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Killer Thriller: The Unabomber Warned Us About Technology. Then He Started Killing People. · Legally Brunette

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Alisa Donovan.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Alisa Donovan here, and this is Killer Thriller.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: For nearly two decades, a mysterious bomber terrorized the country,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: sending increasingly sophisticated bombs through the mail and leaving them
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: in public places. Three people were killed, more than 20
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: were injured, and for years the FBI had no idea
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: who they were looking for. The man behind the bombs
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: was Ted Kaczynski, a former math prodigy who entered.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Harvard at just 16 years old.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: He later abandoned society for a tiny cabin in Montana
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: and became one of the most notorious domestic terrorists in
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: American history. The new Netflix film Unabomber, starring Russell Crowe,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Shailene Woodley, and Jacob Tremblay, goes back to Ted's years
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: at Harvard, where he participated in controversial psychological experiments and
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: also brings to life the massive FBI hunt that eventually
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: brought him down. Joining me today is the film's director,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Janusz Metz. Janusz, welcome to Killer Thriller. Thank you so
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: much for being here. I absolutely loved the film. It's
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: so powerful and You know, it's funny to use words
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: like beautiful for something like this, but it is. It's
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: really so specifically directed and curated, so it's quite powerful.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: For people who.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Haven't seen it yet, can you explain what part of
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: the Unabomber story that you wanted to tell?
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Well, this is really about the years when he went
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: to Harvard. He was accepted into Harvard at the age
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: of 16 because he was a maths prodigy. And he was,
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: you know, had a very high IQ. And when he
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: was at Harvard, he got enrolled into these experiments in
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: sort of, you know, mind control and brainwash that was
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: conducted by the head of the psychology department at the time,
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Professor Henry Murray. And the film really centers on that
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: on the one hand while cross-cutting to the sort of
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: famous manhunt of the Unabomber and sort of the conclusion
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: of that in the mid-90s when they caught him out
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: in his cabin in Montana.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was unfamiliar with the Murray experiments, which
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: is what they are.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Referred to as.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And can you talk a little bit about how much
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: you think those actually affected Ted?
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a good question because we don't know for sure.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, and Ted himself denied that they had any
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: real impact on his, you know, involvement. I mean, I'm
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: not sure that Ted is the best sort of truth
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: victim of his own, you know, mental evolution. Right. And
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: certainly there is a.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: You know, there's been some really interesting research and been
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: some really interesting writing about the Murray experiments and how
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: they actually affected Ted. And there's been other, you know,
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: people that were part of those experiments that have talked
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: about them and have talked about sort of how it
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: affected them, how they developed sort of anxiety symptoms and
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: stuff like that in the wake of those experiments.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: And they were designed to break you down. They were
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: designed to break down your constitution as a human being. Right.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: In order to, you know, impose a new sort of mindset.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: You know, it's the early days of what became the
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: MKUltra experiment.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: And the CIA apparently at that time was very... interested
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: in figuring out if there was ways to affect and
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: control people's thinking. It was all infused by the fear
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: of communism at the end of the day. Right. How
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: can we avoid people being communists? How can we potentially
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: revert communists into not being communists?
