Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 117 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & The Total Horror Of Lobotomy

Transcript

Ep. 117 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & The Total Horror Of Lobotomy · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: If anyone followed me on my gaming channel, they might
0:03
Speaker 1: have seen that I was playing the game Call of Cthulhu.
0:06
Speaker 1: I kind of gave up on it, I probably will
0:08
Speaker 1: return to it at some point, but the thing that
0:11
Speaker 1: made me stop playing it was that I started to
0:13
Speaker 1: reread Lovecraft, and it kind of made me realize how
0:16
Speaker 1: unloved Craftian the game was. I think this is a
0:20
Speaker 1: problem that plays a lot of Lovecraft adaptations, whether it's
0:23
Speaker 1: movies or video games. You can insert as much Lovecraftian
0:27
Speaker 1: lore as you want, but in my opinion this doesn't
0:30
Speaker 1: make it a Lovecraftian horror. I think there's something in
0:34
Speaker 1: Lovecraft writing that is extremely hard to get across in
0:36
Speaker 1: a visual medium, I think maybe that's why it's so
0:39
Speaker 1: hard for people to adapt his works. There's something unseeable
0:43
Speaker 1: or unexplainable in his writings, which is very hard to
0:46
Speaker 1: convey when you're showing the thing visually on the screen.
0:50
Speaker 1: So when I started hearing reviews of The Color Outer Space,
0:53
Speaker 1: I got pretty excited. As people were saying it was
0:57
Speaker 1: one of the most faithful adaptations, it was finally Lovecraft
1:01
Speaker 1: done right, and so I was quite excited to see it.
1:04
Speaker 1: It also stars Nicolas Cage, who is kind of a
1:07
Speaker 1: lovely more hate him kind of actor, but I've got
1:10
Speaker 1: to say I do quite enjoy his films, including The
1:13
Speaker 1: Wicker Man. So I thought I would give it a
1:15
Speaker 1: go and see what the fuss was all about. Is
1:19
Speaker 1: it as faithful as people say? So I've got to
1:22
Speaker 1: say the first impression of this film and the most
1:24
Speaker 1: striking thing about it is the visuals. Every scene is
1:28
Speaker 1: just absolutely stunning to look at. It's a film about
1:32
Speaker 1: color as the title might imply, but they've just really
1:35
Speaker 1: gone to town on the color aspect of this story.
1:39
Speaker 1: It's a film that tells its story with color, I think.
1:43
Speaker 1: It seems like the color is the most important thing
1:45
Speaker 1: on the screen at all times. Everything looks like they've
1:49
Speaker 1: boosted up the saturation to maximum, not in a way
1:52
Speaker 1: that looks wholly unnatural. It just gives everything its like
1:56
Speaker 1: gorgeous lush look to it. And it's quite an interesting
1:59
Speaker 1: choice for a horror adaptation, especially with Lovecraft. I know
2:04
Speaker 1: whenever I read the stories in my head they're always
2:07
Speaker 1: very dark, gloomy type of stories, and that's the kind
2:10
Speaker 1: of imagery I have in my head. And generally horror
2:14
Speaker 1: films are not all that colorful. The colors in it
2:17
Speaker 1: remind me almost of the original Suspiria movie. sort of bright,
2:22
Speaker 1: clashing colors that flash in and out on the screen.
2:25
Speaker 1: There's something really important about the color coding in the movie,
2:29
Speaker 1: and I'd love to see someone go through it scene
2:31
Speaker 1: by scene and decode every use of color in the film,
2:34
Speaker 1: because as well as the alien color, there's just so
2:36
Speaker 1: much more going on. I've noticed that almost every indoor
2:41
Speaker 1: scene they seem to be using blue and this orangey-brown
2:43
Speaker 1: color contrast to the game to each other. And then
2:47
Speaker 1: on the outdoor scenes you've got these greens and purples,
2:50
Speaker 1: contrast in, and then each character seems to have their
2:53
Speaker 1: own color coding. For example, the mother character always seems
2:57
Speaker 1: to be wearing some sort of white outfit, and the
3:00
Speaker 1: daughter's always wearing black. The ward character who plays the
3:04
Speaker 1: narrator in the original story, he's always seems to be
3:07
Speaker 1: wearing blue. Nicolas Gage is often seen wearing this red
3:11
Speaker 1: check color, which I think might be a reference to
3:14
Speaker 1: the original story. There is a certain fate that meets
3:17
Speaker 1: his equivalent character in the story, Towards the end the
3:20
Speaker 1: red checked cloth plays some sort of role. So it's
3:24
Speaker 1: probably just a nod towards the original story but yeah
3:28
Speaker 1: I think there's something really important with the color even
3:31
Speaker 1: more than obvious and like I said I'd love to
3:34
Speaker 1: see someone do an analysis of the color in this
3:36
Speaker 1: movie and exactly what the meaning of each color is.
