Episode 12: The Dark Eye: On the Films of Rodney Ascher

Weird Studies

American filmmaker Rodney Ascher is a master of the weird documentary. Whether he be exploring wild interpretations of a classic horror film in Room 237, bracketing the phenomenon of sleep paralysis in The Nightmare, studying the uncanny power of the moving image in "Primal Screen," or considering the sinister power of a kitschy logo in "The S from Hell," Ascher confronts his viewers with realities that resist final explanations and facile reduction. In this episode, Phil and JF follow Ascher's films into the living labyrinth of a strange universe that isn't just unknown, but radically unknowable.

REFERENCES

American filmmaker Rodney Ascher, director of "The S from Hell", Room 237, The Nightmare, and "Primal Screen"
James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld
The Duffer Brothers (directors), Stranger Things (web TV series)
Alan Landsburg (creator), In Search Of... with Leonard Nimoy (American TV series)
Errol Morris (director), The Thin Blue Line
Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (editors), The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
British speculative writer Michael Moorcock
Lord Dunsany, The Gods of Pegana
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Stanley Kubrick (writer-director), The Shining
Richard Attenborough (director), Magic
Sandor Stern (writer-director), Pin
Freud, "The Uncanny"
Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle
David Lynch (writer-director), Lost Highway
French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan
Duncan Barford, Occult Experiments in the Home: Personal Explorations of Magick and the Paranormal
JF Martel, "Ramble on the Real"
Phil Ford, "Birth of the Weird"
American astronomer Carl Sagan
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy