Episode 92: Glitch in the Matrix: A Conversation with Rodney Ascher

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2021

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With his latest film, a meditation on what it means to believe we live in a computer simulation, Rodney Ascher has once again placed himself among the most innovative and visionary filmmakers working in the documentary form today. While the "Simulation Hypothesis" has been a hot topic ever since The Matrix came out in 1997, it is Ascher's ability to suspend judgement, training his camera on the experience of believers rather than the value of their beliefs, that makes A Glitch in the Matrix such a unique and significant exploration, a strange work of "phantom phenomenology." Weird Studies listeners will recall that Phil and JF devoted an episode to Ascher's films -- most notably Room 237 and The Nightmare -- back in the early days of the podcast. In this episode, Rodney Ascher joins them to discuss his cinematic vision, his take on the weird, and his thoughts on what is real and why it matters. REFERENCES [Rodney Ascher](www.rodneyascher.com), American filmmaker -- [A Glitch in the Matrix](www.aglitchinthematrixfilm.com) Jay Weidner's theories on Kubrick Buddhist idea of the the Arising and Passing Away [Dungeons & Dragons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons%26_Dragons), tabletop roleplaying game James Machin, _Weird Fiction in Britain 1880-1939 Magic Eye pictures Parmenides, Greek philosopher Wachowskis, The Matrix Alan Moore, "Superman: For the Man Who Has Everything" Conway's Game of Life Joshua Clover, The Matrix (BFI Film Classics) Jonathan Snipes, American composer Clipping, experimental hip hop band "Shining" romantic comedy recut Michael Curtiz (dir.), Casblanca John Boorman (dir.), [Point Blank](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062138/?ref=fn_al_tt_2)_ Louis Sass, Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought Special Guest: Rodney Ascher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:02.0	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:23.3	For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weird Studies. I'm Phil Ford. This week, J.F. and I are feeling very pleased with
0:56.5	ourselves. First of all, our intrepid assistant Meredith created a Weird Studies storefront at
1:02.8	bookshop.org. So if you want to find all our book recommendations from over the years conveniently
1:08.5	assembled in one place, here you go.
1:11.9	Secondly, some weird studies superfans started up at Discord Channel, which has instantly
1:17.3	started teeming with hip media recommendations, pictures of our bookshelves and pets, and the chatter
1:23.3	of role-play gamers, occultists, mad defrocked academics, friendly artists. The gang's all here.
1:30.8	If you want to join, the link is in the Weird Studies subreddit, which likewise is a roiling, seething,
1:36.7	undulating organism of our collective intelligence. And, as always, a Weird Studies Patreon subscription is a must-have for the dandies, decadence, dudes,
1:47.8	dames, and other darlings of the Beaumond. But the other reason J.F. and I are feeling chuffed
1:53.9	these days is that Rodney Asher is coming on the show. He's just released a new documentary,
1:59.9	a glitch in the Matrix, and we're talking to him
2:02.2	about it today. We did a show on his earlier films, all the way back in episode 12, when
2:07.8	weird studies was still in its infancy. Those films include Room 237, a film about obsessive
2:14.4	and esoteric interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, and The Nightmare, a documentary on the deeply weird phenomenon of sleep paralysis.
2:24.1	The Nightmare was one of the first films J.F. got me to watch. It stuck like a burr in my imagination.
2:30.8	What did it for me was its sustained mood of weirdness, a low hum of disquiet, always thrumming in the background.
2:38.5	Where did it come from?
2:40.6	Ash's go-to move in this film is to reenact witness stories on a black set.
2:46.2	The stories he stages are of terrifying invasions from the other world, recounted by a succession of painfully sincere people who may, in a clinical sense, have experienced sleep paralysis, but who, in a weirder construal, might also be meeting foul beasties on the imaginal plane. You know, like demons.
	...

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