October 9, 2025 • 47 mins
Richard Ledes, director of the films Adieu Lacan and V13, explains his process, namely, adapting French plays about psychoanalysis into English-language films. He connects the seduction of nascent fascism in 1913 Vienna to the present moment a century later.
Find V13 on AppleTV, Prime Video
Find Ledes' catalogue at https://www.richardledes.com/
Always more content at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills
Find V13 on AppleTV, Prime Video
Find Ledes' catalogue at https://www.richardledes.com/
Always more content at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, Plastic Pills listeners. Today we're joined once again by
filmmaker Richard Leeds. You might remember from our earlier conversation
a few years back about Adu La Khan Pillpod ninety one.
That film explored the psychoanalytic encounter as a site of transformation, language,
and resistance, and with his new film V thirteen, Richard
(00:21):
takes those themes too. I guess you could say a
more explosive historical scale. And I should note that at
the end of our interview in Pillpod ninety one, Richard,
you actually told us about V thirteen. I think you said,
because we asked you what you were working on, because
I listened back to the episode and it was actually
kind of fun to hear I hear myself be like
excited about that film when you said it. Incidentally, Vienna
(00:43):
in twenty in sorry, nineteen thirteen was fascinating for being
a place where not just Freud and Hitler lived, but
also Trotzky and Stalin, which doesn't come up in the film,
But I just thought it's kind of interesting to mention
like sort of the historical activity that was happening in
Vienna at that time, and they were actually all within
walking distance of each other. So the film imagines a
(01:06):
fictional but hauntingly plausible moment in history Vienna on the
eve of World War One. A young anonymous Adolf Hitler,
then a failed artist steeped in resentment, begins to take
ideological form as he swept up in the city's anti
Semitic undercurrents. At the same time, a fictional aristocrat Hugo,
who suffers from a paralyzing hatred of Jews, begins psychoanalysis
(01:28):
with Sigmund Freud, played in this case by Alan Cummings,
who I'm quite a fan of. I was mentioning before
we started recording, I've been kind of enjoying watching him
on which it was kind of an unlikely role from
take being the host of a reality show. But that's
neither here nor there. So the film alternates between two paths,
one toward reflection and one toward fanaticism. Fanaticism so excited
(01:52):
to talk about Welcome Back Richard and maybe, yeah, maybe
we could start by giving us maybe the origin story
of about the film. You know, how did it come
to be? I know you knew al Nddier of the
play's author, and was the idea of adapting the film
something you've wanted to do for a long time? Was
it something you discussed with him? So maybe kind of
(02:13):
the origin story be a good place to start.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah. Well, you know, if you do a Superman movie,
you got to do a Batman you know. So if
you do a lat Colm film, got to do a
Freud film. But the thirteen started much earlier. I had
done another film with Alan Didier Vile, and that film
(02:40):
is called The Caller. It was a detective story. It
did well, even though it came out in as the
world's economies were crashing down in two thousand and eight,
and that brought that film's distribution to a halt. You know,
we had the stars, We had Frank Langella, Elliott Gouldlaura Herring,
(03:03):
and we really had a great time. Then I saw
a staged reading of Enna nineteen thirteen in translation viend
in de Saintrez. It was a translation into English, and
I think what really struck me was it's, as you know,
(03:24):
it's not a film about the Holocaust, but of course
it's on the edge of the Holocaust or the margins
of the Holocaust, which become explicit at the end of
the film. You know, so that represented a kind of challenge,
and I was aware that many films about the Holocaust
(03:45):
deal with the limits of what we could call the
limits of representation, like Claude Lawnsman's Show Up, but also
the zone of interest Jonathan Glazers from where it's all
over the wall, it's all off stage, you could say,
or you know, so something about an experience of a genocide,
(04:06):
in particular the Holocaust brings one up against limits of representation,
and Claude Lonsman's The Shoah does that. In other ways.
There are interviews, and you could imagine a Hollywood director
might have taken these interviews that Lonsman conducts and cut
away to CGI or something. But Lonsman really kind of
(04:30):
respects this limit, and it's part of the power of
his work, the way it draws you in and asks
for some kind of ethical commitment. And I was interested
in the way films that use theater. The theater is
kind of wrinkydink compared to film. It has a limit
(04:51):
to it. So you see that in for example, Seventh Seal,
where in the context of life and death there's a
carnival and there's a smallness to the Carnival and then
Wings over Berlin, or perhaps most notably in ern S
Lubitch's comedy To Be or Not to Be, which is
(05:14):
in a sense a comedy about the Holocaust, or a
comedy in which the Holocaust is just off in the
wings of that film. So this kind of the way
that theater, I mean so often we think of film
as you know, you are there, and we had looked
at that doing something along those lines. I had for
(05:36):
many years had three Romanian producers, one Austrian producer, one
German producer, and two American producers, and we're thinking of
shooting most of it in Romania, but I always had
this idea of shooting it in New York, and over
time it became more attractive, and I can't say it
(05:57):
was totally conscious the reasons, you know, certainly as there
was the rise of extreme ethno nationalist parties and governments
around the world, including in Israel, and at the same
time also the murder of Jewish worshipers in a synagogue
(06:19):
by a man who had heard on the radio that
the synagogue was sheltering undocumented migrants. So this man who
shared the same ideology which is now in the White
House of Jews will not replace us. So this element
of the present time seemed to me so much in
(06:42):
a strong relationship to the past. So I decided to
shoot it in New York, to use the ferris Wheel
of Coney Island for the proter. Well, maybe I should.
I could go on for a long time, so maybe
I'll pause there and to let you have something to say.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I wanted to know. Also, then, did you establish like
a relationship with Vienna itself during the during the filming
or the during the planning process as well, because yeah,
you mentioned the ferris wheel, which is also there's the
famous crater ferris wheel and Vienna and that sort of thing.
(07:23):
What was your relationship to the city. And I've seen
some references to Frederick Morton Back in my undergrad I
read a Nervous Splendor about Vienna in eighteen eighty eight
eighty nine. Could be another source of inspiration, just throwing
that out there, But yeah, I was wondering about that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
You know, mainly it was through the art of that period,
through films, through Freud. It really I spent some time
in the city. Vienna is a very welcoming city there
filmy Ministry of culture really wants to get filmmakers to
film and Vienna. Of course I failed them miserably, but again,
(08:05):
you know, I think there's a level of translation to
the film. There's a way in which I'm trying to
engage the audience in a very active relation to the past.
I was very interested. There's, of course, that citation from
Walter Benjamin's thesis on the Philosophy of History, which was
one of the perhaps the last thing he wrote before
(08:27):
he killed himself, and it's written during a time of
a fascist domination, and he's saying in a way, or
as I interpreted, that if you represent the past the
way something you can access transparent, transparently, then you are
(08:48):
in a way securing the dominant regime, the dominant ideology
of the present. And if you want to disturb, to
disrupt the present in a way, you have to disrupt
the past. And that was very much the way I
had wanted to approach the past in V. Thirteen, to
(09:08):
engage the audience in the kind of thinking process around
around the past and what is history?
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I was wondering. So in the film, obviously we have
Hugo under the treatment of Freud, and I think you
know at the core is maybe there's this idea that
hatred of the other, you know, it's might not be innate,
some kind of symptom. You know, do you see the
film depicting psychoanalysis as offering a way out of that
cycle or is it really just a way of naming
(09:40):
it of like naming the specifics of how it functions,
or I don't know what you think about that.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Well, I guess I would say change within that cycle.
But there is definitely a way in which, you know,
in a very simple way, one kind of is cured
by hatred, you could say, or is you know, you
see him very messed up, unable to has all these
frustrating relationships and then coming into contact with various kinds
(10:09):
of anti semitism, is able to find the perfect blend
using a couple strains that I think really resonate with
the with the language of Trump and Musque. You know
Carl Luger, who is most famous for saying the mayor
of Vienna for saying, I decide who's a Jew? And
(10:31):
you know Trump who recently said about Senator Schumer, the
Jewish senator from New York, who mightn't like it. Still
you know, trump'said, well, I, oh, no, he's a He's
a Palestinian. So you know, Trump is deciding who is
a Palestinian. And of course that means that you are
subject to a genocide and you are stateless. And of
(10:54):
course statelessness is what Hannah Rent said was a necessary
preliminary for what the Nazis did during the Holocaust. And
on one hand it's Luger. In the other hand, it's
this group of star This kind of tribal goes back
to German tribalism. And we've heard Musk recently addressing alternative
(11:17):
for Germany and saying, you know, oh, you guys don't
have to go the Caesar. You guys came from literally,
you know, Jason Stanley, who wrote The Ratio of History,
a very relevant book to this film, talked about zactly.
