Update, scripts and more! (Patreon)

Hi, everyone! A couple things to report. First, I finished writing and recording the movie a few weeks back. Editing has been going well (so far) and has been on schedule. The winter release window still looks likely. January is the most probable month for month for release. Second, I am already doing very early preliminary research on the big project after that...but I'm not yet ready to reveal what it is. Also, it will probably be dependent on whether or not it reaches the Patreon goal just like with the movie. I suspect it will, though.

All that aside, here are the scripts for some of the recent episodes:

SUPERMAN

 AUDIO 1
 Superman has been an enduring presence in popular culture for almost 80 years, and his appearances on the big screen helped popularize the character all over the world. It's not hard to see why. He has super strength, enough to carry mountains and monuments. He can fly all over the world and even into space. He is invulnerable to pain and injury – with a few exceptions. But are these truly the things we think of when we picture Superman? Other superheroes have similar or even greater abilities. Superman's great powers are not his defining characteristic.
 [PART 1: What Makes Superman Morally Good?]
 AUDIO 2
 In the climax of Superman: The Movie, Lex Luthor informs our hero that he has launched two missiles. The first missile will strike the San Andreas fault and cause a catastrophe that will reshape California to further Luthor's real estate enterprise. The second missile will strike Hackensack, New Jersey, a diversion to keep Superman busy. Even with Superman's great speed, Luthor believes it would be too challenging to stop both. Superman makes a deal with Miss Tessmacher to stop the second missile first because her mother lives in New Jersey. Superman wants to go after the missile headed to California first because Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are in danger there, but faced with death by kryptonite, he makes the pact with Miss Tessmacher. After being saved, he keeps his promise in spite of his misgivings. Besides further the plot, what has Superman done? He has made a series of moral choices. He has exercised his own moral judgment.
 Questions of morality are placed in a branch of philosophy broadly called Ethics. Superman's defining characteristic is not his ability to fly or his great strength. Lots of superheroes and supervillains possess similar or even greater abilities. The defining characteristic of this fictional character is that he always wants to do “good.” Earlier in the film, he tells Lois Lane that he stands for truth and justice. He says, in all sincerity, that he never lies. He rescues cats from trees for little girls. Superman is wholesome. So, where does he fall in the wide spectrum of ethics philosophy, and what are ethics anyway? Well, ethics deals with what we should do, how we should behave and what makes a good life. And while there are a great number of ethical systems, especially when taking various religious doctrines into account, most can be categorized into a few broader normative ethics systems, meaning moral standards for everyone. Virtue Ethics places less emphasis on learning rules. It places importance on developing good habits of character. Virtue Ethics has people wonder what someone virtuous would do in a moral crisis. Christians would ask “What would Jesus do?” and fictional citizens of Metropolis would ask “What would Superman do?”
 AUDIO 3
 Duty Ethics posits that human beings have clear moral obligations to one another and that the rightness of our actions. Superman made a promise to Miss Tessmacher, so he now has an obligation to stop the missile headed to New Jersey first. But Superman also acts under Consequentialist Ethics – specifically utilitarianism. When his choices lead to the death of Lois Lane, Superman faces something that duty ethics and virtue ethics often does not solve: a moral dilemma. A moral dilemma, in ethics philosophy, is not being faced with a choice between right and wrong. It is a situation in which a moral agent faces an ethical paradox. No matter what one does, they will be violating some ethical principle. Superman has been instructed by a hologram of his father, Jor-El, not to interfere with the course of human history. This is admittedly vague, considering all of our actions change history, if only slightly, but generally Jor-El meant that Superman should inspire and help but not abuse his power to alter the flow of human events too greatly. Jor-El forbids it, perhaps because if Superman exercised too much control over Earth, the people would lose part of what makes them human.