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: It's really, and the film does such a great job
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: of juxtaposing that certainly nefarious kind of goal, in my opinion.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: And then also simply being a 16-year-old boy who's trying
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: to figure out all the ins and outs of what
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: that is to be so accelerated as he was and
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: be in an environment that is a.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Pressure cooker in many ways.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about Jacob Tremblay, who's so wonderful.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: He's like an otherworldly presence, this kid.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: He's so I mean, he's not really a child anymore,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: but he's really powerful. And how did that come together,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: the whole cast, really?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Because everyone's terrific.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: It's interesting because, I mean, Jacob was the first piece
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: of the puzzle, right? We have to find who can
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: play Ted Kaczynski at 16. He's not the Unabomber. He's
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: a kid who becomes the Unabomber. And Jacob was brought
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: to my attention And I was like, okay, I've seen Room.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: One of my daughter's favorite films is Luca. And I'm like, okay,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: what does this kid have? Let me see some excerpts.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: Is there any material of his more recent work that
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: hasn't maybe come out yet that I can take a
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: look at? And I saw some takes of stuff that
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: he's done in recent years that hadn't come out at
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: the time. And I thought, well, he's really interesting. I
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: could see that there was someone who was looking for
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: authenticity and had a screen presence and a lack of
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: vanity on screen that felt mesmerizing to me. So I
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: met Jacob and I didn't have to talk to Jacob
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: for a very long time before I had a very
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: strong gut feeling that he was the one. Something about
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: his curiosity and his humbleness and also like, it's kind
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: of like fresh face youth. I thought we needed for Ted.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: So there's a real purity.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: I came off that meeting and I told the producer
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: straight away. I mean, I don't have to meet anyone else.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: I want Jacob for this. So I never thought of
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: anyone else, but Jacob for this role.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Wow. I mean, he really is.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: There's such a purity about him and you really do
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: see the transformation in that. you know, his, his, again,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: that kind of flipping back and forth between this highly
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: intelligent human being and still this little boy.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: It's such a delicate time in any person's development. Like
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: I think he just, he just turned 19 when we
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: were shooting the movie and now he's already, you know,
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: you know, two years after, you know, he's grown up and, and,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: and he's older. Uh, and, uh, I think he could
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: still pull it off, you know, but we certainly got
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: him at the right moment.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: So Ted, getting back to Ted as the person, he
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: went from being a Harvard-educated mathematician and a Berkeley professor
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: to living largely.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Alone in a tiny cabin in Montana.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: What did you come to understand about that transformation?
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, it's a very complex and sort of interrogation.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: You go on a deep dive with the psychology of
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: this kid. We're doing our best to try and understand
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: who he was and maybe what compelled him to become
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: what he became. And it's a piece of narrative fiction
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: that we're trying to contribute to the debate. It's It's
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: not the sort of exhaustive maybe look at Ted, but
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: I think it contributes. And I think one thing that
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: fascinated me was he's someone who probably was a very
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: sensitive kid, probably had some sort of personality disorder. He
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: was certainly a loner, socially awkward. And he's also super bright.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: So he, it's very hard for him to find, you know,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: friends and companionship and, and he becomes increasingly isolated. And,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: and I think I like to, I, I believe that
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: there was something in Ted that made him think, look, I'm, I,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: if the world doesn't want to, have anything to do
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: with me. I'm going to go live in the woods
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to take my revenge. And I think
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: that's part of the tragedy of the story. That's part
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: of something, part of what we can learn from the
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: story is that social isolation and radicalization go hand in
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: hand with Ted Kaczynski.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: The bombing campaign began. in 1978 when he was 36.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: So what did you come to understand about why he
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: had turned to violence by that point? Were there specifics
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: or just kind of the general progression, you think?