I was so glad he actually picked up the same
quote and talked about his own German Jewish relatives and
(11:41):
how you know, Musk is completely erasing them from this
image of blood and soil. So in a way, Adolph
goes towards simply hate and love, you could say, and
whereas Hugo is you could say, transferentially really falls in
love with Freud, and this allows him to think through
(12:03):
his hatred, you know, he kind of allows him a space.
But I think it's interesting the word repetition, which which
is of course, in analysis, one of the four fundamental
concepts for lack hope, but in French it's also the
term for rehearsal. Right, we say rehearsal in English, but
in French, whip's repetition. And within a repetition an actor
(12:26):
has to you know, you do multiple takes, but an
actor will find new things each time, make it new, well,
usually sticking to the same language. But you know, and
I think of this Becket quote. Many people quote it,
but I will too, you know, fail, fail again, fail better.
(12:47):
So it's I don't necessarily think it's a question of
avoiding repetition, but not thinking of repetition mechanically, and of
the possible ability within that, of thinking of remaining thinking
within that and therefore able to change the situation.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
That's good, you know, I forgot about that. That in
French it's you know, the same word for I think
that's actually really helpful, because I mean, repetition is going
to be unavoidable, you know, anyway to some extent. So
in a way, it's like right, it's not about avoiding it,
but it's like making your own right each time you're
doing it, do something with it to capture it.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So yeah, Plus, repetition is never truly identical, Like even
if we symbolically treated as an identical let's say, iteration
of the event, it never is. I was going to
ask something and Zizek was the one to say, is
that cinema it's a kind of collective dreaming and if
we apply the same process or methodology from psychoanalysis to
the process of dreaming. So there's also these very interesting
(13:51):
analysis of cycle from Alfred Hitchcock where the house itself
is structure as super ego ego and you know, like
the base is where the ID is hidden, and then
the super ego is at the top floor and it's
providing the rules and the order for the character that
is occupying the ego space. So I would like to
(14:13):
have your take with your familiarity to the psychoanalytical tradition
on this notion of cinema as something as a collective
dreaming platform, but also the the idea of a play
within a play, which is interesting because since we let's
say we assume the notion that we cannot address truth directly,
we have always to address truth via symbolism, imaginary and
(14:37):
the symbolic. So is this a conscious choice of making
it as much as let's say, as tangible as possible,
that this is in fact a play within a play.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Great, great question, and I will do my best with it.
My own interest in lack call started through I did
a performance art based piece of performance art based on
the records of my uncle who had been World War
Two veteran, had had a psychotic break and then was
(15:08):
hospital I spent ten years on hotel and then either
escaped or wandered off and was hit by a train.
And I did a little research found out that this
period at the end of the Second World work was
kind of a pivotal moment in the formation of what
is known as mental health care and around treating veterans.
(15:31):
So I started getting interested through really through clinical practice
and clinicians. And I was working with an anthropologist, mic Tausik,
who remains a friend to this day. And I came
into his office with this big stack of books and
schizophrenia from the nineteen fifties that no one had taken
out for like years, and he said, Richard, it's great
(15:54):
to read those books, but you know, you should really
meet people who do this as a It's what they do.
They have a practice around this. So I started to do.
I volunteered at an outpatient center for severely chronically mentally ill,
most of them diagnosed with one form of psychosis or another.
(16:14):
I started a reading group with them. We would read
aloud the short stories of Poe, Melville and Hawthorne. And
then I assistant directed a theater program there where we
put on plays that were created out of improvisation with
the clients as they were known, and I worked with
(16:35):
the Lacadian Association and the Lacanians. My connection to the
Lacanians stuck, and I think in part Diego because you know,
they weren't trapped by psychology. You could say, you know,
they thought outside of psychology. It's not only that they
were interested in Shakespeare or music or contemporary art. So
(17:00):
they weren't just trying to stuff that all inside some
large box called psychology. You know, they were trying to
get out from that, you know. So I think, you know, again,
Alanti de Vile is among these clinicians with whom I
stayed friends he he was also a writer and artist.
His wife was a jazz singer, and we immediately felt
(17:25):
a connection. But for me, I've been very interested in
psychoanalysis as a practice for better and for worse. And
I think that's true also my relation to cinema, which
is to say, I think of cinema as a as
a practice inevitably implying a certain blindness. So it's an
(17:51):
excellent question. You know, in this film, we see but
from the very beginning, you know, we first see Ada
in front of a video installation, so there's this whole
question of representation very early on, of art, and of
course art through aesthetics. You know, there's the question of aesthetics,
(18:13):
which was very important for Benjamin as well. And I
read a lot of theory. I read with great enjoyment, Zizak.
I read a lot of critical theory. But in terms
of the way it applies to my own work, I'm
(18:34):
I often make connections after the fact. In other words,
the films. Often the film for me, is not the
end of work. It's almost I would say, it's kind
of a midpoint. It represents a culmination of work, but
then kind of engaging in conversations like this one and
(18:56):
other work that comes out of it is another stage
to it, and I'm often unaware of I often make
uh in the questions and in the conversations the discussions
that follow it. I'm often able to make new connections
to the work that I you know, and sometimes I
(19:16):
pretend like they're conscious and I had them in mind,
you know, like I was really really you know, really savvy.
But often there they are connections I've that have become
a parent to me afterwards.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That's fair. I mean, you'll have to forgive us what.
We're a theory podcast primarily, so we're gonna listen.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I'm I'm one among you know, I feel I'm among
friends that doesn't there's nothing I'm very pro theory.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
But I mean, I think what you made sense about practice,
it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It's actually it's like a practice, right, Like it's helpful
to think about psychoanalysis primarily as the practice. And of
course that's originally what it was supposed to be, too, right,
It's like.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Right and and and analysts. Well. Another thing I like
about Lacanians is they believe in continuous formation, that you're
always engaged in formation, you're never formed, you know, you
never get some degree and that's you know, it's done.
And at the same time that when you're listening in
(20:18):
an analytical setting, you know, if you find yourself going,
oh that's the imaginary, you're fucked. You know, you've lost it.
If you if you find yourself kind of having these
quote unquote insights, it's that's important work to be engaged in,
but it's something you leave aside or when you when
(20:39):
you're there listening, then it just becomes kind of a
way of keeping from actually hearing what's going on. So
something I think is similar.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, those must be things that come, like you said,
retroactively too, like in the ENW I mean, I don't know,
maybe Diego because his wife I think I mentioned in
an email as actually a Lacinian psychoanalyst, So maybe she
would say that, you know, it's only after the sessions
that you kind of you put a name to what
was going on. But like when you're in it, of
course it's you know, it wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Also another thing that is very interesting, like like Victor said,
I got interested in psychoanalysis because my wife is a
pratictioning psychoanalyst.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
She was forming Spain, and she constantly tells.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Me that actually when you when you start practitioning, you
have in a way to forget theory.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, because you have to.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Let the unconsciousness connect with the other unconsciousness and have
this you know, projection and reception and the transference that
you want to happen. If you're thinking about theory, you
don't make a good transference. So that's why I think
it's very humble of you to say that that that
you don't engage with this directly. And I think you
are because you are doing it with practice, you know,
like you are connected.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
To theory, you are doing it through practice. So I
think it's it's it's.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Very louable, very admirable what you're trying to do with
this film. And if I may follow up on the question,
and you know, having seen Adula Khan and now and
now the thirteen, uh, do you think there's a possibility
for a continuous conversation because you know, psychoanalysis is constantly
criticized for being a silo science or to being like
(22:09):
a non scientifical method, and you know, if you're a
positivist or a Babarian or whatever people trying to attack
psychoanalysis by lack of probability, repetition of experiments. So what
do you think is the current, let's say, relevance of
discussing psychoanalysis as a method, And why this dedication of
(22:29):
doing two films regarding this topic and maybe potentially continued
on this conversation, What is the interest behind this intention?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I mean, I think you have to think of it
in some ways in regards to politics, politics of the subject.
