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

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