 In contradiction to this, Superman's human father, Jonathan Kent, told his son that he was on Earth for a reason, meaning he has special importance as it pertains to the course of human history. Superman has the ability to turn back time, but if he does this, he would violate the lessons he agreed to when he was instructed by Jor-El in the Fortress of Solitude. So, what does this have to do with utilitarianism? Well, Superman eventually decides to change history and save the people of California, including Lois Lane. He concluded that breaking his implied promise to Jor-El was less important than the greater good of saving so many lives. Utilitarianism demands that moral agents take into account the benefit and harm to all people. By utilitarian standards, Superman feeling guilty about disrespecting the memory of his long dead father pales in comparison to the potential lives saved. Utilitarianism can also lead down some darker paths – some have misused it as justification to exploit a minority of people to make the lives of the majority better – but all ethical systems rely on the actor, not just the system. In other words, we can only trust someone with good moral judgment. Superman is perceived as morally good because he usually exercises that judgment well.
 [PART 2: What Are Superman's Moral Obligations?]
 
 AUDIO 4
 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant helped popularize a common phrase in ethics philosophy: “Ought Implies Can” – ethical formula that claims a person, if morally obliged to perform a certain action, must also – logically – be able to perform it. For example, Jimmy Olsen might feel the need to save California, but he is not able to do that. He does not possess the power, resources or knowledge. We cannot blame someone for things that they cannot control. “Ought Implies Can” is widely accepted in philosophical circles, but it also creates challenging questions: If someone is born with certain limitations or chemical imbalances, is he as morally responsible for his moral judgments? We don't know a lot about Non, one of General Zod's subordinates, but Jor-El says that he is “without thought.” If Non is incapable of making rational decisions, how do we judge his actions and his association with Zod? “Ought Implies Can” – he ought to do good, but can he? Superman is in a unique position under this philosophical maxim: he can do almost anything, which means one could argue that he ought to do everything good in his power.    
 For example, the most I can do to prevent war is protest in the streets, vote for candidates who share my values or call my Congressman. Superman can find and destroy all the world's nuclear weapons, and he does in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Under the “Ought Implies Can” maxim, Superman might even feel morally obligated to do so if he believes the world is on the brink of nuclear annihilation. He might reason, I can do this, so I should do this. In addition to this, Superman is performing a utilitarian act. Representatives of the United Nations applaud his announcement, but they are all not in compliance with Superman's plan. Nuclear weapons are still being fired – perhaps tested – in the air. Superman does not collect the weapons from the world's governments by their consent. He must be stealing some of them. Superman knows stealing is wrong, but he judges the rightness of his action because of what he thinks is the overall good of everyone in the world. He makes a judgment based on the strong possibility of war in the near future – as far as anyone can make a reasonable prediction, honestly – and makes a choice.   
 AUDIO 5
 Superman uses utilitarian ethics every day because he is lying to the world about his identity every time he puts on glasses. He simply feels, perhaps correctly, that his lies are minor infractions compared to the good these lies will accomplish: maintaining a life as Superman. Remember when he told Lois that he never lies? That, too, was a lie. Even inaction is a moral choice. In Superman II, the Man of Steel decides to abandon his life as a superhero in order to commit to a relationship with Lois Lane. He removes his powers with a machine in a the Fortress of Solitude. Shortly thereafter, the President of the United States surrenders to General Zod, leaving the country and even the world in jeopardy. Clark Kent regrets his decision to no longer be Superman. As Clark, he could still help the world in his own limited way in the same manner that human beings can, but he was in a unique position to do significantly more good than the rest of us. But that brings up the question: Does the fact that Superman can spend his days tirelessly saving others mean that he must do this?   
 Before we judge him too harshly for what seems like a selfish decision, especially in hindsight, most human beings do not maximize our utility for good either. Most of us do not give away most of our income to the homeless, volunteer in soup kitchens and hospitals on our weekends and always act with the world's best interests at heart before our own. The difference between our desire for our own lives and Superman's desire for his own life is that our abilities are limited and individually unnecessary whereas Superman's powers make him arguably the most important person in the world. But does that still does not answer the question, does it? Why must Superman be forced to do these things and sacrifice a normal life with Lois Lane? If you believe Superman should be flying around doing good deeds all the time simply because he can and that is reason enough, you might believe in what is called a Positive Duty or a Positive Right, meaning just that – people have a duty to go out of their way to do good so long as it does not unreasonably compromise their own safety.   
