Check the Gate - Altered States

Gretchen and Martin take on the 1980s with Ken Russell's existential space baby operate, Altered States. Watch William Hurt become an Australopithecus. See Bob Baliban before he ran the kennel club for best in show. Psylocibin. Shaman. Reverse evolution. Touching the face of god. Ken Russell packed it all in there. It's a trip of a film and we loved it. 

Martin and Gretchen talk movies and more at Check the Gate. https://martinvavra.me

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The goat blood and all. That is when he's in
the New Chamber, but that is after Mexico, after he
does the trip.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yeah, that trip to Mexico was really fuck and cool
as far as like for me, that was like the
pinnacle of like how beautiful these effects are in this film.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm all about starting this party?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
All right?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
How do you want to do it? Gretchen? Can I
just say?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey? How are you right?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
How are you welcome back?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Oh? My gosh, right, I know. How was we? You
did some promo work for Emerald City Comic Con. So
you were busy, You're busy.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, it was fun. I got to do a bunch
of filming for Emerald City Comic Con and I got
to meet sort of like one of my cinematic heroes
was there actually to an extent too, So I got
to film with Michael Ironside. What yes, Wow? So my
Michael Ironside is someone that I've been a fan of

(01:02):
for a long time. He was there for the Starship
Troopers reunion which they had everyone there. Denise Richards was there,
Dina Meyer was there. Uh and uh, I cannot believe
I just went and spaced off his name. But the
main john Yeah, Johnny was there.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, he was.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Michael Ironside is five. So he's this really gruff Canadian totally.
He's he has some physical issues because he's had knee
surgeries and so he's really having some difficulty with his knees. Yeah.
So like I got to help Michael Ironside up and
down from his seats and whatnot. But he's he's kind
of got this like gruff, curmudgeon ly persona about him,

(01:46):
but he is so nice and it's a fun gruff.
He's a good person and he's not gruff or grumpy
toward other people. He's that dude that wants to tell stories.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Oh yeah, my goodness, I've heard one of his stories.
I went to a premiere of our showing of I
think it was thirty five millimeters showing of Scanners and
my goodness, and he was in attendance, and it was
at the Hollywood Theater. He talked about his siblings and

(02:19):
he was saying his siblings had these powers of being
able to recogn to like use psychometry or something like that.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
So he talked about some of his kind of supernatural.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Isn't that the bizarre? It's bizarre. I mean it's not.
I mean obviously, yeah, no, no, no, right, Like so
when he told that, I was like, is he like
lying or is he just like is this just like
a thing because we're doing the scanners or yeah. No.
Apparently he has some siblings that have some like special
powers or whatnot, and he talks about it pretty often,

(02:55):
like they were able to move objects or something like that,
something like that. I remember talking about it. But yeah,
he's a he's a he's a fun he's a fun fella.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
He's a fun person.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I never would have expected that. That's interesting that he
had that supernatural one. He told a supernatural experience too,
about how he's got a birthmark on him.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
And he had some encounter with a person that's kind
of like a soothsayer, gypsy woman, you know, palm reader
type of a thing. He wasn't really so much into that,
and this person did a reading off of him and said,
do you have a birthmark in such and such a
place that's actually part of your prior life where you

(03:38):
were wounded in battle by a spear? And wow, it
was this whole story and it was fantastic, and I
was like, oh my goodness, I'm sitting here with Michael
Ironside and he's telling me these transcendental stories of the
supernatural that he's had through and yeah, I think he's
got like five other siblings for their siblings something like that. Yeah,
it was all. It was fantastic. And there's like this

(04:00):
kind of a gruff grandfatherly thing or something. It's just
it was so it was it was like joyful gruff.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, I love a good cur budget. What can I
say it kind of I've got a soft spot for him.
But it's funny that you say, talk about him past lives.
We have a film today we're going to talk about
that is past life regression, possibly de evolution, a kind
of a foray into the transcendental beliefs of like the

(04:30):
nineteen eighties seventies.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
That is a fantastic transition that we didn't even plan that,
And you were just like.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Don't he said, yeah, what can I say? So we're
going to talk about Altered States. Ken Russell's nineteen eighties
horror science fiction thriller Body Horror. I mean it goes
so many routes in this one. I mean this is also,
for my understanding, is Ken Russell's first Hollywood film. He laid,

(05:00):
goes on to as we know like do like you know,
I like doing The Layer of the White Worm. But
my understanding is that this is the first time he
was given an ability to do a Hollywood film. That's
why we have like the cast that we have and
like the spectacular scoring and the wild effects that are
happening because it's other, right, I mean, his other films

(05:23):
like with Like the Devils and with Layer of the
White Worm Devil's being before and Layer White Worm being after,
have there's elements of these in this film. But also
I feel like this is his moment to like really
shine as a director. And I mean, it's kind of
cool for this being.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
His first yea, and there's a there's so much to
talk about in all of this stuff we have.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
We have opinions and possible and theories, and I mean,
I'm sure people have different beliefs about this and what
they perceive from this, and we have two very different
perspects stives as far as like religious backgrounds and so,
and also our lack of religious at this point for
both of us.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
And any type of scientific knowledge that we it's all
pseudoscience and fringe science.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
So I mean, what we're bringing in is this is
kind of the era of a of a pseudoscience that
people had this belief that schizophrenia and other illnesses, like
mental health illnesses like that were not diseases, but they
were possible states of of like spiritual like disorders and

(06:39):
could be helped by doing experimentation with drugs and especially
like state altered state, who named drug altered state drugs
like things like ketamine and LSD and psilocybin and whatnot.
Like these these ideas were that they could help people

(07:02):
with these mental health issues, and later on we've worked
on those things more. But this was also based off
of like the science of like there was a famous
person who is a famous scientist who created like the
isolation tank I think with John Lily and John Lily,
and he did experimentation with like dolphins and whatnot, and

(07:22):
like he was also again a very fringe scientist. So
I think this is like the writing of Patty Chaiski.
I think it's the name. He wrote a book. He
wrote the book Altered States, and that's what this was.
He based that work off of John Lily's isolation tanks experimentations.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, and somewhere in there. I don't know when it
was that it was ever found out accident. Well, no,
I do remember. I was actually listening to this the
other day. There was the whole discovery of the MK
Ultra program that really, yeah, is because of Watergate and
they thought that they had destroyed all of these records
and then all of this stuff was being pulled and

(08:02):
people were like, oh, it turns out we've been experimenting
with people using LSD and a few other things and
trying to see if we could slip them into you know,
alternate realities or be able to figure out truth serums
or anything like that out of all of these things.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Well, this era was a very like what this because
movie shot in nineteen eighty, but like this is the
setting of this film is in the late sixties, and
so there is that air of we have we're so
young at our science and still at that point and
thinking that there was these alternate realities that could be
accessible through different types of experimentation like this, like using

(08:43):
electricity and water and isolationism and like using drugs to
slip between the.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Realms the bounds of this earth.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
And that's kind of what this film goes into I
mean that this starts with our doctor, with William Hurts
starting off in an experiment where he's in a isolation
tank and he's reliving the the death of his father
and he's crying in the tank, and it's there is
so much I love this film. I have to be honest,

(09:14):
I say that a lot about and I don't think
we talk about films we hate obviously, like we don't
seem to focus on that kind of stuff. So it's
this is one of my picks because I just think
that visually it's such a stunning film, and I know
that it's a little bit of a slow burn for
a lot of people there. It takes a little bit
to kind of get us ramped up, but once we
get there, shit gets on hinge quick.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah. And it's a film that really doesn't set a
stage either. Yeah, we don't like get introduced to the characters,
introduced to the situation, go into the situation.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Kind of find out as we go along.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Right, And because we really start out with our doctor,
William hurt is already in this chamber and already starting
to experiment with the idea of what the current technology
can do for him, in these isolation chambers and how
that can trigger emotions and memories and what that can