You know, I think the importance of speech, the importance
of a kind of way of thinking when you think
about how the humanities are now under attack and such.
(22:58):
If you think about women in hysteria in Freud's time.
I remember one famous feminist, Marie Ruti, who died recently.
You know, she said, the first time she heard about
penis anv she read about it in Freud's where she
wanted to throw the book across the room. But then
she thought about how, you know, women at that time
(23:20):
couldn't own property, they couldn't vote, the amount of the
powerlessness and the amount of power that came with this
part of the anatomy and such, and so it made
perfect sense that someone would envy someone having this part
of their anatomy that gave them all these all this potential.
(23:42):
And I think so Freud's listening to these women and
the way that psychoanalysis. I mean, I think one of
the interesting things about Alan Cumming in the role of
Freud is he's he's known as an LGBTQ activist as
well as a gay actor and as an LGBT activist,
and he doesn't play Freud that way. I mean, he
(24:04):
plays Freud authentically as Freud, but at the same time,
I think it inflects Freud in a way that's about emancipation.
And the most recent Hollywood presentation of Freud by a
great actor, Anthony Hopkins, was in this film Freud's Last
(24:24):
Session and They're kind of The story is about Freud's
attempting to prohibit his daughter from pursuing a same sex
relationship with another woman. But whether it's true or not,
it makes Freud this figure of conservative, reactionary figure, and
(24:44):
I think his work is anything but that you see.
I think I see Freud's work as being emancipatory and
part of and I think we see in this film,
you know, that of psychoanalysis as being part of an
effort to emancipate human beings. And I think that's something
that's very much under attack right now politically. And I
(25:07):
don't think it's by chance that Freud's work has a
particular relevance in our particular time in terms of these
battles and at the same time a kind of minority position.
And again, these are also this idea in lack cont
of the extimacy, you know, that what is most deeply
(25:27):
inside you is outside and so that these very external
political struggles also have a very personal and intimate relation
the society, our own lives, the life of the society
around us, and such, you know. I mean at the
(25:48):
time of lat Kant, the Americans were then dominant after
the Second World War, they were running the IPA, and
they really saw Freud in terms of biological science. You know,
they were trying the translation by Straiky with taking these
(26:08):
very common words in German and making them into Latin
terms in English, where he which is I becomes ego
in which is S. So. I mean, these very common
words in German become these Latin terms, and that kind
of uh reflects this attempt to make it into a
(26:31):
stable science like any other science. And what la Coon
does is take it and bring it to the Sosser's
work on language and speech and also Levy strauss work
on anthrop structural anthropology. So in a way, he also
(26:54):
was interested in the idea of knowledge. But you know again,
also science is this word, and you know, I mean
Hegel's sense of what science used to be, which would
have would have included religion, which would have included philosophy.
And then the way in which the idea of science
(27:16):
becomes limited to certain ideas of science that are dominant.
Now you know again, lack Call's work is also challenging
our definition of science.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
This is something I was excited to ask about because
there's another figure other than Freud, big big name in
the psychology there, Carl Jung. And yeah, the issues, let
me think how to frame this the issues you explore
in the film, and also what we're talking about here
is some of the basic ideas of psychoanalysis, of dream interpretation, repetition,
(27:57):
infantile desire like these are. It seemed to be at
issue between absolutely and Freud, right, And I guess I
was just wondering about the way you use this conflict
sort of in the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. This conflict between
Freud and Jung as a vehicle almost to explore then
(28:22):
the issues that say Hugo Hauser is going through, or
even just this sort of I guess you could say
emergent kind of Germanist paganist kind of movement. And yeah, so,
I mean Freud and Jung seem to have fundamentally different
(28:43):
ideas about interpreting dreams, right, is it is it desire?
Is it a wish expression? Or is the dreamer actually
the receiver of the desire from somewhere else?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
These these tribritypal title.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Right, Yeah, and that I mean I found myself thinking,
you know, who was right about Hugo Hausser's condition?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
And I think ultimately I sided with Freud a little
bit because there's but Young is very interesting and compelling analysis, sanitarian.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
He doesn't set up Young as a straw figure to
be knocked out. I mean, you know, it's a good fight.
It's a really good fight. And you know, and also
I think at the end of the film, which doesn't
concern you, Freud's eventual sense of success, we know it's
not true. You know, we know that he thinks, oh
(29:44):
now I have hope, and of course we know the
Holocaust will follow that, so you know, it's it's a
he's a tragic figure in the end, and whether he's
right or not in some way depends on us, or
depends on what happens afterwards. You know, he's not at
(30:05):
all powerful and gets everything right kind of figure. Nor
is Lacan a deal Lachan. You know, in Adieu La
con there's this interior voice we hear of La Khan
in there are moments where he's like, shit, why did
I say that, you know, and doubting himself and such.
(30:28):
So neither neither of these figures of psychoanalysis are you know,
perfect masters in any sense. And Young is very popular,
often much more popular than Freud, and it's particularly in
the world of Hollywood. I mean, Jung is a I
(30:49):
think the Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
which is like a bible in the world of Hollywood
screen writers. And you know, he's he's a disciple of
Jung so too. And of course in this film he's
a sinister character. He's sinister because he takes on he
(31:14):
makes explicit or we see Freud realizing that in Jung's
embrace of kind of a tribal notion of archetypes. There's
a compatibility with Nazi fascism and which, of course Jung
(31:35):
will actually pick up. He will actually be involved in
the purifying psychoanalysis of its Jewish roots or the beginnings
of that within Nazi fascism. Some people would dispute that,
but it clearly is Alan took that very much to
(31:56):
be the case. He may Freud's idea of where ideas,
ideas come from very matter of fact, this idea that
this sexual attraction, of this ancestual feeling is kind of
transmitted and as he says, kept kept alive in a
(32:17):
museum or in the case of Adolph, we see that
these ideas of anti Semitism are are floating around him.
You know, he takes them and he puts them to
a particular use, and in that way cohers. I mean, really,
you really see him get his act together right after
(32:40):
we see his play. I mean, then he's a cool cucumber.
I think for the first time he really is a
cool cucumber. And up until then there's always something a
little crisp and bizarre about him. But he really gets
his act together. We really see him kind of take
(33:01):
on a kind of mirror image of of who he
wants to be from that point on. So there's a
very simple way in which, you know, this idea of
extimacy that we see at work, and I think it's
a contrast with this much more mystical idea of the
(33:23):
origins of these dreams or in the unconscious.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Just a just a quick follow up on that I
was I noticed. You know, maybe there's nothing to this,
but it was just interesting to me. You know that
that Jung as someone who seems to open the door
to more kind of ideas of a like racial essentialism,
or at least in so far as there's is tribalism,
and you chose to cast a black actor, and I
just I wonder was that intentional or like, were you
(33:48):
kind of playing with that idea that it's like or
I like.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
To say, well, Victor, we we carefully before I cast
the black man as the white supremacist, we did carefully
consider seven or eight white supremacists. And before we cast
the Jewish guy as Hitler, we did carefully consider eight
or nine Nazis for the role. They were given an
(34:14):
equal opportunity. It was a playful choice in some ways.
I think it's it's very I think one of the
really interesting things in terms again, I did not know
Trump was going to be re elected. Let me let
me admit that right off. But you know, it's it's
(34:35):
this I think if you think about I mean, I've
been recently reading a book called Hitler's American Model, which
was about in mind KMF. Hitler writes about, you know,
the US is the one model the Nazis have, and
the Nazis find the Americans two racist you know, which
is they? You know, because the Americans said, well, you're
(34:58):
Jewish if you have a grand you know, and and uh,
whereas the Americans is one drop of blood and you're black.
And then they were like, oh, this is too much.
The Americans not Nazis. You know, if you really see
together or the crossover between the Ku Klux Klan Uh
(35:23):
and the Nazis fascism, you kind of see where we
are now because there are ways in which, as I said,
I think the regime in the United States right now
has echoes of of the language of Carl Luger or
the language of the star who we see in this film.
