The Nightmare: Mental Projections Or A Shadow Society?

The Nightmare is a 2015 documentary directed by Rodney Ascher, detailing the experiences of those who suffer from sleep paralysis. Ascher is also known for directing Room 237. There are some big improvements in The Nightmare from Room 237. 1) We get to see the interviewees instead of just their disembodied (and poorly mixed) voices. 2) Despite The Nightmare's topic of sleep paralysis with it's association to mental illness, the paranormal, and alien abductions, there seem to be less crackpots in this documentary than the one about enthusiasts of The Shining. Don't get me wrong, for all intents and purposes, I loved Room 237 and the extra layer of drama and lore it added to The Shining. The Nightmare has a more finished quality to it. The reenactments are true to the described experiences, and at the same time dream-like in their interpretation.

Sleep paralysis occurs usually while someone is in the process of falling asleep. The body goes into a paralysis as it normally would (a physiological function to prevent us from running out of bed while we dream), but the mind is still awake. This leads to a panicked feeling, and a struggle to move or speak. This is already scary, but universally people under sleep paralysis also have visions or a sense that someone else is in the room.

Hello! We couldn't help but notice you were unable to move or scream.

What is fascinating, is the consistent presence of "shadow men" in these dreams. Several of those interviewed described them specifically as a living shadow. They all go on to elaborate that they looked like a shadow of a person from the ground, but solid, and three-dimensional.

Aside from the fact that being paralyzed and aware of it is terrifying in and of itself, the visions that come with this are also extremely menacing. The stories range from amorphous black blobs to red-eyed men threatening death almost every night for years.

On a scale of amorphous blob to murderous red-eyed shadow man of eternal torment, what do you see?

One woman claims to have rid the visits by finding Jesus. Another man's experience sounds more like extraterrestrial visitations. The stories have their parallels, but they can also vary from ghostly, to demonic, to alien in interpretation.

The way each shot is artfully staged is stunning and keeps the dreamy mood. Even the interviews are set in low light, the way you might dream about your house, but it's during a time of day that doesn't exist.

The below image is described by a man recalling the first time he bore witness to the shadows that had been lurking around his bed every night during sleep paralysis. The reason he could see them more clearly this time is because his bed was broken, and was propped up only by his mother's collection of Beanie Babies. It's an idiosyncratic situation, and ripe with possibility for imagery.

"Ahem. These are off-brand Beanie Babies."

The director acknowledges this, and takes it to a dream-like space that exudes an artful interpretation, and by no means shows an over exaggeration from lack of understanding. In a way it reminds me of being in photography classes in college; seeing someone solve the creative challenge of representing time and place. The stills from this documentary can stand alone as a photography series.

The film set is ever-present in The Nightmare. At some points we see the shadow figures move from set to set, entering different interviewee's bedrooms. The Shadow Men are making their rounds for the night. It brings attention to the fact that these experiences aren't based in reality (hopefully). These visions might be part of a primal subconscious that we all share, revealing itself when we are most vulnerable and afraid; testing us. To some degree we all fear this same generic boogie man.

I am lucky enough to have never experienced this chronically like the people in this film. However, I have had one episode that might be classified as sleep paralysis. It was during my junior year of college, and I was living in a door room in a suite. I had the room to myself and the door was locked while I slept every night, just in case. One lazy weekend morning, I was in the state where you become aware that it's morning, and you're not fully awake, but you're aware that you were sleeping. Coming in and out of sleeping and being awake, I tried to wake up, but could not move.

My eyes were closed, not tightly, and I could see the light in the room if not a sliver of my surroundings. On my back, I couldn't move a limb. This was odd, but what made it worse was hearing my door open and foot steps walking to my bed. I didn't see anyone coming for me, no shadow. Maybe I just felt the presence. Then, without feeling much movement on the bed, I felt the pressure of someone on top of me.

I can't explain the feeling that I had. It was nothing more than pressure, and I don't remember being especially scared. No one's face was over mine, no breath. It was just on my torso and legs. I wanted the narrative to be that I was terrified, and that I fought, but I was helpless and I succumbed. Maybe this really was just a dream.