(10:12):
mean for schizophrenia, and.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, exactly his intention is for mental health health.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Right, Yeah, that kind of but we started he we
start right out with him in a chamber, and that
stuff kind of has to be spelled out for us,
which is great, and it's kind of brought to us
as this story unfolds. So I mean we really start
in the thick of things, absolutely with it.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, And so we go from there to where we
are meeting my favorite character, but Bob, I cannot say
him Bob balaban Man. When a second he comes on
the screen, I'm like, that's the guy from from Close
Encounters the Third Kind because he looks exactly the same.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, and Best in Show everyone know him is from
the Best in Show as heading the Kennel Club.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah. For me, he's like he stands on his his
like big, like bushy beard, long hair self, and that's
like always going to be the image of my head
for him, it's like I know later he does later
roles where he's like bald and like adorable, but like
this is this era of him is like one of
my personal favorites just because I just like that aesthetic

(11:17):
of like that big giant glasses and like, I don't know,
it's just he's terribly cute.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Oh yeah, well, and such a stereotypical six sixties, right,
and there's there's a lot of undergrad I would really
never get away with. I think in the in the
modern aesthetic of filmmaking, where you can have someone who
who is essentially I think like in his late twenties,
early thirties, who looks like he's probably about forty five.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Well, this is that era, right, And everybody looked a
little older in the eighties, bless.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Them, they did for some other reason. But Bob Balaman,
who's still with us and a fantastic actor who has
had a marvelous career.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
I mean he's considered a character actor.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
I would say he's a character actor because I can't
think of any particular film where he has been the
leading man.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well, he doesn't have leading man looks at all. Well,
he I mean he could be like a bad guy.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
He has this well, I mean I suppose I don't.
I don't think that Bob Odenkirk has leading man looks,
but he has been given the leading man part of
being in Better Call Saul. And then he had himself
an action film that was kind of like its own
John Wick Yeah, Nobody Yeah. And then and Bob Balaban's

(12:42):
a fantastic actor. Odin Kirk is one. Brian Cranston is
one of the most amazing and sought after actors all
over the place. And I don't look at Brian Cranston,
go you know what, that guy's got leading man written
over here, because I imagine him as the dude being
shaved naked in the kitchen of when he was in

(13:02):
Malcolm in the Middle, right, So, and then all of
a sudden it's like, oh wait, he's a bad guy
in the in the New Action or whatever. Yeah, exactly.
So It's interesting how when people see someone and write
a script for them, and under the right hands, suddenly

(13:24):
they're transformed.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
In I mean, look at William Hart in this. I
mean he is not the nice guy. I mean he
is for it's hard to well, I don't I don't
think that was the intention. I don't think we were
supposed to like him, because I feel like he was
his character is right. Yeah, And but I again, like

(13:47):
I don't think we're supposed to be like rooting for
him in any way, because it doesn't have that element
to it. I think when can Russell, like when he
was like his character being cast him be cast as
this character he has this this air of of like
insolence and like, uh, he considers himself to be a

(14:09):
savant of sorts or a genius as he said. He
was like, I'm considered a whiz kid myself what he
says to Blair Brown and uh, which that was a
cute See we'll get back to that. And with the mustard,
she has like a cheese whiz yes, because she's like,
I'm a whiz kid. Yeah, Like I thought that was

(14:30):
cute as hell. But any yeah, yeah. But William hurt
In this is this kind of arrogant cavalier, uh, scientist
who you think that he has intentions like his on
paper his ideas are with good intentions, but we learned

(14:51):
really quickly that it's very selfish.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, he's very driven. He is driven for this goal
and everything, but.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
It's not for the betterment of man. He that was
like that's only on paper, Like he honestly self achievement,
That's exactly it. He's looking to leave a legacy. He
wants to leave a mark on science. He wants not
just that, but also even more selfishly, is that he
wants to be the one to transcend to unlock the

(15:20):
mysteries of the universe.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
So that's a really good point. And I don't think
that I actually made like the full connection with the
words to that, but you're right, he is he is
trying to be the one being that transcends life and
existence in the universe and God and all of these things.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Like he is trying God a God complex?

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Does That's absolutely that's.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Like that's a class case like God complex. But he
also says he points to that, and many times there's
there's many times in this where he even says he's
like not a good guy. He's like, I'm a terrible
like partner, you know, I'm not going to do well.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
By empathy of the absolutely right, would that be like
a little bit of a sociopath.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
That's totally a sociopath? Yeah, because well, are sociopaths self aware?

Speaker 1 (16:15):
I don't know. That's why I was asking.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
I think that they have no empathy, but but I'm
not certain that they're all very self aware. But he
definitely has very sociopathic behaviors. I mean, all great some
greatness has to come from some crazy they say, I don't.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Want to believe them, but I mean, I mean it
can I guess because the audacity that comes with that
allows for the possibility of greatness or great failures.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Well, I guess if you don't have if you're not
empathetically tied to your work, then you have the capacity
to have objective belief and objective vision. I suppose that's
just you know, I'm just you know, blowing it out there.
Whatever that great. I am so where we at and

(17:02):
the story we get to where you know, are liked.
He's like, he's so, He's he moves on with this
project where he ends up kind of creating a team
of people. He meets Blair Brown at a party. They
have the cute exchange about like about the cheese whiz
and them being whiz kids and whatnot. Because she's also

(17:24):
an incredibly learned person.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
She's I thought it was mustard. I didn't see the
logo on it, but it was cheese Whiz because they
were saying a bit of a whiz.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
She goes, I'm a bit of whiz kidding myself A.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
One II in this podcast.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Well, I just I like the way that they kind
of come together as like there, he's all, do you
want to come home with me? She was like, yeah,
I have a roommate, but let's go in the in
and he's like yeah. And then they're like they're doing
it in the den, and he has this like religious experience. Now,
first of.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
All, religious experience, it's okay.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
I mean, like I get it, like great sex is
like God seeing God. You know, there are moments. However,
I feel like there were these when they when they're
having sex that there's this beautiful, like radiant orange light
when we discovers from like a heater that's happening in there,

(18:35):
and they're drenched in sweat, and it cracks me up
because it's like, obviously it's not that cold outside. I
mean they're wearing I mean they're wearing like suit jaggons. Again,
like he's got his wide lappels with his gorgeous and
like like a velvet blazer, and she's got like this
like kind of cool like go go dress happening. But yeah,

(18:59):
like they and so they're like they're having sex, and
it's like he has this like religious moment and he's
talking to her while while they're like finishing, I guess,
and talking about like he's seeing God and he's he
starts crying, and I'm just like, I don't know if
for you, but like if I one night stand or

(19:21):
my first night like having sex with somebody and they
are crying and seeing God, I'm gonna be like.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Just me, Yeah, I try not to weep during my
one night I mean, no, it was great. I had
a good time, but that whole thing is so fascinating.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
I would never see him again, honestly, I mean honestly.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
But then she describes the sex with him as like
what's being screwed by a monk who's like what did
she say?

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Oh that was a great line. I forget what it is,
but yeah, it's it was something like, yeah, driven by
like a monk being driven by the face of God
something like that. Wow. Yeah, ma'am.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
All right, I mean I feel you.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, we're learning about why monasteries are what they are.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
He apparently that set the stage for her to want
to be around him. I mean like that, the fact
that like they they could work together on like projects,
we cut back and forth in this movie, like where
he's like different, going back into the isolation tank, spending
hours building this team experimentation, and then we have like
this fast forward yeah time Yeah that it's like they

(20:57):
have kids and then they're splitting up and it's it's
like it's bonkers. And I think I remember turning in
me like we have a time jump, and I just
miss it somehow. And I mean I've seen this movie
quite a few times, but yeah, I didn't perceive that
time jump for some reason. I guess because it was
just kind of seamlessly built in, and.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
I think it was important.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, I don't think Ken Russell saw that as an
important aspect of the story. Like, I don't think that honestly,
I don't think that they're I mean, I'm not gonna
say that their relationship isn't important, because it becomes important again,
but I don't think that for the story to continue
that we needed to have like their day to day. Yeah.