(35:46):
It's birth of a nation, and in Birth of a Nation,
there are good black people, right, I mean, if you
if if you've ever seen the film, it does say
there are you know, yes, there is the Klan and
their lynchings, and but those are for black people who
want to be independent or think for themselves. So I
(36:09):
you know, and I think this is kind of the
ideology around racism as it applies, particularly in the you know, so,
now we have these anti Semites who are saving this
anti Semitic anti semitism or this attack on you know,
universities and in the name of anti Semitism by being
(36:32):
practiced by anti Semits right. And the scholar Peter Bynarch
for example, has done these studies where you know, explicitly
anti Semitic, overt anti Semitic remarks correlate with a much
higher support of Israel, of this kind of of this
genocide general cydle thing. You know. So, how do you
(36:53):
explain that? Well, you know, the idea of I think
you really have to go back to the Ku Klux
Klan and Birth of a Nation. If you stay in
your place, then you're fine, but if you wander. A
book that's been very important to me is Freud in
the Invention of Jewishness by Betty Fuchs, you know, who
(37:14):
talks about the importance of the idea of exile, of
the voice for Freud, but also the idea of exiles.
You know that threw our introduction into language subjectivity is
a way a kind of exile and reconciling ourselves with
that state of exile. And that's an intrinsic part of
(37:36):
Jewish thought and that we find in the work of
Freud and such. So it's very and this gets into
Moses in Monotheism, which gets reflected also, I think in
Edward Sayid's book Freud and the Non European, you know,
of finding always this outside, there's always a foreignness. This
(37:59):
is very much much of what Freud takes from his
own Jewish culture, you know, the sense of this foreignness,
this alterity that we that's always within any group and
any any uh, any individual, rather than thinking we expel
it through some act of scapegoating and hatred. So I
(38:21):
think again the black actor as as young lets us
think in a way the American experience of races and
racism in a certain way in this connection doesn't result
It's not like a h it's allegory in the way
that Benjamin met it. It's not like a key to
(38:42):
the film, and there's there's a meaning to understand, but
it's it's more the idea of allegory is something that
opens up, that says that's generative, which is what the
way you know also is how these two films Diego's
mentioning also ideal la cont in both of the films.
The psychoanalytics scenes are black and white for three yes, right.
(39:05):
The rest of the film, particularly in V. Thirteen, a
lot of it, of course is not in there. This
is in color and it's sixteen to nine. But the
psychoanalytics scenes I used this the first standard film standard
going back to the end of the nineteenth century, with
both film and psychoanalysis having in a sense a birth
(39:28):
date of eighteen ninety five, and so I wanted to
evoke this. And four to three also is great for
close ups. There's a way in which it really works
for the kind of framing we wanted to use, and
that way it connects the two films, and I think
it is I think, I mean, I haven't done this work,
(39:49):
except somebody pointed out to me recently that Schubert the
one composer which we hear doing the analytical scenes in
both films is Schubert. I hadn't been aware. I hadn't
thought of that. I mean, part of the excitement for
me about making both of these films, which are both
based on the work of Lacanian psychoanalysts analyzed by Jack
(40:11):
la comp is as a as a field for thought discussion.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
It's very topical, I guess to me anyway, because it's
so easy to read the resurgence of kind of authoritarianism
and then immediately connect it to the sorts of divergences
Young is trying to bring into psychoanalysis by looking at
these sort of enduring symbols of the past that re
(40:41):
emerge into our present, instead of Freud's more I guess
grounded way of looking at things, right, Like, how does
Hugo know that he's Jewish? They both agree he unconsciously knows,
But how does he know? That's the real question, right
For Freud, it's got to be directly, you're sort of
absorbing the feelings of the people are around you that
you're interacting with, versus Jung who's saying no, no, There's
(41:05):
something deeper than that. That's sort of causing this behavior
or this set of symptoms or whatever. And so it
seen for him, it's kind of indirect, like it can
come from the outside of the dreamer or the or
the patient. And yeah, right right, I mean this sort
of stuff coming up again.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Now, yeah, I mean I think for Freud, it would
you know, we could be transmitted through generations, but it'd
be transmitted through language, through art, through music in various ways,
rather than through a kind of mystical ethereal collective unconscious
(41:44):
collective unconscious. Yeah, and of course in v. Thirteen that
becomes connected to different ethnicities, right that there'll be a
Jewish unconscious versus a German unconscious. And you know, at
that point we're close up on Freud with Young behind him,
and as you can see, he's going like, h no,
(42:08):
this is not good. This is not gone in a
good direction.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
And it's ironic that Hugo is resistant immediately going into
Freud's room, saying, you know, oh, there's these little thoughts
that think themselves, and oh, ironically it's Young who thinks
that there's these archetypal symbols that symbol themselves. Somehow they
also sort of exist independently, but yeah, I'm conscious of time.
(42:32):
If anyone has any follow.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Up questions, Yah, do you want to have one more?
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Yeah, So I think it's interesting just to close this topic.
But in the end you go ends up identifying with
the abuser, because like in the end, he identifies with
his father, becoming anti Semitic and in a way rejecting
his Jewish blood coming from his mother that is actually
hidden in his unconscious.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
So so in a.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Way, Ugle itself, it's a proved that there's no such
thing as a Jewish unconscious, because if it was, it
was not inherited to him. He was able to identify
with his father and become the abuser and become an
anti Semite even if he had Jewish blood.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Interesting interpretation. Freud was saying in the film that at
least Hugo showed him this sort of hope that he
describes in a letter to his daughter at the end,
this hope which then leads to the sort of that
beautiful final quote of the film that I think really
also repeats the Benyamine sentiment in a different kind of way,
(43:32):
but in a very similar way. Can we go back
and make a different choice kind of idea or the
something flashing up in the moment of danger, the dialectical
image in Benyamine versus what he calls the archaic images
that Young deals with. Benyumine obviously was a bit of
(43:54):
a critic of Young plans to perhaps write a takedown
of him, but never go around to it for reasons
we mentioned earlier. But yeah, yeah, that's some of the
stuff I read into it. Sorry, Diego, I jumped right
onto your toes there.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
No, no, no, I just wanted to get your take rechair,
because I found one of the most powerful scenes in
the movie was this scene where the actors are falling
back on empty doors, tagged under things we can change
and things we cannot change. And I think in a
way those two in a way they reflect the conflict
between Jung and Freud, as in, if you have some
characteristics that are inherited by these transcendental ego, which which
(44:34):
starts with Young in a way, then those are things
you cannot change because you're destined to fulfill them as
they are part of your ethnicity, part of your genes,
so you are determined to be in a way, and
Freud bets on the on the rise of subjectivity, but
a contingent subjectivity, that is, that is product of the
relationship with others, with language, with culture, with material conditions,
(44:56):
you could say, but then Freud is betting that, as
end quote mentions, as Eric said that, yes, we can change,
even we can resignify the past, as you mentioned before,
If we go back and we challenge the past and
we understand the past differently, then we can.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
Perhaps overcome trauma, overcome you.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
Know, symptoms, and actually resignify the traumas of the past
in order to change in the future. But betting on
a transcendental ego, theren you're you're in a way condemned
to your original condition. Can you talk us a little
bit about that scene, specifically the one on the on
the two doors. What is what is your obtention? Was
the energy supposed to be transmitted there?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Yeah, no, I thought you said it so well, you know,
it's it's me. It's the key scene in the film
in a way. It's so horrifying in a way, and
of course it is a rehearsal, it's a repetition, repetition,
and so it brings up this this notion of repeating
in relation obviously to it for shadows the Holocaust that scene.
(46:03):
I can't think much more to say about it, but
I hope people will see the film.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
And actually, on that note, could you maybe let us
know where listeners can find the film. Well, we'll be
sure to put it in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Yeah, the best thing is to visit my because it's
always changing. Richard leads dot com that's leads as ledes
and there you'll find links to wherever it's playing. We're
doing more screenings. We're doing screenings in London, in Paris,
around the US and elsewhere as well, I hope hopefully
(46:36):
in Mexico as well in Canada. So it's constantly changing.
It's available online in North America as of May thirteenth,
and outside of North America you can actually find it
now on my website at through Vimeo and there. It's
(46:57):
available worldwide, but on streaming services. It'll be starting to
come out on May thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Okay, awesome, Well, listeners check it out V thirteen. As
you can tell from the discussion, it's you know, the
theory oriented crowd. I think we'll get a lot out
of it, so be sure to check it out. And Richard, thanks,
thanks so much for coming back. It was a pleasure
to have you.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah, thanks for your time. I could talk all afternoon.