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, our film... kind of leaves him when he
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: walks out of the gates of Harvard. And, you know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: the real life story, as you're kind of laying it
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: out here, there were many years from that moment until
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: he actually started bombing people. Now, we're saying with this
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: film that there was damage done to Ted Kaczynski that
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: probably put him on the track to becoming one. I
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: think there are multiple factors that that contributed to that.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: I don't think it was the Murray experiments on their own.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Solely, right.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: But as a filmmaker, I think it was interesting to
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: leave him at that moment where he kind of jumps
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: off the cliff into the abyss and into that darkness.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: And you say, wow, they hurt a child.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, in that period when they're you know, you're supposed
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: to be kind of really figuring out who you are and, and, um,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: understanding where you fit in the world and what you're
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: good at and what you care about and all the, and, and,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: you know, connecting with people. And if you don't have that,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: if you actually have the reverse, it's.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: And, and I think it's also, I mean, Ted came from,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: you know, a working class background. He skips two years
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: of school because he's so smart that I keep bumping
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: him up. So he, So he feels out of place.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: And he arrives at Harvard. And then suddenly, this professor
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: shines a light on him. And it becomes, in our narrative,
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: and I mean, this is obviously like our sort of
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: appropriation to the story. And we're trying to serve sort
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: of a dramatic justice to and and put that on
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: the table as a, as a sort of poetic expression
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: or an artful expression or exploration into the story that,
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: you know, he was, you know, you can say narratively speaking,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: he found a new father and that father deceived him.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is very much how it feels.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: As a viewer, you are, you.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Feel as though, oh, he's found, he finally found this
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: kind of mentor that can help him, understand his existence.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: And then it's quite the opposite. It's very disturbing.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: In that respect, it's a film. People can look at
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: that story and find their own, explore it in their
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: own ways and discuss it. But I think there's narrative
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: truth to that. And it's not only about Ted Kaczynski.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: It's about a universal story about what it what it
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: means for us to belong in the world and feel
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: like we have a place in the world. And, and
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, if the world tells you, we don't,
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: you know, we don't condone who you are. We don't
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: like what you have to say. We think you're weird.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: At one point, maybe you take that to heart and say, well,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: let me be that guy. But now I'm going to
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: start bombing all of you because I, you know, I'm right.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: And I think that, that break, is where it becomes
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: very dark and very tragical. And I honestly think it's
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: also part of the contribution of this story to understand
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: aspects of things that are going on now in the
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: climate that we're in right now. Yes. People do live
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: in echo chambers. People become polarized. It's part of the
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: moment that we're living in. Absolutely.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, and we've seen many parallel things to this
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: with disenfranchised kids, school shootings, all those sorts of things
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It's extraordinarily important. I believe that we are talking about
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: these things.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: And this is one of the reasons that I think
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: this movie is so, it's just so important to Because,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: you know, we put these things in boxes.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I remember this.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I'm 55, so how old was I when this happened?
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: But I remember this and thinking, oh, you just got
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: the information. Oh, this crazy guy who lived in a cabin.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: End of the story, you know?
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: And that's not enough for us.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: Correct.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: We need to find that and see, you know, yes,
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Ted Kaczynski, you know, was.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Probably mentally ill. He lived in a woods by himself.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: He did these horrendous acts. We can't excuse that. We
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: can never condone it as much as we can look
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: into his thinking, his manifesto, his life story, and try
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: and learn from that. Obviously there's, there's a rupture and
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: the disjuncture, but to not just have the monster, I think,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: you know, we can only learn and get better if
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: we try to learn from these stories and say, yes,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: there was, there are reasons that, you know, um, this
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: kind of thing can happen.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: So he, um, Ted was spotted leaving a bomb in Utah,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: which is the first time that that's when they developed that, the,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: the sketch that became very famous of him. And, um,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: but after that attack, he stopped bombing for more than
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: six years and, um, Did you learn anything while making
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: the film that helped explain why he disappeared for so long?
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's been a deep sort of dive into the
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Ted Kaczynski story and particularly also with the writers, Sam
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: and Nelson, who, you know, they also went to Harvard
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: and had a vested interest in telling this story. And
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: they certainly did a lot of digging into this. But
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: I do think there's an evolution in the guy where
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: he became more and more prolific in creating these bombs.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: And in the beginning, he didn't claim lives. His axe
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: didn't claim any lives. That came later. The better he
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: became at doing that. So he was on a descent
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: into that very dark place. And I don't think... it's
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: probably just an expression of, you know, the trajectory he
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: was on. Right. And then it intensified and he did it,
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: he did it again. There's certainly a lot of evidence
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: to the fact that he got a lot of, you know,
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: satisfaction and pleasure from his father. Right. Right. That's obviously where,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: you know, he... We can put him on the same
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: shelf as a lot of other serial killers. There's that
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: aspect to it. I think, you know, although it's not
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: at the center of our focus point of the story,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: I don't think we're also not shying away from that fact.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, right. Um, Shailene Woodley, who's also so terrific, uh,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: plays FBI.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Agent Joanne Miller, and she gives us the investigative side
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: of the story. Is Joanne a real investigator or a composite?