(21:40):
So I appreciate that because there are such these long
quiet moments, especially in like in the lab and they
so we after we build this dream team, he's like
has another experiment in the they changed the chambers. They
end up changing to a chamber that as a saltwater

(22:00):
tank in.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
It and that, and also it has more isolation, no
windows exactly. The other one had light and it had
well and.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
He had to wear like goggles so they can watch him.
So now they only have like an audio recorder or
audio abilities for this new tank. And the it's also saltwater,
so there's more floatation, which gives you a deeper sense
of isolation. I don't know, have you ever have you
ever been into an isolation tank. My first moment I have, Oh.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Boy, that's and that was a good observation. It didn't
dawn on me that when he was in the prior
tank he's got that whole head apparatus that's pumping oxygen
in and all of that stuff. And when he is
in that saline tank, yeah, he doesn't have any of
that head that apparatus on him, essentially like an old
style kind of a scuba helmet to keep oxygen and flotation.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Well, it's a deeper sense. It's a deeper sense because
I've been in these kind of isolation tanks where you're
in a salt water one, and by the way, they
are bizarre, and there are moments where you're like I
have to be comfortable with myself. Yeah, because you are
floating and it feels like you are floating in space.

(23:13):
I can't describe it other than feeling like I like
a there's weightlessness, and you just have like your body
is free to kind of roam back and forth, and
you kind of have these like because it's absolutely pitch black,
and the you have enough space that you I mean,
especially like some of me a little little a little small,

(23:36):
so I can like move around. I have like I
can float back and forth, so you can feel like
every breath you take and like your body like moving
into the rhythm of like your heart beat, and you
can hear your heart through your whole body. It's so silent,
it's it's a silence that I can never I can't

(23:56):
even describe barely. I don't think I can do like
justice a description of like how silent this is?

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Do you find comfort in it?

Speaker 2 (24:04):
At first? It was really scary, Yeah, and then you
kind of after like a good twenty minutes, you like
find your breath, like because at first you're like, how
do I breathe? I can't see anything? Like what if
I how far? How deep is this? And then those
kind of those thoughts kind of escape you, and then
you kind of fall into this where you're like listening
to your body and hearing all the little motions and

(24:26):
the sounds that you make, and that silence is deafening
but also roaring, if that makes sense. Yeah, Like it's
just it's kind of like listening to like taking like
a conch shell to your ear and hearing that that

(24:48):
rush of sound that you can hear from your heart
beat or the yeah from your ear echoing in the
heart beat into the sound. Like I that's a somewhat
similar experience to an this type of isolation take. And
I mean I've only done it twice, and I mean
I gotta say, maybe I'm not comfortable enough with myself
in that kind of silence, because it is arresting and

(25:12):
you kind of see some demons are like you explore
like parts of your thoughts and you're like where your
dreams were going, and I don't need it go so deep,
but no, you.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Can go deep. This is the right one for it.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
I mean, I feel like this is apropos for this.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, And that's why I asked, because so I struggle
with those kind of things and even just going to
sleep at night and having the quietness in my head
is something that I don't achieve. And so the idea
of being completely isolated where all you can hear is
maybe your breath, maybe your heartbeat, maybe the sloshing of

(25:49):
the water a little bit like that, being there, I
worry about my brain and what I'm gonna think about
because most all of my intentions are to not think
about those things. That well, the.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Thoughts kind of float away after a good twenty minutes.
That's the thing is that at least you kind of
fall into a rhythm after that. Like again, like you
kind of get your body kind of sinks up and
you can you can you It's funny like when you breathe,
you like you know, and you're floating in water, you
kind of like duck back a little bit. Well, because
it's saline water, you just barely like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
It's really the water is water is like dense. It's
much more dense you are, so it's lading.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
It is bizarre. Yeah, I mean I can only attribute
it to anything other than that. That's closest it's to
like when you're on a like a thrill ride that
brings you up and then drops very suddenly and you
have that weightlessness for just to like what twenty seconds.
That is a continued experience, but like you're not falling, Yeah,

(26:56):
but you feel like you're falling at first because it's
so dark and so silent and you have nothing.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah. Yeah, so now imagine had crazy. Yeah, because he's
as he assembles his whole team and before he transitions
into that new chamber, he does that whole vision quest thing.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Oh well, no, that the vision quest came a little
bit later because right before he remember, he has that
first experience where he is taking he's taken like LSD
and then he did that happen before them?

Speaker 1 (27:32):
I thought I thought he had the uh the goat
blood and all that is when he's in the New Chamber.
But that is after that, after he does the trip.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, that trip to Mexico was really fuck and cool
as far as like I mean, I don't pretend to
understand anything about like indigenous rights or religion or I
literally no zero things, hypothesis only, so don't come for me.
But yeah, it is that I for me, that was

(28:03):
like the pinnacle of like how beautiful these effects are
in this film. There is a scene where there Oh
you know, we forgot to mention, is that there was
every time we've met our character at this point he
has been lit up behind him, Like when he meets
Blair Brown, she sees him through a hallway, and in

(28:25):
the hallway is this like he is a silhouette with
this bright, beautiful light behind him and he looks like
an angel walking up. So that's that time. And in
the cave.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
And when he's when he is back lit in that house,
when we see him, he's he's very backlit. It's like
it's blown out. It's like he's entering this house.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
That's why he looks jealous.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
It's so And that's the thing is he does look angelic.
It's very blown out, but we can actually see oh.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
That's right, you can see his clothes. He's not too dark.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah, he's not too dark, which is a very that's
like an necessary point of all of this stuff because
that becomes part of the evolution of the lighting with
him in this because when we get to the cave,
how do we have the lighting at the cave, Well.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
The lighting of the cave is somewhat similar in there,
and there's but there's three people and then we see
like Trinity the beautiful and we see like this the
beautiful like shape of this cave, and then the lighting
behind them is like almost like a sunsety like pinks and.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
What tell me that that cave does not look like
a sideways vulva?

Speaker 2 (29:32):
It totally does.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
It's I mean with that, and the whole thing was
lighting up and then.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, well I feel like that's kind of like thematically,
that's what's happening in this film a lot of times,
because there are these moments of like rebirth, and I
think that's I think that was intentional. Rustle sends to
be like he's a little on the like.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
He's an esoteric existentialist.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
He's also like a little on the psychosexual stuff too
as well, Like I mean, like, look at all these
other films like Devils, we have like the Nuns that.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Are like, which is the one I have to see?
I have to have?