 AUDIO 6
 If you believe Superman does not have an inherent duty to do good deeds and save others simply because he can and ACTUALLY only has a duty to NOT do EVIL, then you believe in the concept of Negative Duty or Negative Rights. There is a scene in Superman III in which a corrupted form of kryptonite has altered Superman's personality. He is informed that a truck is about to fall off a bridge, but because he has been compromised, he decides to save them later and spent time with Lana instead. When he shows up, the truck has already fallen. Under the theory of Negative Duty, one would argue that Superman did nothing wrong because he did not push the truck over the bridge or cause the accident. Negative Duty says Superman had no obligation to help. He only had an obligation to not go around causing bridge accidents. Superman, under normal circumstances, seems to believe in Positive Duty. He has the ability to save the world, and not utilizing these powers would be a terrible waste. This brings up another question about Superman's moral obligations, though.   
 PART 3: Why Must Superman Be Clark Kent?
 AUDIO 7
 Couldn't Superman save more people if he really wanted? Sometimes Superman is not Superman. Sometimes he is Clark Kent – and while you certainly argue that journalists do important work – normal people can be journalists, but only he can be Superman. Couldn't Superman save hundreds or thousands more lives if he wore the blue and red suit all the time? Some would argue that Superman not only cannot but should not save everyone for a reason akin to a theodicy. A theodicy is an argument that attempts to explain why God permits evil to exist. One such theodicy relates to Superman: the argument for free will. Some theists believe that if God were to intervene in the day to day lives of human beings, we would no longer have free will, and that is why God permits evil to exist. Similarly, one could argue that if Superman worked 24/7 solving all the world's problems, we would lose some of our humanity and our ability to progress as a species.   
 Some might not be satisfied with that answer, especially considering the benefits of Superman vs. the harm of no Superman. He would not tire as easily as, say, a police officer or fire fighter – people who have occupational obligations to rescue people. However, flying around the world at super speed, never interacting with people except to save them from volcanoes and such would do Superman psychological harm that could cause irreparable damage to himself that would prevent him from functioning as Superman at all. Remember, the people of Metropolis and the fictional world in general trust Superman because they have come to rely on his judgment. If that judgment were compromised, well, you would not like THAT Superman. So, realistically, for there to be a Superman at all, he should not be Superman all the time.
 AUDIO 8
 Another argument in favor of Superman retaining his Clark Kent persona is a little more selfish but also reasonable enough. Considering all he does, shouldn't Superman get a day off? Nobody is paying him for his life-saving and sometimes world-saving services as Superman. His off hours are not even relaxing. When he is not Superman, he is working at the Daily Planet as Clark Kent, which is probably a demanding job in itself. We would not expect anyone else in the world to sacrifice every waking hour to their cause – but people expect so much from Superman because he is generally portrayed so altruistically, even compared to other popular superheroes. … When people – and I'm talking about real world people now, not fictional people – say that Superman, as a character, is unrelatable, that comes across as troubling. “He's too powerful,” some scoff. Yet, Thor, Shazam, The Hulk and others are similarly overpowered superheroes, but they usually do not garner as much criticism as unrelatable.   
 Plus, even though Superman is incredibly powerful, writers usually give him villains of comparable abilities or amazing intelligence to stand up to him. He faces real threats to both Earth and to himself. So, it stands to reason that a lot of this criticism comes from Superman's personality more than his powers – the thing that actually sets him apart. Superman is...good...and the fact that this makes him unrelatable says a lot about us, and it's mostly bad. Lex Luthor calls Superman's desire to do good an imperfection. In the source material more than these movies, Luthor cannot conceive of a being that only wants to do good, and this makes the supervillain mistrust the Man of Steel. Luthor wants to expose Superman and discredit him. That is the basis for much of their rivalry. Denouncing Superman as “too good” does not make us realistic. It makes us Lex Luthor. It's OK to admire the big, blue Boy Scout. There are worse characters than the man always wants to do good. 

BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA

 [We have all become God's madmen]
 AUDIO 1
 Bram Stoker's Dracula is a 1992 horror film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. In 1462, after a successful battle against the Ottoman Empire, Dracula returns home to find his wife, Elisabeta, has committed suicide. She was tricked into believing he had died. Dracula, believing God should have protected Mina due to his victory in the name of the Lord, renounces his faith and swears he will rise from the grave with all the powers of darkness. In 1897, Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to finalize a real estate purchase for Count Dracula. He is imprisoned there while Dracula seeks out his fiance, Mina, believing she is the reincarnation of his wife. Mina's friend, Lucy, is seduced by Dracula's powers, and soon, Mina finds herself in his thrall. Harker escapes and marries Mina. Enraged by this, Dracula becomes more aggressive, murdering Lucy. Abraham Van Helsing assists Harker, Lucy's fiance and her other suitors in finding and defeating Dracula. In the end, Mina is saved and Dracula is killed.
 Christianity and the battle between good and evil flow throughout the story. The novel and to a greater extent the film, is mired in faith and critical of it. Dracula himself is a perversion of Jesus Christ. He promises everlasting life to those who accept him. Renfield receives this promise only to be killed after the madman's betrayal. Mina ingests the blood of Dracula to attain her immortality much in the way that sacramental wine represents or becomes the blood of Christ. Dracula tells Harker that blood is too precious a thing in these days. He recounts his lineage – his bloodline. The significance of blood in Christianity raises the conflict between Van Helsing and Dracula to that of a holy war. Dracula himself was a soldier in a holy war. In the opening of the film, the narrator says that he protected “all of Christendom” from Muslim Turks. When the clergymen tell Dracula that his wife, Elisabeta, is condemned to Hell due to her suicide, he renounces his faith, questions how a benevolent God damn his wife and strikes the cross with his sword. Again, he drinks the blood and gains a perverted kind of eternal life.
 AUDIO 2
 In the novel, Harker would not normally wear a crucifix. It was a gift from an old woman for protection. The novel's Harker refers to himself as an English Churchman, meaning Protestant, whereas wearing a crucifix around the neck at the time was more Catholic. There is a great deal of commentary about the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the novel, but in Coppola's film, Christianity is instead streamlined into a singular force against the darkness. What Dracula calls “trinkets of deceit” position the conflict as a holy war. Van Helsin's armaments are religious, specifically his use of the crucifix as a weapon and a communion host as a method of detecting vampirism. An interesting choice for the film is that the aforementioned Christian symbols from the novel are no longer all-powerful. Rather than the ultimate weapon against evil, the crucifix is easily destroyed by the power of vampires. The brides hiss at Harker's crucifix and dissolve it into liquid. Dracula in his demonic bat form sets another crucifix on fire simply by looking at it and stamping his foot. Lucy vomits blood on Van Helsing's crucifix.
 From the release of the novel until the release of Coppola's film, we see a decline in Christian power or at least the greater freedom to question faith. The cold condemnation of the priest and Dracula's more sympathetic portrayal are more evidence of this. In the book Reading the Vampire, Ken Gelder claims that Dracula and perhaps other vampires are modeled on antisemitic stereotypes – the bizarre and false charicature of its time: a blood-sucking, baby-stealing Jew. If this attitude is shocking, bear in mind that Victorian society was notorious for both its attempts at pious, Christian morality and for its hypocrisy. The idea that carnal desire, for example, was unaccounted for is something of a myth. Discussing sex, rather, was unacceptable. The strict moral codes drove people to double lives: an upright, public life and a private life – with the facade that the latter did not exist. Sexual behavior, especially that of women, was publicly viewed as obscene. Dracula seduces Mina with his magic and his shape-shifting and hypnotic powers. After each encounter, she seems to instantly regret what she has done, coming to her senses. In Victorian England, women's sexual behavior was controlled by its society's strict expectations. This era helped popularize what is commonly called the madonna-whore complex, a term both in century-old psychology and sexual politics that brands women as either pure virgins or sexually promiscuous and therefore inconsequential.   
 [I too know what men desire]  
 
 AUDIO 3
 In Dracula, Lucy and Mina are representative of this dichotomy. Lucy openly speaks about sex, and Mina is comparatively shy until she is infected with vampirism. Lucy is subtextually punished for her deviation from Victorian norms. When Van Helsing and his cohorts discover Lucy has been transformed into a vampire, her fiance, Arthur penetrates her with a stake and returns her to her virginal purity, clad in white. Athur and Van Helsing see no other choice but to return her to her more socially acceptable state, even if that is of the grave. This film adaptation portrays both Mina and Dracula as more romantic than in the source material as well as most other adaptations – perhaps updating it a little past the Victoria era -- but the madonna-whore complex still shows its face. Lucy cannot be saved, but Mina can. Lucy and Dracula's brides echo a concept that is both a Biblical tale and a facet of social politics: the idea among men that the desires of women will create a fall from grace for all. In the essay The Importance of Blood During the Victorian Era by Nilifer Pektis said that the three beautiful vampires that Jonathan Harker encounters in Dracula’s castle represent all the qualities of how a woman should not be – voluptuous and sexually aggressive.  
 The Czarina Catherine is the name of one of the ships Dracula uses. The name of ship is taken from the Russian empress – Catherine the Great – whose political opponents condemned her for her alleged promiscuity. In reality, this was probably a smear tactic. The infamous horse story is apocryphal. But that's not the point. This historical reference implies that should Van Helsing and the others fail in their attempt to save Mina, she will become the same sexual creature as Lucy or the vampire brides. Our fantasies are reflections of ourselves, and with so much sexuality intermingled with our movie monsters, there must be something there, something instinctual that we are creating when we write these stories, not even realizing it, and when we watch these films, without fully comprehending why we are so attracted to these monsters. Dracula, as a novel, was meant to both tantalize its readers with its sexually provocative imagery and still entrench it within Victorian values.    
  AUDIO 4
 As a film, some of this is expanded with nudity and sex scenes – but one aspect is diminished in Coppola's adaptation. The romantic misery of Dracula – first with his deceased wife and then with Mina – designates him very strictly heterosexual whereas the novel paints his conquests as more demonic and from the perspective of some critics, homosexual. Jonathan's submissiveness and Dracula's command over his bridges, saying that Jonathan belongs only to him, is often interpreted that way – as is Dracula's desire to penetrate Jonathan with his fangs. Dracula's desire to become part of the mainstream human world through his disguise. Normally, he stays hidden away in his castle where the world can't see him. In the Victorian era, such a homosexual would be considered a monster. In the book Our Vampires, Ourselves, Professor Nina Aurbach wrote “Innovative in his isolation, Dracula can do nothing more than catalyse homoerotic friendship among the humans who hunt him. His story abounds in overwrought protestations of friendship among the men who testify breathlessly to each other’s manhood.”   
 In other words, Dracula mixes among the community of men but is not allowed to join it.  Again, this is a film adaptation that focuses much more attention on Dracula's romantic side that is more exclusive to women is a sign of the times. Demonizing homosexuality is not something to be passed down. Another fear in Victorian England was that of xenophobia, and Dracula embodies this too. Dracula’s lust for blood and desire to emigrate to England for nefarious purposes comes from this country's fear of foreigners. British colonialism meant acquiring control over other countries and other populations, but Heaven forbid those same populations actually seek a new life in England. Van Helsing notes that Dracula  can only survive by importing the dirt of his homeland. In other words, this story for a Victorian audience is saying that this “evil foreigner” does not belong here.    
  [Our ways are not your ways]  
  AUDIO 5
 Dracula was a novel that reflected the fears of late Victorian society: the sexuality of women, homosexuality, the conflict between Protestants and Catholics. But it was also about the hope for something greater – that these fears could be conquered. If Dracula is the personification of these fears, then his defeat in the end is the manifestation of that hope. This film adaptation silences some of these fears. Mina has a larger role. There are times when she even has agency, and the final moments are all hers. It is by her will that Dracula regains a piece of his soul. In this version, Christianity is not divided, and it is safe to question one's faith. The antagonist cannot be mistaken for a homosexual demon. In this way, the film tells us that Dracula – or what he represented – can been defeated. 

