1
00:00:00,440 --> 00:00:03,519
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:14,000
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

3
00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:15,320
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick.

4
00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:18,560
Speaker 2: And today's episode feels like a perfect fit in a

5
00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:22,239
Speaker 2: number of ways. For starters. We've been discussing mystery cults

6
00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:24,440
Speaker 2: on our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

7
00:00:25,079 --> 00:00:30,160
Speaker 2: and the concept of an imagistic religion has been key

8
00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:34,200
Speaker 2: to our discussions. There infrequent high sensory rights of passage,

9
00:00:34,520 --> 00:00:36,800
Speaker 2: and I feel like today's film matches up with that

10
00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:41,960
Speaker 2: concept on a couple of levels. Furthermore, to understand, we

11
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:44,080
Speaker 2: potentially have more eyes on the podcast feed this week,

12
00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:46,519
Speaker 2: and it seemed proper to maybe lean a little more

13
00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:50,160
Speaker 2: into science fiction. Plus, we've also been saving this one

14
00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:53,280
Speaker 2: for a week when we had maybe a little less time.

15
00:00:53,800 --> 00:00:56,760
Speaker 2: This is one of the shorter pictures we've looked at

16
00:00:56,840 --> 00:00:59,560
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema. It's only a half hour long,

17
00:01:00,640 --> 00:01:03,440
Speaker 2: but that's fitting given the subject matter, and boy does

18
00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:04,280
Speaker 2: it pack a lot.

19
00:01:04,120 --> 00:01:05,759
Speaker 3: In So what's the movie?

20
00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:09,640
Speaker 2: The movie is the nineteen eighty four short film Quest.

21
00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:13,080
Speaker 2: I note that I am going to mistakenly refer to

22
00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:16,119
Speaker 2: this film as Conquest at least once during the course

23
00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:20,319
Speaker 2: of this podcast. But not to be confused with Luccio

24
00:01:20,360 --> 00:01:24,200
Speaker 2: Fulci's Conquest. This is Quest. It is adapted for the

25
00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:28,040
Speaker 2: screen written by Ray Bradbury, and it is directed by

26
00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:30,120
Speaker 2: Saul and Elaine Bass.

27
00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:33,600
Speaker 3: Now this is not our first Bass film. We talked

28
00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:37,080
Speaker 3: about Saul and Elaine Bass when we covered the movie

29
00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:41,360
Speaker 3: Phase four, which was about super intelligent ants. That was

30
00:01:41,360 --> 00:01:44,320
Speaker 3: a very interesting movie. But one thing I remember thinking

31
00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:48,559
Speaker 3: about it was that it felt somewhat constrained by realism

32
00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:51,520
Speaker 3: for most of its run time, except in like the

33
00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:54,840
Speaker 3: very last couple of minutes where it got super weird,

34
00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:59,080
Speaker 3: and it almost felt like, you know, that level of

35
00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:02,040
Speaker 3: weirdness was being held back for much of the run time.

36
00:02:02,840 --> 00:02:05,120
Speaker 3: I think that is not something you could say about Quest.

37
00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:05,840
Speaker 4: Now.

38
00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:10,520
Speaker 2: This film is all abstract and surreal weirdness. It is

39
00:02:10,600 --> 00:02:14,799
Speaker 2: not held back by the necessities of for the most part,

40
00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:18,480
Speaker 2: the necessities of genre or plot or character, or any

41
00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:23,480
Speaker 2: of the conventional trappings of narrative filmmaking. It is instead

42
00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:27,080
Speaker 2: more like an initiation into a great mystery.

43
00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:29,800
Speaker 3: That's right. I mean, its plot is very basic. It

44
00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:32,960
Speaker 3: is essentially a there's a premise which We'll explain more

45
00:02:32,960 --> 00:02:35,440
Speaker 3: as we go on, but it essentially has to do

46
00:02:35,560 --> 00:02:39,760
Speaker 3: with characters whose life spans are unnaturally short. And then

47
00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:43,079
Speaker 3: from that premise, there is a character who must make

48
00:02:43,120 --> 00:02:46,720
Speaker 3: a journey through a difficult sort of hero's journey in

49
00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:49,519
Speaker 3: order to cure the people of this condition of having

50
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:50,720
Speaker 3: shortened life spans.

51
00:02:51,160 --> 00:02:54,000
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, we have a chosen one, we have a quest,

52
00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:56,799
Speaker 2: and yeah, it's quite an adventure.

53
00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:00,720
Speaker 3: But so with the plot itself being quite simple, what

54
00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:03,280
Speaker 3: is left to fill in the kind of uniqueness of

55
00:03:03,320 --> 00:03:07,120
Speaker 3: the movie is the series of images that it supplies.

56
00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:11,200
Speaker 3: This is a movie that is about creating weird scenes,

57
00:03:11,240 --> 00:03:17,240
Speaker 3: and I really like the the variable tone of of

58
00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:20,079
Speaker 3: the the sort of settings that we get. Because there

59
00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:23,240
Speaker 3: were sort of natural settings. We see our hero wandering

60
00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:28,640
Speaker 3: through rocky landscapes and you know, mountain mountain passes and

61
00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:32,040
Speaker 3: planes and things like that. But then also we get

62
00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:37,560
Speaker 3: not even artificial but almost geometric, like abstract landscapes that

63
00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:41,440
Speaker 3: couldn't really exist in reality. They're they're like illustrations from

64
00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:42,720
Speaker 3: an mc escher drawing.

65
00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:49,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, increasingly surreal landscapes and environments. You know, you

66
00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:52,600
Speaker 2: go from from some settings that have like a very

67
00:03:53,680 --> 00:03:57,680
Speaker 2: like dark fantasy, Sword and Sandals kind of feel into

68
00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:01,080
Speaker 2: settings that feel like they have apps been stripped from

69
00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:02,200
Speaker 2: tron somehow.

70
00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:05,920
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it starts a tour and ends esher.

71
00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:09,440
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, my elevator pitch for this one, I

72
00:04:09,600 --> 00:04:13,120
Speaker 2: just dug up a quick Bible verse, teach us to

73
00:04:13,240 --> 00:04:15,960
Speaker 2: number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

74
00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:16,760
Speaker 4: Ah.

75
00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:18,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that'll come up later.

76
00:04:18,640 --> 00:04:22,240
Speaker 2: Now. As for the trailer for this one, there's seemingly

77
00:04:22,320 --> 00:04:25,840
Speaker 2: no true trailer for this film, which isn't surprising, as

78
00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:28,080
Speaker 2: we'll get into some of the reasons here. It only

79
00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:32,919
Speaker 2: played in festival competitions and never received a theatrical release.

80
00:04:33,640 --> 00:04:36,039
Speaker 2: But maybe we can just have a brief audio sample

81
00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:37,479
Speaker 2: of JJ's choosing here.

82
00:04:42,839 --> 00:04:43,800
Speaker 4: Is this the one?

83
00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:51,560
Speaker 5: One day from now, you'll be a grown boy, two

84
00:04:51,680 --> 00:05:02,400
Speaker 5: or three, young man, five, middle aves seven old. In

85
00:05:02,560 --> 00:05:05,560
Speaker 5: eight days, you'll stop and die.

86
00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:16,520
Speaker 4: Listen to our heart's race. Listen to your own heart race.

87
00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:21,920
Speaker 5: We are locked away in the world where our lives

88
00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:25,400
Speaker 5: speaks through time. In eight days, no time to see you,

89
00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:27,560
Speaker 5: to feel, to know.

90
00:05:28,680 --> 00:05:49,800
Speaker 4: It's time. Ah, Now the teaching begins.

91
00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:54,719
Speaker 5: Listen to them, learn quickly, listen to.

92
00:05:54,680 --> 00:06:07,919
Speaker 2: Them all right now? If you want to watch Quest

93
00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:11,520
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty four before proceeding here. Well, DVD and

94
00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:16,719
Speaker 2: VHS releases have apparently been available. There's some evidence I've

95
00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:18,760
Speaker 2: found that you can order some sort of a DVD

96
00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:23,200
Speaker 2: of this movie, but for the most part, I can't

97
00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:26,480
Speaker 2: tell that it has benefited from a high quality physical

98
00:06:26,480 --> 00:06:29,760
Speaker 2: media release, at least not yet. Hopefully there's some sort

99
00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:34,240
Speaker 2: of collected short films of Saul in the Lane Bass

100
00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:36,200
Speaker 2: disc that will come out in the future, and when

101
00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:38,640
Speaker 2: it does, we will certainly promote it here on Weird

102
00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:43,400
Speaker 2: House Cinema. As of right now, you can easily find

103
00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:46,599
Speaker 2: this film on YouTube. There's at least one version that

104
00:06:46,760 --> 00:06:50,320
Speaker 2: claims to be some level of remastering. I'm never sure

105
00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:53,479
Speaker 2: how that works when you have a unofficial remastering of films,

106
00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:58,279
Speaker 2: so I'm not completely certain on that. I think that

107
00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:01,640
Speaker 2: Eternal Family, which you can find an Eternal dot TV,

108
00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:04,960
Speaker 2: I believe they have offered it in the past, but

109
00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:07,560
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that it is currently offered, but check

110
00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:10,480
Speaker 2: out Eternal Family either way, their catalog often matches up

111
00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:14,920
Speaker 2: with Weird House Cinema tastes. But I'm confident that if

112
00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:17,400
Speaker 2: you were interested in watching Quest, out there, you can

113
00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:21,160
Speaker 2: find a stream of it somewhere, and then hopefully down

114
00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:23,960
Speaker 2: the road we'll get that high quality release that we

115
00:07:24,440 --> 00:07:25,360
Speaker 2: all clearly need.

116
00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:27,480
Speaker 3: All right, Should we talk about the connections?

117
00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:31,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's start at the top with the directors and producers.

118
00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:35,400
Speaker 2: It's Saul and Elaine Bass, husband and wife design power couple.

119
00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:39,800
Speaker 2: We discussed saw Bass previously in our episode on nineteen

120
00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:45,920
Speaker 2: seventy four's Phase four. That was his only his slash there.

121
00:07:46,520 --> 00:07:49,080
Speaker 2: I may go back and forth from referring to him

122
00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:52,600
Speaker 2: and referring to he and his wife. They work together,

123
00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:56,360
Speaker 2: I believe on most of these projects after a certain point,

124
00:07:56,840 --> 00:07:59,560
Speaker 2: but she wasn't always credited right at there at the top.

125
00:08:00,440 --> 00:08:04,320
Speaker 2: On Quest they are co directors and are credited as such.

126
00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:10,120
Speaker 2: But yeah, Phase four was their only feature length directorial credit.

127
00:08:10,880 --> 00:08:13,000
Speaker 2: A film that, yeah, we might describe as the two

128
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:15,840
Speaker 2: thousand and one a space odyssey of ant movies, an

129
00:08:15,880 --> 00:08:20,600
Speaker 2: increasingly weird man versus Nature film that reaches a fever

130
00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:24,440
Speaker 2: pitch of an ending and its theatrical cut, but absolutely

131
00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:27,600
Speaker 2: explodes in a cinematic acid trip if you watch the

132
00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:31,960
Speaker 2: original ending, which is even weirder and stranger.

133
00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:36,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, the spoiler for this movie is that humanity is

134
00:08:36,320 --> 00:08:40,840
Speaker 3: sort of being, would you say, competed with by hyper

135
00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:44,800
Speaker 3: intelligent ants, and the ants win in the end, and

136
00:08:44,960 --> 00:08:48,160
Speaker 3: when the ants, when there's an ending where it's I recall,

137
00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:50,960
Speaker 3: it's sort of implied that humans aren't all just like

138
00:08:51,080 --> 00:08:53,960
Speaker 3: killed by the ants. Like life goes on, but life

139
00:08:54,080 --> 00:08:59,920
Speaker 3: is increasingly completely incomprehensible because we are unable to understand

140
00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:04,480
Speaker 3: the intelligence or desire or what is meaningful to the

141
00:09:04,520 --> 00:09:06,720
Speaker 3: ant powers that are governing our lives.