3:40
Speaker 1: Even without deciphering everything going on it's just beautiful to
3:43
Speaker 1: look at. It almost all takes place in the middle
3:47
Speaker 1: of this forest. there's the family who live deep within
3:50
Speaker 1: this woodland. And so every background is just this sea
3:54
Speaker 1: of green. At the beginning of the movie, everything just
3:57
Speaker 1: starts out just beautiful green in the background, and then
4:00
Speaker 1: you get these sort of traces of purple weaved fruit things.
4:04
Speaker 1: The idea of like a purple spiral, it always seems
4:07
Speaker 1: to represent something unnatural. For example, the purple unnatural hair
4:12
Speaker 1: dye in Slovenia's hair, sort of spiraling through her hair,
4:16
Speaker 1: and then when they go to where Tommy Chong's character,
4:19
Speaker 1: they go towards his house, and he's got these ribbons
4:21
Speaker 1: wrapped around to the trees and spiral shapes in the
4:24
Speaker 1: same purple color. It seems to sort of try and
4:27
Speaker 1: get this idea in your head from the start that
4:29
Speaker 1: this purple magenta color is a kind of unnatural source
4:32
Speaker 1: among the greenery and natural colors of the woodland. It's
4:36
Speaker 1: kind of an obvious signal, but it's a nice little
4:39
Speaker 1: bit of foreshadowing. So basically, the basic plot of the story,
4:44
Speaker 1: and I'm going to try not to give too many
4:46
Speaker 1: strong spoilers here, but there will be some mild ones.
4:50
Speaker 1: A meteorite lands in Nicolas Cage's front garden, and then
4:53
Speaker 1: within the meteorite is the color from outer space. I
4:57
Speaker 1: think when Lovecraft was originally writing the story, he wanted
5:00
Speaker 1: to convey an alien presence that was so incomprehensible to
5:03
Speaker 1: human minds that the only way they had to describe
5:06
Speaker 1: it was of being a color. So in the original story,
5:09
Speaker 1: he describes it as a color which they've never seen before.
5:13
Speaker 1: It's like an unimaginable color. It's something that doesn't exist
5:18
Speaker 1: in our human world. It's a color that shouldn't exist
5:21
Speaker 1: in nature. Obviously, you can't just invent a new color,
5:26
Speaker 1: so they've used this like magenta color, but I was
5:28
Speaker 1: actually looking on at IMDB and they've got some interesting
5:31
Speaker 1: trivia about the use of the color. They use magenta
5:35
Speaker 1: because it's a color that doesn't exist from a single
5:37
Speaker 1: wavelength of light as part of the color spectrum of
5:40
Speaker 1: visible light. I don't really understand what that means to
5:43
Speaker 1: be honest. It's an extra spectral color that is only
5:47
Speaker 1: perceived by humans in a specific interaction of the optical rods.
5:52
Speaker 1: So anyway, there's an interesting explanation of why they use magenta,
5:56
Speaker 1: but obviously it's a decent replacement for the indescribable color
6:00
Speaker 1: of the original story, and it looks absolutely stunning in
6:03
Speaker 1: the archive. You've got this kind of idea of this
6:06
Speaker 1: magenta color slowly starting to invade the lush greenery of
6:09
Speaker 1: their surroundings, and first it starts out, you know, the
6:13
Speaker 1: little flowers start sprouting, and then you see like the
6:16
Speaker 1: tendrils wrapping round a tree, mirroring the coloring in the
6:19
Speaker 1: daughter's hair and the ribbons and the trees. You just
6:22
Speaker 1: get this really interesting sense. This is where they sort
6:26
Speaker 1: of capture the Lovecraftian element the best. There's this slowly
6:30
Speaker 1: creeping into their lives. This magenta color slowly infecting the
6:35
Speaker 1: world around them, and as it begins to infect the
6:37
Speaker 1: world around them, it starts to affect their mental state,
6:41
Speaker 1: and it's done really effectively. I would say for the
6:44
Speaker 1: first two thirds of the movie, this sort of slow
6:46
Speaker 1: creeping in of this color, this alien color, and the
6:50
Speaker 1: beautiful at the beginning of the movie. And also there's
6:53
Speaker 1: a lot of things where they use color to signal
6:55
Speaker 1: danger like where she cracks the egg and has blood
6:58
Speaker 1: in the egg, and the Delizards with the bright colors
7:00
Speaker 1: on them to indicate that they might be poisonous or dangerous.