THE BERGMAN TRILOGY

 AUDIO 1
 To understand Ingmar Bergman's relationship with God, we must first understand his relationship with his father. Erik Bergman was born in 1886. He was a Lutheran minister and royal chaplain to the Swedish royal court. He was said to be incredibly strict with his son, Ingmar. And so the young man who would become arguably Sweden's greatest director spent much of his youth rebelling against the church – this symbol of authority. His films reflect this attitude, the questioning of father figures and authority figures, including the most significant father and authority: God. In the early 60's, Bergman directed three films that allowed him to try and reconcile his feelings about the creator. Often called the Silence of God trilogy or Faith trilogy or atheist trilogy, the three films have no official designation. In recent years, they have simply been marketed as the Bergman trilogy.
 Through a Glass Darkly, the first of the three, is austere and stripped-down, unlike some of Bergman's more extravagant films. It takes place on a small island over the course of about a day featuring only four characters. Minus and Karin are the children of David. Martin is married to Karin. They spend a holiday together on the island, and their interpersonal relationships are crushed under the weight of the distance the father has put between himself and his children. Minus laments that his father never speaks to him, never cares for him. In this, we see Bergman lashing out against his father, but we also see him lashing out against God – the heavenly father who places untold distance between us. In this scene, after presenting his children with thoughtless gifts, he sobs and stretches his arms out, creating a silhouette of a crucifix. At the end of the film, David actually speaks to Minus, and son is overjoyed at the mere fact that the father noticed the son.    
 AUDIO 2
 In spite of the crucifix silhouette, Minus is meant to more closely resemble Jesus Christ. Bergman's own notes on the film confirm this: “God is both dark and light. Sometimes he gives... incomprehensible instructions, to drink saltwater, kill animals, and so on. But sometimes he is full of love and gives her vital experiences, even on the sexual plane. He descends and disguises himself as Minus, her younger brother.” Much like Christ, Minus struggles with his humanity and does not pursue romantic relationships. His question to David is much like Christ in the Garden of Gethsemene – wondering why his father has forsaken him. But David is abusive and cruel. He charts his daughter's mental illness as the basis for a novel, hiding this fact from her. Karin has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. David and Martin believe she is incurable. Karin stares at the wallpaper and at the closet, believing that God himself will soon appear – the subtext of these scenes being that expecting God to make an appearance is madness.
 To Bergman, what is happening is a form of revelation. God has come into this human being, Karin, and lets himself to be known to her. She learns to love him, sacrifice for him and finds herself forced into devotion. He leaves her empty and worn out. Karin remarks that God is a spider – a monster -- who wished to violate her. Minus asks David for proof of God. David only gives a pat answer – an all-too-simple answer – that the existence of love is proof enough of God. Minus finds this unsatisfying, as love can be explained without God. David remarks that, instead, perhaps love simply is what we call God, and that can be enough. The title comes from a passage in the Holy Bible, specifically First Corinthians, Chapter 13: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” For the director, he interprets this as to mean we cannot see the truth of the world or the truth of God.   AUDIO 3
 Winter Light is the second film in the trilogy, although the Swedish title does not translate to that at all. It translates roughly as The Communicants. Tomas Errison, a pastor, begins to doubt the existence of God. He trudges through his services, coldly giving wine to his parishioners as the organist yawns from the tedious ritual of it all. Jonas Perrson confides in him that he is depressed about both his life and also the possibility of war. Jonas commits suicide. Tomas, years after the death of his wife and now after this tragedy, falls into despair. Bergman, in a rare occurrence, showed the screenplay to his father. The main character, first name Tomas – meaning doubting Thomas – last name Ericsson – meaning son of Erik Bergman – appears to convey that the disillusioned priest represents the director's feelings. This is not speculation. Bergman notes confirm that he is the priest: "I" go into an empty church to converse with God and to finally fall to my knees, to pray openly, to talk to God. To get answers, to give up my resistance at last...    
 In this film, the concept that love is proof of God is abandoned – directly connecting Winter Light to Through a Glass Darkly. Tomas no longer feels love. He is unable to love anyone else, and so, love cannot be his proof of God. It's also poor consolation to Jonas, a man suffering from depression. In this scene, we are trapped. Bergman breaks the conventions of cinema and simply shows an uninterrupted six minutes or so of this woman. Tomas is reading a letter from her, and in it, she states her opinion of Christianity. God and Jesus exist only as vague notions, and from the perspective of an outsider, it seems obscure and full of neurotic rituals that are overwrought with primitive emotions. People of faith do not want to consider such things, but in this scene, we are stuck with this woman's opinion. There is no escape. Bergman saw a kind of hypocrisy in the teachings of the church and the reality of its people of faith.   