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Joanne Miller character is a composite. Uh, I mean, there
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: was a Unabombe task force, uh, that worked for, you know,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: what's still, I believe the longest and most expensive manhunt
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: in the history of the FBI. And they were, you know,
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: so many people working on, you know, the pursuit of
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: the Unabomber. And it's a very rich and complex and
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: deep story. What for our purposes, we needed to condensate
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: that into moments that felt like pressure points that we
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: could use dramatically and narratively to talk about, you know,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Ted and Ted's story. So we're not, We haven't made
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: a documentary about the Unabombed Task Force and Ted Kaczynski.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: We made our version of the story. And I think
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: what was important for me was the Joanne Miller character
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: is someone who is an empathetic investigator. She comes from linguistics.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: She uses Ted's words to understand Who is this guy
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: that we're looking for? What happened to him? So in
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: a way, she gives us the segue into the past
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: and understanding Ted Kaczynski. Right. There's not a real life
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Joanne Miller. She's an invention of this story.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Well, ultimately, one of the biggest breaks.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: In the case does come from Ted's own words, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: the government supported publishing his manifesto partly in.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: The hope that someone... That's how they found him.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: His brother and his brother's wife recognized Ted's writing, and
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: they hired a lawyer to approach the FBI, and they
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: provided excerpts of... you know, writings that he had done
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: in the past. And they looked at that and they
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: looked at the similarity of that. And that was kind
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: of how they got to Ted Kaczynski at the end.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Do you think that Ted's determination to be heard was
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: ultimately sort of one of the things that brought him down?
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: I think so. I think he wanted to get a
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: message across. He was so good at you know, leaving
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: false trace, avoiding the investigation.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Like he would do stuff like taping, you know, he
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: apparently had quite big feet, but he would like tape
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: smaller size shoes underneath his own shoes to like leave
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: false footprints. And he would like put false little leads
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: on letters and in fragments of his arms that would
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: leave the investigation astray. And, and, So it wasn't until
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: he published his manifesto, which was the way he wanted
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: to make a mark on the world. He wanted to
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: be heard. He wanted to be taken seriously.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And you can imagine that satisfaction he's getting at pulling
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: the wool over everyone's eyes and sending these, for all
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: intents and purposes, the best people at their jobs, sending
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: them to dead ends.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: He was toying with the FBI. Yeah. Sure, and he
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: kept them running around in circles for 17 years.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: So when the agents finally searched Ted's cabin, they found
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: bomb components, extensive writings in journals, and a completed bomb.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Was there anything about what they discovered inside that cabin
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: that particularly struck you?
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: It's about the fact that things fitted like a hand
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: in a glove, you know? He was the guy. He had.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: All these books about bomb making, but also about radical
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: thinkers and environmental activism. And it informed his line of thinking.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: And then I think the fact that he had a
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: live bomb in his cabin was also proof of the
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: fact that he was a compulsive person. you know, he,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: it was part of his pleasure to, to blow, you know,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: to blow people up basically.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: And, and I think, I think there was a, you know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: he was looking for revenge for what happened to him,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: for being, for not being respected, for not being understood.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: So there is this, you know, this, disruption.
