Episode 242: Häxan

Special Guest: Robert Thurston

Shocktober 2015 concludes with a look at the 1922 film by director Benjamin Christensen, Häxan, an odd artistic mash-up of what can only be described as a university slide show lecture, a documentary featuring reenactments, and a horror film. That's what makes Häxan such a singular film over 90 years later.

Links:
Buy Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages on DVD
Buy The Witch Hunts: A History of the Witch Persecutions in Europe and North America by Robert Thurston
Buy the Mallus Malfacarum
Music:
"Season of the Witch" - Donovan
"Danse Macabre" - Camille Saint-Saëns

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Episode 216: Altered States (1980)

Special Guests: Bob Balaban & Charles Haid
Guest Co-Host: Scott Clickers

Based on the book by and adapted for the screen by Paddy Chayefsky, Ken Russell's Altered States tells the tale of Edward Jessup (William Hurt), a scientist who’s looking for answers to some of the big questions of life, memory, spirituality, and more. He meets, marries, divorces, and reconciles with Emily (Blair Brown) over the course of a decade of study where he ingests some questionable substances while subjecting himself to sensory deprivation. Here Eddie finds a way to travel back in time through his own body’s chemistry to the days of primeval man.

We talk to two of the co-stars of Altered States and we're joined in our discussion by Scott Clickers from the podcast Married with Clickers.

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Links:
Buy Altered States on DVD
Buy Altered States by Paddy Chayefsky
Buy Altered States: The Autobiography of Ken Russell by Ken Russell
Buy Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond by Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain
Buy Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution by Terence McKenna
Buy The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History by Terence McKenna
Read Is LSD about to return to polite society? by Ed Cumming
Listen to Married with Clickers
Listen to our episode on Ken Russell's The Devils
Listen to our episode on Simon

Music:
"Primeval Landscape" - John Corigliano
"Shamanix" - Hallucinogen

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Episode 168: The Devils

Special Guest: Richard Crouse

It's fun for the whole family as we talk about Ken Russell's controversial 1971 film “The Devils”. Censored for over 40 years because of content, The Devils tells the tale of Urbain Grandier – the priest of Loudun, France who in 1634 was persecuted through an unholy mix of Church, State and Sex.

Joining us is special guest co-host filmmaker Vincenzo Natali.

Our special guest this week is film critic/author Richard Crouse discussing his book “Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of the Devils.”

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Links:
Visit the official Richard Crouse website
Buy Raising Hell by Richard Crouse
Listen to the director's commentary
Buy on DVD (UK version)
Buy "The Devils" on DVD (unofficial release)
Buy "The Devils" official (cut) U.S. VHS Release
Buy "The Devils of Loudun" by Aldous Huxley
An original writing on "The Devils of Loudun" by Edmund Goldsmid (1887)
Buy "Mother Joan of the Angels" on DVD
Buy "The Devils of Loudun" – the opera by Krzysztof Penderecki
"The Devils" UNCUT discussion
Mark Kermode's BBC Blog about "The Devils"
Mark Kermode's podcast "Kermode and Mayo's Film Review"
Check out Vincenzo Natali's work on "Darknet"
Vincenzo Natali's pilot for "Darknet"
Listen to our previous episodes with Vincenzo Natali "Cube" and "Blue Velvet"
Listen to our previous episode about another controversial religious film "The Last Temptation of Christ"

Music:
"Sin" by Nine Inch Nails
"Heretic" by Soundgarden

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