At some point I woke up for real. I checked the door, and it was locked.

 

Soaked In Bleach

I'm almost thirty and feeling old about everything, but what makes me feel young again is watching documentaries about events that happened when I was (gosh) just too young to remember.

I was jazzed about seeing the two ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries,  June 17th, 1994 and The Price of Gold. They're about the OJ Simpson Bronco chase and the Nancy Kerrigan scandal, respectively. Both happened in 1994 when I was seven years old. I was generally aware of what was going on, watching the nightly news while eating dinner with my parents in front of the TV. It's great to watch these films now so I can use my adult brain and life experiences to comprehend what was happening then, understand how the public reacted, and also reflect on how I would have felt about it had I been a fully realized person. Soaked in Bleach is one of these types films for me.
  
Directed by Benjamin Statler, Soaked in Bleach covers another devastating event from the zeitgeist of my childhood: Kurt Cobain's apparent suicide. Unlike OJ and Nancy Kerrigan, I was completely unaware of Kurt Cobain then. It wasn't till I was ten and started watching MTV that I knew at all about Nirvana or the suicide. At the time, in 1997, it was the three year anniversary. As a kid that seemed far away enough to be ancient history. The grunge era had already come and gone. You were more likely to see Puff Daddy, Sublime, or Marilyn Manson videos on MTV. The Kurt Cobain chatter came from Kurt Loder during news updates between video blocks. Two years later such news breaks and video blocks would be pretty much obsolete.

Soaked in Bleach and another Kurt Cobain documentary, Montage of Heck, both came out in 2015. Montage of Heck focuses more on Kurt's origins and inner thoughts; a tribute visualized with an animated collage of his sketch book drawings. Soaked in Bleach is a compelling murder mystery. 

The narrative has always presented a depressed and thoroughly messed up Kurt Cobain. Behind his raw music with lyrics that made your parents feel uncomfortable was a man who did exactly what you would expect him to do: shoot himself in the head with a shotgun. At least that's the narrative.

There have always been swirling rumors about his suicide actually being a murder. Courtney Love's behavior and inappropriate attachment to her husband's music rights made her a suspect to those who already disliked her. Just scuttlebutt in response to a woman who was unashamed - on many levels. She was labeled as obnoxious at the least, and greedy and callous at the worst.

Courtney Love had always been rough around the edges in her persona. I never felt pity for her being a widow. She didn't seem to need it. I certainly feel less likely to pity her after watching Soaked in Bleach. You can speculate and talk about these clues in her behavior, but what's so unequivocally shocking is the damning recorded audio at the center of this documentary.

Private detective Tom Grant

Told through interviews and top notch reenactments paired with actual audio recordings, the documentary follows private detective Tom Grant during the week before Kurt Cobain was found dead in his home. Grant was hired by Courtney Love to find Kurt who had evidently gone missing on April 2, 1994. She expressed concern that Kurt might commit suicide - despite good friends reporting that he was and always had been a happy person. It became clear that Love more or less knew where he was, and was more concerned about stopping him from leaving her. Cobain had allegedly asked his good friend/lawyer, Rosemary Carroll, to have Love taken out of his will about a month before he died.

Depiction of Courtney Love during one of her meetings with Tom Grant.

Love insisted that Tom Grant not check their house, reasoning that their nanny Cali was there, and would know when Kurt came home anyway. Michael "Cali" DeWitt was a former boyfriend of Love's, and the live-in nanny for Frances Bean.

Love told white lies right from the start, making Grant question her motives. It's known that Cali saw Cobain for the last time on Saturday, April 2, 1994. Phone records show that on that day Cali and Love spoke on the phone eight times. The next day Love hired Grant, but failed to mention that she knew where Cobain was or that he had just been seen by their friend.

Throughout the week before Cobain's death, Love tried to spitball ideas to Grant of fabricated stories she would stage for the media to bring her sympathy. She explained that the stories were meant to be messages to Kurt; something that would pull him out of hiding and contact her. This behavior is so manipulative it's hard to believe she actually cared about him.

Daniel Roebuck as Tom Grant meeting with Dylan Carlson.