142
00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:10,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of unclear if it's a downer ending

143
00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:14,040
Speaker 2: or a happy ending, because it's that surreal and out there,

144
00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:17,959
Speaker 2: like it's beyond your human expectations of good and bad endings.

145
00:09:18,559 --> 00:09:21,880
Speaker 3: You cannot imagine an ant ruled world. You just can't

146
00:09:21,920 --> 00:09:23,520
Speaker 3: even get there now.

147
00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:28,040
Speaker 2: Saalbass lived nineteen twenty through nineteen ninety six. Elaine Bass

148
00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:30,600
Speaker 2: was born in nineteen twenty seven, and as of this

149
00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:34,280
Speaker 2: recording is still around now. We talked a bit about

150
00:09:34,679 --> 00:09:40,040
Speaker 2: sal Bass on our episode regarding Phase four again. He

151
00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:44,480
Speaker 2: was the title sequence slash title design guy of his era.

152
00:09:45,440 --> 00:09:49,320
Speaker 2: A Bass title sequence is often credited as a perfect

153
00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:53,000
Speaker 2: condensation of the feel of a picture, just taking the

154
00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:56,120
Speaker 2: whole vibe of that picture and condensing it down to

155
00:09:56,240 --> 00:09:59,160
Speaker 2: just a mere couple of minutes. So you'll hear a

156
00:09:59,160 --> 00:10:03,160
Speaker 2: lot of filmmakers, even contemporary filmmakers, just talk about his

157
00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:07,600
Speaker 2: mastery of this. He crafted title sequences for major films

158
00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:10,240
Speaker 2: from the mid fifties all the way through the mid nineties.

159
00:10:10,559 --> 00:10:15,959
Speaker 2: We're talking about the likes of the Seven Year Itch, Vertigo, Psycho, Spartacus,

160
00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:20,240
Speaker 2: West Side Story, Seconds, which we covered on Weird House Cinema,

161
00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:25,959
Speaker 2: Broadcast News, Big Goodfellas, Kate Beer, and Casino. The credits

162
00:10:25,960 --> 00:10:29,040
Speaker 2: to Mad Men on TV this was an homage to

163
00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:31,480
Speaker 2: his work. He did logos for a number of big

164
00:10:31,559 --> 00:10:34,520
Speaker 2: name companies throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and he

165
00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:37,360
Speaker 2: also did some pretty famous movie posters as well, including

166
00:10:37,400 --> 00:10:40,640
Speaker 2: the aforementioned films as well as Stanley Kubrick's The Shining

167
00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:44,600
Speaker 2: I consulted a book for a little more detail about

168
00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:48,000
Speaker 2: Saul and the Lame Bass, a book titled saw Baths,

169
00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:53,280
Speaker 2: Anatomy of Film Design by Jan Christopher Horrock, which of

170
00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:56,520
Speaker 2: course has a great deal to say about their approach

171
00:10:56,559 --> 00:11:00,760
Speaker 2: to art, everything from title and logo design work to

172
00:11:00,880 --> 00:11:05,240
Speaker 2: of course their cinematic output. And again from about nineteen

173
00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:11,880
Speaker 2: sixty onward. Elaine was his longtime creative partner who worked

174
00:11:11,880 --> 00:11:14,400
Speaker 2: with him on pretty much most of these projects, so

175
00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:17,439
Speaker 2: she's not again. She's not always credited earlier on, but

176
00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:21,400
Speaker 2: certainly by the time of today's film, she shared official

177
00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:25,360
Speaker 2: credit with her husband. Their first short film was nineteen

178
00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:29,920
Speaker 2: sixty four. Is the Searching Eye, a contemplation of visual

179
00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:33,600
Speaker 2: awareness in the unseen world. This one was narrated by

180
00:11:33,679 --> 00:11:36,560
Speaker 2: Vic Perrin, who recently talked about the Voice of the

181
00:11:36,559 --> 00:11:38,920
Speaker 2: Outer Limits and also the Gargoyle.

182
00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:42,160
Speaker 3: The narrator at the beginning of Gargoyles and dubbed in

183
00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:44,480
Speaker 3: on Bernie Casey's Gargoyle King.

184
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:49,080
Speaker 2: Yes, The Searching Eye was followed by From Here to

185
00:11:49,160 --> 00:11:53,080
Speaker 2: There the same year, and Why Man Creates in nineteen

186
00:11:53,120 --> 00:11:56,640
Speaker 2: sixty eight, a meditation on creativity and nature. Did won

187
00:11:56,679 --> 00:11:59,920
Speaker 2: an Oscar the following year for Best Documentary Short Subjects,

188
00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:03,880
Speaker 2: and this paved the way for Phase four, which we've

189
00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:08,040
Speaker 2: previously talked about. Two other short films followed, seventy eight's

190
00:12:08,040 --> 00:12:11,920
Speaker 2: Notes on the Popular Arts and nineteen eighties The Solar

191
00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:16,280
Speaker 2: Film that was an OSCAR nominated documentary produced by Robert Redford.

192
00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:19,280
Speaker 2: About the perils of fossil fuels and the need for

193
00:12:19,400 --> 00:12:23,240
Speaker 2: humanity to pivot to clean solar energy, and all of

194
00:12:23,280 --> 00:12:26,520
Speaker 2: this leads up to their final film project, and that

195
00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:31,280
Speaker 2: is nineteen eighty four's Quest. As Horrick relates, the origin

196
00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:35,160
Speaker 2: story on this one is super interesting. So bear with

197
00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:38,200
Speaker 2: me here. This is a lot. I was not expecting

198
00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:41,040
Speaker 2: it to be this rich. So this was a Japanese

199
00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:47,000
Speaker 2: funded production funded by the Church of World Messianity, a

200
00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:51,520
Speaker 2: new religious movement founded in nineteen thirty five by Mokichio

201
00:12:51,600 --> 00:12:54,800
Speaker 2: Kata who lived eighteen eighty two through nineteen fifty five.

202
00:12:55,960 --> 00:13:00,640
Speaker 2: A religious movement that promotes spiritual cleansing via the light.

203
00:13:01,559 --> 00:13:04,079
Speaker 3: WHOA, I did not expect it to take this turn.

204
00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:07,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, so apparently, as I understand it based on reading

205
00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:11,560
Speaker 2: Horrock's book, here people affiliated with the church at this point.

206
00:13:11,880 --> 00:13:13,560
Speaker 2: I think the Church was kind of going through like

207
00:13:13,920 --> 00:13:17,200
Speaker 2: some you know, rebranding a little bit redesign, like entering

208
00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:20,400
Speaker 2: a new era, and they were really taken by the

209
00:13:20,440 --> 00:13:24,600
Speaker 2: Bass's design work. This work had recently been featured in

210
00:13:24,640 --> 00:13:28,080
Speaker 2: a nineteen seventy nine issue of Idea, and so they

211
00:13:28,120 --> 00:13:31,840
Speaker 2: approached him about creating a visionary film to play in

212
00:13:31,880 --> 00:13:35,959
Speaker 2: the church's temples and spaces. So Saul Bass apparently wasn't

213
00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:39,360
Speaker 2: really all that interested in creating an overtly religious work,

214
00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:42,760
Speaker 2: but was drawn to the idea of quote a purely

215
00:13:42,920 --> 00:13:47,880
Speaker 2: metaphoric vision without proselytizing for the church, and quote, a

216
00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:51,560
Speaker 2: positive film that doesn't view life as a prelude to disaster.

217
00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:54,720
Speaker 3: Okay, so the Basses and the funders here may have

218
00:13:54,800 --> 00:13:59,160
Speaker 3: had totally different visions about what made this project appealing,

219
00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:01,959
Speaker 3: but nevertheless they could both get what they wanted out

220
00:14:01,960 --> 00:14:02,240
Speaker 3: of it.

221
00:14:02,600 --> 00:14:05,520
Speaker 2: That does seem to be the amazing thing about it,

222
00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:11,560
Speaker 2: because they did reach an agreement here. So I think

223
00:14:12,600 --> 00:14:16,800
Speaker 2: basically Saul Bass had worked with some big corporations before

224
00:14:17,360 --> 00:14:20,440
Speaker 2: funding his other works and was able to keep a

225
00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:24,440
Speaker 2: great deal of creative freedom over the final product. And

226
00:14:24,040 --> 00:14:27,480
Speaker 2: he thought, really, I mean, it seemed like it would

227
00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:30,240
Speaker 2: be kind of almost naive to think this, but he thought, well,

228
00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:33,000
Speaker 2: we can do the same thing working with a religious organization.

229
00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:36,600
Speaker 2: But he was right that it seems like it basically

230
00:14:36,640 --> 00:14:37,520
Speaker 2: worked out like that.

231
00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:40,560
Speaker 3: It's like when the Baptist Church of la funded Plan

232
00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:41,640
Speaker 3: nine from Outer Space.

233
00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:47,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. So, yeah, they funded this for the

234
00:14:47,280 --> 00:14:50,800
Speaker 2: tune of I Believe a Million dollars was the overall budget,

235
00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:54,240
Speaker 2: and again this was back in the eighties, and it

236
00:14:54,320 --> 00:14:58,400
Speaker 2: does feature strong themes of light, which line up with

237
00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:01,760
Speaker 2: some of the doctrines the land stand them of the

238
00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:06,920
Speaker 2: church in question here, but otherwise the plot the finished

239
00:15:06,920 --> 00:15:10,360
Speaker 2: film is detached from the church's teaching, so again kind

240
00:15:10,400 --> 00:15:14,040
Speaker 2: of a secularization of maybe some of their core values,

241
00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:17,800
Speaker 2: but in a way that doesn't lean too heavily into

242
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:20,120
Speaker 2: preaching the gospel of this particular faith.

243
00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:22,280
Speaker 3: Kind of like if you could get a I don't know,

244
00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:26,280
Speaker 3: just some mainstream Christian church to sponsor you by creating

245
00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:29,920
Speaker 3: a story about sacrifice and redemption that didn't have any

246
00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:35,400
Speaker 3: overtly Christian terms or ideas in it apart from the themes.

247
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:39,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So the film never received a theatrical release

248
00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:41,520
Speaker 2: in the United States, but it did play at plenty

249
00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:45,400
Speaker 2: of festivals, winning at least one award. It attracted a

250
00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:48,760
Speaker 2: number of fans, including George Lucas, which is not surprising.

251
00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:52,360
Speaker 2: Lucas praised its effects, its music, and its use of

252
00:15:52,400 --> 00:15:56,680
Speaker 2: the hero's journey. Meanwhile, back in Japan, it played eight

253
00:15:56,760 --> 00:15:59,240
Speaker 2: times a day at the church's headquarters for a period

254
00:15:59,280 --> 00:15:59,960
Speaker 2: of four years.

255
00:16:01,880 --> 00:16:05,800
Speaker 3: Wow, does that beat Rocky Horror for the longest theatrical

256
00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:09,040
Speaker 3: run just in terms of total number of plays?

257
00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:13,440
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, that would be an interesting

258
00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:15,520
Speaker 2: question to actually get into. Because, of course, at the

259
00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:21,920
Speaker 2: Studio ghibli Museum in Tokyo they play various short films

260
00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:25,720
Speaker 2: of Miyazaki's exclusively there. It's the only place you can

261
00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:27,800
Speaker 2: see most of them outside of maybe catching them at

262
00:16:27,800 --> 00:16:31,120
Speaker 2: a festival or a special showing. But that being said,

263
00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:33,960
Speaker 2: I don't think they're playing the same film every day,

264
00:16:33,960 --> 00:16:36,760
Speaker 2: four times a day. So, but then again, this is

265
00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:38,360
Speaker 2: only a period of four years, so I don't know

266
00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:40,880
Speaker 2: how many total viewings they were able to chalk up

267
00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:44,360
Speaker 2: during that time. There was a read in Horror's book,

268
00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:47,120
Speaker 2: though there was apparently some concern on the Japanese side

269
00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:50,240
Speaker 2: here that if the film were commercialized too much, it

270
00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:55,120
Speaker 2: would cause political problems for the church, which allegedly this

271
00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:58,560
Speaker 2: allegedly stifled some of its reach, So there may there

272
00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:01,280
Speaker 2: might have been some tension over that fact. But still

273
00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:05,080
Speaker 2: it did play in festivals, people did get to see it,

274
00:17:05,119 --> 00:17:09,000
Speaker 2: people continue to see it, and again, hopefully we'll get

275
00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:10,879
Speaker 2: to see some sort of proper release of it in

276
00:17:10,920 --> 00:17:11,400
Speaker 2: the future.