I got so many more questions.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
But yeah, same, But that's okay.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
We'll do another time we have to do it.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Are you sure you want to stop recording to the
Hello, Plastic Pills listeners. Today we're joined once again by
filmmaker Richard Leeds. You might remember from our earlier conversation
a few years back about Adu La Khan Pillpod ninety one.
That film explored the psychoanalytic encounter as a site of transformation, language,
and resistance, and with his new film V thirteen, Richard
(00:21):
takes those themes too. I guess you could say a
more explosive historical scale. And I should note that at
the end of our interview in Pillpod ninety one, Richard,
you actually told us about V thirteen. I think you said,
because we asked you what you were working on, because
I listened back to the episode and it was actually
kind of fun to hear I hear myself be like
excited about that film when you said it. Incidentally, Vienna
(00:43):
in twenty in sorry, nineteen thirteen was fascinating for being
a place where not just Freud and Hitler lived, but
also Trotzky and Stalin, which doesn't come up in the film,
But I just thought it's kind of interesting to mention
like sort of the historical activity that was happening in
Vienna at that time, and they were actually all within
walking distance of each other. So the film imagines a
(01:06):
fictional but hauntingly plausible moment in history Vienna on the
eve of World War One. A young anonymous Adolf Hitler,
then a failed artist steeped in resentment, begins to take
ideological form as he swept up in the city's anti
Semitic undercurrents. At the same time, a fictional aristocrat Hugo,
who suffers from a paralyzing hatred of Jews, begins psychoanalysis
(01:28):
with Sigmund Freud, played in this case by Alan Cummings,
who I'm quite a fan of. I was mentioning before
we started recording, I've been kind of enjoying watching him
on which it was kind of an unlikely role from
take being the host of a reality show. But that's
neither here nor there. So the film alternates between two paths,
one toward reflection and one toward fanaticism. Fanaticism so excited
(01:52):
to talk about Welcome Back Richard and maybe, yeah, maybe
we could start by giving us maybe the origin story
of about the film. You know, how did it come
to be? I know you knew al Nddier of the
play's author, and was the idea of adapting the film
something you've wanted to do for a long time? Was
it something you discussed with him? So maybe kind of
(02:13):
the origin story be a good place to start.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah. Well, you know, if you do a Superman movie,
you got to do a Batman you know. So if
you do a lat Colm film, got to do a
Freud film. But the thirteen started much earlier. I had
done another film with Alan Didier Vile, and that film
(02:40):
is called The Caller. It was a detective story. It
did well, even though it came out in as the
world's economies were crashing down in two thousand and eight,
and that brought that film's distribution to a halt. You know,
we had the stars, We had Frank Langella, Elliott Gouldlaura Herring,
(03:03):
and we really had a great time. Then I saw
a staged reading of Enna nineteen thirteen in translation viend
in de Saintrez. It was a translation into English, and
I think what really struck me was it's, as you know,
(03:24):
it's not a film about the Holocaust, but of course
it's on the edge of the Holocaust or the margins
of the Holocaust, which become explicit at the end of
the film. You know, so that represented a kind of challenge,
and I was aware that many films about the Holocaust
(03:45):
deal with the limits of what we could call the
limits of representation, like Claude Lawnsman's Show Up, but also
the zone of interest Jonathan Glazers from where it's all
over the wall, it's all off stage, you could say,
or you know, so something about an experience of a genocide,
(04:06):
in particular the Holocaust brings one up against limits of representation,
and Claude Lonsman's The Shoah does that. In other ways.
There are interviews, and you could imagine a Hollywood director
might have taken these interviews that Lonsman conducts and cut
away to CGI or something. But Lonsman really kind of
(04:30):
respects this limit, and it's part of the power of
his work, the way it draws you in and asks
for some kind of ethical commitment. And I was interested
in the way films that use theater. The theater is
kind of wrinkydink compared to film. It has a limit
(04:51):
to it. So you see that in for example, Seventh Seal,
where in the context of life and death there's a
carnival and there's a smallness to the Carnival and then
Wings over Berlin, or perhaps most notably in ern S
Lubitch's comedy To Be or Not to Be, which is
(05:14):
in a sense a comedy about the Holocaust, or a
comedy in which the Holocaust is just off in the
wings of that film. So this kind of the way
that theater, I mean so often we think of film
as you know, you are there, and we had looked
at that doing something along those lines. I had for
(05:36):
many years had three Romanian producers, one Austrian producer, one
German producer, and two American producers, and we're thinking of
shooting most of it in Romania, but I always had
this idea of shooting it in New York, and over
time it became more attractive, and I can't say it
(05:57):
was totally conscious the reasons, you know, certainly as there
was the rise of extreme ethno nationalist parties and governments
around the world, including in Israel, and at the same
time also the murder of Jewish worshipers in a synagogue
(06:19):
by a man who had heard on the radio that
the synagogue was sheltering undocumented migrants. So this man who
shared the same ideology which is now in the White
House of Jews will not replace us. So this element
of the present time seemed to me so much in
(06:42):
a strong relationship to the past. So I decided to
shoot it in New York, to use the ferris Wheel
of Coney Island for the proter. Well, maybe I should.
I could go on for a long time, so maybe
I'll pause there and to let you have something to say.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I wanted to know. Also, then, did you establish like
a relationship with Vienna itself during the during the filming
or the during the planning process as well, because yeah,
you mentioned the ferris wheel, which is also there's the
famous crater ferris wheel and Vienna and that sort of thing.
(07:23):
What was your relationship to the city. And I've seen
some references to Frederick Morton Back in my undergrad I
read a Nervous Splendor about Vienna in eighteen eighty eight
eighty nine. Could be another source of inspiration, just throwing
that out there, But yeah, I was wondering about that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
You know, mainly it was through the art of that period,
through films, through Freud. It really I spent some time
in the city. Vienna is a very welcoming city there
filmy Ministry of culture really wants to get filmmakers to
film and Vienna. Of course I failed them miserably, but again,
(08:05):
you know, I think there's a level of translation to
the film. There's a way in which I'm trying to
engage the audience in a very active relation to the past.
I was very interested. There's, of course, that citation from
Walter Benjamin's thesis on the Philosophy of History, which was
one of the perhaps the last thing he wrote before
(08:27):
he killed himself, and it's written during a time of
a fascist domination, and he's saying in a way, or
as I interpreted, that if you represent the past the
way something you can access transparent, transparently, then you are
(08:48):
in a way securing the dominant regime, the dominant ideology
of the present. And if you want to disturb, to
disrupt the present in a way, you have to disrupt
the past. And that was very much the way I
had wanted to approach the past in V. Thirteen, to
(09:08):
engage the audience in the kind of thinking process around
around the past and what is history?
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I was wondering. So in the film, obviously we have
Hugo under the treatment of Freud, and I think you
know at the core is maybe there's this idea that
hatred of the other, you know, it's might not be innate,
some kind of symptom. You know, do you see the
film depicting psychoanalysis as offering a way out of that
cycle or is it really just a way of naming
(09:40):
it of like naming the specifics of how it functions,
or I don't know what you think about that.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Well, I guess I would say change within that cycle.
But there is definitely a way in which, you know,
in a very simple way, one kind of is cured
by hatred, you could say, or is you know, you
see him very messed up, unable to has all these
frustrating relationships and then coming into contact with various kinds
(10:09):
of anti semitism, is able to find the perfect blend
using a couple strains that I think really resonate with
the with the language of Trump and Musque. You know
Carl Luger, who is most famous for saying the mayor
of Vienna for saying, I decide who's a Jew? And
(10:31):
you know Trump who recently said about Senator Schumer, the
Jewish senator from New York, who mightn't like it. Still
you know, trump'said, well, I, oh, no, he's a He's
a Palestinian. So you know, Trump is deciding who is
a Palestinian. And of course that means that you are
subject to a genocide and you are stateless. And of
(10:54):
course statelessness is what Hannah Rent said was a necessary
preliminary for what the Nazis did during the Holocaust. And
on one hand it's Luger. In the other hand, it's
this group of star This kind of tribal goes back
to German tribalism. And we've heard Musk recently addressing alternative
(11:17):
for Germany and saying, you know, oh, you guys don't
have to go the Caesar. You guys came from literally,
you know, Jason Stanley, who wrote The Ratio of History,
a very relevant book to this film, talked about zactly.