On April 7th Grant finally went to the home at 171 Lake Washington Blvd. accompanied by Cobain and Love's friend Dylan Carlson. In the process, Grant found a foreboding note, lying on the stairs in their home. The note said, "I can't believe you managed to be in this house without me noticing."

From Justice For Kurt Cobain

The note was written by Cali. It can be read in several different ways:

1. Cali noticed Kurt in the house or heard the gunshot (without checking on Kurt's well being for some reason), and assumed Kurt had been there for a time. Without bringing attention to himself,  Cali wrote the passive aggressive note on the stairs for him to find.

2. Cali heard the gun shot, which tipped him off to Kurt's death. Was the letter a sort of eulogy? If so, why was it left on a staircase not even close to Kurt's body? Why was it left there at all? How could Kurt "Do something now." if he was obviously dead?

3. The message from Cali to Kurt about not noticing him is eerie, as it reflects Grant's and others inability to find Kurt.

Though Grant and Dylan were in the house several days after Kurt had shot himself, Grant was unaware of the greenhouse above the garage where Kurt's body lay. Dylan knew about this wing of the house, but for unknown reasons did not suggest that Grant check it. At the time of him finding the note, Grant did not suspect that Kurt was dead nor that Kurt was in the house.

The crux of Soaked in Bleach is the audio recordings. Grant recorded every meeting and every phone call. When another piece of evidence is introduced, and you almost can't believe it, then you hear it straight from the horse's mouth. It's absolutely chilling to hear Love's well known voice utter lies and manipulative thoughts. Mix that with plane tickets, drugs, handwriting samples, the will, undisclosed phone calls, and a misplaced end table, you will finish this film wanting to go door to door petitioning for the case to be reopened.

The Double: With Triple Analysis

The Double (2014) directed by Richard Ayoade, (the British actor you might know best from the famous Fire! video clip) is a visually stunning film that manages to be quirky without being cliche, and unique while harkening to past films. The flavors I detected within The Double came from The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Eraserhead (1977), and Fight Club (1999). All films deal with themes of feeling like an outsider, the modern industrial wasteland, the corporate grind, the cruelty of bureaucracy, alter egos, being a fraud, and suicide.  

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

 

Hissing smoke, the distant clunking sound of metal on metal, a train horn in the distance. All dear and familiar sounds...

Within the first few minutes of The Double, I concluded that it was a technicolor Eraserhead. 

The awkward man clad in a suit makes his way through a barren industrial landscape to a sad studio apartment. It's perpetually night, and any daylight is suffocated by modern encasings. There is little to be enjoyed in this universe. The Double has Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg), who likes to watch one TV show about a strong, rough man. Eraserhead has Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), who looks at his radiator and dreams of a pure happy woman in a Vaudeville style act. 

 

There's something decidedly timeless about the universe they live in. Somewhere wavering between the 1950s and the 1970s, industry and machinery rule, and a formal approach to dress keeps characters rigid and conformed. The mechanical equipment in both films are unidentifiable but vaguely familiar. They are metal, have buttons and lights, produce items, but their function is based on fantasy.

The people they encounter are hostile. The protagonist just can't catch a break. No matter how meek, submissive and nonthreatening, he is berated, belittled and steamrolled - most notably by older women.

 

The films are both padded with elderly characters that contrast the youthful protagonist, but mirror his feebleness.  

He is in love with a young woman, but she doesn't love him back in the same way.

 

Her approval is just out of his grasp. In The Double, Hannah (Mia Wasikowska) is the victim of two extremes in male behavior, which Simon has the ability to execute (whether he knows it or not). Simon watches Hannah from afar, silently hoping to gain a connection. In an anecdote about a man who committed suicide in her building, Hannah explains that she is unnerved by this style of courtship - which he is guilty of himself. Simon's alter ego, James Simon, harms Hannah in a more aggressive way: loving and leaving, cheating, and even slapping her in an argument. Hannah attempts suicide and miscarries James's child. Simon James and James Simon are opposites, but both still land outside the spectrum of suitable. 