277
00:17:11,840 --> 00:17:13,359
Speaker 3: Wow, that's really interesting.

278
00:17:13,920 --> 00:17:16,320
Speaker 2: So they agreed to the basic terms of this film,

279
00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:18,960
Speaker 2: but then they still needed somebody to write it, so

280
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:22,920
Speaker 2: they reached out to legendary author Ray Bradbury, who lived

281
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:27,160
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty through twenty twelve, the author of such famous

282
00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:31,639
Speaker 2: works as The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit four fifty one, The

283
00:17:31,680 --> 00:17:35,480
Speaker 2: Illustrated Man, The October Country, and so forth. He was

284
00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:38,560
Speaker 2: also a successful screenwriter in his own right, having written

285
00:17:38,600 --> 00:17:41,640
Speaker 2: the screenplay for the nineteen fifty six adaptation of Moby Dick,

286
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:44,920
Speaker 2: and his work was also adapted for TV and film

287
00:17:44,960 --> 00:17:47,600
Speaker 2: going back to the nineteen fifties, including Jack Arnold's It

288
00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:50,280
Speaker 2: Came from Outer Space in fifty three, which we may

289
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:51,960
Speaker 2: come back to in Weird House Cinema.

290
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:54,560
Speaker 3: You know, this makes me think I've never seen a

291
00:17:54,600 --> 00:17:57,520
Speaker 3: film adaptation of Moby Dick, and I'd be very curious

292
00:17:57,560 --> 00:17:59,520
Speaker 3: how they do it, because that's one of my favorite

293
00:17:59,560 --> 00:18:02,520
Speaker 3: novels and it doesn't seem like it would adapt to

294
00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:04,879
Speaker 3: the screen very well. So much of it is just

295
00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:08,639
Speaker 3: in the you know, it's in the weirdness of the narrator.

296
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:12,000
Speaker 3: It's in like the kind of essays about seatology and

297
00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:13,920
Speaker 3: things like that. It seems like it would be hard

298
00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:16,320
Speaker 3: to turn into a movie, but I don't know, Maybe

299
00:18:16,359 --> 00:18:17,160
Speaker 3: they do a good job.

300
00:18:18,200 --> 00:18:19,920
Speaker 2: I mean, I haven't seen it since I was a kid,

301
00:18:19,920 --> 00:18:25,200
Speaker 2: but I remember really enjoying Gregory Peck in the adaptation

302
00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:28,680
Speaker 2: from fifty six. And since Ray Bradbury did the screenplay,

303
00:18:28,920 --> 00:18:30,880
Speaker 2: maybe we can do it on weird house cinema. That's enough.

304
00:18:30,880 --> 00:18:34,040
Speaker 2: It's basically sci fi, so yeah, Saul and Elaine Bass

305
00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:38,120
Speaker 2: reached out to Bradbury to script Quest, and Bradbury adapted

306
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:42,080
Speaker 2: his own nineteen forty six story, Frost and Fire. Now,

307
00:18:42,119 --> 00:18:44,800
Speaker 2: there were a number of changes made, apparently here, as

308
00:18:44,880 --> 00:18:48,080
Speaker 2: Bradbury updated the structure of that old story for this

309
00:18:48,119 --> 00:18:53,320
Speaker 2: new project. So first of all, Saul was wary of

310
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:56,560
Speaker 2: overreaching with their budget and requested that it be set

311
00:18:56,600 --> 00:18:59,200
Speaker 2: on Earth, or at least an earth like world, rather

312
00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:03,520
Speaker 2: than an overly alien planet. That seems like a reasonable

313
00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:07,280
Speaker 2: budgetary request, though having seen the full film, I feel

314
00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:08,560
Speaker 2: like we get very unearthly.

315
00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:10,240
Speaker 4: Yeah.

316
00:19:10,359 --> 00:19:13,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, at least half of it's taken place in you know,

317
00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:19,000
Speaker 3: geometry textbook illustrations, not on any landscape I would recognize.

318
00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:21,280
Speaker 2: Right, So I don't feel like they really held back

319
00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:24,920
Speaker 2: too much there. Also, while the original story is more

320
00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:29,360
Speaker 2: hard science fiction, in the original story of the characters

321
00:19:29,359 --> 00:19:33,160
Speaker 2: depleted life spans are apparently due to radiation, and they're

322
00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:35,440
Speaker 2: able to depend on some sort of race memory. They

323
00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:39,399
Speaker 2: have to convey the essentials of the quest, as we'll

324
00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:44,040
Speaker 2: get into to each subsequent generation, Whereas the version of

325
00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:46,800
Speaker 2: the story that we get in the Quest has a

326
00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:49,960
Speaker 2: more mythic vibe to it. It feels more like fantasy

327
00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:53,879
Speaker 2: or sword and Sandals, but then gets increasingly stranger and

328
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:54,680
Speaker 2: more surreal.

329
00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:58,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's funny. I seem to recall in the past

330
00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:02,840
Speaker 3: at some point Bradbury making some kind of derisive comments

331
00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:05,840
Speaker 3: about science fiction and saying that he preferred to write

332
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:08,960
Speaker 3: fantasy because that was, like, I don't know, he thought

333
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:12,320
Speaker 3: it was like less bound by realism or something. Maybe

334
00:20:12,320 --> 00:20:13,960
Speaker 3: I'm misremembering that.

335
00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:15,119
Speaker 2: That way, they would kind of match up with what

336
00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:18,800
Speaker 2: we see here, Like you can well imagine Bradbury seeing

337
00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:22,080
Speaker 2: this as the opportunity to take what interests him the

338
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:24,600
Speaker 2: most about that old story that was written, you know

339
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:27,880
Speaker 2: very much for the sci fi publications of the day,

340
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:32,480
Speaker 2: taking the essence of that and updating it and making

341
00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:34,800
Speaker 2: it more mythic, freeing it from the shackles of the

342
00:20:34,840 --> 00:20:39,480
Speaker 2: science fiction. Perhaps because clearly caveat, I have not read

343
00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:42,560
Speaker 2: the original Bradbury story, but I get a strong hint

344
00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:45,280
Speaker 2: here that Bradbury wasn't really interested in the effects of

345
00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:51,480
Speaker 2: radiation human beings. It's more about issues of mortality and

346
00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:57,960
Speaker 2: you know, cross generational efforts and so forth. Now, as

347
00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:00,440
Speaker 2: for the human cast of Quest, there are a bunch

348
00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:03,480
Speaker 2: of people in this and everyone is just bolk credited

349
00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 2: at the end. They don't specify who plays who, and

350
00:21:07,280 --> 00:21:10,440
Speaker 2: it leaves the task to your humble podcasters to try

351
00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:14,040
Speaker 2: and figure out exactly who's who in this picture. We

352
00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:16,719
Speaker 2: are not going to single out everyone, but I do

353
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:18,880
Speaker 2: want to mention just a few of the players here

354
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:22,040
Speaker 2: who are notable because of their work elsewhere, and my

355
00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:27,240
Speaker 2: apologies to anyone that I did leave out because of this.

356
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:31,480
Speaker 2: Multiple actors, for instance, play are chosen one our hero

357
00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:34,639
Speaker 2: of the tale, because he's going to start We cover

358
00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:38,320
Speaker 2: most of his life over the course of the narrative.

359
00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 2: He begins as a baby and we'll end with him

360
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:45,080
Speaker 2: as a mature adult man. But we have different actors

361
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:47,120
Speaker 2: playing him, and it's not a makeup effect.

362
00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:49,040
Speaker 3: That would have been a good choice though, if you

363
00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:51,359
Speaker 3: had a baby the whole time with just makeup and

364
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:52,600
Speaker 3: the older.

365
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, or win in both directions. You know, have like

366
00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:00,680
Speaker 2: a twenty five year old actor and then age him

367
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:04,320
Speaker 2: and dage him all the way down to baby. All right.

368
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:06,720
Speaker 2: One of the early characters we encounter in this is

369
00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 2: an unnamed character that I thought of as the Elder,

370
00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 2: some sort of a wise older individual who is looking

371
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 2: for the chosen one and finds the chosen one.

372
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 3: And this the monklike guy who does the palm reading

373
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:25,520
Speaker 3: on the baby at the beginning. Yeah.

374
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:28,560
Speaker 2: This character is played by John Abbott, who lived nineteen

375
00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:32,200
Speaker 2: oh five through nineteen ninety six, an English Shakespearean actor

376
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:36,120
Speaker 2: with very expressive eyes, known for roles and let's say

377
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:39,080
Speaker 2: nineteen forty eight's The Woman in White. He had an

378
00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:42,360
Speaker 2: appearance on the original Star Trek, the original Lost in Space,

379
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:45,280
Speaker 2: and his other credits, of which he has a lot,

380
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 2: include nineteen forty four Is The Mask of Demetrios. This

381
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:51,760
Speaker 2: is one I've looked at before because it's a Peter

382
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 2: Lorrie movie. He's also in Cry of the were Wolf

383
00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:57,679
Speaker 2: from the same year, and he was the voice of

384
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 2: Akella the Wolf in Dizzy Needs the Jungle Book back

385
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:05,119
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty seven. All right, again, multiple actors play

386
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:08,119
Speaker 2: the chosen one, our hero, but at one point the

387
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 2: hero is played by Noah Hathaway born nineteen seventy one. Fittingly,

388
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 2: this is, of course, the actor who also played a

389
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:18,240
Speaker 2: Treyu in nineteen eighty four. Is the never ending story

390
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:21,840
Speaker 2: which we covered on a previous episode of Weird House Cinema.

391
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 3: I thought he looked familiar. Yeah, is this the day too, boy?

392
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:30,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the boy that I believe begins the journey. Right,

393
00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:33,720
Speaker 2: He's passed his tests and is then setting out on

394
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 2: the journey.

395
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 3: He graduated at Harvard College j L where he got

396
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:39,919
Speaker 3: an A and then he gets to go out on

397
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:40,440
Speaker 3: the journey.

398
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 2: Now, another actor that shows up in this is Bill Irwin.

399
00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:47,280
Speaker 2: I think he plays an old man that is encountered

400
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:50,159
Speaker 2: late in the picture. That is another monk like figure.

401
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 3: Oh, the hooded guy at the Egyptian temple.

402
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I believe this is Bill Irwin. I could

403
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 2: be wrong on this. Bill Irwin of nineteen fourteen through

404
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:04,199
Speaker 2: twenty ten an American character actor who appeared in more

405
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,120
Speaker 2: than two hundred and fifty television and film roles, including

406
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 2: the one that earned him an Emmy nomination in nineteen

407
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 2: ninety three. Retiree Sid Fields on the sitcom Seinfeld.

408
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,920
Speaker 3: You know, I wonder with actors like this, who are

409
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 3: they're the character actor who just always plays a cantankerous

410
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 3: old man. What did he do before he was old?

411
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:25,120
Speaker 2: Just always old?

412
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 3: Yeah?

413
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:30,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like William Hickey late in life, you played

414
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:35,360
Speaker 2: cantankerous old men, and also early in his career. So

415
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:39,439
Speaker 2: all right. The music in this film is also a

416
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 2: real delight. It's you'll have Maybe you can explain the

417
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 2: music and the sound of this film better than I can, Joe,

418
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:49,240
Speaker 2: But I just think of it as a soothing, other

419
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:52,840
Speaker 2: worldly cascade of electronic bliss and intrigue.