Speaker 2 (30:05):
You know the Roman Well, like I.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Said, yeah, Layer of the White Worm, which I watched
as a precursor to this one to get warmed up
to Ken Russell. Yeah, and there's a lot of psychosexual
stuff in that time that vampire bites into someone. They
have these weird psychosexual I don't know if it's like
flashbacks or if it's infusing some kind of visions, but yeah,
like topless nuns being raped by Roman soldiers who still

(30:32):
have their armor on, or just all sorts of weird things,
and there was like weird strap on stuff that they
had on.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
I was like, my jaw was just in my lap
and I was like, oh man, I'd already seen altered
States by this time, so this was just like Wow.
Ken Russell he upped his stakes a lot between nineteen
eighty and nineteen eighty eight.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
But also use a lot of the same tools and
techniques very much so funny, but yeah, so like when
we're in this cave, they have the this experience, they
take a drug that is this cloggy like indigenous all.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
The indigenous tribes, yeah all I say tribe, but all
of the like the uh uh basically all the shaman
that a in this cave all kind of take it.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
And it is like there are these moments I've taken LSD,
and there are those times in LSD where I've had
those like sparkler visions where but the way that this
was shot there it's like fireworks they're.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Literally shooting sparks at him.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
It is so on points.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, and it's practical. That's the cool thing about all
of this stuff is that there's so it's practical.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
We've done a film we don't that doesn't have practical events.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yet, not really, not yet, I mean.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Other than Dinner in America. Like, I feel like everything
we've watched has been very well and well. Godzilla actually
was not all practical effects.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, that was that was a digital effect.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, But honestly, like I think since then, we've kind
of been focused on like those kinds of films.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
That but and and bringing it back with Minus one though,
we got to see a lot of the practical work
that they did, like the tilting stages that they used
between the building abode and all of those.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Practical effects absolutely there. That's I think that's what we
talked about because it was like we're heart we have
a we have a soft spot for that kind of
thing as as film nerves.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Right, integrating that practical with the digital that's how it
should be done. And and and for Ken Russell's film,
he does have to. Yeah, there's a lot.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Of monoscoping and composity like those things and like those
using those techniques and like I think he uses like
gel painting or whatnot to.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yep, and there was and there's Uh. I don't fully
understand the technique myself because I haven't ever shot on
motion film footage.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
This cinematographer, like you pointed out, was a cinematographer that
went on to do Blade Runner. Yeah, a few other
films and so a lot of things. Yeah, documentary, yeah,
which is so great. And one of the great things
about Blade Runner, which I'm sure they used in this,
is the ability to composite multiple shots across the same

(33:20):
piece of footage. It's so multiple exposure, and I don't
necessarily know how it is, but they can do a
pass on something and expose the film, reset that piece
of film, and then re expose it again on another Absolutely. Yeah.
A lot of the stuff, like the flying ships in
Blade Runner, when we get to that stuff, those are
multiple shots and and there's a whole technical issue that

(33:42):
was fascinating for me to read about with Blade Runner,
because you run the risk of if you complete your
shots and then you're trying to do your last compositied
multiple exposure and you blow it, You've basically blown every
single shot, yeah, on that whole thing, and they would
have problems like the footage would jam or get eaten

(34:03):
in some way, and then they'd have to go back
and redo the whole entire sequence again. So in this
film we're starting to see a lot of that really
technical crazy.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
I wonder if this was like his foray into that
as well before. Probably because Blade Runner came out what eighty.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Blade Runner was after Alien?

Speaker 2 (34:25):
Oh well, Alien is nineteen.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Alien was nineteen eighty, because Blade Runner comes out around
like it. Probably I think Blade Runner. We'd have to
look it up, but I think Blade Runner is like
eighty four eighty six somewhere in there, because it's after
Harrison Ford is starting to become recognized. He's been Harrison Ford,
has been Han solo, and I think he has also

(34:51):
just been Indiana Jones. It's right around in that same time.
So Blade Runners like eighty four, two eighty two, so
and so, So here we are, we're in nineteen eighty.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Alien is nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Nineteen seventy nine, Yeah, what did I say? Nineteen eighty Okay?
So yeah, so yeah, nineteen seventy nine, nineteen eighty two,
so here we are. And I don't know if that
cinematographer he wasn't he wasn't an alien.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
No, no, so this may have been his first foray
into doing that with film.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Right, Yeah, here's nineteen eight we have we're.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Like experimenting, which is kind of cool because like so far,
like everybody who's worked on this film, this, they did
some things that were first our director being this is
his first Hollywood film. Yeah, our cinematographer possibly were apotheesizing
that this was his first foray into using motion film.
We're gonna hypothosa? Is that the music? The guy who

(35:49):
did the music in this he like, no, because his
stuff he's been one like Emmy's and he's got like
a Nobel or a Pielter. I'm sorry, he went a pel.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Oh fulletzer oh nice, probably some kind of like journalism
or something.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah. I think he's like a because he's pretty famous
for like like these musical scores. Okay, and let's see
who oh the special effects team that created the physical
effects like the bladder. That was a an innovative process
that was created for this film.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
So that was a that was a whole great team
of people.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
I feel like this film has is kind of one
of those films that gets overlooked as a tip of
or a beginning or setting a bar for many things
filmmaking wise or effects wise, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
It's I mean, it feels like an indie film in
a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
It does. It definitely feel like it definitely feels like
an indie film. It has like it reeks of that
because there's like this the cast, this is William Hurt's
first film, and the fact that he gets this role
first for a film. This is also Drew Barrymore's first
Drew Yeah, which I didn't realize was her and you
were like, that's Drew Barrymore of like wait a minute,

(37:05):
I thought, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Before fire Starter, Yeah, this is her.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Like she doesn't talk very much, I don't think, but
like either then maybe answering a telephone. But yeah, that's cute.
I thought that was that was a cute, Like, oh wow,
this is everybody's And on top of that, this film
was offered to Kubrick. This film was offered to stevens Bilberg.
This film was offered to Orson Wells, who all turned
it down.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Right, Apparently there's also like some beef between like Patty
and Ken Russell like that. That's why Patty's not h
like credited on this film. His his credit is under
like his like not student name, his real name or
something like that, like Aaron something anyways or assignment or
something like that. Yeah, and it's not as important. But

(37:54):
what is important special effects and that amazing.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
The practical and the optical.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Well, and that's where our guy gets his medic, gets
his new drug that because he has these this moment
of like where he's like he has the visions of
visions and like sparklers and spirit animals and like traversing
the universe. And then he's talking to his friend who's
like the guide that brought him out there, and he

(38:25):
was all like, no, you walked outside and cried a
lot for like an hour, and he's all like, but
it felt like far And that's exactly like that's how
it feels when you take acid, I mean, or when
you take mushrooms. That's how it feels. I mean, I've
never done those things.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
I've been encouraged to. In fact, even recently someone's like, oh,
have you done mushrooms? You should really do you know?
Does that mean psilocybin you might have. But another person
actually just said that recently too. It's like, you should
really consider psilocybin because you can do psilocybin journeys here.
You can you can do those guided one and.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
You know what even weirder things you can do here
in Portland. Oh boy, you can lick some toads. Yeah
what yeah, boy, they have some people that do like that.
Like I don't know if it's like that you actually
lick the toad or you get like the toad's secretions.
But like I have my next door neighbors before they
moved away, I had them knock on the door. They're like,

(39:22):
just so you know, if you hear us like screaming
in the background, like outside in the backyard, it's gonna
it's okay. We're doing a like a like a drug journey.
And I was like, oh boy, wow. So I was like, so,
do we have like a safe word.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
I love that they're having to like prep the apartments.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well because their backyard faces my back my door. So
they were like, let me.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Just just in case we're out here naked. Yeah, two
o'clock in the morning and one of us starts, yeah,
just to understand that. It's yeah, I love I.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Missed those neighbors. They were bonkers, but yeah they that
I remember being like, oh, but I was like, do
we need like a safe words? Is like I know,
like this is the word that things have gone awry, right, yeah,
And she's like no, We're good, and like it was.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Like, they're gonna remember the safe word.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
If you start stabbing each other? Should I call the cops?

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (40:24):
But that so that's I do love that you brought
that up though, having been a person who has not
done any of those things. But potting alcohol is as
hard as I've ever gone because I have my own
I actually have a considerable amount of fear of the
idea of losing control or not having control of myself
or anything like that. So I've never been experimental with

(40:45):
those things.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
You should start with an isolation tank.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
For oh, I and that I would like to try
because I think I can probably like hit the emergency
button or something like that.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
But inside that you can hit the lights and it
turns on.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
But but I love that connection and having you it
back of because visually we're with William hurt through this
with the spark and the smokes, and.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
That we never see the outside person.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
We don't. That's and that's true. We never see that.
We have to be told that you just were kind
of outside the cave for a while, crying and uh.
And I've heard other people say that they have had
kind of their own vision quests or their own little
journeys into those kind of things, and they explain that stuff,

(41:31):
but then the other people around were like, yeah, you
just kind of really I hung out.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
I see for me, like, I, okay, here we go.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
I don't this can be headed out. Probably not.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
I am not a spiritual person. I believe. I don't
prescribe to that as much, but I want to believe.
I want to experience something that beyond that is beyond explanation,
Like I am open to it, but I don't believe currently.