In Eraserhead, Mary X (Charlotte Stewart) finds herself indelibly tied to Henry by their illegitimate and deformed child. Mary is thrust into motherhood, living with Henry in his cramped apartment. The stress of raising this ill infant, who she can't recognize as her own, causes Mary to move out. Henry's meek spirit doesn't exactly encourage her to stay.  

Simon and Henry's romantic exploits are met with ridicule and embarrassment.

Even the elevators are cruel.

At least Henry is "on vacation." Eraserhead is already saturated with quintessential nightmare versions of everyday life; the Eraserhead workplace would be bleak and torturous on Jheronimus Bosch levels. Maybe we get a glimpse of this at the pencil factory - where Henry's disembodied head is sold to make erasers. 

Both Simon and Henry's stories end with their heads smashed on the pavement, and their spirits being taken to Heaven by people who truly understand them. More on that later...

 

The Hudsucker Proxy and The Double have their tones set by suicide early on. Simon is going about his usual routine of spying on Hannah across the courtyard, when he sees a man pirched above her apartment staring back. Suddenly he's dropped. The tragedy brings Simon and Hannah together as neighbors and co-workers. 

Waring Hudsucker, the founder and president of Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide by jumping out of the skyscraper window during a meeting. Knowing Hudsucker's stock shares will be sold to the public, board member Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman), schemes to buy the controlling interest in the company and temporarily depressing the stock price by hiring an incompetent replacement. Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) a lowly mail room clerk on his first day, comes to deliver a letter to Mussburger, but decides instead to pitch his invention of a simple circular toy. Believing Norville to be the right idiot for the job, Mussburger immediately promotes him to president. 

Is he a fraud?
Simon James is irked by the presence of a new employee named James Simon. It's like looking into a mirror, but no one seems to notice but Simon James. There's something about James that's so charismatic, he can get away with murder. James impresses with minimal effort. He lies and cheats on a psychopathic level. On the other hand, there's something so unremarkable about Simon, that he seems to be a "non-person." Simon's malfunctioning work ID causes him to be shut down on a bureaucratic level. If the ID doesn't work, you aren't in the system, and if you aren't in the system, you don't exist. The system is uncaring and exclusive, though it is run by humans.

The Hudsucker Proxy captures the insanity of bureaucracy as well. It's comical in it's absurdity, yet recognizable. My favorite scene from Hudsucker is the one pictured above right. It's Norville's first minutes in the mailroom, and he's being screamed at by a supervisor. Without warning the man rattles off, "6787049A/6. That is your employee number. It will not be repeated! Without your employee number you cannot get your paycheck." The rest of the quote can be found here. 

Work can feel this way at times; designed for automatons and not humans.

Simply on the basis of premise, The Double and Fight Club share the same story. A young man, fried by the corporate machine, splits into a second persona whom he believes to be his savior and also his tormentor, only to find that they were one in the same person.

The young man does not live his life to the fullest, he might be categorized as a nerd. The alter ego is the exact opposite. He is suave, and has good luck with women. He has the answers to everything, and seems to move smoothly through life by his wits. By all accounts this mysterious man is a jerk who should be punished and not praised for his behavior, but the prevalent theme appears to be "nice guys finish last."

Through bouts of self-harm, culminating in a suicide attempt, the alter ego is freed.

The main difference is that the alter ego in Fight Club, Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden, looks nothing like Ed Norton's character (simply called "The Narrator"), while Jessie Eisenberg plays both characters, as Simon James and James Simon. This creates a comically surreal nightmare scenario where the sanity of every other character is questionable. That anyone would believe these men were not twins or even see a resemblance between them is outlandish, but this is Simon's lament.

It's unclear in Fight Club if anyone besides the Narrator sees Tyler Durden as a separate person. This allows the charade to hold up, but ultimately lays the foundation for them to plausibly be the same person. Unlike The Double, Fight Club's Narrator is the only one who sees his alter ego as another individual, while we imagine the reality would involve the Narrator switching personalities as he interacts with people, and talking to himself a lot. The Double rides this line. There are many scenes where Simon confronts James to the point of revealing that he's an illusion. However, the rest of the characters are so certain that they are different men, Simon is left defending his personality, and attempting to prove that they are the same. The Double is part scifi fantasy, part psychological case study.