 AUDIO 4
 His father would deliver beautiful sermons and then come home and lock young Ingmar in a cupboard. He was told that a monster that ate children's feet lived in this darkness. There is a scene in which Tomas tells Marta that his father pressured him into religion, mirroring the director's feelings about his father. As they speak, a train rolls by, and the wagons look like giant coffins. The subject of God as a spider is brought up again. Tomas says that every time he tries to witness God, he sees only the monster. This is another reference to the incongruity between the teachings of Christianity and the realities of the world. The good do not prosper. The evil are not punished. Only the vague hope that this will be rectified in an afterlife which has no proof of existing. Algot, someone who works with Tomas, is a kind of angel. He is unashamedly faithful and tries to give this faith to the pastor. In the end, there is a kind of stirring of a renewed faith or at least an acceptance of what is, as Tomas leads the church in prayer with only one person attending the service.   
 He decides to perform his rituals because all people, including Christ in the garden, struggle with the silence of God. And that brings us to The Silence – the final film in the trilogy. Bergman has said that the silence of the title is that of God, but there is little in the film that directly ties to it. Instead, we see a brief experience of two women and a young boy as they arrive in a strange city and become anonymous in it. They have entered a meaningless existence in a fictional city set against the backdrop of a fictional war with no explanation. In the “silence” of God, some find life itself without meaning. The war is death. During the opening credits, we hear a ticking clock – a harbinger of death. Ester slowly dies over the course of the film, eventually convulsing and expiring. Ester is confined to her bed. Anna is confined to her responsibilities. But Johan is free – because he is young. Death is so far from him.  
  AUDIO 5  
 In the film, there are only two women – a mother and an aunt – who take care of Johan. The father is gone – meaning, God is gone. God is dead, and this is who is left. The two women make due with what they have, and the boy does his best to assert his independence. He is a being resigned to the end of faith. The Silence addresses theological issues far less explicitly than the previous two films, but that allows it greater room to spotlight modernity in general. It looks at life after belief – or beyond belief. Examining the ideology of secular institutions. The “silence” has a double-meaning: lack of communication. The language of The Silence was invented for the film. It is loosely based on Estonian but deviates enough for it to be intelligible.     Bergman once wrote, "These three films deal with reduction. Through a Glass Darkly – conquered certainty. Winter Light – penetrated certainty. The Silence – God's silence – the negative imprint. Therefore, they constitute a trilogy." In these films, we see the struggle to reconcile opposing forces. The teachings of the church with the realities of its practices. Hope for mankind and a history that casts a shadow on that hope. The plea to God with an the answer that is only silence. An endless search with no conclusions. 

SWISS ARMY MAN

 AUDIO 1
 So, I'm going to say the word “fart” a lot in this episode, so let's just get all the giggles out of the way now. Fart, fart, fart, fart, fart. OK? Great. Swiss Army Man is a 2016 film directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Schienert. Hank is marooned on an island. Preparing to hang himself, he spots a corpse washing up on the shore. The corpse still has excess gas, and somehow has the ability to propel himself across the water. Hank uses the corpse to cross the ocean and come home. The corpse appears to come alive again. Hank names him Manny, and the duo travel across a forest to make it back to civilization. Along the way, Hank teaches Manny about life, love and friendship. Hank is introverted, depressed, shy and unlucky in love. He fears social situations, especially romantic, and worries what the world will think of him. Manny does not understand this, saying whatever comes to mind without a filter. Manny sees a picture of a woman on Hank's phone, believing it is his own phone instead. Hank lies to Manny in hopes of bolstering the corpse's spirits about his chances for love.
 Hank and Manny wonder if they should even rejoin society since they have found companionship with each other. Manny learns the truth, forgives Hank and forces his friend to visit the woman in the phone. It is revealed that Hank does not actually know the woman, or more accurately, she does not know him. As paramedics prepare to take Manny away, Hank escapes with him, and to the surprise of everyone, the living corpse is able to propel himself out to sea again, confirming that Manny was more than a figment of Hank's imagination.