7:04
Speaker 1: You know, always always using these colors to signal some
7:07
Speaker 1: kind of present danger or illness or something that is
7:10
Speaker 1: out of place or unnatural. It's also really obvious that
7:14
Speaker 1: they are absolutely passionate about Lovecraft. There's so many little
7:19
Speaker 1: references in there, and probably loads that completely went over
7:22
Speaker 1: my head. I'm not like a huge Lovecraft fan, but
7:26
Speaker 1: you know, there's all these like references to things within
7:29
Speaker 1: the Lovecraft universe, and also how it would be in
7:32
Speaker 1: a modern world. So I really like the daughter has
7:36
Speaker 1: the cheap paperback Necronomicon that she's reading, and it is
7:39
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that if this book existed in
7:41
Speaker 1: the real world, this is kind of the format that
7:43
Speaker 1: you would expect to get it in in the modern world.
7:46
Speaker 1: Beautiful film, I really love the atmosphere at the beginning
7:50
Speaker 1: of this creeping, invading. It feels really menacing and you
7:54
Speaker 1: don't really know what's going on, and the way it
7:56
Speaker 1: starts to affect the mentality of the family. I think
8:00
Speaker 1: towards the end, it starts to fall apart slightly though.
8:04
Speaker 1: It gets to a point where it starts to get
8:06
Speaker 1: a bit too crazy. In the original story, the way
8:10
Speaker 1: they call her out of space ultimately affects people and
8:13
Speaker 1: how it affects like livestock is it kind of starts
8:15
Speaker 1: to make them disintegrate. It kind of starts to change
8:19
Speaker 1: things in really subtle ways, like they describe how they
8:22
Speaker 1: keep finding animals, and they can't really tell what's wrong
8:25
Speaker 1: with them, but they've, you know, they find them it's
8:28
Speaker 1: like a woodchuck or something like that, and it's been
8:31
Speaker 1: transformed in some way they can't really tell how it
8:33
Speaker 1: just looks unnatural to them, and they see like a
8:36
Speaker 1: hare leaping across the road or a rabbit, and it's
8:38
Speaker 1: its stride is a bit too long to be normal.
8:42
Speaker 1: It's just something when they see it they can't describe it,
8:44
Speaker 1: it's just something unnatural and uncanny about their creatures the
8:48
Speaker 1: way they've been mutated. The movie doesn't go that subtle,
8:52
Speaker 1: let me just say without getting any spoilers, it's very
8:55
Speaker 1: unsubtle in its conveying of the horror. This is sort
8:58
Speaker 1: of the sum of the parts one don't like that
9:00
Speaker 1: much about the film. It starts to take on a
9:03
Speaker 1: bit of like a body horror vibe, which would be fine,
9:07
Speaker 1: and it's fine for them to stray a bit from
9:08
Speaker 1: the source material, but they rely way too much on
9:11
Speaker 1: computer generated effects to achieve these body horror scenes, and
9:15
Speaker 1: as good as it is, I'm not being down on
9:17
Speaker 1: the people who did these CG effects. It just never
9:21
Speaker 1: looks right, you can always just tell it's not really there,
9:24
Speaker 1: even if they had a slightly cheaper looking practical effect.