I was so glad he actually picked up the same
quote and talked about his own German Jewish relatives and
(11:41):
how you know, Musk is completely erasing them from this
image of blood and soil. So in a way, Adolph
goes towards simply hate and love, you could say, and
whereas Hugo is you could say, transferentially really falls in
love with Freud, and this allows him to think through
(12:03):
his hatred, you know, he kind of allows him a space.
But I think it's interesting the word repetition, which which
is of course, in analysis, one of the four fundamental
concepts for lack hope, but in French it's also the
term for rehearsal. Right, we say rehearsal in English, but
in French, whip's repetition. And within a repetition an actor
(12:26):
has to you know, you do multiple takes, but an
actor will find new things each time, make it new, well,
usually sticking to the same language. But you know, and
I think of this Becket quote. Many people quote it,
but I will too, you know, fail, fail again, fail better.
(12:47):
So it's I don't necessarily think it's a question of
avoiding repetition, but not thinking of repetition mechanically, and of
the possible ability within that, of thinking of remaining thinking
within that and therefore able to change the situation.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
That's good, you know, I forgot about that. That in
French it's you know, the same word for I think
that's actually really helpful, because I mean, repetition is going
to be unavoidable, you know, anyway to some extent. So
in a way, it's like right, it's not about avoiding it,
but it's like making your own right each time you're
doing it, do something with it to capture it.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So yeah, Plus, repetition is never truly identical, Like even
if we symbolically treated as an identical let's say, iteration
of the event, it never is. I was going to
ask something and Zizek was the one to say, is
that cinema it's a kind of collective dreaming and if
we apply the same process or methodology from psychoanalysis to
the process of dreaming. So there's also these very interesting
(13:51):
analysis of cycle from Alfred Hitchcock where the house itself
is structure as super ego ego and you know, like
the base is where the ID is hidden, and then
the super ego is at the top floor and it's
providing the rules and the order for the character that
is occupying the ego space. So I would like to
(14:13):
have your take with your familiarity to the psychoanalytical tradition
on this notion of cinema as something as a collective
dreaming platform, but also the the idea of a play
within a play, which is interesting because since we let's
say we assume the notion that we cannot address truth directly,
we have always to address truth via symbolism, imaginary and
(14:37):
the symbolic. So is this a conscious choice of making
it as much as let's say, as tangible as possible,
that this is in fact a play within a play.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Great, great question, and I will do my best with it.
My own interest in lack call started through I did
a performance art based piece of performance art based on
the records of my uncle who had been World War
Two veteran, had had a psychotic break and then was
(15:08):
hospital I spent ten years on hotel and then either
escaped or wandered off and was hit by a train.
And I did a little research found out that this
period at the end of the Second World work was
kind of a pivotal moment in the formation of what
is known as mental health care and around treating veterans.
(15:31):
So I started getting interested through really through clinical practice
and clinicians. And I was working with an anthropologist, mic Tausik,
who remains a friend to this day. And I came
into his office with this big stack of books and
schizophrenia from the nineteen fifties that no one had taken
out for like years, and he said, Richard, it's great
(15:54):
to read those books, but you know, you should really
meet people who do this as a It's what they do.
They have a practice around this. So I started to do.
I volunteered at an outpatient center for severely chronically mentally ill,
most of them diagnosed with one form of psychosis or another.
(16:14):
I started a reading group with them. We would read
aloud the short stories of Poe, Melville and Hawthorne. And
then I assistant directed a theater program there where we
put on plays that were created out of improvisation with
the clients as they were known, and I worked with
(16:35):
the Lacadian Association and the Lacanians. My connection to the
Lacanians stuck, and I think in part Diego because you know,
they weren't trapped by psychology. You could say, you know,
they thought outside of psychology. It's not only that they
were interested in Shakespeare or music or contemporary art. So
(17:00):
they weren't just trying to stuff that all inside some
large box called psychology. You know, they were trying to
get out from that, you know. So I think, you know, again,
Alanti de Vile is among these clinicians with whom I
stayed friends he he was also a writer and artist.
His wife was a jazz singer, and we immediately felt
(17:25):
a connection. But for me, I've been very interested in
psychoanalysis as a practice for better and for worse. And
I think that's true also my relation to cinema, which
is to say, I think of cinema as a as
a practice inevitably implying a certain blindness. So it's an
(17:51):
excellent question. You know, in this film, we see but
from the very beginning, you know, we first see Ada
in front of a video installation, so there's this whole
question of representation very early on, of art, and of
course art through aesthetics. You know, there's the question of aesthetics,
(18:13):
which was very important for Benjamin as well. And I
read a lot of theory. I read with great enjoyment, Zizak.
I read a lot of critical theory. But in terms
of the way it applies to my own work, I'm
(18:34):
I often make connections after the fact. In other words,
the films. Often the film for me, is not the
end of work. It's almost I would say, it's kind
of a midpoint. It represents a culmination of work, but
then kind of engaging in conversations like this one and
(18:56):
other work that comes out of it is another stage
to it, and I'm often unaware of I often make
uh in the questions and in the conversations the discussions
that follow it. I'm often able to make new connections
to the work that I you know, and sometimes I
(19:16):
pretend like they're conscious and I had them in mind,
you know, like I was really really you know, really savvy.
But often there they are connections I've that have become
a parent to me afterwards.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That's fair. I mean, you'll have to forgive us what.
We're a theory podcast primarily, so we're gonna listen.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I'm I'm one among you know, I feel I'm among
friends that doesn't there's nothing I'm very pro theory.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
But I mean, I think what you made sense about practice,
it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It's actually it's like a practice, right, Like it's helpful
to think about psychoanalysis primarily as the practice. And of
course that's originally what it was supposed to be, too, right,
It's like.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Right and and and analysts. Well. Another thing I like
about Lacanians is they believe in continuous formation, that you're
always engaged in formation, you're never formed, you know, you
never get some degree and that's you know, it's done.
And at the same time that when you're listening in
(20:18):
an analytical setting, you know, if you find yourself going,
oh that's the imaginary, you're fucked. You know, you've lost it.
If you if you find yourself kind of having these
quote unquote insights, it's that's important work to be engaged in,
but it's something you leave aside or when you when
(20:39):
you're there listening, then it just becomes kind of a
way of keeping from actually hearing what's going on. So
something I think is similar.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, those must be things that come, like you said,
retroactively too, like in the ENW I mean, I don't know,
maybe Diego because his wife I think I mentioned in
an email as actually a Lacinian psychoanalyst, So maybe she
would say that, you know, it's only after the sessions
that you kind of you put a name to what
was going on. But like when you're in it, of
course it's you know, it wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Also another thing that is very interesting, like like Victor said,
I got interested in psychoanalysis because my wife is a
pratictioning psychoanalyst.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
She was forming Spain, and she constantly tells.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Me that actually when you when you start practitioning, you
have in a way to forget theory.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, because you have to.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Let the unconsciousness connect with the other unconsciousness and have
this you know, projection and reception and the transference that
you want to happen. If you're thinking about theory, you
don't make a good transference. So that's why I think
it's very humble of you to say that that that
you don't engage with this directly. And I think you
are because you are doing it with practice, you know,
like you are connected.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
To theory, you are doing it through practice. So I
think it's it's it's.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Very louable, very admirable what you're trying to do with
this film. And if I may follow up on the question,
and you know, having seen Adula Khan and now and
now the thirteen, uh, do you think there's a possibility
for a continuous conversation because you know, psychoanalysis is constantly
criticized for being a silo science or to being like
(22:09):
a non scientifical method, and you know, if you're a
positivist or a Babarian or whatever people trying to attack
psychoanalysis by lack of probability, repetition of experiments. So what
do you think is the current, let's say, relevance of
discussing psychoanalysis as a method, And why this dedication of
(22:29):
doing two films regarding this topic and maybe potentially continued
on this conversation, What is the interest behind this intention?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I mean, I think you have to think of it
in some ways in regards to politics, politics of the subject.
You know, I think the importance of speech, the importance
of a kind of way of thinking when you think
about how the humanities are now under attack and such.
(22:58):
If you think about women in hysteria in Freud's time.