420
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:57,879
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, just whipped butter. Synthesizer auras a really

421
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 3: good stuff, a lot of great you know contrast along

422
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,160
Speaker 3: the dynamic range. So there's a lot of synth bass

423
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,439
Speaker 3: that sends to me might be like a mog Taurus

424
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 3: or something, you know, the strong, pulsing based tones, and

425
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:18,439
Speaker 3: then like synthesizer flutes that I don't know if you

426
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 3: really get that sound much anymore. It was a big

427
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:23,639
Speaker 3: thing in the eighties where you would you would evoke

428
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 3: a sense of mysticism by having a synthesizer flute that

429
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 3: I feel like if you were composing a track now

430
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 3: and you went to put in that same synth flute voicing,

431
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 3: it would sound really tinny and hokey to you, so

432
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 3: you would use something else. But if you go back

433
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 3: to these compositions that feature it, it's actually great.

434
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about here,

435
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 2: and I think that the music it has this kind

436
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:54,919
Speaker 2: So again, we have this purifying light that is important

437
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 2: to the faith that funded this picture. And then also

438
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 2: there's a kind of purifying light that is key to

439
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:05,119
Speaker 2: the plot of our story, and the music feels like

440
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 2: a fitting sonic incarnation of that light.

441
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 3: I see what you're saying. Yeah, the music shimmers a lot.

442
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 3: It often expands to fit. You know, It'll be very

443
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 3: quiet at first, and then as the light floods into

444
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 3: the scene, the music floods onto the soundtrack, and yeah,

445
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 3: it's it's a good use of sonic textures.

446
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:28,959
Speaker 2: So the people behind the music here, well, Elaine Bass

447
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 2: is credited on the music. She was of not a

448
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 2: professional singer, with some musical training prior to her design career.

449
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 2: But then also we have credited Barrington Van Campen who

450
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,120
Speaker 2: I looked him up. I can find a birthday for him.

451
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:47,119
Speaker 2: But he is apparently still active on the San Francisco

452
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 2: music scene. If you look up, if you go to

453
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:57,160
Speaker 2: the dbduo dot com, this is the website for Van

454
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 2: Campen and Dale LeDuc. They haven't a stick act together,

455
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 2: and there's a They also have some some some some

456
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 2: brief bio information about Van Campen. Van Campen is a

457
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 2: multi instrumentalist. His instruments include the melotron and various synthesizers.

458
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 2: Uh and there's a lot of like session work and

459
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 2: production work in his background as well.

460
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 3: I just looked at Wait No l a Beatles tribute band.

461
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,360
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, at one point, Uh yeah, I think, I think,

462
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 2: and I think they still do a lot of covers

463
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 2: of Beatles songs. I was looking at. They're still doing gigs.

464
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 2: If you're in in San Francisco, you can go out

465
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 2: and catch these guys. Tell them we sent you.

466
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 3: Please request a Beatles tune and then request the theme

467
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 3: from Quest Now.

468
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 2: Prior to this film, Van Campen had worked as a

469
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 2: musician on the Jerry Lewis film Slapstick of Another Kind,

470
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 2: adapted from the work of Kurt Vonnegut and also co

471
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 2: starring John Abbott, but Quest was seemingly his first credited

472
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 2: film or TV composition. UH followed in nineteen eighty eight

473
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,160
Speaker 2: with a score for the film In Dangerous Company. He's

474
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 2: also credited as composer on Faces of Death Volumes four

475
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 2: and six in nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety six. I

476
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 2: have not and we'll never see the Faces of Death.

477
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 2: My window for having watched Faces of Death has long passed.

478
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 2: But he did some sort of work on there, and

479
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 2: he also did a lot of work with you know,

480
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 2: such clients as AT and T, various TV channels and

481
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,360
Speaker 2: film studios. So I know, I just think he did

482
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of a lot of like

483
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 2: mercenary sound work, you know. And so I don't want

484
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,439
Speaker 2: to I don't want to single him out for Faces

485
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:38,479
Speaker 2: of Death. Somebody had to do the music for Faces

486
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 2: of Death might as well have been this guy.

487
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 3: They could have also just sourced pre existing composition.

488
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 2: That's true. That's true. That's very possible. And I don't

489
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 2: know the full story on his involvement in Faces of death.

490
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 2: So don't don't put any of that on him, because again,

491
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, the music in Quest

492
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 2: is amazing and I loved every minute of it.

493
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 3: Okay, you want to talk about the plot, Oh, let's

494
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 3: experience it all right. So when we first come up

495
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 3: and get our title sequence, the camera seems to be

496
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 3: navigating a cave or a megalithic structure of some kind. Cold,

497
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 3: dark stone walls. We've got shadows cut by shafts of light.

498
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 3: Everything's kind of green and gray in color. There is

499
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 3: a generally pale, cold kind of color scheme that defines

500
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 3: most of the movie until the last couple minutes. It's greens, blues, whites,

501
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:40,960
Speaker 3: and grays. And when we first come in, also there's fog.

502
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 3: The air is thick with fog. It's kind of swirling

503
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 3: and suggesting a dark age in a way. And then

504
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 3: there's a voiceover that says, before the gate was closed

505
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 3: and the light began to fail, the ancients lived a

506
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 3: long and fruitful life. Now our lifespan.

507
00:29:58,680 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 4: Is eight days.

508
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 3: Yes, for us, there is no time. The minutes, the hours,

509
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 3: and the days fly away, and our lives along with them.

510
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 3: And so all of this is being said is the

511
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 3: camera is panning and traveling through these caverns and stone corridors,

512
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 3: and then there's a thing that I liked that struck

513
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 3: me as a kind of scale twist. So the cameras

514
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 3: it's going through these stone caverns, and I had been

515
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 3: assuming the spaces we were looking at were supposed to

516
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:31,239
Speaker 3: be roughly like human hall sized, with the camera at

517
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 3: normal eye level for a person. But then suddenly we

518
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 3: zoom in on a little crevice in a stone facade

519
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 3: that looks like it's the size of a mousehole. But

520
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 3: then you realize there are tiny stairs leading up to

521
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 3: the crevice, and then you see a human form standing

522
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 3: inside the doorway, and it becomes clear we're either looking

523
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 3: at like a two inch tall human or the original

524
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 3: reference scale you had in mind was wrong, And I

525
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 3: think it's the latter, though there will be similar kind

526
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 3: of scale versions that happen later in the story as well.

527
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 4: Yeah.

528
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, to just a certain degree, it's like this is

529
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 2: a an artifact of how the techniques they use to

530
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,719
Speaker 2: shoot it, but also it feels fittingly surreal in this

531
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 2: picture as well.

532
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 3: Yeah. So from here we move into the cavern and

533
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 3: come upon a group of people who are dressed in

534
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 3: plain peasant clothing. There is again going along with the

535
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 3: kind of dark age feeling. There is a since when

536
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 3: we come to these people that they are living abject

537
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 3: lives of kind of darkness and ignorance and want. But

538
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 3: the first thing we get to with these people is

539
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 3: a scene of childbirth there. So there are all these

540
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 3: people in peasant clothing assisting a woman in childbirth. The

541
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 3: baby is born, and a man in a sort of

542
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 3: monastic beard holds the child up to this audience of

543
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 3: elders some kind of counsel and they're asking is this

544
00:31:56,800 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 3: the one? And a debate starts. The elder say it's

545
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 3: too early to tell, and then another says, no, we

546
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 3: cannot wait, we must chance it. And so they check

547
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 3: the infant's hand. They have this monk like man look

548
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 3: at the hand, and the baby's palm opens and yes,

549
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 3: we see some crinkles there, but I think they're actually

550
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 3: doing a palm reading. The monk like man says, yes,

551
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 3: the line is strong. I think talking about the lifeline.

552
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 2: Now. I love the way that the plight of the

553
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 2: people here is presented because it's one of those things

554
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 2: where on one level, yes, it's fantastic, But on the

555
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 2: other it's like, yeah, that's how our subjective experience of

556
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 2: time sometimes goes. It feels like it is flowing faster

557
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 2: than it should and we have no time, or we

558
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 2: have far less time than we wanted. And at the

559
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 2: same time, given the sort of again you said, like

560
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 2: the dark age vibe we have here, this kind of

561
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 2: archaic vibe. I'm also reminded of things we've discussed on

562
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 2: stuff to blow your mind in the past about various

563
00:32:55,200 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 2: historian historians an anthrop anthropologists reflecting on what life was

564
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 2: like for our ancestors before people were able to specialize more,

565
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 2: before various cultural and technological advancements opened up more time

566
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 2: in people's days to allow different types of experiences and

567
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 2: different types of knowledge to accumulate.

568
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is interesting, and and that kind of desperation

569
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 3: about the time. The sense of I want more life

570
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 3: is a fantastic premise to start with, for one thing,

571
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 3: because it's not a you know, it's it's a very

572
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 3: relatable feeling but accelerated for the purpose of the narrative.

573
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 3: And it's also something it's like an unpersonified villain. It's

574
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 3: not it's not a beast you can fight, though there

575
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 3: will be some beasts to fight in the story. It's

576
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 3: just like we we we can't accept the way time

577
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 3: flows around us, or the way our bodies flow through time.

578
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 3: It's it's it's a terror to us.

579
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's one of the things that makes it

580
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 2: fitting that this film is thirty minutes long and not

581
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 2: an hour or an hour and a half or two hours,

582
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,359
Speaker 2: And it is a film where there there is no

583
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 2: true personified villain, if there is any. There are adversaries

584
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 2: to overcome, but there's also a case to be made

585
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 2: that all of those adversaries are perhaps aspects of the self,

586
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 2: you know. So that's yeah again. The film itself has

587
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 2: a great mythic vibe. It feels like an initiation into

588
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 2: some great secret.

589
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 3: So they go on to observe that the child is

590
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 3: already seeing and hearing them. That's pretty quick, and the

591
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 3: elders all seem to agree, Okay, the teaching must begin

592
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:42,840
Speaker 3: at once. So the child is carried out of the

593
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 3: room where he was born. How are you going to

594
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 3: start teaching a baby that was born two minutes ago?

595
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 3: That I think that baby is not ready for school,

596
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 3: But they disagree, so here we go, it says day one,

597
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 3: and the elders move down a shadowy corridor, carrying the

598
00:34:56,719 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 3: baby with them. The narrator says, as we watch you

599
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 3: grow and change, as you watch us we grow old,

600
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 3: Your life, like ours, is destined to be short. In

601
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 3: eight days we're born, we mature, and we grow old

602
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 3: and die. And then the monk like man and the

603
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 3: others bring the baby to what looked to me kind

604
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:19,240
Speaker 3: of like a shop counter in a fantasy game general store,

605
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 3: but this is, I think, actually supposed to be a school.

606
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:26,880
Speaker 3: So they tell the baby one day from now, you

607
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 3: will be a grown boy, two or three, a young man, five,

608
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 3: middle aged, seven old. In eight days you will die.

609
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 4: Oh.

610
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 3: And then there's a strange moment where the man says,

611
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:41,800
Speaker 3: listen to our heart's race, and one of the elders

612
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 3: holds the baby against her chest, and then they say,

613
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 3: listen to your own heart race. And this, like accelerated

614
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 3: heart rate, is a thing that comes back in the story,

615
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 3: but it does just remind me of like, you know,

616
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 3: putting my ear to the hearts of pets and hearing

617
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:02,400
Speaker 3: their faster little heartbeats. You know, there's small bodies and

618
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:03,880
Speaker 3: little metabolisms.

619
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and it also will have another example of

620
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 2: this as well. But it kind of ties into this

621
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 2: idea that there is there is a cross generational, a

622
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 2: cross generation connection between the individuals of the in this

623
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 2: culture of these people that is maybe a bit surreal

624
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 2: as well. That's maybe leaning a little bit into the fantastic,

625
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 2: and it's not entirely based on real world human teaching

626
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 2: and conveying of information.