9:28
Speaker 1: I just think it would look so much better, it
9:30
Speaker 1: looks so much more realistic, and it's a shame they
9:33
Speaker 1: didn't go with that. I think it starts to slightly
9:36
Speaker 1: fall apart at that point for me the movie, so
9:39
Speaker 1: I'm going to go over some of the things I
9:41
Speaker 1: didn't like in the film. The characters are all kind
9:44
Speaker 1: of a bit stereotypical. You've got an English Cage playing
9:48
Speaker 1: Nicolas Cage, you've got Tommy Chong playing Tommy Chong, you've
9:52
Speaker 1: got the stoner teenagey brother, you've got the wife who's
9:55
Speaker 1: down of cancer, and you've got the small child who
9:57
Speaker 1: basically acts as the creepy kid Simmel. to the one
10:00
Speaker 1: in Poltergeist who goes there, here, basically plays that role,
10:04
Speaker 1: and then you've got the the wife cracking snarky teenager.
10:08
Speaker 1: This role seems to be in every movie these days,
10:11
Speaker 1: I don't know why they always have to insert this
10:13
Speaker 1: sort of character, it's basically the snarky teenage girl character
10:17
Speaker 1: who always has a one line of every scene, I
10:19
Speaker 1: call it the Liv Huseong character. Yeah they did this
10:23
Speaker 1: with the IT movies, they always had to have like
10:26
Speaker 1: witty one-liners whenever something scary happens, and it kind of
10:29
Speaker 1: ended up sort of reducing the horror factor of a
10:31
Speaker 1: lot of scenes, and although it's not too bad in
10:34
Speaker 1: this movie, there is a bit of that, there's a
10:37
Speaker 1: bit of a luller and I'm comedy, I don't know
10:39
Speaker 1: what the obsession of alpacas is, they always have alpacas
10:42
Speaker 1: in there, because it's I don't know. I don't know
10:45
Speaker 1: if it's some reference that goes over my head, but
10:48
Speaker 1: it's a bit sort of. Oh look at us how
10:51
Speaker 1: random we are, we've got alpacas, I don't know, it's
10:54
Speaker 1: good to have a bit of light relief, but I
10:56
Speaker 1: don't know if in this film sometimes it felt a
10:58
Speaker 1: bit out of place, so yeah I was going to
11:00
Speaker 1: go say about the characters in a film, I didn't
11:03
Speaker 1: like him too much because he all felt a bit typical,
11:06
Speaker 1: but you can tell with this movie they're trying to
11:08
Speaker 1: do something very different with a horror movie, and a
11:10
Speaker 1: lot of the characters felt very tropey, if you know
11:13
Speaker 1: what I mean, they felt very like, you'd seen them
11:17
Speaker 1: in every other horror movie. and I kind of wish
11:20
Speaker 1: they'd done something slightly different with the characters as well
11:23
Speaker 1: as the movie itself. The final act of the movie,
11:26
Speaker 1: it all feels a bit muddled, the problem is the
11:29
Speaker 1: beginning of the film builds up so well this horror,
11:32
Speaker 1: and it all sort of ends in a crescendo, and
11:34
Speaker 1: it all feels a bit sort of, they're just throwing
11:37
Speaker 1: a load of things at your load of elements, and
11:39
Speaker 1: whereas I think if they went a bit more slow,
11:42
Speaker 1: a bit more slow-paced and subtle with the horrors, it
11:45
Speaker 1: would be more effective. For example, I think there's some
11:48
Speaker 1: genuinely creepy moments, for example, when there's something that happens
11:52
Speaker 1: to the mother and the younger son, when it first
11:55
Speaker 1: reveals what happens to them, it's pretty horrific. You feel like,
12:00
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's horrible, and the reactions of the
12:03
Speaker 1: family are really good, and you kind of feel that
12:05
Speaker 1: horror along with them, and then they just kind of,
12:08
Speaker 1: they don't know much else with it, they don't explore
12:11
Speaker 1: the horror of that situation enough. and I think they
12:13
Speaker 1: could have explored this idea a little bit more, what
12:16
Speaker 1: they do with the mother and the younger son is
12:18
Speaker 1: pretty horrific, and I think they could have sort of
12:21
Speaker 1: explored the family's reaction to that a little bit more
12:23
Speaker 1: than they do, like you school a little bit further
12:27
Speaker 1: with it. And there's another really good moment where they
12:30
Speaker 1: go back to Tommy Jong's house, and there's just this
12:33
Speaker 1: sound from outside, just the sound design at this moment,
12:36
Speaker 1: and the film is really good, it has a really
12:39
Speaker 1: sinister effect, I think. It shows real moments of horror,
12:43
Speaker 1: but it's kind of interspersed at this point with a
12:46
Speaker 1: lot of very noisy scenes, a lot of very bright
12:48
Speaker 1: flashing colors that are slightly disorientating, and I think it
12:52
Speaker 1: kind of takes away from the horror in certain scenes,
12:55
Speaker 1: it gets a bit kind of a bit over the top.