(42:06):
I'm more of a seeing as believing kind of person.
I've had experiences that I was like.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Do you feel that you're seeking it or no?

Speaker 2 (42:13):
I'm definitely not a seeker, but but I'm receptive to it.
I feel like I'm like, I'm not closed off from it.
So I used to say that I don't prescribe to
magical thinking, and I felt like that was a really
closed off way of saying, like what, I really am
more open to it. So when I've taken like transcendental
drugs and things like that in the past, sorry, mom,

(42:34):
they I never had those like those talk to God
moments are like, I've never had those moments of where
I've like saw beyond or beyond. But I have had
those like cellular moments of like stardust and seeing like

(42:59):
like like not sight beyond sight like not like I'm
not like you know, the sort of omen or anything
like that, but like just having that but having that
escape from yourself, being able to see outside of your
body and be able to see that is That's That's
about the most like beyond that I've ever experienced, honestly.

(43:23):
I mean, I've had like those like silly ones where
things transform and you're.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Like, WHOA did I just really?

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Did I just talk to something weird like do I
just And I remember being like, I don't think this
is working, you guys. And I literally sounded like this.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
I don't think this is working you guys.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
But I didn't sound like that to me, but clearly
I did to everybody else. But I didn't have those
moments of because I guess because I don't have that
spirituality tied into my being. I don't have a religious
a very religious belief anymore. I don't believe in God,

(44:00):
I don't have like a I don't believe in a
higher power. But I do believe there's matter and energy
and form, and I think that those those are the
elements that I've that I've that I've experienced when I
was like really tripping and like I would see like
colors that I don't think existed, and like that kind

(44:21):
of thing, and that's how I perceived that. I mean,
some people they see God and then maybe that's that's
God to them, or that is there, there's there, they're
like their space babies. But like but I for me,
that was never that. It was always just like these

(44:41):
just beautiful visuals and like being able to see beyond
myself and outside of my own self. But the for me,
it was always like the visuals. So that's when that
when that happens in the cave, when he's like seeing
the fireworks and he's like looking up, I'm like, yeah,
that's what I've had, but not seeing God, but definitely
seeing like yeah, flashes of like things like of like

(45:05):
animals and like fauna, and like our our divine tied
to our world and our ecosystem and things like that.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah, no, that it's totally so again not having had
those experiences because I haven't done that, but I've been
around folks, so I'm as you know, I love backpacking,
being outdoors, so I've and years ago there used to
be a big group of us where we all work
together and we all then recreated together too. We would

(45:39):
go on big backpacking trips in the wilderness areas. You know,
we'd take off for a week and go backpacking in
backcountry and most of the people that I was with
would either smoke pot uh or and also have mushrooms.
And so very often I would be out camping with
people who would take mushrooms. And I remember one time

(46:01):
we had this fantastic rain shower that ended up coming down,
just this beautiful shower moved through this wilderness area. And again,
I'm not on anything because because I'm afraid to and
I mean I'm okay with saying that. It's essentially me
being afraid of that and possibly maybe afraid of the experience,
but afraid of the idea of like losing control, and

(46:26):
none of them did. But you know, it was amazing
to kind of watch them go through it and then
what they would experience and how they would explain it afterwards.
And one of the aspects of that was this very
visual color based aspect of what came out. Things became vibrant,
things began to radiate color. Music would have a visual yeah,

(46:51):
and that is that's so that's a big one. Being
someone who has been a musician for most of my
life as well, a lot of those folks have really
encouraged me, like that's one of the reasons why, like,
you will experience music in a way that you you
you can't comprehend it right, you will see it. They also,
I mean, they have said that they have a there's
a visual representation that comes about for them from.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
It takes a mushroom and go listen to some music.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
That'll be That'll be it. We'll have a special Patreon
episode for everyone to be able to see that. It'll
be be just like sitting there for like a two hours,
not anything. And but then we'll do the Then we'll
do the commentary after the fact where we'll go back
and say so at this moment where you see me

(47:42):
wedding myself. I'm actually running through a forest within a unicorn.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
I've derailed this. I'm sorry, not at all.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
This is fantastic. This is literally what this show is about,
is us to go in whatever direction we want to,
starting out with a film. This is perfect. This is
why I love watching movies with you. This is fantastic.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Little did you know I was going to talk about
all this last time when we were watching this.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Instead of watching Layer of the White Worm, I should
have taken mushrooms to prepare for this.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
No, this was I mean, that's I mean, that's I
think that's why this I mean named up. It's all
states like this. This is what for me is what
the allure for this film was also based on this.
I love the idea of a pseudoscience where we're trying
to cure these kinds of mental illnesses with this kind

(48:41):
of I mean, because now we've discovered like using ketamine,
people do ketamine journeys and have cured depression. Like long
I have a friend who has had long standing depression
and went does a ketamine journey, and it has like
they are like a different person. They are like sunshine,

(49:02):
and they were probably one of the most sad people
that I knew, and so it was amazing to me
to see that kind of transformation and that So that's
like that potential was there and we had we were
just kind of on that beginning of the iceberg, I
suppose to what they would say, like just tip toeing
over that edge of And that's kind of what this film,

(49:23):
in this book and the experiments of John Lilly and
all that were from and they in the story they
get the drug from this, and this is what we
bring back to the lab, and this is what starts
to second act and gets things fucking going.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yeah, things, Yeah, And I'm realizing with the things that
you have said, I think I didn't I didn't necessarily
put all the pieces together until now talking about all
of this stuff. Because he gets the drug from the
shaman and he has his vision and we've kind of

(50:03):
had this whole part of him that's been laid out
that's narcissistic and wants to not touch the face of God.
But because he doesn't believe in a God but wants
to kind of be a god. He wants to he
wants to be like a gold God.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Because I feel like he because there's because he was
talking about his He has a very a very like
he grew up Roman or Catholic, I think is what
he said he was. So he has a very like
deep seated religious what do they call it?

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Well, we had a religious background, but I guess the
way I felt it was being given to us is
that he had let go of that.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Well, that's why he kept seeing God and like seeing
himself in God.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Especially with his father's death exactly, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
The divinity of himself. He said he lost his faith
after his father died because his father whispers the words
terrible to him. Yes, that for me, that was one
of the more like complex emotional moments was and it
also for me it's part of that not having a

(51:14):
religious belief is when the when he's talking to his
father and his father is going through this pain and
is his life is ending. He hears his father whisper
something and he's like, what is it, pop? And his
dad says terrible and then dies, Like so the end
of your life is terrible and nothing miss That's fucking awful.