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: Or this kind of disjuncture between the kid that was
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: smarter than everyone else, but that was kind of bullied.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: And was socially awkward. And then he was deceived by
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: this professor that he came to think of as a
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: father figure. And from that moment, he's alone. And he
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: goes deeper and deeper. into that place where he decides
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: to take his revenge. Right. I think it's not just,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: he had an ideology, he had a mission, but he
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: was also, you know, this deeply, um, hurt and troubled
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: and individual. Right. Right.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I think we can't under, you know, stress that or
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: underestimate that enough. I think sometimes we do.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Um, I was going to ask you.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Working that balance in that because you can't normalize what
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: he did. And at the same time, I think there
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: is food for thought in what he did because it
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: not only tells us about what can happen to people
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: that suffer these kind of injuries as human beings that
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Ted did. And at the same time, his thinking was
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: you know, if you take the violence out of his thinking,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: he wasn't irrational. There was, you know, it's interesting what
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: he has to say about technology and the alienation of,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: you know, us as human beings. And, you know, we're
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: living now, we're looking, we're only scratching the surface of
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: what AI, et cetera, is going to do to us. And,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: you know, tech corporations and social media, we have no
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: clue where that leaves us. And he's, that's what he's
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: reacting to that this sort of where does technology take us?
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I couldn't help, but in watching this film, you can't help,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: but think of all of those things. That is certainly
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: what I was partly thinking about in, in watching this.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: And I was going to.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Going to ask, how do you navigate telling the origin
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: story of a terrorist without excusing the harm he caused?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: But we were kind of answering that question and, I.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Think he had to start the film with one of
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: his victims and, you know, the absolute horrendous tragedy of that. Right.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Not trying to shy away or excuse him in any sense.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: His story is certainly, you know, interesting to introspect because
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: it does shine a light on a lot of things,
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: not only psychologically but also in terms of, you know,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: the world we're living in today.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Is there anything that you deliberately left out of Ted's
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: story for this film?
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: It's such an expansive, complex, and nuanced story that there
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: was a lot of things that we just didn't have
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: the time to tell in the time span of a
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: feature film. At the same time, you know, I like
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: the format of of a narrative feature, even though that
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: it kind of, it's kind of constraints you in terms
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: of time and, you know, the scope of the story.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: But I, I think when you compress a story, hopefully,
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: hopefully you're taking that, you know, complex piece of reality
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: that you could keep embroidering and you're pushing it into
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: something that becomes deeper and taller in a way.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes. The story is, you know.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: That's a great analogy.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: Becomes more poignant in that sense.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: And I also, you know, I want to say we,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: I clearly talk a lot on this podcast about, we're
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: talking about people's trauma, sometimes usually the worst moments of
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: their lives, et cetera.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Um, but there is a real.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Um, importance to not exploiting these things, but actually helping
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: us to understand the human condition. And I feel like this,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: this movie really does that, um, you know, there's a
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: fine line, but it's a very clear line of, you know,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: helping us to understand as opposed to exploiting something, which is,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: you know, not the case here.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And there's so many moments in Ted Kaczynski's story that
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: you could have like included. And it's also, it's also
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: a movie that invites people to go deeper on. So like,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: you know, you guys are doing this podcast. That's part
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: of that. And there's so much, interesting and rich material
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: out there that you can dive into if you want
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: to learn more about it. I mean, there is a moment,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: I think it's the, you know, his brother David has
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: spoken a lot and his mother when she was still
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: alive and they talked about how when he was a child,
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: I think it was maybe three years old or something,
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: he was hospitalized. and he wasn't allowed to have visits.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: And they say he changed after that. So maybe there's
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: something there where you could say, well, if you leave
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: a child without the love and care of a mother
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: and siblings and a father, et cetera, you may be
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: doing damage to a baby. Irreparable. Irreparable, yeah. Yeah.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Well, this has been such a pleasure to speak with you, Yanis,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: that Unabomber is streaming on Netflix beginning September 25th.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: And I always, again, I will repeat, these kinds of projects.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Are so important.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: And many people that I've spoken with have, Elizabeth Smart
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: said very specifically, why.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Did she tell her story, for example? And she said, we.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Do these things because sometimes telling a narrative story is
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: easier for people outside of it to digest and identify
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: with what's happening. And that's how we actually can understand
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: and move forward, move through. So, um, this is a
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: great movie and I hope.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: It does very well.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: So much.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: It was a pleasure talking to you.