12:58
Speaker 1: I'm not being too down on the movie, I just
13:00
Speaker 1: think towards the end it could have been torn down
13:02
Speaker 1: a little bit. I understand what they're doing with the colors,
13:06
Speaker 1: but it gets so bright and psychedelic that it actually
13:08
Speaker 1: becomes quite difficult to watch. It's like I was getting
13:12
Speaker 1: a headache at some point, I remember there was a
13:15
Speaker 1: scene where there was like this a blue flashing light
13:17
Speaker 1: from a police car, and it was interspersed with this
13:20
Speaker 1: bright magenta color, and it was flashing across people's faces,
13:23
Speaker 1: and it was just like I was getting a headache
13:25
Speaker 1: from watching it, it was so disorientating, and you know
13:28
Speaker 1: it's interesting visually, but it's not horrific, it's not a
13:32
Speaker 1: scary scene. It kind of like that they tried to
13:35
Speaker 1: do something slightly different with what the color does to
13:38
Speaker 1: people and what it does to the animals. but I
13:40
Speaker 1: think if they were going to go with CG effects,
13:42
Speaker 1: I think if they stuck with what it says in
13:44
Speaker 1: the book, it would have been more interesting, like in
13:47
Speaker 1: the book, everything sort of turns grey and starts to
13:50
Speaker 1: disintegrate as if it sort of turned into ash, and
13:52
Speaker 1: I think they could have done that quite well with
13:54
Speaker 1: computer generated effects, but I think what they went with
13:59
Speaker 1: it all looked a bit cartoony, a bit slightly silly,
14:02
Speaker 1: a lot of the CG kind of took me out
14:04
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere of the movie at that point, but
14:06
Speaker 1: there were things that they changed from the original story
14:09
Speaker 1: that I had to like, I think in the Lovecraft's
14:11
Speaker 1: original short story, in the final scene, he introduced like
14:15
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of characters that haven't been introduced in
14:17
Speaker 1: the rest of the story. Like the big climax of
14:20
Speaker 1: the story involves a bunch of people that you don't,
14:23
Speaker 1: apart from the narrator, you. Don't really know any of
14:27
Speaker 1: the other characters, I think they do a better job,
14:30
Speaker 1: it sort of combines two different parts of the original
14:32
Speaker 1: story to make the end of the movie, which they
14:34
Speaker 1: do that I think in a better way. All in all,
14:38
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the movie. I don't want to sound like
14:40
Speaker 1: I'm being down on it, I'm trying to list the
14:42
Speaker 1: things that I didn't like, but I really like that
14:45
Speaker 1: there's a modern horror movie that they've tried to do
14:47
Speaker 1: something different with, I see so many trailers for horror
14:50
Speaker 1: movies coming out and it just looks like every other
14:53
Speaker 1: horror movie I've seen for the last 10 years or so.
14:56
Speaker 1: You can tell immediately like beat for beat everything that's
14:58
Speaker 1: going to happen in that movie, just from watching a trailer.