I remember one famous feminist, Marie Ruti, who died recently.
You know, she said, the first time she heard about
penis anv she read about it in Freud's where she
wanted to throw the book across the room. But then
she thought about how, you know, women at that time
(23:20):
couldn't own property, they couldn't vote, the amount of the
powerlessness and the amount of power that came with this
part of the anatomy and such, and so it made
perfect sense that someone would envy someone having this part
of their anatomy that gave them all these all this potential.
(23:42):
And I think so Freud's listening to these women and
the way that psychoanalysis. I mean, I think one of
the interesting things about Alan Cumming in the role of
Freud is he's he's known as an LGBTQ activist as
well as a gay actor and as an LGBT activist,
and he doesn't play Freud that way. I mean, he
(24:04):
plays Freud authentically as Freud, but at the same time,
I think it inflects Freud in a way that's about emancipation.
And the most recent Hollywood presentation of Freud by a
great actor, Anthony Hopkins, was in this film Freud's Last
(24:24):
Session and They're kind of The story is about Freud's
attempting to prohibit his daughter from pursuing a same sex
relationship with another woman. But whether it's true or not,
it makes Freud this figure of conservative, reactionary figure, and
(24:44):
I think his work is anything but that you see.
I think I see Freud's work as being emancipatory and
part of and I think we see in this film,
you know, that of psychoanalysis as being part of an
effort to emancipate human beings. And I think that's something
that's very much under attack right now politically. And I
(25:07):
don't think it's by chance that Freud's work has a
particular relevance in our particular time in terms of these
battles and at the same time a kind of minority position.
And again, these are also this idea in lack cont
of the extimacy, you know, that what is most deeply
(25:27):
inside you is outside and so that these very external
political struggles also have a very personal and intimate relation
the society, our own lives, the life of the society
around us, and such, you know. I mean at the
(25:48):
time of lat Kant, the Americans were then dominant after
the Second World War, they were running the IPA, and
they really saw Freud in terms of biological science. You know,
they were trying the translation by Straiky with taking these
(26:08):
very common words in German and making them into Latin
terms in English, where he which is I becomes ego
in which is S. So. I mean, these very common
words in German become these Latin terms, and that kind
of uh reflects this attempt to make it into a
(26:31):
stable science like any other science. And what la Coon
does is take it and bring it to the Sosser's
work on language and speech and also Levy strauss work
on anthrop structural anthropology. So in a way, he also
(26:54):
was interested in the idea of knowledge. But you know again,
also science is this word, and you know, I mean
Hegel's sense of what science used to be, which would
have would have included religion, which would have included philosophy.
And then the way in which the idea of science
(27:16):
becomes limited to certain ideas of science that are dominant.
Now you know again, lack Call's work is also challenging
our definition of science.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
This is something I was excited to ask about because
there's another figure other than Freud, big big name in
the psychology there, Carl Jung. And yeah, the issues, let
me think how to frame this the issues you explore
in the film, and also what we're talking about here
is some of the basic ideas of psychoanalysis, of dream interpretation, repetition,
(27:57):
infantile desire like these are. It seemed to be at
issue between absolutely and Freud, right, And I guess I
was just wondering about the way you use this conflict
sort of in the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. This conflict between
Freud and Jung as a vehicle almost to explore then
(28:22):
the issues that say Hugo Hauser is going through, or
even just this sort of I guess you could say
emergent kind of Germanist paganist kind of movement. And yeah, so,
I mean Freud and Jung seem to have fundamentally different
(28:43):
ideas about interpreting dreams, right, is it is it desire?
Is it a wish expression? Or is the dreamer actually
the receiver of the desire from somewhere else?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
These these tribritypal title.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Right, Yeah, and that I mean I found myself thinking,
you know, who was right about Hugo Hausser's condition?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
And I think ultimately I sided with Freud a little
bit because there's but Young is very interesting and compelling analysis, sanitarian.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
He doesn't set up Young as a straw figure to
be knocked out. I mean, you know, it's a good fight.
It's a really good fight. And you know, and also
I think at the end of the film, which doesn't
concern you, Freud's eventual sense of success, we know it's
not true. You know, we know that he thinks, oh
(29:44):
now I have hope, and of course we know the
Holocaust will follow that, so you know, it's it's a
he's a tragic figure in the end, and whether he's
right or not in some way depends on us, or
depends on what happens afterwards. You know, he's not at
(30:05):
all powerful and gets everything right kind of figure. Nor
is Lacan a deal Lachan. You know, in Adieu La
con there's this interior voice we hear of La Khan
in there are moments where he's like, shit, why did
I say that, you know, and doubting himself and such.
(30:28):
So neither neither of these figures of psychoanalysis are you know,
perfect masters in any sense. And Young is very popular,
often much more popular than Freud, and it's particularly in
the world of Hollywood. I mean, Jung is a I
(30:49):
think the Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
which is like a bible in the world of Hollywood
screen writers. And you know, he's he's a disciple of
Jung so too. And of course in this film he's
a sinister character. He's sinister because he takes on he
(31:14):
makes explicit or we see Freud realizing that in Jung's
embrace of kind of a tribal notion of archetypes. There's
a compatibility with Nazi fascism and which, of course Jung
(31:35):
will actually pick up. He will actually be involved in
the purifying psychoanalysis of its Jewish roots or the beginnings
of that within Nazi fascism. Some people would dispute that,
but it clearly is Alan took that very much to
(31:56):
be the case. He may Freud's idea of where ideas,
ideas come from very matter of fact, this idea that
this sexual attraction, of this ancestual feeling is kind of
transmitted and as he says, kept kept alive in a
(32:17):
museum or in the case of Adolph, we see that
these ideas of anti Semitism are are floating around him.
You know, he takes them and he puts them to
a particular use, and in that way cohers. I mean, really,
you really see him get his act together right after
(32:40):
we see his play. I mean, then he's a cool cucumber.
I think for the first time he really is a
cool cucumber. And up until then there's always something a
little crisp and bizarre about him. But he really gets
his act together. We really see him kind of take
(33:01):
on a kind of mirror image of of who he
wants to be from that point on. So there's a
very simple way in which, you know, this idea of
extimacy that we see at work, and I think it's
a contrast with this much more mystical idea of the
(33:23):
origins of these dreams or in the unconscious.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Just a just a quick follow up on that I
was I noticed. You know, maybe there's nothing to this,
but it was just interesting to me. You know that
that Jung as someone who seems to open the door
to more kind of ideas of a like racial essentialism,
or at least in so far as there's is tribalism,
and you chose to cast a black actor, and I
just I wonder was that intentional or like, were you
(33:48):
kind of playing with that idea that it's like or
I like.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
To say, well, Victor, we we carefully before I cast
the black man as the white supremacist, we did carefully
consider seven or eight white supremacists. And before we cast
the Jewish guy as Hitler, we did carefully consider eight
or nine Nazis for the role. They were given an
(34:14):
equal opportunity. It was a playful choice in some ways.
I think it's it's very I think one of the
really interesting things in terms again, I did not know
Trump was going to be re elected. Let me let
me admit that right off. But you know, it's it's
(34:35):
this I think if you think about I mean, I've
been recently reading a book called Hitler's American Model, which
was about in mind KMF. Hitler writes about, you know,
the US is the one model the Nazis have, and
the Nazis find the Americans two racist you know, which
is they? You know, because the Americans said, well, you're
(34:58):
Jewish if you have a grand you know, and and uh,
whereas the Americans is one drop of blood and you're black.
And then they were like, oh, this is too much.
The Americans not Nazis. You know, if you really see
together or the crossover between the Ku Klux Klan Uh
(35:23):
and the Nazis fascism, you kind of see where we
are now because there are ways in which, as I said,
I think the regime in the United States right now
has echoes of of the language of Carl Luger or
the language of the star who we see in this film.