627
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the old man says, we are locked away

628
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 3: in a world where our lives speed through time in

629
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 3: eight days, no time to see, to feel, to know,

630
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 3: And then he just says, okay, it's time, and the

631
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:53,439
Speaker 3: baby is handed across the counter to the ShopKeep. But again,

632
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:56,399
Speaker 3: this is actually some kind of school. So they take

633
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:58,240
Speaker 3: the baby away, and the old man sort of calls

634
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 3: after the baby's now the teaching begins. Learn quickly, little one,

635
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:06,800
Speaker 3: uh and ooh. The some kind of learning with blocks

636
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 3: is going on. There's a lot of cool stuff in

637
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 3: this teaching montage. I like that we start with these

638
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 3: little stone coins and there are squares and pyramids. It

639
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 3: looks like stuff that would be fun to handle in

640
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 3: the same way that D and D dice are.

641
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's all very cactile. And yeah, I just

642
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,720
Speaker 2: love this montage because everything is very identifiable as teaching

643
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,240
Speaker 2: and principle on one level, but also feels very alien

644
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 2: and also perhaps concerning a natural philosophy unknown to our world.

645
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 4: Yeah.

646
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 2: Again, it's worth noting in the original Ray Bradbury story

647
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:45,919
Speaker 2: that the short lived humans in it have a form

648
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 2: of race memory that they're able to depend upon to

649
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 2: pass knowledge down from short lived generation to short lived generation.

650
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 2: And that's not what we see here, but we might

651
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 2: think of this along similar lines. Information is perhaps being

652
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 2: trans from teachers to student, yes, with physical manipulation of

653
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 2: objects and some external learning devices, but also perhaps in

654
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:11,320
Speaker 2: a way that depends on something greater than human learning,

655
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:14,680
Speaker 2: and it maybe there is some sort of psychic connection.

656
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:17,799
Speaker 2: And in fact, later on, when we when our hero

657
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 2: has commenced on his journey and he hears the voices

658
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 2: of his teachers, I mean, perhaps that is like a

659
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 2: psychic echo of what has occurred previously.

660
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I like that too. It invites questions of like,

661
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 3: is there actual telepathy going on or the or the

662
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 3: teachers currently communicating with him as he as he goes beyond,

663
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 3: or is it like now now part of them is

664
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 3: in him and he just carries it with them.

665
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and this is a great film. And then

666
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 2: it leaves you to ask those questions and they're ultimately unanswerable.

667
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 2: It's all up to your interpretation.

668
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 3: So already we see the child as a toddler, sorting

669
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 3: these little shapes and blocks as the teachers look on.

670
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 3: I love the way the blocks look. They're made of

671
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:07,320
Speaker 3: a kind of polished stone with a freckled and scarred appearance,

672
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,120
Speaker 3: and the child is learning to line them up in

673
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 3: a special order, as if he were spelling words with

674
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 3: the blocks. But what does it mean.

675
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 4: I don't know.

676
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 3: We're not told. There's also a metal block set with

677
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 3: a hollow cube that you balance on a prismatic pillar,

678
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,240
Speaker 3: and then you start kind of like piecing them together

679
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 3: like an erector set. We see the child working with

680
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 3: these elements blindfolded, also doing some kind of psychic paddy

681
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 3: cake game with his hands, like the part across from

682
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 3: his teachers where they're like moving their hands and then

683
00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:40,680
Speaker 3: slapping them together. I didn't get exactly what that was,

684
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 3: but it seemed to me it involved maybe a kind

685
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 3: of sense of psychic powers or premonitions about where the

686
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 3: hands were going. We also see the training getting into

687
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 3: He's like reading patterns of grain in blocks of wood.

688
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 3: I liked that it was strange, and then making spears

689
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 3: out of a kind of silvery So the spears are

690
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:04,680
Speaker 3: modular and they snap together like tent poles, and then

691
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 3: they have these fins and barbs that snap out from

692
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:11,280
Speaker 3: the poles and he's throwing the spears doing target practice

693
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:15,320
Speaker 3: with them. There's another part where he unveils a shimmering

694
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:19,760
Speaker 3: steel cone from a covering which is a metal box,

695
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 3: and the cone emits blinding light, and then he lifts

696
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 3: up the cone and that unveils another level. It is

697
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:29,760
Speaker 3: like a blue glowing ball of energy that's inside the cone,

698
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:32,359
Speaker 3: and the ball of energy just floats in the air. Again,

699
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 3: we're not told what that is. But anyway, when the

700
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 3: training is complete, the boy now looks about ten or

701
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 3: twelve years old, and an old man tells him it's

702
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 3: time for you to go.

703
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:46,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like you know in elementary school when you

704
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 2: make it halfway through learning about the Civil War and

705
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 2: then they're like, I'm sorry, now I have to send

706
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 2: you home for summer.

707
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 4: That's it.

708
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 2: That's all we had time for.

709
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do remember that about a lot of lesson

710
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:59,919
Speaker 3: plans when I was younger, A fantastic lack of clothes

711
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:03,319
Speaker 3: about me. Things we learned. Okay, So the old man

712
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 3: comes to the boy to tell him more about his mission.

713
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 3: They're looking at a light pouring out from between some rocks,

714
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 3: and the man says, that light squeezes through the crack

715
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 3: where the doors in the Great Gate join. That gate

716
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 3: must be opened. You will open it.

717
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again this possibly lines up with this idea

718
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:24,760
Speaker 2: of I believe it is that the Joe rai or

719
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 2: jewelry purifying light that factors into the teachings of Okichi

720
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 2: Okata often described as kind of like an energy healing

721
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 2: doctrine hm. Okay, And I've also read that it sometimes

722
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 2: involves like the use of some sort of reflective medallion,

723
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 2: which we also see a version of in this picture.

724
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, Okay, I was wondering about that. Okay, So

725
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 3: maybe they did get a few little like specific things

726
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:48,359
Speaker 3: in there.

727
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

728
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 3: Anyway, the old man says, beyond the gate is a

729
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:56,279
Speaker 3: land where life is lived for twenty thousand days and more.

730
00:41:56,840 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 3: If the gate can be reached and opened, the light

731
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 3: will rush out us and with it bring long life

732
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 3: and peace. The boy asks why he has been chosen,

733
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 3: and the old man explains, those who were sent before

734
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 3: are left when they were too old, they left too late,

735
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 3: and they died before they reached the gate. This time,

736
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:17,239
Speaker 3: they selected the boy to be sent when he was

737
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 3: very young, so he would have enough time to complete

738
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 3: his mission. And then the old man says, you've learned.

739
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 3: You've learned your lessons quickly. You're strong and intelligent, you

740
00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 3: have curiosity. And the boy says, but have I learned enough?

741
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 3: And the old man does not answer the question. He

742
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 3: just says, we don't have time to teach you anymore.

743
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 3: You'll have to learn the rest on your way.

744
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it really is like that. I mean that again.

745
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 2: That's one of the great things about this film. I

746
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 2: say it in Jess. But it's also like that's the

747
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:48,360
Speaker 2: way of life, and it encapsulates that perfectly.

748
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, have we ever learned enough in childhood to prepare

749
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 3: us for adult life? Probably not, or can't really answer

750
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:58,000
Speaker 3: that question, but you don't really have a choice no

751
00:42:58,040 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 3: more time.

752
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 2: Here's your silvery space. Go out and do your best.

753
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:14,719
Speaker 3: So the boy is outfitted with again those gleaming spears

754
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 3: and other supplies. We see them like kind of pouring

755
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 3: out these measures of grain and stuff for him. And

756
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 3: before he's sent out by the elders, the old man

757
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 3: gives him this small, like mirror polished metal pendant to

758
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 3: hang around his neck, which may be connecting to that

759
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 3: actual religious item used by the whatever, I forget what

760
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 3: it's called, the Church of Messianity. Yeah, And then so

761
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:42,239
Speaker 3: he takes the pendant, and then he turns to his

762
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 3: mother and they embrace, and all she says is goodbye.

763
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 4: Then he goes.

764
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:49,839
Speaker 3: So the boy sets out into the world. And now, oh,

765
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,480
Speaker 3: and this is by the way, we get a title

766
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 3: that says day two. So day two of his life.

767
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:57,120
Speaker 3: The boy sets out into the world, and now instead

768
00:43:57,120 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 3: of just the dark caverns, there are landscapes. First, we

769
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 3: see the boy crossing a kind of bleak tundra with

770
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 3: these sandy hills, fields of snow, expanses of gray water,

771
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 3: and mountains in the background. At one point we see

772
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:15,399
Speaker 3: him wandering through bad lands full of smooth, jumbled rock

773
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:19,919
Speaker 3: formations that look like giant piles of bones. And as

774
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 3: the boy travels on through the rocks, he hears voices

775
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 3: whispering in his head. This is what we were talking

776
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 3: about earlier, the voices of his teachers and the elders,

777
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 3: and they're saying things like, go on, don't hesitate, we

778
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:34,360
Speaker 3: have prepared you well, be brave, don't worry. And the

779
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 3: boy wanders in darkness through dis maze of stones, hearing

780
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 3: the weird voices, and then suddenly hearing a kind of

781
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 3: hooting in the distance, and he draws his spear in preparation.

782
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 4: What is it?

783
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:48,959
Speaker 3: What's making this sound? And there's a stillness, feathers fall

784
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 3: on the rocks around him, and then a monster attacks.

785
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a pretty cool monster.

786
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:57,320
Speaker 3: I have to say, that's right. So the monster, whatever

787
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:00,359
Speaker 3: it is, first thrashes around in the darkness, roaring the boy.

788
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 3: The boy holds out his spear, and then they eventually

789
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 3: clash and we see some elements of the monster. It

790
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,760
Speaker 3: appears to be a kind of giant reptilian pit bull

791
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 3: head with a triangular or circular triangular mouth with teeth

792
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 3: jutting in from all sides. I gotta say that the

793
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 3: head is a little bit rancori ish.

794
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's definitely kind of a rain corps vibe.

795
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 2: I also feel like it's maybe a combination of some

796
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:28,439
Speaker 2: sort of a giant sloth and a tartar grade, which

797
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 2: would of course be a giant, a very giant tartar grade.

798
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 3: It's actually also, in fact, to draw on two different

799
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 3: return of the Jedi. It's a little bit Rancor and

800
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 3: a little bit Sarlac because of the circular mouth with

801
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,439
Speaker 3: the teeth coming in in all directions. Anyway, the boy

802
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 3: fights the monster in the dark with his spear, and

803
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:48,760
Speaker 3: eventually he slays it, and as the beast lies dying

804
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 3: on the ground, he approaches it and there's a kind

805
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:54,960
Speaker 3: of sadness in its eyes. And then the next thing.

806
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 3: This was one of the few parts where I feel

807
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 3: like I wasn't sure I was understanding what the film

808
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 3: was trying to suggest. There's like, after he's already slayed

809
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 3: the monster, there's a screeching in the night, and some

810
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:10,759
Speaker 3: other creature seems to be circling the boy and he

811
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:13,319
Speaker 3: raises a rock above his head and he shouts no,

812
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:15,800
Speaker 3: and then the threat seems to fade away.

813
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:21,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was interesting. I guess I'm on a literal

814
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 2: interpretation level. I was thinking, Okay, maybe he's just scaring

815
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 2: away additional monsters. You know, there are others out there,

816
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 2: and he's saying he's just keeping them from attacking. Or

817
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,280
Speaker 2: you know, perhaps it's something more, and maybe he's driving

818
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 2: away the darkness of his defensive act, like he has

819
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 2: killed and therefore, even though he's acting in self defense,

820
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 2: now he has to contend with like the darkness of

821
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,240
Speaker 2: what he has just done, and he's driving that away.

822
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 2: Horrack in his book contends that we might think of this, maybe,

823
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 2: you know, as again another example of mythic battle in

824
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:56,279
Speaker 2: the darkness, which we see in various sagas. But he

825
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 2: asked some questions like is this monster real? Is this

826
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:01,719
Speaker 2: a projection of the heroes mind? Again, it's the sort

827
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:04,879
Speaker 2: of film where various interpretations are possible, the no right

828
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:05,720
Speaker 2: or wrong answers.