15:02
Speaker 1: And it's just refreshing to see them finally do something
15:05
Speaker 1: a bit different, the visuals and everything with the movie,
15:08
Speaker 1: it's completely unique, the only thing I can compare it
15:11
Speaker 1: to really is Annihilation, and I think Annihilation is quite
15:14
Speaker 1: inspired by The Color Out of Space, I think maybe
15:17
Speaker 1: Annihilation does an even better job of being Lovecraftian than
15:20
Speaker 1: The Color Out of Space does. Annihilation kind of to
15:24
Speaker 1: me is like a mashup of Lovecraft and J.D. Ballard's,
15:27
Speaker 1: The Crystal World, it's just kind of like those two
15:30
Speaker 1: books combined almost, I felt like some points this film
15:33
Speaker 1: was trying to emulate Annihilation but not quite doing a
15:36
Speaker 1: good enough job of it, but as I say on
15:38
Speaker 1: a great different horror movie, and interesting enough to elevate
15:41
Speaker 1: it above just the slew of rubbish that comes out
15:44
Speaker 1: these days. I've really got to give the filmmakers kudos
15:47
Speaker 1: for trying something different and being brave. Enough in it,
15:51
Speaker 1: yeah like I say the first the first two thirds
15:54
Speaker 1: of the movie I loved the last third of the
15:55
Speaker 1: movie I didn't like as much but I didn't hate it,
15:58
Speaker 1: it wasn't boring, it was just kind of lost its
16:01
Speaker 1: pacing a little bit, it kind of went a bit
16:03
Speaker 1: too much over the top for me, I say go
16:05
Speaker 1: watch it, it's interesting at least. is it the best
16:08
Speaker 1: Lovecraft adaptation? I don't know, I haven't seen them all,
16:13
Speaker 1: has it captured the feeling of a Lovecraft movie? Possibly yes,
16:17
Speaker 1: it's got the sort of weird unexplained even towards the
16:20
Speaker 1: end of it, you don't quite know what the horror is,
16:23
Speaker 1: it leaves enough questions in your mind, this is what
16:26
Speaker 1: I like about Lovecraft is, you'll describe things in detail,
16:29
Speaker 1: but you'll leave enough out for your mind to sort
16:31
Speaker 1: of turn it over, I'll give you an example. the
16:34
Speaker 1: mountains of madness are re-raising it and the way they
16:37
Speaker 1: describe the city in the book. They give such a
16:39
Speaker 1: detailed account of the structures of the buildings, when they
16:43
Speaker 1: enter this forgotten city, they give such a detailed account
16:46
Speaker 1: of all the structures of the buildings, how they're built,
16:49
Speaker 1: what material they made out of all the rock, you
16:52
Speaker 1: could probably just draw a picture and accurate map of
16:54
Speaker 1: the city just from the description, but there's enough in
16:57
Speaker 1: the descriptions to know that there's something unnatural about it,
17:00
Speaker 1: that the narrator can't describe, and although you build up
17:03
Speaker 1: in your mind this accurate image of the city, it
17:06
Speaker 1: leaves something out because the narrator can't quite tell you
17:10
Speaker 1: what it is, it's just something unnatural and evil about it,
17:14
Speaker 1: it kind of causes you to turn this image of
17:16
Speaker 1: the city around in your head and ponder on it,
17:18
Speaker 1: and that's kind of I think where the horror is,
17:21
Speaker 1: it's indescribable, and I think this movie does a good
17:23
Speaker 1: job of conveying that sort of or knowable horror, it
17:26
Speaker 1: does a good job of capturing that essence of the
17:29
Speaker 1: weird cosmic horror that you can't quite place in your mind,
17:32
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite make sense to a human brain, and
17:35
Speaker 1: I think I think people who read Lovecraft will have a,
17:39
Speaker 1: or will have their own opinion on what makes a
17:41
Speaker 1: Lovecraftian horror, but for me it does a fairly good
17:44
Speaker 1: job and I would recommend it and I've heard them
17:46
Speaker 1: making like two more in the same series, so I'll
17:48
Speaker 1: be excited to see them, I'll definitely be watching them
17:51
Speaker 1: when they come out, now if you've seen it let
17:53
Speaker 1: me know what you think as well, I'll be interested
17:55
Speaker 1: to know whether people will enjoy it or not, oh
17:58
Speaker 1: I know what I need to say as well or,
18:01
Speaker 1: Something else, you'll notice more and more as you rewatch it,
18:04
Speaker 1: there seems to be a lot of symbolism and images
18:07
Speaker 1: in there which you might not spot on the first
18:08
Speaker 1: time around or you might not make the connections, for
18:11
Speaker 1: example at the beginning of the film when Lavinere is
18:14
Speaker 1: doing that weird ritual, you see these dull legs hung
18:17
Speaker 1: up in the tree in a kind of swastika pattern,
18:19