(51:36):
And again like that brings roots back to like the
whole not having a belief and it it's sad. I mean,
but I like, again, I want to believe, so yeah,
we'll see.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, I guess I'm open it almost. So I would
say that the the will you Hurt scientists that I'm
seeing at the most would be a deist as if
there is some kind of creative force in the universe
that you could apply a god name too. But it's

(52:13):
really the universe. Yeah, And it's almost like and I
feel like when I watch it, that's kind of what
I see and feel like Ken Russell is kind of
doing with all of this, is that there is this
strange nexus of consciousness and being and universe and birth
and stars and planets and nothingness and everything, and it's

(52:39):
kind of all of that.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
That's the beauty this esoteric movie.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
And I mean this is where he has that vision
where he is regressed back to he's seeing these simions
and he has like he gets he's like I could
taste the blood of the goat on my mouth. And
when they open their like hit one of the one
of the crewmates is like, no, fuck this and like
throws open He's like a physiologist, they're an inter chronologist.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Yeah, he's throws open a door.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
And you see William hard and he's like, he looks
like he's covered in like you thought face paint for you,
And for me, I thought it looked like the when
you have a baby they have like this, They have
all the placenta mess on them, like the call on them.
And he was like, his mouth is covered in blood,
and then they wipe his face off and then he
throws it in the fire. So we never get confirmation

(53:29):
as to what is like actually blood wise in his mouth.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Right, And they're very specific in making sure that we
follow the fact that he is burning this evidence of
whatever this is.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
So we never know, like we're left to not knowing.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Yeah, and which is pretty great. But yeah, that so
and and and that is a part that I love
about all of this because you were the one that
we're saying that that you thought it was like placental
matter that was on even like a newborn baby, And
I was like, oh, I was thinking that it was
like very old kind of face paint, like some kind

(54:04):
of earthen material that somebody had wiped on their face,
very similar to the shaman that we saw that were. Yeah,
and then he had the blood on him as if
he had and not reverted back. Not that he was
participating in any type of a ceremony back then, but
maybe he had painted his face and been part of
a hunting party because they were there. He seemed like

(54:24):
he was describing a pack and they weren't. Really the
way it was being described to us wasn't something like
I mean, it was so ancestral hominid humanoid that it
was they they were they were hunting more like like sapiens,
like like gorillas or even wolves or something like that,

(54:46):
as opposed to being tool bearing people australopithsene or something
like that. So yeah, like he describes them taking down
a goat.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
And like a piece of lava or something like that
is what he talked about. Yeah, but yeah, I thought
that was I mean, I remember when we were not
seeing happened. Your thought that was, like you your perception
was that he had like physically trance like left time
and space. And for me, it was like I was
thinking that if more felt like he was like body regressing,

(55:18):
like deep memory, like lizard brainy. Yes, that's what I
feel like this was in general. And then as we
continue on, like there are these moments of where he's
losing because he is taking so much of this drug
which they talk about like has poisonous, poisonous and has

(55:41):
these levels that if he takes too much that he
could die. But he's like, I have to know the
things of the universe unto the tank by myself, do
the things by myself. And there are moments that happen
like that are kind of like the silly obtuse things
like the scene. For me, the most silly and somewhat

(56:01):
heavy handed moment was when there was a one incident
in a tank where he goes in by himself and
then he comes out as a Simian or whatever if
like a Neanderthal or whatever. I'm sorry I did forget
to mention the fact that when we have we after

(56:22):
they take him out of the tank, that their x
ray he asked to be x rayed, and then they
find that he has the laryngeal sac of a gorilla.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
Right, and they're like, great, we have a gorilla X
ray here and what And it's like, well, that's actually
that dude over there.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
That to me should have been like the moment where
we're like and the inundercronologists like loses his shit. He's
like no, absolutely not. I'm not participating in this as ridiculous.
I don't want to be party to this. And it
I kind of love like that dichotomis of like there,
this is proof, like the physical regression, and he and

(56:59):
they are like Nope.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
No, that's I mean, that's where we learned this guy
as an intercinologist, because he's like rattling off all of
his paperwork and crowds like you are not going to
tell me that we are transcending time and space and
altering our genes inside of a swimming pool?

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Fuck you right? And also like I think that like that,
what does that drug do? That is like so that
drug being a regressive thing, and then on top of
the isolation aspects of it, does that what's causing? I mean,
I mean I gotta love a good French science, So
I say that term a lot in this, but yeah,
that's a for me. That is a good suspension of disbelief. Yeah,

(57:44):
this has rings so true to what it's drawing its
source from that it has you can suspend your disbelief.
It's not ridiculous. But then we do have that ridiculous
moment of the Simian coming out of the tank. And
then running amuck in the city and going hanging out
a pack of dogs and going to the zoo and

(58:05):
killing a goat to the zoo, It's like, okay, I
mean for me that I could have gone without that
scene because I feel like it doesn't do the story
any favors in any way other than like to push
the relationship of him and Blair back together.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
And one thing too, about when we have the Simion
that's come out of the tank. So we've got William
Hurt who's transformed into this early you know, even pre
Australia the thing. So right before he goes and kills
the goat that's in the zoo and he's been running
after the pack wools. He's chasing those dogs. There was

(58:44):
like a couple of like loose dogs and he's chasing them.
There's a whole confrontation and all of this stuff. But
he ends up at the zoo with the sheep and
the elephants and the rhino. But there is a shot
where he is up on a rock that almost looks
like kind of like a little bluff or something, but
it's like a little you know, it's it's it's part
of an enclosure so they've tried to make something for
these goats as part of the enclosure. He's backlit, Yeah,

(59:07):
but he's dark. He's all covered in hair. It's whoever
our actor is that's in it, because it's not William Hurt.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
So small.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
Yeah, it's a very smaller stature person. But they've got
him in like this body suit of hair and they've
done everything up to make him look like a very
old humanoid type. Yeah, with the biggest ball sack hanging down.
Holy crap. There's one shot where it was like Jesus,
that guy's been running man. But but but we're back

(59:39):
to that backlit spot and this is one of the
This is actually, I think the first time where we
get the back lit shot where he's dark, and because
he's in this kind of hairy suit and out there,
you can have this very back lit profiled thing that
that really stands out as this creature. But we don't
have any kind of like facial features, any funnel features.

(01:00:00):
It's dark. Yeah, and so we've kind of had this
light transition of the person that we've been following who's
very back leg And so.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Do you think we're reading too much into this? But
I think I'm I mean me too. I'm okay with
it because I think it's just even if it's like
a happy accident, it's it's beautiful and it's poignant, and
it has these it rings to his loss of humanity.
And on top of that is his loss of humanity.

(01:00:30):
It is becoming de evolving himself is a loss of
his humanity.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Yeah, it is, because when what makes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
You human, it's not present in that type of creature.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
Absolutely well. And because when we do get to our
third act, in our final moment where he's gone through
all of this stuff, the experiment is over. I'm kind
of jumping ahead a little bit, but we're not a
scene a scener on this. So but when we have
our final moments later on and we have that lit

(01:01:00):
moment before we get into the really crazy whacked out
and we're not in like the most whacked out one,
we can talk about this scene where he's got the
most whacked out one with the whirlpool and the lights
and space baby and all of this stuff. If this
is post that he is, Oh is it? This is?
Because this is the this is literally the last scene
where he's in the hallway. Oh yeah, and he's in

(01:01:20):
a bathroom and and he's and he's starting to regress
without being in the isolation tank and not having it
like he's it's like he's taking it so much now
that his body is starting to do this regression thing.
Because he is having his moment in the hallway, he's
banging on the walls and he and but right before

(01:01:42):
all that happens, he's backlit, but we don't see any
of his features, and so that is our moment where
we're like, oh, even though he is physically modern day
William Hurt doctor, PhD, scientist, Yeah, there's a he's mentally
changed because he makes a grunt. He makes grunting noises

(01:02:03):
and his wife sees that here's that and starts to worry.
And then he starts to transform right there in the hallway,
and he's looking like a Cronenberg monster and all of
that stuff. Right. The substance, that's a really good one.
I haven't seen Smile to this. Apparently there's like a
creature in Smile too that kind of does something like that.