829
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 3: So then we get to day three. The boy appears

830
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 3: to be in his twenties now, and we see him

831
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:14,359
Speaker 3: come up over a hilltop to look out on this

832
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 3: big sand flat with a sort of temple in the distance,

833
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:22,319
Speaker 3: and he hears the whispered voices again. One of them says,

834
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:26,439
Speaker 3: straight ahead, you must go there looking at the temple. Now,

835
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 3: I don't know if you have thoughts about the style

836
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 3: of this temple. Rob there's sort of a so first

837
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 3: of all, there's a a big haul that we just

838
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 3: see as like a rock facade, but then out in

839
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 3: front of it there is a rock carving of a

840
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 3: domed head with an open mouth and these wild eyes,

841
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 3: kind of empty wild eyes, and giant hands held in

842
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 3: an open poem position.

843
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, the general vibe of these ruins reminding me a

844
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 2: little bit of photos I've seen of the ancient heads

845
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 2: of the gods in Nimrout Dog Turkey. Imagine many of

846
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 2: you out there have seen these images before, with kind

847
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:07,880
Speaker 2: of conical looking hats on the heads.

848
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:10,400
Speaker 3: Oh, I just looked it up, and yeah, I can

849
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:12,440
Speaker 3: see the comparison. That is kind of interesting.

850
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:12,719
Speaker 4: Though.

851
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 3: It's almost like some aspects feel a little bit like this,

852
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 3: some feel a little a little more like like Mesoamerican art.

853
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, so I guess it. Yet, it fittingly feels

854
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 2: akin to various examples of real world the design traditions,

855
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 2: but it feels also removed in its own thing. When

856
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:36,360
Speaker 2: I was looking around on letterboxed, I found a pretty

857
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 2: great little review. Someone by the name of Roland one

858
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 2: oh six said quote man walks through a series of

859
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 2: prog album covers in order to save his people from

860
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 2: their eight day life spans, which I legitimately laughed at

861
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:52,960
Speaker 2: that and it's kind of spot on. There are many

862
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 2: many scenes in this picture that could easily be a

863
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:56,839
Speaker 2: prog rock album cover.

864
00:48:57,360 --> 00:48:59,839
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, including the very next thing I was going

865
00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:02,319
Speaker 3: to talk about, which is that as the boy is

866
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 3: coming or I guess he's a young man now, as

867
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 3: the hero is coming down to cross the plain of

868
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 3: sand to get to the temple, there's another thing he sees.

869
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:14,880
Speaker 3: At first, I was confused how this interacted with the

870
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 3: other thing. But there's like a giant teardrop shaped rock

871
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 3: descending slowly from the sky, and there appears to be

872
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 3: a sort of castle or something on top of it.

873
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is actually mentioned in the book. This is

874
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 2: apparently an homage to one of Saalbass's favorite visual works,

875
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 2: The Castle of the Pyrenees by Belgian surrealist Renee Margrite.

876
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 2: This is a work from nineteen fifty nine, and apparently

877
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 2: Saul loved this image and had just been looking for

878
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 2: an opportunity to somehow utilize it in his work. There's

879
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:54,000
Speaker 2: a Wikipedia article about this particular painting, and I included

880
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 2: a sample of it here in our notes for you, Joe.

881
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:01,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks exactly the same, so clearly, yeah.

882
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 2: I could be wrong, but I feel like something just

883
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 2: like this also eventually pops up in Dungeons and Dragons,

884
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:12,240
Speaker 2: So some of you dn D lord nerds out there

885
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 2: will have to remind me what I'm thinking of, because

886
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 2: I feel like I've seen an homage to this piece

887
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:19,479
Speaker 2: in Dungeons and Dragons art as well.

888
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:22,360
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to say Zardas, it's like

889
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:24,880
Speaker 3: the Zardas head, except it's not a head, it's just

890
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 3: a big rock.

891
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:28,440
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean I think there's some shared DNA

892
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:30,399
Speaker 2: between some of the design work here and the design

893
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 2: work of Zardas as well.

894
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 3: Okay, so the hero tries to cross the sand flat,

895
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 3: but when he gets into the sand, he begins to sink,

896
00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 3: and at first I was like, oh, no, it's like

897
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:41,919
Speaker 3: a quick sand trap. He's gonna have to get out,

898
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 3: but no, it goes in a different direction. Instead. He

899
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 3: is able to move through the sand, but it's like

900
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 3: rising up to his chest and occasionally up to his chin,

901
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 3: but he just wades on through like its water, and

902
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:56,840
Speaker 3: he makes his way all the way across the sand

903
00:50:56,840 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 3: flat this way, which I thought was I don't know,

904
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:03,839
Speaker 3: the strange, unexpected, and obviously I don't think you can

905
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 3: really do that. You can't move through sand that you're

906
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 3: that deepened, and it would just there'd be too much resistance.

907
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:12,800
Speaker 3: But it's like water, and he just passes through it.

908
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 2: This sequence, in particular reminds me of some of the

909
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 2: sand related imagery that we get in Phase four.

910
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I agree. It also reminds me of a

911
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 3: weird sort of sand progressing through a sand chamber scene

912
00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:31,000
Speaker 3: in the Tarkowsky movie Stalker. But eventually the hero comes

913
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:33,799
Speaker 3: out the other side to stand on the stairs of

914
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:36,600
Speaker 3: the temple. I didn't mention this earlier, but next to

915
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 3: the human head there's kind of a big eagle head

916
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 3: as well. And then suddenly there's an earthquake. The carvings

917
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:44,960
Speaker 3: at the entrance to the temple begin to crumble and

918
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:47,839
Speaker 3: fall all around him, and the hero has to dodge

919
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 3: some boulders, but he survives. Now I think it's suggesting

920
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:55,799
Speaker 3: the earthquake is caused by the huge tear drop asteroid

921
00:51:56,080 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 3: settling into the sand, like it has finally touched down

922
00:51:59,080 --> 00:51:59,960
Speaker 3: and that shakes the air.

923
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 2: I think so. But again, as to exactly what all

924
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 2: this means, I mean, we're left to ponder that, like

925
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:11,320
Speaker 2: all of this, I'm assuming all of this is somehow

926
00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:15,279
Speaker 2: tied to the history of these people, that these used

927
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 2: to be their cities, that these are their temples, they

928
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 2: or their tombs. We're not sure. But as to what

929
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 2: the giant tear drop asteroid truly signifies, like, is this

930
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 2: the spaceship that brought them there? Because I know in

931
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 2: the original Bradbury it has to do. There's like a

932
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 2: crash spaceship that's part of the plot, and so we

933
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 2: might see some fantastic echo of that concept here.

934
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 3: But the voices in the hero's head they tell him

935
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 3: to go on, so he does. He goes into the

936
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:45,280
Speaker 3: temple and then we see from inside the giant head

937
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 3: with light pouring in through the eyes, which is very cool.

938
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:51,759
Speaker 3: And then inside the temple there is a swarm of

939
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 3: star like particles suspended inside a blue light, much like

940
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 3: the blue light that the boy uncovered in his schooling.

941
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 3: But before he can make sense of it, the temple

942
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:05,760
Speaker 3: continues to crumble and it just rocks and blocks are falling,

943
00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:09,720
Speaker 3: and he's driven away, driven on into a different place,

944
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:14,759
Speaker 3: a tube like corridor sort of the inside of the spaceworm,

945
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:18,600
Speaker 3: where the Falcon lands and Empire strikes back. Yea, but

946
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:22,440
Speaker 3: with a raised metal boardwalk. He's saying, I'm going through

947
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 3: the boardwalk in the swamp or something, and he moves

948
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:29,680
Speaker 3: on down the gangway and then finally we come to

949
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 3: a different landscape and it announces is day four. Baby,

950
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 3: Here we are day four, and he's standing in front

951
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 3: of massive Egyptian temple architecture with rows and rows of columns,

952
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 3: and I forget the name of the temple I have

953
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:47,919
Speaker 3: in mind, but there is an Egyptian temple I'm thinking

954
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 3: of that looks like this, and he's passing through the

955
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:56,840
Speaker 3: courtyard and it somehow seems to lead into a different universe,

956
00:53:57,480 --> 00:53:59,400
Speaker 3: like when he comes to the other end there is

957
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:03,760
Speaker 3: a another flat sandy plain, but this one is bathed

958
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:07,240
Speaker 3: in blue light with pyramids that look like the Giza

959
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:12,279
Speaker 3: Complex in the distance, and then beyond that giant planets

960
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 3: looming in the sky.

961
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:15,400
Speaker 4: Huge. Yeah.

962
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, So at this point I'm definitely questioning the whole

963
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:22,440
Speaker 2: Make sure you set it on Earth ray, yeah, yeah,

964
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:25,359
Speaker 2: directive here, because we really feel like we're in another

965
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 2: world at this point. We are, at least if we're

966
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,839
Speaker 2: not on another planet the whole time, then we are

967
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 2: somewhere else at this point.

968
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, I don't mean to diminish it by

969
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 3: by this comparison, but it's hard not to feel some

970
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:42,880
Speaker 3: Star Wars influence on this. For one thing, he like,

971
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:45,400
Speaker 3: he comes up to a hooded man resting against one

972
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,239
Speaker 3: of the columns. He's almost in a kind of either

973
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 3: obi wan kenobi or jahwa outfit. The hooded figure in

974
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:54,759
Speaker 3: the desert and he comes up to the sky. No

975
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:58,279
Speaker 3: face is visible, but the hero is looking out on

976
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 3: this blue landscape with the pyramid and the planets like

977
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:03,840
Speaker 3: passing into and out of alignment in the sky. The

978
00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 3: planets are moving super fast. And then the hooded man

979
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:09,839
Speaker 3: starts to talk. He says, so they sent another one.

980
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:13,319
Speaker 3: Let's have a look at you. Yes, you're young, much

981
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:16,120
Speaker 3: younger than I was when I got here. And the

982
00:55:16,160 --> 00:55:18,920
Speaker 3: hooded man reveals that he was the last hero, but

983
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:21,719
Speaker 3: he started too late, he says. The younger man does

984
00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 3: have a chance, and he gives him advice. He says,

985
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:28,799
Speaker 3: look at that pyramid, don't go around it. You have

986
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 3: to climb to the top.

987
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:33,680
Speaker 2: All right, some fortune cookie sort of advice there, but

988
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:36,480
Speaker 2: it feels specific to this challenge as well.

989
00:55:36,680 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 3: Oh sure. And you know, this actually made me think

990
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:41,360
Speaker 3: about one of I was going to say, one of

991
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:45,919
Speaker 3: the shadow themes of Quest, and it's something that has

992
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 3: to do with trust. So our hero, at multiple times

993
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:55,239
Speaker 3: throughout the story, we get little different ways that he

994
00:55:55,400 --> 00:56:00,080
Speaker 3: just has to believe the advice given to him and

995
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 3: follow it because he doesn't have enough time to see

996
00:56:05,719 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 3: and investigate for himself. And so he just meets this

997
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:13,920
Speaker 3: random stranger here, and the stranger gives him advice and

998
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,080
Speaker 3: he just follows it, and we're sort of to understand

999
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:19,400
Speaker 3: that he doesn't really have a choice. I mean, I

1000
00:56:19,440 --> 00:56:22,600
Speaker 3: guess he could try to not follow it, but seems

1001
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:25,240
Speaker 3: more likely that would result in him failing his mission

1002
00:56:25,239 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 3: as well.

1003
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:28,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, like if he said, no, Grandpa, I needed I

1004
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 2: want to do my own research on this, like, you know,

1005
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,439
Speaker 2: then you're going to die in the desert like this guy.

1006
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:33,919
Speaker 4: And and it.

1007
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:37,720
Speaker 3: Makes me think about the relationship between time and trust.

1008
00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 3: You know, this is this is actually a core thing

1009
00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:46,280
Speaker 3: about what trust is. Trust is a thing that saves

1010
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:50,839
Speaker 3: you time because if you didn't. If you had unlimited

1011
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:55,960
Speaker 3: time and resources, you could investigate everything for yourself like

1012
00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:59,200
Speaker 3: you could, you know, look into every you look endlessly

1013
00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:03,200
Speaker 3: into every question and not have to believe anything people

1014
00:57:03,239 --> 00:57:06,400
Speaker 3: told you. But you don't have unlimited time and resources.

