Netflix has a secret archive of celebrity interviews recorded with the intention of broadcasting them, exclusively, just after their passing. Famous last words has just premiered its third edition featuring journalist and landmark activist in the history of feminism Gloria Steinem. Writer and screenwriter Brad Falchuk is responsible for conducting the conversation, which emanates a certain spirituality. The interview has a different aura, due to the tone, the staging, and the lighting, which distances it from a typical journalistic dialogue. The veneer of confidentiality, as no other member of the team has access to the content of the conversation, contributes to emphasizing the viewer's feeling of accessing a valuable moment. It is like witnessing that person's symbolic testament. Normally, the guest's personal trajectory is reviewed, but seeking a more emotional approach. At times, the interviewer's desire to bring out the protagonist's vital motivations leads him to pose questions as a therapist might. With Famous last words, the impact of the news of a celebrity's death has a small subsequent ripple when, hours later, their interview appears in the platform's catalog. It is a metaphorical way of being resurrected, an opportunity to say goodbye. The set becomes an intermediate space between life and death, a fruitful, pleasant, and slightly ghostly limbo. It is as if they were speaking to us from the beyond.In the case of Gloria Steinem, her delicate state of health is apparent. There is no revelation that causes surprise. When speaking about her legacy, she insists a lot on the idea of personal singularity, that which makes each of us unique, as something powerful that we must take advantage of. Falchuk, who demonstrates very careful research about the guest, asks her about the other great figure of feminism in the United States, Betty Friedan, to delve into the competition that has always been intuited to exist between the two. Steinem distances herself from this rivalry, although she admits that at the time she was hurt by the lack of support or recognition she received from her. She underlines, as a critique, the importance of never wanting to appropriate the feminist movement. And she makes an important revelation: she talks about a very kind letter that Friedan's sister wrote to her, where she revealed some facts that helped her understand this situation of tension between them both. This is a crucial moment in the conversation.In the final minutes of the program, Falchuk leaves the set and leaves Steinem alone in front of the camera so she can deliver her final words to the audience. It is a very powerful moment for the viewer: a very powerful and unusual magnetism is produced in front of the screen. It is the magic of posthumous interviews, because they bring us closer to death with great delicacy and a sense of peace.