(01:02:24):
But to me, it's very it's like very Cronenbergian, yes,
where it's like this really morphed, bubbly you know, Creaturrey thing.
There's a bunch of stuff going on there. And but
but he is backlit again and so we have that
that backlt but he's very dark. We don't get to
see his features. He's not the angelic person anymore. Right

(01:02:47):
before he becomes kind of a monster that he has
to struggle against in the hallway to overcome the transmorgification
into whatever it else that he is devolved.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yeah, it's there is that is also part of that
special effects that is incredible. Like prior to that, building
up to that like body suit of like like a
crazy like Croneberg nightmare, he has these moments of like

(01:03:21):
we get these close ups on his arms and like
legs where there are the skin is like bubbling, and
that's what that's that's what I was talking about when
I talk about the air blodder technique. This was revolutionized
or I guess constructed revolutionary revolutionary for this because it
was he had the artist had created this like skin

(01:03:42):
flap that made him look like the skin was rolling
by pushing air into a bladder, which had the most disgusting,
slash amazing effect because it does make you go, oh,
he's he's de evolving and like hair would be pushed
up and like his There was a scene where he's
standing in the shower and he's looking down and starts
laughing because his toes become like an apes toes.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Yeah, just yeah, he gets eight feet and yeah, yeah,
I mean the it's very visually realized. Yeah, nineteen eighties
and whatever the restrictions were at that time for either
budgeted or technology, it's a very visually realized.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
He scared the crap out of me. So I think
this is when I started watching this film. When I
was a little kid. I have very deep memories of
like kind of I used to watch my parents know this.
I used to watch movies from behind the couch when
they would be sitting on the couch and I would
like kind of sit over the behind the couch and
just be really quiet and like watch And because I

(01:04:48):
loved I've loved film for my whole life. It was
like one of the things that connected my father and I.
He was a film lover and he got me to
love film, and I would watch They would watch scary
movies late at night, and they watched this one. I
think was must have been on cable or something like that,
because this came out what nineteen eighty, so I was
not even ten. I mean I was like, what six

(01:05:12):
seven something like that, and I little kid, So I
remember watching it from behind the corner of like my
parents like while they're watching in the movie on the
couch and somehow managing not to like let them know
they also ate nachos.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Well, what.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Late night nachos without us?

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
How dare they had the mcminimum's idea before mcminimums they were,
they were revolutionary themselves in their food consumption prior.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
To that they had. But yeah, no, it's this this film.
That's That's what one of the things that I just
I keep saying I love this film. But yes, it's
one of those things that I keep going back to
that I've talked about this film multiple times on different
shows that I've been invited on, and I've never felt

(01:06:03):
like I got to give it a good enough treatment.
So now I feel like if we've really succeeded in
getting to talk about the effects, especially and that brings
us to that amazing rotoscope slash practical effects, the rural
cool like the space baby run. So I don't even

(01:06:25):
know how to like describe it to people other than
like for you have to watch this film. I mean
clearly most people are gonna or have seen it and
are going to be like, oh, I need to rewatch this.
But there that scene of like he goes into the
tank and I can't remember if he goes by himself
or not. Do you remember if it was by himself?

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
He I don't remember. I think he decided that he
was gonna know it was so Blair Brown shows up.
She goes there to stopping, but the other guys are
there because he's like, this is like the big one,
Like I got to push it because.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
He took a bigger dose or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
This was like the big dose, Like yeah, this was
like all the cards are on the table, like we're
going for everything here. And she's trying to get the
other scientists and him to realize, no, you can't do
this because there's all this other shit that's happened, implications.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Of other things that can happen, like a his health,
whatever impact this will have on the world knowledge.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
He's clearly if he's not transmorgifying into some kind of
an Australia pithesy, and he is clearly losing his mind
enough to where he is waking up naked with sheep
blood all over himself in an enclosure at this zoom stop.
I should probably not have him do this again.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Probably maybe we can make him come to Jesus moment. Yeah,
but yeah, So that's where we're We're in the tank,
and it's he has the deepest experience. He goes further
up on further. There are scenes that Ken Russell has

(01:08:04):
these gorgeous visuals that he does where he's William Hurts
in the like in the desert and he's looking over
and Blair Brown is like standing upright naked like or
laying upright naked like in a cobra pose, but she's
a lizard. And then they turn to dust and then

(01:08:25):
stars explode, and then they're wearing white with a field
of yellow poppies of like California poppies, and they're drinking tea,
and then a volcano reps and then the stars fall
and then they're wearing red and the background is black.
I mean, it is so beautiful, beautiful, and I just

(01:08:49):
think it's like, this is what makes him a fucking legend.
Like it's and because we get these, we get like
I want to say, Honestly, we get a lower grade
version of this when we go into like Layer of
the White Worm. Not not to say that Layer Wyworm
doesn't have its merits. Yeah, this, this particular compositing of
like is very Jodorowski, very like, and I don't super

(01:09:11):
love Holy Mountain. Yeah, and it's but it rings to
like that that hyper spiritual visualization that's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
I've never seen Holy Mountain, and I really want to.
It's I've never seen a Jodorowski project at all. I
never knew who he was until it came out that
there was that documentary Jodorowski's Dude, and I was like,
I don't know who this person is or anything, and
that documentary is wacko and crazy and it's amazing. And
then it's like, Oh, this person has this whole breadth
of work that they've been doing in these really like

(01:09:44):
crazy esoteric art house four hour My Naked Son Standing
on a Hill films ier.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Of his film, I would prefer I prefer some too,
Sangre okay, honestly, as far as like it having like
a compelling story to kind of build a pond. What
I love for what I love about Holy Mountain is
the visuals. But other than that, it's kind of like
it's very all over the place. It's a commentary on
like political capitalism and social like, yeah, it's very it's

(01:10:15):
very for its time.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Yeah, because he was very anti capitalism when he was
talking about the fact that he didn't get to make
his Dune film, because he was very much like, why
does this have to cost money? Why do these have
to things be limited? I'm like, well, that's great, Bernie Sanders,
give it to me. Yeah, but thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Yeah, yeah, that is that's the tragedy of that. But
I feel like there was these visuals that had this
hyper again hyper religious aspects to it that were very
ring true of like a Jordiowski style visual and you

(01:10:52):
they he starts going further and further and falling away
from himself. He starts regressing past the the visual landfield
of like him and his wife, and then he has
like he's back in the Simian time. He's back to
his like Simon self. And then he goes further than that.
He goes into like the the Earth's core, and then

(01:11:17):
he goes further and further and deeper and deeper. He's
in space, he's in time. He's in birth upon birth,
upon birth, upon birth of self. Back to the plant cells,
the cells for the the egg and ovum, like the
the sperm, the beginning, the very beginning, the space maybe

(01:11:38):
the eyeball like it. And then there's this giant vortex
and he and they can all, which is amazing because
it looks like they basically have shot like a fan,
Like they're shooting fan with water and ice, like maybe
like a smoke machine. That's like crazy lit up. The

(01:12:01):
only time I've ever seen something kind of close to
that was this dumbass movie called My Science Project. Oh yeah,
that's what it reminded me of. I was like, oh, yeah,
that that. I mean that I love that movie, but
I mean it's a silly, fun dumb movie. Yeah, but yeah,
that's the only time I've ever seen this effect done
quite to this extent. And it's kind of mind boggling.

(01:12:24):
I mean, if I was tripping in that room, I'd
be like, whoa boy, Yeah, I just fell into that well.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
And it looks like and and the the nexus of
what he has done has actually pushed pushed energies out
because we have Bob Balaban is staring at a monitor
with these bright light shooting out of it and it
knocks him out. Yeah, scientist gets blown out by.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
The one of the hall away the under chronologists. Yeah,
and then Blair runs into the room to like save him,
because like they have a connection. Yeah, And I mean
that was the only thing I would say that was her.
I think she even makes mentioned that she is the
last remaining shred of his humanity.