The suicide attempt by The Narrator in Fight Club is ultimately nonfatal, but the gun shot to the cheek appears to rid him of Tyler Durden. The suicide concluding The Double is most likely fatal, but left to our imagination. Simon is loaded into an ambulance after jumping from his apartment window, while James dies from the injuries as he is restrained inside the apartment. Simon appears alert, and Hannah is inside the ambulance. A happy ending seems likely. Then the Colonel (the owner and idol of the company Simon works for) appears in the ambulance with them.

In The Hudsucker Proxy, Norville almost falls to his death from his skyscraper, but is saved by a supernatural force, and visited by the angelic apparition of Waring Hudsucker. Near death, Norville and Simon are both visited by the beloved god/bosses of their respective employers. 

In the ambulance the Colonel comments that Simon is a special person. His untimely presence and encouraging tone is unsettling, considering the circumstance. It is then we realize the ambulance ride is most likely a heavenly dream.

At least Simon gets to go solo.

Check Dune Off My List

I finally saw Dune. Finally. Some might ask how I could have put it off this long, being such a big David Lynch fan. Others might say, "Oh... isn't that supposed to not be so good?"

It was something. But more on that in the conclusion.

My personal excuses for not watching were:
1. Indeed never hearing anyone say it was good.
2. Being a cheapo who doesn't like to pay (upfront) for movies anymore. (Dune is not on Netflix or Hulu Plus).
3. A fear of watching David Lynch do an adaptation instead of an original story, because it might be void of soul and a waste of time.

For some mislead reason, I felt as though Lynch's adaptations would be something he did for money; paying his dues before he could break out and make another movie like Eraserhead. However, after seeing The Elephant Man - based on a book of the same title - it was clear that it was possible for Lynch to make an adaptation all his own.

David Lynch is as David Lynch does.

 Read this article I wrote if you want to hear about what I gleaned from The Elephant Man.

I decided to give Dune a try after seeing the YouTube video Lost In Adaptation: Dune. I'm a jerk to myself when it comes to spoilers, so having not read the novel by Frank Herbert, nor seen the movie, my interest was piqued. The video was created by The Dom, who has a series called Lost In Adaptation, in which he reviews movies compared to their paper counterparts. This series has the perfect balance of comedy and insightful analysis. I enjoyed watching several of them, including The Shining - which I adore as a film, and may actually read thanks to The Dom.

The Dom joked about how the below shots were not only inaccurate to the book, but also completely f#%ked.

Seems legit

Meanwhile, I was thinking: Dune where have you been all my life?! This kind of imagery convinced me David Lynch actually directed Dune. Maybe it wasn't neutered after all. Prepared to see the film, I went in knowing that this was not the most loyal adaptation of the book. That only made me more excited to see how Lynchian Dune truly was.

Since Dune was book-ended by The Elephant Man and Blue Velvet, I couldn't help but find ways that Dune showed signs of Lynch warming up to make Blue Velvet. Maybe Dune wasn't a success. Maybe Lynch lacked control, and didn't appeal to audiences within the scifi genre. Blue Velvet would be his first original film in nine years, and this time around he would get it right.

Dune and Blue Velvet are not similar films in a general sense. One is a scifi epic, the other is a modern noir mystery.  However, there were observable Lynch parallels on the surface that I would like to share.

Lynch's portrayal of Dune's Baron Vladimir Harkonnen as a screaming, intense, and vile character are revealed once more in Blue Velvet's Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). Both show extreme mood swings, expressing anger and joy in terrifying ways. 

Pictured: That emotion where you scream, spit, laugh and punch at the same time.

They both "blow-off steam" in nightmarish style. While the Baron will melt in ecstasy watching a young man die by heart-plug removal, Frank Booth is a rapist who huffs nitrous, cries, and shoves fabric in his mouth. 