Speaker 1: and then later on which I didn't realize. I didn't
18:22
Speaker 1: spot it first as they're going towards Tommy Chong's house,
18:25
Speaker 1: you see it dull hung. Up in the tree there
18:28
Speaker 1: and it kind of, I didn't make the connection at
18:31
Speaker 1: first but then I think well I wonder if there's
18:33
Speaker 1: some connection between Tommy Chong's, oh he's, his character is
18:37
Speaker 1: called Ezra, between Ezra and Lavinere that isn't quite explained
18:40
Speaker 1: in the movie but maybe rewatching it you'll see more
18:43
Speaker 1: links between these different characters. It seems like the kind
18:46
Speaker 1: of movie where there's going to be a lot of
18:48
Speaker 1: these like little weird symbols and easter eggs and things
18:50
Speaker 1: to spot and I think. re-watching it you'll get more
18:54
Speaker 1: out of it so yeah that was another thing i
18:56
Speaker 1: think might be important is probably a movie that requires
18:59
Speaker 1: a few viewings to appreciate fully in the past the
19:03
Speaker 1: mentally ill were herded behind bars chained and beaten insanity
19:06
Speaker 1: was looked upon as a disgraceful mysterious disease with no
19:10
Speaker 1: hope of pure today the picture is changing iron bars
19:13
Speaker 1: are giving way to modern safety and to new ideas
19:16
Speaker 1: on the cause and treatment of mental illness In the
19:19
Speaker 1: annals of medical history there looks one of the most
19:21
Speaker 1: infamous and tragic procedures ever conceived, a procedure that's in
19:25
Speaker 1: an attempt to cure the human mind would leave many
19:28
Speaker 1: people as empty husks of their former selves. The 21st
19:32
Speaker 1: century has witnessed significant breakthroughs in human brain research but
19:35
Speaker 1: the path to modern neuroscience has been rather dark marked
19:39
Speaker 1: by brutal medical experiments and accidents. In 1848 a young
19:44
Speaker 1: foreman named Phineas Cage was at work preparing a railroad bed.
19:48
Speaker 1: The terrain was rocky and then even requiring multiple holes
19:51
Speaker 1: to be drilled into the rock and filled with black powder.
19:55
Speaker 1: These black powder charges were meant to be covered with clay.
19:59
Speaker 1: Phineas used a tamping iron, a 13-pound metal rod to
20:03
Speaker 1: press each explosive charge tightly into the hole. These charges
20:08
Speaker 1: would then be detonated from a safe distance. Unfortunately things
20:12
Speaker 1: didn't go as planned that day. Whilst it was distracted,
20:16
Speaker 1: Gage's tamping iron must have caught on a piece of
20:19
Speaker 1: rock as it was compressing the explosive charge. This caused
20:23
Speaker 1: a spark which ignited the black powder. The ensuing explosion
20:27
Speaker 1: turned the tamping iron into a projectile. It shot upwards
20:31
Speaker 1: and struck him in the face just below the cheekbones.
20:35
Speaker 1: It went straight up through his head and exited the
20:37
Speaker 1: top of his skull. The tamping iron itself landed 80
20:41
Speaker 1: feet away, covered in blood and brain matter. When his
20:45
Speaker 1: co-workers saw what had happened, they were sure that Phineas
20:48
Speaker 1: was dead and they rushed to check on him and, too,
20:51
Speaker 1: their astonishment they discovered that he was still alive and conscious.
20:56
Speaker 1: A doctor who later arrived on the scene said, I
20:58
Speaker 1: first noticed the wound upon the head before I alighted
21:01
Speaker 1: from my carriage. the pulsations of the brain being very distinct.
21:06
Speaker 1: The top of his head appeared somewhat like an inverted funnel,
21:10
Speaker 1: as if some wet-shaped body had passed from below upward.
21:13
Speaker 1: Gage got up and vomited. The effort of vomiting pressed
21:18
Speaker 1: out about half a teacup full of brain which fell
21:20
Speaker 1: upon the floor. Phineas had survived the injury, or rather
21:24
Speaker 1: some of him had survived. When about ten weeks later
21:28
Speaker 1: his wounds were healed, he got ready to return to work.
21:32
Speaker 1: At this point it became clear that something wasn't quite right.
21:36
Speaker 1: This man who had once been well-liked and had many
21:39
Speaker 1: friends became fitful, irreverent and grossly profane, showing little deference
21:43
Speaker 1: for his fellows. He quickly lost his job and his friends,
21:48
Speaker 1: those who knew Phineas before the accident claimed that he
21:50
Speaker 1: was no longer Gage. Naturally these events gained a lot
21:54
Speaker 1: of attention and it sparked a debate. How was Gage
21:58
Speaker 1: able to survive and why did his personality change? For
22:02
Speaker 1: the time being science had no answer. In 1874 an
22:07
Speaker 1: article was published in the American Journal of Medical Sciences.