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
Yes, and she's she's the anger.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Yeah, but she's his anchor. And when she reaches into
the vortex and calls out for him and pulls him out,
he she's like holding him.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
She's birthing him all over again. Yeah right, Yeah, that's
the way I took it, that she's kind of birthing
him back from whatever part because again, this is this
whole thing is prior to his kind of breakdown in
the hallway at their home, the last scene, which is
him starting to regress without the chemicals, without the machine,

(01:13:43):
without being in the isolation chamber. He's carried all of
that stuff with him into whatever his world is. So yeah,
she's having to she's birthing him back into I almost
feel like existence.

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
This would have been the greatest ending. I have to agree,
because when we go into the hallway. As we get
towards the end of this episode, it's the the hallway.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
I don't know if I agree, because the thing about
the hallway, while wild and weird. He I feel that
Ken Russell is having William Hurt's doctor make a choice.
What is your choice? Do you want to be here
with her?

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
Because she tells him right, she tells him to fight it.
She does, and she's like, you know, be with me.
And when he grabs her hand, he infects her with
this right, with this regression. She is screaming and carrying on,
and then.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
Her skin gets kind of ripped off in some kind
of an odd way.

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
I don't know what's happening in there, or like her
cells are breaking down. That's I think that's more of
what they were kind of looking at, because it looks
like she looks like a lava field.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
Oh interesting. I thought she was supposed to look like
a muscle and blood vessel body or something, but it
could have been. That's the thing, is Ken Russell leaves
enough of this stuffed up to interpretation in some weird way. Yeah,
so I thought, yeah, it was like he was yanking
her existence away from her in some way while he regressed,

(01:15:15):
and that was the fight, was that he had to
fight his way back and not regress. And and because
her life had been tied to his life, so for
her to have her life back, he needed to have
his life back in that in the in the present,
in that place. Yes, he knows Ken Russell could have
been like it was fucking cool film, just look really

(01:15:37):
red yep.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
But then that's what that's the very famous seed that
AHA used for their video take on Me. Yeah, where
the characters like dropping back and forth between like paper
world and real world, and he's like slamming himself against
the walls. And it's something that everybody remembers about this
film absolutely all the time. That and very when he

(01:16:01):
has the visual experience. For me, this is the one
I always go back to. Is there is a crucifixion
of something like God, Jesus or whatever and the goat
head with many eyes. Yeah, why that gives me chills. Yeah,
I think that's.

Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
Why tell me about it. I want to tell you
a little bit about it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
I don't know why, but I think is it like,
is it's revelation right, like the beasts of many Eyes?
I don't really I don't know much about but what
I for me why it's so it's just so stark
and so poignant, and it's such a beautiful, striking image
because it has this like goat head and it's very uncanny,
and I feel like it's influenced many artists later on

(01:16:46):
in life. Like I mean, I'm gonna this is just
a hypothesis, but like Evangelion, there is a scene where
there's like a character being crucified and the character has
many eyes and it pops up. But to me, that's
like very like on with that. Yeah, but I could
be just like drawing here, like.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
See, and I love all of this imagery coming together.
So if we look at the Old Testament and the
description of angels, angels are horrific creatures in the Old Testament,
they are beings that are have wings, that have a
thousand eyes. They are not what we do. But we
have this very Christian depiction of this angelic at the beginning,

(01:17:29):
when we see him all backlit, all clean, kind of
blonde hair, we can see him really well. But when
we get to this thing later, we have kind of
a little bit of this crossover that is a little
bit of revelations with we have this multi eyed beast
and it's kind of a goat headed thing. It's very
Christian in that we have the Crucifixion, we later do

(01:17:53):
have the resurrection a part of that, so we kind
of have like this old school idea of angels with
multiple eyes, this being we have revelations of these creatures. Chris. Yeah,
there's all of this stuff that's kind of being mixed
together in this shot. And who knows what he could

(01:18:14):
have been. I mean, this could have been like what
it'd be really cool if it was a goat with
a bunch of eyeballs, you know, and they may not
have been overly thinking it like me, but I'm like, wow,
this is like all this stuff coming together. It's awesome
and it's crazy and.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
It has that like again that like really famous Ken
rustle thing where he has like the worrying background is
happening clouds or like thundering down and then it's like
Christ but it's goaheaded is scary Christ?

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
Yeah, it's I love I love he and he really
me too. I am too so and it's interesting. This
is a really good example of me watching a film
now because I watched Altered Saints Her the first time
about two years ago, because when I was a little kid,
I was afraid of that film, and because of the

(01:19:02):
upbringing that I had, I feared scary and horror stuff,
and that kind of plays into the religious aspects and
the kind of the close off aspects of the family
and the life that I had how I was raised.
You know, I told you this. I didn't see Jaws
until I was in my very late teens or early twenties,
so we're talking like nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety ninety one,

(01:19:25):
like that's about when I first saw Jaws because my
prior life I had been very afraid of horror films.
Friday the Thirteenth, Nightmare on Elm Street. All of those
films were things that I saw much later on in life,
not when they came out, and I remember seeing them
as VHS tapes in the rental store and being afraid
of the covers because I had been taught to be

(01:19:46):
afraid of these things. So Altered States was one of
those films where I was just like, I remember, Altered States,
I should watch that film and then watching this. But
if I had watched it, even if I hadn't. If
I had, i'd watched it and kind of gotten over
the idea of being afraid of it and watched it,
and let's say I watched it in my twenties, I
wouldn't have understood it because I don't think that I

(01:20:09):
had spent enough time being analytical with film and being
analytical with Martin and life and what do I think,
what do I feel? What do I believe? What do
I understand? Yeah, I don't think I would have been
enough of myself to be able to look at that
film and appreciate it, understand it for the aspects that

(01:20:32):
speak to me and have my own interpretations of it,
have the understanding of the craftsmanship that went into any
aspect of it. I think I could have very easily
pushed this film off and just disregarded it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
Oh, that's weird.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
I think a lot of people do that, honestly, and
that the tragedy. But I think that's why we come
in and do these discussions and these critical breakdowns, is
because it brings attention to things that people may not
have noticed or noticed and then didn't want it to
know more or whatever the case may be. So thanks

(01:21:09):
for watching this with me.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Thanks for watching this, Thanks for bringing this one up.
This is fantastic, and I'm also really excited to tell
everyone what our next film is going to be that's
gonna come out after this one. Do you want to
talk about it?

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
Do you do it? I?

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
Okay, So this is fantastic. We are going to watch
The Company of the Wolves in the Company Wolves in
the company so I in the Company of Wolves, but
I've seen it the Company of Wolves, so I've seen
it both ways.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
Oh yeah, I think it's in the Company of Wolves in.

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
The Company of Wolves, and that's what I thought too.
I think I had typed it into IMDb and then
it tried to come back at me. But in the
I think the cover says in the Company of Wolves,
and I think IMDb has it as the Company of Wolves.
Interesting anyway, it doesn't matter because it's gonna be a
great watch. I watched that film a long time ago,

(01:22:03):
very similar to this. That is a film that in
the time that I did watch it, I didn't necessarily
understand film and myself and I didn't necessarily understand the
director and messaging and images and all of this stuff.
So I am so excited to watch this film again
and very similar to this film, having a lot of

(01:22:24):
people early on in their career. There are going to
be a bunch of actors in this film where it's like, WHOA,
this person's in this film, and some of them are
well established or becoming very well established.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
Very BBC. We should probably point out this is very
a lot of BBC actors.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
And yeah, this is very our BBC.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
Yeah, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
Going to be our rated. So yeah, I'm super excited
to watch this one. This is going to be really great.
So yeah, Gretchen for the next one, thanks so much
for being here for this one.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
Yeah. The Check the Gate podcast is hosted by Martin
Vavra and Gretchen Brooks. The show is directed, produced, and
edited by Martin Vavra. Produced by Galaxy Sailor Productions twenty
twenty five. The show is filmed and recorded special thanks
to Adam Carpinelli and Aleandro Barragan.