1015
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:09,239
Speaker 3: You're always trying to make your life more efficient, so

1016
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:12,040
Speaker 3: you have to rely on trust for some things. And

1017
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:14,440
Speaker 3: so a big part of what we think about in

1018
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 3: navigating life is just like where we decide to press

1019
00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 3: the trust button to save ourselves time and this and

1020
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 3: this scenario created by the movie heightens that kind of

1021
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 3: the observation of that dynamic because time is so constricted

1022
00:57:33,600 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 3: and so he just literally does not have time to

1023
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 3: wonder whether this guy is giving him good advice or not.

1024
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:41,400
Speaker 3: He just has to follow it. Yeah, And then also

1025
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 3: the guy says, not everything that frightens or hurts you

1026
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 3: as bad. Fear and pain are your teachers learn survive.

1027
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:53,000
Speaker 3: So the young man hurries on through the desert. And meanwhile,

1028
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:55,960
Speaker 3: also he's another thing he asked to trust, is he's

1029
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:58,439
Speaker 3: been being given these voices in his head. They're giving

1030
00:57:58,520 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 3: him advice. They're saying, you are not alone, we travel

1031
00:58:01,080 --> 00:58:12,200
Speaker 3: with you. So there's a scene where the hero gets

1032
00:58:12,240 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 3: to the stairs, he has to climb. He has to

1033
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:15,920
Speaker 3: climb to the top of the pyramid, and the stairs

1034
00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:19,360
Speaker 3: seem endless, but he goes on up and up and up,

1035
00:58:19,400 --> 00:58:21,600
Speaker 3: and then finally he gets to the top, where he

1036
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:26,440
Speaker 3: finds a table emitting a blue light. Looks almost like

1037
00:58:26,520 --> 00:58:28,800
Speaker 3: a game board. I was thinking that at first, and

1038
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:30,600
Speaker 3: then what do you know, It does seem like it's

1039
00:58:30,600 --> 00:58:32,920
Speaker 3: a game board. It's covered in the shapes that the

1040
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 3: boy learned to manipulate in school. And then suddenly there

1041
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:40,880
Speaker 3: is a roar, and we're like, oh, another monster sort of,

1042
00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:45,160
Speaker 3: There is a sasquatchlike creature, like a big, furry humanoid

1043
00:58:45,200 --> 00:58:48,880
Speaker 3: creature that approaches him, but it's not another fight to

1044
00:58:48,920 --> 00:58:52,400
Speaker 3: the death with a spear. This time we're facing the chess.

1045
00:58:52,480 --> 00:58:57,000
Speaker 3: YETI our hero has to play a board game, a

1046
00:58:57,080 --> 00:59:00,960
Speaker 3: game of strategy with Bigfoot, and I think may have

1047
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 3: been my favorite creative choice in the film.

1048
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:07,600
Speaker 2: Yes, I absolutely love this on one level because it

1049
00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 2: is just that outrageous, Like, at this point everything has

1050
00:59:10,960 --> 00:59:15,520
Speaker 2: already been surreal and dream like and full of WTF

1051
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:19,120
Speaker 2: moments and then we have this. But then it again

1052
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:21,760
Speaker 2: is one of these moments too. Where it's never fully explained.

1053
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 2: We don't know who or what this entity is, but

1054
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:29,160
Speaker 2: there are so many different ways to tease it apart.

1055
00:59:29,480 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 2: Horrick and his book brings up the possibility that this

1056
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:36,520
Speaker 2: is sort of like the ID, that his own ID

1057
00:59:36,600 --> 00:59:38,920
Speaker 2: that he is combating here. That least, they're like his,

1058
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 2: this is his primal side. And I did when I

1059
00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 2: was originally watching it, I did kind of notice some

1060
00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 2: similarities between the face of the beast and the face

1061
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:51,720
Speaker 2: of our hero. I don't know how much of that

1062
00:59:51,800 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 2: was me just, you know, reading too much into it

1063
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:58,200
Speaker 2: or not, but I think there are various interpretations here.

1064
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 2: But what we get at the end of the day

1065
01:00:00,680 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 2: is the game of chess or something like chess with

1066
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:07,160
Speaker 2: this bestial other.

1067
01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 3: That is funny. I mean, so, on one hand, I

1068
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 3: absolutely see the comparison in the way they're embodied, that

1069
01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:18,000
Speaker 3: this creature may be some reflection of his more savage self.

1070
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:20,600
Speaker 3: On the other hand, like why would you be Why

1071
01:00:20,720 --> 01:00:24,320
Speaker 3: is the form of conflict a game of strategy? Why

1072
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:25,919
Speaker 3: are you playing chess against your ID?

1073
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 4: Oh?

1074
01:00:26,360 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you don't want to wrestle it? Look

1075
01:00:27,920 --> 01:00:30,480
Speaker 2: how strong this is get out smarted?

1076
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:34,160
Speaker 3: I guess so so the game itself is kind of

1077
01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:40,680
Speaker 3: tronish that it's like these metal shapes, these polyhedron game

1078
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 3: pieces that are zoom zooming around and zapping each other

1079
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:48,560
Speaker 3: with lasers. And then, of course, eventually the YETI loses

1080
01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 3: and he doesn't like that. You know, yetti's are known

1081
01:00:52,120 --> 01:00:55,160
Speaker 3: to rip people's arms off and they lose. So he

1082
01:00:55,240 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 3: howls in anger, and he drools and rages very bad sport,

1083
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:01,960
Speaker 3: and he seems ready to kill our hero. But suddenly

1084
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 3: it's a little unclear exactly the orientation of what's happening here,

1085
01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:11,720
Speaker 3: but like a walkway extends out through space toward the pyramid,

1086
01:01:12,240 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 3: leading to another structure, and then the hero leaps out

1087
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:18,480
Speaker 3: onto the walkway and goes away to this other place.

1088
01:01:19,360 --> 01:01:20,680
Speaker 2: The challenge has been overcome.

1089
01:01:20,960 --> 01:01:26,120
Speaker 3: Yes, so this other place is a lattice of mcsher

1090
01:01:26,280 --> 01:01:29,200
Speaker 3: beams that are interlocking in impossible ways.

1091
01:01:29,880 --> 01:01:30,240
Speaker 4: Yes.

1092
01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:32,640
Speaker 2: So yeah, at this point, like where are we Like,

1093
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 2: are we it within the confines of some great supercomputer?

1094
01:01:37,400 --> 01:01:41,040
Speaker 2: Are we in another dimension? I Mean it's hard to

1095
01:01:41,080 --> 01:01:43,760
Speaker 2: say exactly what's going on here, and that's the beauty

1096
01:01:43,760 --> 01:01:43,960
Speaker 2: of it.

1097
01:01:44,240 --> 01:01:46,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, in one of the rooms, the hero goes into

1098
01:01:46,920 --> 01:01:50,240
Speaker 3: here seems to be inside the game he just played,

1099
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:53,680
Speaker 3: like he's in shrunken form, and the game pieces are

1100
01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:56,720
Speaker 3: the giant shapes moving around him. He walks on the board,

1101
01:01:57,920 --> 01:02:00,400
Speaker 3: and of course Scale is being played with one again,

1102
01:02:00,440 --> 01:02:03,280
Speaker 3: like I mentioned at the beginning. But then at one point,

1103
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:05,360
Speaker 3: the man, oh, and we're told I can't remember if

1104
01:02:05,360 --> 01:02:07,440
Speaker 3: ilread he said this, but if not, this is day five,

1105
01:02:08,480 --> 01:02:10,400
Speaker 3: so this is supposed to this is the time they

1106
01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:14,120
Speaker 3: said earlier that he would be in midlife. And at

1107
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:17,080
Speaker 3: one point the man is he's sort of messing around

1108
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:20,400
Speaker 3: on the game board with these pieces, and then he

1109
01:02:20,440 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 3: looks at his reflection in a metal piece and he

1110
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:25,920
Speaker 3: says to himself, he realizes he is getting old, and

1111
01:02:25,960 --> 01:02:27,720
Speaker 3: he has to hurry. He has to get to the gate.

1112
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:30,160
Speaker 3: And I was like, wait a minute, is this literally

1113
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 3: a midlife crisis vignette?

1114
01:02:32,160 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 2: He's like, well maybe so.

1115
01:02:33,480 --> 01:02:37,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like messing around playing games in this confusing space,

1116
01:02:37,600 --> 01:02:40,240
Speaker 3: and then he looks at himself in the mirror and

1117
01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:43,760
Speaker 3: has a sudden reminder of his mortality, and then he

1118
01:02:43,880 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 3: really picks up the pace.

1119
01:02:45,240 --> 01:02:47,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, he doesn't know that he should also buy a

1120
01:02:47,440 --> 01:02:50,800
Speaker 2: leather jacket and look into motorcycles or something.

1121
01:02:50,880 --> 01:02:55,240
Speaker 3: Right, So we see him traveling through other weird landscapes,

1122
01:02:55,320 --> 01:02:59,320
Speaker 3: some natural, some artificial. One is like, I don't even

1123
01:02:59,320 --> 01:03:02,320
Speaker 3: know what you call it, like a big flat, empty

1124
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:07,439
Speaker 3: rectangular space that looks out onto looks out like into

1125
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:11,880
Speaker 3: the void, and there are planets beyond, so it's almost

1126
01:03:11,920 --> 01:03:15,520
Speaker 3: as if he's in a spaceship. There's another point where

1127
01:03:15,560 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 3: he's wandering through this huge field of just pits that

1128
01:03:20,600 --> 01:03:22,680
Speaker 3: are inverted step pyramids.

1129
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:25,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, this must be where like maybe they cut the

1130
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:29,600
Speaker 2: pyramids from earlier out of this landscape. I don't know. Yeah,

1131
01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:32,320
Speaker 2: a landscape of just colossal works. I guess this is

1132
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 2: what we're to take from it.

1133
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:36,640
Speaker 3: And I love these landscapes. The sets are amazing. But

1134
01:03:36,680 --> 01:03:40,959
Speaker 3: then finally, finally Day seven comes. He's getting old, and

1135
01:03:41,320 --> 01:03:45,520
Speaker 3: he makes it to the gate, the gate that was promised.

1136
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:49,280
Speaker 3: So he comes upon this sort of hole in the

1137
01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:53,000
Speaker 3: rocks where light is spilling through, and he walks up

1138
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:57,040
Speaker 3: to it and realizes a giant mechanism, this big metal

1139
01:03:57,160 --> 01:04:01,600
Speaker 3: bar is descending toward him slowly, and when it reaches him,

1140
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:05,919
Speaker 3: the mechanism has controls that have hand prints on them

1141
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:07,880
Speaker 3: that he could put his hands in. It's kind of

1142
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:12,040
Speaker 3: like that button that makes air on Mars and total recall,

1143
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:15,360
Speaker 3: you know, a metal thing with a handprint on it.

1144
01:04:16,440 --> 01:04:18,560
Speaker 3: So he's like, okay, I got to put my hands

1145
01:04:18,560 --> 01:04:19,960
Speaker 3: on it. So he puts his hands in the prints,

1146
01:04:20,360 --> 01:04:24,080
Speaker 3: and it makes music. It releases this booming tone, and

1147
01:04:24,120 --> 01:04:27,600
Speaker 3: then the whole mechanism sinks into the floor and the

1148
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:31,960
Speaker 3: gate opens and light spills over everything, not just on

1149
01:04:32,240 --> 01:04:35,280
Speaker 3: the man there in the place, but light seems to

1150
01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 3: spill over the whole planet. So we go back to

1151
01:04:38,440 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 3: the place we came from. We see light filling in

1152
01:04:42,400 --> 01:04:45,400
Speaker 3: the caverns where the people from the First Day live,

1153
01:04:45,520 --> 01:04:48,000
Speaker 3: and there are lots of old people there, but we

1154
01:04:48,080 --> 01:04:51,600
Speaker 3: get to hear their heartbeats slowing down as the light

1155
01:04:51,680 --> 01:04:55,080
Speaker 3: pours over them. And the light is of a very

1156
01:04:55,080 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 3: different color warmth than the stuff we've seen before. Most

1157
01:05:00,360 --> 01:05:02,880
Speaker 3: of the movie has been kind of blue green gray.

