintour she's name-checked twice in the novel and weisberger worked as her assistant so the comparison is pretty undeniable as a piece of gossipy [ __ ] fun i can see the book's appeal it's a revenge fantasy and it's relatable who

hasn't wanted to tell their boss to [ __ ] off i don't think the miranda priestly of the book is a bad character i can't say how accurately she mirrors anna wintour i'd recommend watching the september issue for some insight on that but there are definitely managers like book miranda in the real world inept oblivious self-important narcissists celebrated for their status and not their skill i believe these people are very deserving of ridicule power to the book for doing that having said all this the book takes rather a narrow view of miranda it's the view

of an assistant the book is written entirely in andy's first person perspective she may catch glimpses of miranda's professional life but ultimately she's not involved she can speculate about it better than most but that doesn't mean she's privy to what running a successful magazine entails the film though couched heavily in andy's perspective is not bound by the same limitation the conference room scene proves this as a result the film presents a broader view of miranda critical but sympathetic respectful but honest it's a more nuanced character study it's not a happy woman it's an accomplished woman

it's a different thing through miranda the film explores more ideas than the book does the cutthroat nature of the corporate world intimidation as a toxic but effective motivator and the things women must sacrifice for success instead of a suffering employee versus a bad boss andy and miranda come to represent a clash of ideologies between a person who will pay any price to stay in that world and a person who won't instead of quitting in a fit of peak this andy and miranda part as equals i don't think the filmmakers fully realized the value of the

conference room scene when they shot it reading about the behind the scenes it's clear this was a film they discovered whilst they were making it but when you have a strong idea at the heart of a project as well as a team of talented artists who share that idea it will appear in the finer details just as much as the broad strokes sometimes it is the small things that make the big thing subtleties that influence you in almost unnoticeable ways can be the difference between a good story and a great one so while it's only

good and proper the blue sweater scene gets the credit it's due i think it's just as important to appreciate the film's less obvious accomplishments that's all if you enjoyed this video don't forget to like share and subscribe leave a comment if you want to support the channel consider donating to my kofi at kofi.com jameswoodall or follow me on twitter at james b woodall for updates on future videos thanks for watching you