(35:46):
It's birth of a nation, and in Birth of a Nation,
there are good black people, right, I mean, if you
if if you've ever seen the film, it does say
there are you know, yes, there is the Klan and
their lynchings, and but those are for black people who
want to be independent or think for themselves. So I
(36:09):
you know, and I think this is kind of the
ideology around racism as it applies, particularly in the you know, so,
now we have these anti Semites who are saving this
anti Semitic anti semitism or this attack on you know,
universities and in the name of anti Semitism by being
(36:32):
practiced by anti Semits right. And the scholar Peter Bynarch
for example, has done these studies where you know, explicitly
anti Semitic, overt anti Semitic remarks correlate with a much
higher support of Israel, of this kind of of this
genocide general cydle thing. You know. So, how do you
(36:53):
explain that? Well, you know, the idea of I think
you really have to go back to the Ku Klux
Klan and Birth of a Nation. If you stay in
your place, then you're fine, but if you wander. A
book that's been very important to me is Freud in
the Invention of Jewishness by Betty Fuchs, you know, who
(37:14):
talks about the importance of the idea of exile, of
the voice for Freud, but also the idea of exiles.
You know that threw our introduction into language subjectivity is
a way a kind of exile and reconciling ourselves with
that state of exile. And that's an intrinsic part of
(37:36):
Jewish thought and that we find in the work of
Freud and such. So it's very and this gets into
Moses in Monotheism, which gets reflected also, I think in
Edward Sayid's book Freud and the Non European, you know,
of finding always this outside, there's always a foreignness. This
(37:59):
is very much much of what Freud takes from his
own Jewish culture, you know, the sense of this foreignness,
this alterity that we that's always within any group and
any any uh, any individual, rather than thinking we expel
it through some act of scapegoating and hatred. So I
(38:21):
think again the black actor as as young lets us
think in a way the American experience of races and
racism in a certain way in this connection doesn't result
It's not like a h it's allegory in the way
that Benjamin met it. It's not like a key to
(38:42):
the film, and there's there's a meaning to understand, but
it's it's more the idea of allegory is something that
opens up, that says that's generative, which is what the
way you know also is how these two films Diego's
mentioning also ideal la cont in both of the films.
The psychoanalytics scenes are black and white for three yes, right.
(39:05):
The rest of the film, particularly in V. Thirteen, a
lot of it, of course is not in there. This
is in color and it's sixteen to nine. But the
psychoanalytics scenes I used this the first standard film standard
going back to the end of the nineteenth century, with
both film and psychoanalysis having in a sense a birth
(39:28):
date of eighteen ninety five, and so I wanted to
evoke this. And four to three also is great for
close ups. There's a way in which it really works
for the kind of framing we wanted to use, and
that way it connects the two films, and I think
it is I think, I mean, I haven't done this work,
(39:49):
except somebody pointed out to me recently that Schubert the
one composer which we hear doing the analytical scenes in
both films is Schubert. I hadn't been aware. I hadn't
thought of that. I mean, part of the excitement for
me about making both of these films, which are both
based on the work of Lacanian psychoanalysts analyzed by Jack
(40:11):
la comp is as a as a field for thought discussion.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
It's very topical, I guess to me anyway, because it's
so easy to read the resurgence of kind of authoritarianism
and then immediately connect it to the sorts of divergences
Young is trying to bring into psychoanalysis by looking at
these sort of enduring symbols of the past that re
(40:41):
emerge into our present, instead of Freud's more I guess
grounded way of looking at things, right, Like, how does
Hugo know that he's Jewish? They both agree he unconsciously knows,
But how does he know? That's the real question, right
For Freud, it's got to be directly, you're sort of
absorbing the feelings of the people are around you that
you're interacting with, versus Jung who's saying no, no, There's
(41:05):
something deeper than that. That's sort of causing this behavior
or this set of symptoms or whatever. And so it
seen for him, it's kind of indirect, like it can
come from the outside of the dreamer or the or
the patient. And yeah, right right, I mean this sort
of stuff coming up again.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Now, yeah, I mean I think for Freud, it would
you know, we could be transmitted through generations, but it'd
be transmitted through language, through art, through music in various ways,
rather than through a kind of mystical ethereal collective unconscious
(41:44):
collective unconscious. Yeah, and of course in v. Thirteen that
becomes connected to different ethnicities, right that there'll be a
Jewish unconscious versus a German unconscious. And you know, at
that point we're close up on Freud with Young behind him,
and as you can see, he's going like, h no,
(42:08):
this is not good. This is not gone in a
good direction.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
And it's ironic that Hugo is resistant immediately going into
Freud's room, saying, you know, oh, there's these little thoughts
that think themselves, and oh, ironically it's Young who thinks
that there's these archetypal symbols that symbol themselves. Somehow they
also sort of exist independently, but yeah, I'm conscious of time.
(42:32):
If anyone has any follow.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Up questions, Yah, do you want to have one more?
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Yeah, So I think it's interesting just to close this topic.
But in the end you go ends up identifying with
the abuser, because like in the end, he identifies with
his father, becoming anti Semitic and in a way rejecting
his Jewish blood coming from his mother that is actually
hidden in his unconscious.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
So so in a.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Way, Ugle itself, it's a proved that there's no such
thing as a Jewish unconscious, because if it was, it
was not inherited to him. He was able to identify
with his father and become the abuser and become an
anti Semite even if he had Jewish blood.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Interesting interpretation. Freud was saying in the film that at
least Hugo showed him this sort of hope that he
describes in a letter to his daughter at the end,
this hope which then leads to the sort of that
beautiful final quote of the film that I think really
also repeats the Benyamine sentiment in a different kind of way,
(43:32):
but in a very similar way. Can we go back
and make a different choice kind of idea or the
something flashing up in the moment of danger, the dialectical
image in Benyamine versus what he calls the archaic images
that Young deals with. Benyumine obviously was a bit of
(43:54):
a critic of Young plans to perhaps write a takedown
of him, but never go around to it for reasons
we mentioned earlier. But yeah, yeah, that's some of the
stuff I read into it. Sorry, Diego, I jumped right
onto your toes there.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
No, no, no, I just wanted to get your take rechair,
because I found one of the most powerful scenes in
the movie was this scene where the actors are falling
back on empty doors, tagged under things we can change
and things we cannot change. And I think in a
way those two in a way they reflect the conflict
between Jung and Freud, as in, if you have some
characteristics that are inherited by these transcendental ego, which which
(44:34):
starts with Young in a way, then those are things
you cannot change because you're destined to fulfill them as
they are part of your ethnicity, part of your genes,
so you are determined to be in a way, and
Freud bets on the on the rise of subjectivity, but
a contingent subjectivity, that is, that is product of the
relationship with others, with language, with culture, with material conditions,
(44:56):
you could say, but then Freud is betting that, as
end quote mentions, as Eric said that, yes, we can change,
even we can resignify the past, as you mentioned before,
If we go back and we challenge the past and
we understand the past differently, then we can.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
Perhaps overcome trauma, overcome you.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
Know, symptoms, and actually resignify the traumas of the past
in order to change in the future. But betting on
a transcendental ego, theren you're you're in a way condemned
to your original condition. Can you talk us a little
bit about that scene, specifically the one on the on
the two doors. What is what is your obtention? Was
the energy supposed to be transmitted there?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Yeah, no, I thought you said it so well, you know,
it's it's me. It's the key scene in the film
in a way. It's so horrifying in a way, and
of course it is a rehearsal, it's a repetition, repetition,
and so it brings up this this notion of repeating
in relation obviously to it for shadows the Holocaust that scene.
(46:03):
I can't think much more to say about it, but
I hope people will see the film.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
And actually, on that note, could you maybe let us
know where listeners can find the film. Well, we'll be
sure to put it in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Yeah, the best thing is to visit my because it's
always changing. Richard leads dot com that's leads as ledes
and there you'll find links to wherever it's playing. We're
doing more screenings. We're doing screenings in London, in Paris,
around the US and elsewhere as well, I hope hopefully
(46:36):
in Mexico as well in Canada. So it's constantly changing.
It's available online in North America as of May thirteenth,
and outside of North America you can actually find it
now on my website at through Vimeo and there. It's
(46:57):
available worldwide, but on streaming services. It'll be starting to
come out on May thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Okay, awesome, Well, listeners check it out V thirteen. As
you can tell from the discussion, it's you know, the
theory oriented crowd. I think we'll get a lot out
of it, so be sure to check it out. And Richard, thanks,
thanks so much for coming back. It was a pleasure
to have you.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah, thanks for your time. I could talk all afternoon.
I got so many more questions.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
But yeah, same, But that's okay.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
We'll do another time we have to do it.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Are you sure you want to stop recording to the
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal: Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a brand new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-4 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.