1158
01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:06,520
Speaker 3: The light now is orange. And then we return to

1159
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:09,800
Speaker 3: the hero and we find him in a land, in

1160
01:05:09,880 --> 01:05:13,360
Speaker 3: a natural landscape, unlike anything we've seen before. Now the

1161
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:17,000
Speaker 3: world is green, green, green. He's on these hills covered

1162
01:05:17,000 --> 01:05:20,000
Speaker 3: in green grass, not the kind of pale, gross blue

1163
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:23,040
Speaker 3: green of the fog in the world before. Now it's

1164
01:05:23,120 --> 01:05:27,800
Speaker 3: like vibrant green, springtime green, the hills covered in green

1165
01:05:27,920 --> 01:05:32,040
Speaker 3: grass and trees with flowers blooming everywhere, and the man

1166
01:05:32,120 --> 01:05:34,240
Speaker 3: is just walking through it looking like Jesus.

1167
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:38,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of a like a seventies white Jesus, kind

1168
01:05:38,520 --> 01:05:42,200
Speaker 2: of like a Kinney Loggin's kind of a look here, yeah.

1169
01:05:41,480 --> 01:05:43,880
Speaker 3: Exactly, yes, like hippie movie Jesus.

1170
01:05:43,960 --> 01:05:45,200
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1171
01:05:45,240 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 3: But he's got a magnificent beard, and you can tell

1172
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 3: he's just vibing on the nature that he's looking at.

1173
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:53,760
Speaker 3: And then the boy's like looking at the plants. I

1174
01:05:53,760 --> 01:05:55,440
Speaker 3: don't know why I called him the boy. He's a

1175
01:05:55,480 --> 01:05:58,360
Speaker 3: man now, he's just mere days old, so that is true.

1176
01:05:58,360 --> 01:05:59,920
Speaker 3: He's like looking at the plants. And then we get

1177
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:04,560
Speaker 3: some narration where it's an ending that is at once

1178
01:06:04,680 --> 01:06:07,560
Speaker 3: a little bit a little bit corny, but also kind

1179
01:06:07,560 --> 01:06:10,680
Speaker 3: of beautiful. He says, of all the twenty thousand days

1180
01:06:10,720 --> 01:06:13,560
Speaker 3: I have, which day will be the finest, which will

1181
01:06:13,560 --> 01:06:18,120
Speaker 3: be the best? Any day, any hour, any minute, And

1182
01:06:18,160 --> 01:06:21,000
Speaker 3: then we end as like geese are flying across this

1183
01:06:21,200 --> 01:06:22,080
Speaker 3: disc of the sun.

1184
01:06:22,840 --> 01:06:27,000
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so upbeat and positive, and I think

1185
01:06:27,160 --> 01:06:29,919
Speaker 2: if you dig into it, it does get into some

1186
01:06:30,280 --> 01:06:32,520
Speaker 2: serious depth, you know, I mean, how do you how

1187
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:36,920
Speaker 2: do you overcome the shortness of our lives and the

1188
01:06:37,320 --> 01:06:42,240
Speaker 2: marching of time? Well, one way is by retreating into

1189
01:06:42,280 --> 01:06:45,840
Speaker 2: the now and focusing on the now, focusing on any day,

1190
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:49,400
Speaker 2: any hour, any minute, you know, finding those little things,

1191
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:51,680
Speaker 2: you know. So that's that's what came to my mind

1192
01:06:51,720 --> 01:06:53,919
Speaker 2: when I heard this. But on the other level, yes,

1193
01:06:53,960 --> 01:06:57,720
Speaker 2: it is like such an upbeat ending. I don't know.

1194
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:01,600
Speaker 2: We get more used to more past mystic endings in

1195
01:07:02,120 --> 01:07:05,080
Speaker 2: our films, so I don't know, it was it was

1196
01:07:05,120 --> 01:07:09,040
Speaker 2: refreshing that it does feel so optimistic at the end,

1197
01:07:09,080 --> 01:07:13,440
Speaker 2: like he succeeded in his quest. He brought life to everyone,

1198
01:07:13,600 --> 01:07:17,080
Speaker 2: and in the revelation here is perhaps a little deeper

1199
01:07:17,080 --> 01:07:17,880
Speaker 2: if we dig into it.

1200
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:22,760
Speaker 3: Well, in another one of those observations that is both

1201
01:07:23,240 --> 01:07:26,160
Speaker 3: profound and true and also can be kind of corny,

1202
01:07:26,240 --> 01:07:28,320
Speaker 3: but that doesn't make it any less true. Is the

1203
01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:31,560
Speaker 3: thing about you know, you can you can overcome the

1204
01:07:31,640 --> 01:07:34,080
Speaker 3: kind of despair about the perspective of the shortness of

1205
01:07:34,080 --> 01:07:37,320
Speaker 3: your life by having purpose, by having by having a mission,

1206
01:07:37,400 --> 01:07:40,479
Speaker 3: by having a purpose that a purpose that is sort

1207
01:07:40,480 --> 01:07:43,720
Speaker 3: of other oriented. You know that is driven towards not

1208
01:07:43,800 --> 01:07:47,280
Speaker 3: just yourself and your own gratification, but living for others.

1209
01:07:47,760 --> 01:07:50,160
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it reminds me of against some of

1210
01:07:50,200 --> 01:07:54,040
Speaker 2: what we've been discussing in our Mystery cult series. So

1211
01:07:54,160 --> 01:07:57,560
Speaker 2: a lot of times some of the best nuggets of

1212
01:07:57,600 --> 01:08:01,440
Speaker 2: wisdom are also kind of overstatements the obvious, like, you know,

1213
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:03,880
Speaker 2: love is all you need, love is the fifth element,

1214
01:08:03,920 --> 01:08:07,479
Speaker 2: what have you? You know, But these are also things

1215
01:08:07,560 --> 01:08:10,280
Speaker 2: that are true, and it all comes down to presentation.

1216
01:08:10,760 --> 01:08:12,360
Speaker 2: And in the same way we talked about some of

1217
01:08:12,400 --> 01:08:14,480
Speaker 2: the initiations of the mystery cults, where there might be

1218
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:18,240
Speaker 2: something that is key to the initiation, something that is

1219
01:08:18,320 --> 01:08:20,800
Speaker 2: revealed in a box, and if you just take it

1220
01:08:20,920 --> 01:08:23,400
Speaker 2: out of context, if you're a critic and you're just like,

1221
01:08:23,720 --> 01:08:25,240
Speaker 2: look at this thing they have in the box here,

1222
01:08:25,280 --> 01:08:28,120
Speaker 2: how corny is that? You know? But if it's within context,

1223
01:08:28,120 --> 01:08:31,080
Speaker 2: if it occurs at the end of the initiation, then

1224
01:08:31,120 --> 01:08:34,200
Speaker 2: perhaps it is able to settle into your psyche in

1225
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:35,280
Speaker 2: a more rewarding way.

1226
01:08:36,200 --> 01:08:36,479
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1227
01:08:36,520 --> 01:08:39,920
Speaker 3: So just for example, you know, you could say, like

1228
01:08:40,040 --> 01:08:43,920
Speaker 3: a Demeter is reunited with her daughter, and this brings us,

1229
01:08:43,960 --> 01:08:46,519
Speaker 3: you know, this ear of grain, which represents the wealth

1230
01:08:46,600 --> 01:08:48,599
Speaker 3: the fruits of our fields, and it is what we

1231
01:08:48,640 --> 01:08:51,040
Speaker 3: live by. You know, if you just like put it

1232
01:08:51,080 --> 01:08:53,439
Speaker 3: in those words, somebody could be like, oh yeah, okay,

1233
01:08:53,479 --> 01:08:55,400
Speaker 3: that's not all that impressive. But if you watch the

1234
01:08:55,400 --> 01:08:58,200
Speaker 3: whole drama and you take part in the suffering and

1235
01:08:58,240 --> 01:09:00,479
Speaker 3: the passion and the relief of the re union of

1236
01:09:00,520 --> 01:09:03,160
Speaker 3: mother and daughter and all that, it can be overwhelming.

1237
01:09:03,200 --> 01:09:05,240
Speaker 3: It's something that follows you every day of your life.

1238
01:09:05,800 --> 01:09:08,040
Speaker 3: You never never look at some flower the same way.

1239
01:09:08,080 --> 01:09:08,360
Speaker 4: Again.

1240
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:11,040
Speaker 2: Yeah again, not everything that frightens or hurts you as

1241
01:09:11,120 --> 01:09:13,960
Speaker 2: bad fear and pain or your teachers learn survive.

1242
01:09:14,439 --> 01:09:17,439
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. I think the real moral of the story

1243
01:09:17,520 --> 01:09:20,080
Speaker 3: is if you're feeling down, play chess with a yetti

1244
01:09:20,280 --> 01:09:22,120
Speaker 3: and make sure you win.

1245
01:09:22,720 --> 01:09:29,200
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, that is nineteen eighty four's quest. Again,

1246
01:09:29,360 --> 01:09:31,000
Speaker 2: if you wish to experience it as well, you should

1247
01:09:31,000 --> 01:09:33,000
Speaker 2: be able to find it out there, and again, hopefully

1248
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:35,600
Speaker 2: in the future there'll be some sort of proper restored

1249
01:09:35,680 --> 01:09:38,920
Speaker 2: release as well. Just a reminder for everyone out there

1250
01:09:38,960 --> 01:09:40,920
Speaker 2: that stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a science

1251
01:09:40,960 --> 01:09:43,640
Speaker 2: and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

1252
01:09:43,640 --> 01:09:46,560
Speaker 2: but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to

1253
01:09:46,720 --> 01:09:50,960
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.

1254
01:09:51,040 --> 01:09:54,040
Speaker 2: If you're on letterbox dot com you can find us.

1255
01:09:54,320 --> 01:09:56,639
Speaker 2: Our username is weird House and we have a nice

1256
01:09:56,680 --> 01:09:59,719
Speaker 2: list there of all the episodes that we have covered

1257
01:09:59,720 --> 01:10:02,040
Speaker 2: so far, all the movies we have covered so far. Rather,

1258
01:10:02,439 --> 01:10:04,760
Speaker 2: and I will remind you that at this point we're

1259
01:10:04,800 --> 01:10:07,720
Speaker 2: at one ninety six, so we're coming in hot on

1260
01:10:08,200 --> 01:10:12,040
Speaker 2: selection two hundred. We already have some recommendations for what

1261
01:10:12,080 --> 01:10:15,120
Speaker 2: that episode might be, what film we could possibly cover

1262
01:10:15,200 --> 01:10:18,280
Speaker 2: for the two hundredth Weird House Cinema selection, but continue

1263
01:10:18,280 --> 01:10:21,120
Speaker 2: to ride in. We have not made a decision as yet.

1264
01:10:21,360 --> 01:10:23,160
Speaker 3: It's going to be Mortal Kombat Annihilation.

1265
01:10:25,560 --> 01:10:27,360
Speaker 2: It could be it could be that that is the

1266
01:10:27,360 --> 01:10:28,280
Speaker 2: most fitting choice.

1267
01:10:28,600 --> 01:10:32,519
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1268
01:10:32,800 --> 01:10:34,360
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1269
01:10:34,360 --> 01:10:36,839
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1270
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:38,880
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1271
01:10:38,960 --> 01:10:41,559
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1272
01:10:41,600 --> 01:10:49,120
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1273
01:10:49,280 --> 01:10:52,200
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1274
01:10:52,280 --> 01:10:55,080
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app

1275
01:10:55,240 --> 01:10:58,480
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,