 [clip]
 AUDIO 2
 In Swiss Army Man, the body becomes a metaphor for the entire human experience – it's messy and disgusting and has an inevitability of decaying. Hank teaches Manny about being alive through the only thing the corpse can understand: his own impossible body. Manny gets an erection, and both he and Hank are terrified – much in the way that people are ashamed of sex. Hank eventually calms him down, tells him he is not disgusting and that it is perfectly natural. Yet, in spite of this logic, we don't always think that way about sex. We have attached so much shame to it. And that brings us to...farts. Manny does not understand why Hank is so embarrassed and uncomfortable about farting. Manny farts all the time. He can't help it, and he doesn't understand why society would find this so forbidden. Hank does not have an answer for it, only that it's “weird” and that people don't like it when someone is weird.
 The farts are the film's catch-all for shame. For embarrassment. Hiding who we are, hiding our shame, hiding what we don't think people will like or accept. Hiding...our farts. We all suffer through the all-seeing eye of society. Always watching, always judging, but some people have it worse than others. Hank is clearly an introvert, and more than that, he obviously suffers from some form of social anxiety disorder. He is incapable of talking to other people. It sounds...so simple to people who don't suffer from this anxiety. It sounds so easy to just walk up to someone and speak, but for some, it is so crippling. It is insurmountable because the fear of embarrassing yourself is so great that it makes the whole thing seem impossible, and Heaven forbid you actually do something to embarrass yourself because that will be a constant, intrusive thought for days, if not weeks.   
 AUDIO 3
 Hank also teaches Manny about human waste – a metaphor for death. The garbage of what we once were. So, where is the intersection between farts – meaning being ashamed of oneself – and love? As Hank and Manny grow closer due to their experiences and make-believe courtship, they find that they should not be ashamed of love and that a loving version of yourself and be your true self. You can have honest experiences when you are in love instead of being in a relationship and hiding who you really are. Because that's what people do. They go on their first date and hide all the crazy and all the baggage, and even when two people become comfortable with each other, that does not necessarily mean they will have honest experiences with one another. It could mean that they are simply “as comfortable” as they can be. “As comfortable” as they are permitted. They might still...hold back and not share their true self – only the best, most socially acceptable version of themselves that is worth seeing and worth dating and worth loving.
 Love can be full of shame. Hank is ashamed of himself for how he feels about this woman he does not know, and his shame – his unwillingness to speak to her – results in him being, basically, a stalker. The police find pictures of the woman on his phone. The details of how these came to be are never properly revealed, but we can fill in the blanks and put together that they were not attained consensually. When confronted with this, Hank simply says that she seemed happy, and that he was not happy. Her reflected happiness was something he needed. This vicarious experience of being comfortable with another person was something missing in his life. It's hard to tell people...that you are lonely. It pushes people away. People...don't like to be around other people when they are sad because they are worried – irrationally – that maybe it's a sickness and that if we're around the sad people, the lonely people, that maybe we'll be sad and lonely too.
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 AUDIO 4
 And so people hide these feelings, these terrible, terrible feelings and do not share them with others. Because reaching out for help makes us feeling vulnerable, and if we reach out, and nobody takes us by our hand, then it is confirmation of what made us feel so lonely in the first place: this dread that maybe we are not worthy of being loved. That maybe if we were better, we wouldn't be lonely in the first place. That maybe if people keep their distance from us, there is a reason, and that the reason is inside us, and not external, and that is so hard to face and so miserable to live with. At the end of the film, the paramedics speculate about Manny. They claim that based on the state of his body, the most likely cause of death was suicide – that he was a “bridge jumper” and that it happens all the time. They say that nobody will claim the body – nobody ever does – and that he will be disposed of. Again, the film tells us about how disposable we see other people. Garbage that is not wanted anymore.   
 After Manny encounters another person besides Hank, he immediately opts of humanity, judging existence to be too painful – but in the end, he resurrects himself to prove the claims of Hank. The ending to Swiss Army Man is so...hopeful and beautiful, and it tells us that when something LOOKS like death, looks like the end, it's actually just a...change...and life can begin again.