It's believed that Lynch's Baron was way over-the-top compared to the novel's Baron, who was more cold and calculating. Considering there was obvious citicism over Lynch's interpretation, it's possible that this character was invented by Lynch, who wanted to use Dune as a vehicle for that creative concept. Lynch says of his time making Dune,

"I started selling out on Dune. Looking back, it's no one's fault but my own. I probably shouldn't have done that picture, but I saw tons and tons of possibilities for things I loved, and this was the structure to do them in. There was so much room to create a world. But I got strong indications from Raffaella and Dino De Laurentiis of what kind of film they expected, and I knew I didn't have final cut."   

This version of the Baron may not have been popular with Dune fans, but Blue Velvet's noir backdrop would be perfect for such a jarringly evil villain.

The company the villains keep is familiar from one film to the next. Once again Jack Nance, Dean Stockwell, and Brad Dourif are on the bad guy's side. 

Above: Piter De Vries, the Baron's Mentat. Below: Raymond, Frank's friend with a silver suit and a switch blade. 

Above: Dr. Wellington Yueh; a traitor. Below: Ben; Cool as ice captor and lip-sync extraordinaire.

Above: Nefud, a henchman. Below: Paul, also a henchman.

Obviously Kyle MacLachlan is back as the hero. 

Paul Atreides of Dune

Jeffrey Beaumont of Blue Velvet

MacLachlan's performance as Paul Atreides was a bit stoic, of not rigid. There's a level of innocence he brings to this role that doesn't work for a young man who develops into a warrior. Really all the whispered inner thoughts couldn't portray the character development that actually happened for Paul in the novel (which I have to admit I can only say in reference to reviews I read, as I have yet to read Dune). However, that innocence works for foolhardy Jeffery Beaumont, who dives into a murder mystery and nearly cracks under the pressure.

The sexy factor also works better for MacLachlan in Blue Velvet over Dune.

Because this works

and this really really doesn't for some reason.

NOPE!NOPE!NOPE!

This so disturbing to me! Why is this so disturbing to me?! Is this trying to imply a future culture where covering the arms and collar bones but revealing the nipples and belly button is sexy for men? That outfit isn't even in the movie! It's a promotional photo, proving how sexy Dune is (it's not at all btw).  It made me really sad to look up this photo again* so I could put it in this post, but the people need to know.

* I say "again" only because I came across it while researching, and quickly clicked away from it in shame. Unfortunately I knew I had to share it with others - like a gypsy curse that needs to be broken.

Aside from casting, there are stylistic tidbits I observed:

A scene in Dune in which a pilot is killed, and his dead body is still sitting up wavering a bit in the seat, reminded me of a similar scene in Blue Velvet when the Yellow Man is inexplicably standing dead(ish) with a bullet in his head. In Dune it was a creepy choice to keep the dead pilot in his seat. Most action scenes in movies would have a pilot quickly killed and on the floor; with the attention on the killer taking over the controls. Keeping the pilot in his seat is disturbing, and brings attention to the violence of the scene, which is what the corresponding scene in Blue Velvet achieved.

This wasn't just a pin being knocked down, this was a man. It shows that death is not so final; the body will still be there. Unfortunately I couldn't find a photo, gif or clip of that scene in Dune, so you'll have to trust that it looked much like the .gif above from Blue Velvet.

There was also fire, and visions/dreams, and dreams with fire.

Still from a hallucination.

 Fire is a common thread in Lynch's films. Dune was not immune to that. Though, I thought his depictions of Paul's visions were a little like a commercial for water purifiers.




See, that's not even scary or cryptic. 

Best shot in Dune. Bad ass little girl.

Dune was obviously a project that didn't go the way David Lynch or the fans wanted. It started out as something Lynch was excited to make, but in the end it was cut up by producers and ultimately not what he intended. Unfortunately he is not going to re-cut the film - ever.

This incarnation of the film did not get me excited to learn about the Dune universe. It was difficult to follow, plain and simple. I spent most of my time trying to enjoy whatever I recognized as Lynchian. It was more like playing bingo. Ultimately The Elephant Man was a better adaptation in using his archetypes while also telling a coherent story.

My next endeavor will be to watch the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune. I thought Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain was insane in a very good way, and visually outstanding. The idea that he was also a contender for making Dune is really exciting. Though he wasn't the one who ended up making it, the story behind his concepts must be wild.

Still from The Holy Mountain

Until next time!