22:11
Speaker 1: In this article a man named Robert Bartholow describes the
22:14
Speaker 1: case of a young woman named Mary Rafferty. She had
22:18
Speaker 1: been brought to him whilst he was working in the hospital.
22:21
Speaker 1: Mary was unique. As an infant she'd fallen into a
22:25
Speaker 1: fire which had severely burned her scalp. Her hair had
22:29
Speaker 1: never grown back so she was forced to weigh wigs
22:32
Speaker 1: throughout her life. Unfortunately the friction from a whalebone in
22:36
Speaker 1: her wig caused an ulcer to appear on her head.
22:40
Speaker 1: A year later part of her skull had been eroded
22:42
Speaker 1: and there was a hole around 2 inches in diameter.
22:45
Speaker 1: Through this infected wound the pulsations of the brain were
22:48
Speaker 1: plainly seen. Mary had been brought to him because her
22:52
Speaker 1: brain seemed to be infected. The exposed part was covered
22:56
Speaker 1: in a greenish ooze although Bartholow noted that this infection
22:59
Speaker 1: didn't seem to affect Mary's behavior. At this time scientists
23:04
Speaker 1: were conducting experiments on dogs' brains, injecting corrosive substances into
23:09
Speaker 1: their brains to determine which part controlled specific functions. No
23:13
Speaker 1: doctor had ever had the chance to experiment on our
23:16
Speaker 1: living human brain before. Instead of trying to help the
23:20
Speaker 1: young woman Bartholow decided to conduct a series of experiments
23:23
Speaker 1: on her. He inserted electrodes into her brain through the
23:27
Speaker 1: infected hole in her skull and ran an electrical current
23:30
Speaker 1: through them. In his article Bartholow wrote, when communication was
23:34
Speaker 1: made with the needles her countenance exhibited a great distress
23:37
Speaker 1: and she began to cry. Very soon the left hand
23:41
Speaker 1: was extended as if in an act of taking hold
23:43
Speaker 1: of some object in front of her. The arm presently
23:47
Speaker 1: was agitated with clonic spasms. Her eyes became fixed with
23:51
Speaker 1: pupils widely dilated. Lips were blue and she frothed at
23:56
Speaker 1: the mouth. Her breathing became stenorious. She lost consciousness and
24:01
Speaker 1: was violently convulsed on the left side. The convulsions lasted
24:06
Speaker 1: five minutes and was succeeded by coma. He wanted to
24:10
Speaker 1: continue these experiments but Mary passed away as the infection
24:13
Speaker 1: spread and covered her entire brain in a thick layer
24:16
Speaker 1: of greenish-yellow pus. Naturally the publication of this article caused
24:21
Speaker 1: a widespread outcry and this effectively stopped any research of
24:24
Speaker 1: that nature in America for the time being. That was
24:28
Speaker 1: until Walter Freeman came along. Walter Freeman was an American
24:32
Speaker 1: neurologist with a mission. He came from a long line
24:36
Speaker 1: of successful medical professionals and was determined to leave his
24:39
Speaker 1: own mark on the history of medicine. As a neurologist
24:43
Speaker 1: he'd spent a lot of time working with patients suffering
24:45
Speaker 1: from psychiatric problems and he was painfully aware that medicine
24:49
Speaker 1: had very little to offer them other than a straitjacket
24:51
Speaker 1: in a mental institution. In 1935 Freeman attended a conference
24:56
Speaker 1: in London and he was shown a case involving two
24:59
Speaker 1: chimpanzees Becky and Lucy. These chimpanzees had been fairly aggressive
25:04
Speaker 1: and quite difficult to work with. The scientists theorized that
25:08
Speaker 1: cutting open skulls and removing the frontal lobes would make
25:11
Speaker 1: both these chimps more docile. The theory turned out to
25:14
Speaker 1: be correct. After parts of their brains were surgically removed,
25:19
Speaker 1: Becky and Lucy became more relaxed, calmer and they were
25:22
Speaker 1: no longer aggressive. The surgery did seem to damage some
25:26
Speaker 1: of their mental abilities. After the procedure the chimps seemed
25:30
Speaker 1: to be making more mistakes during cognitive tests but nevertheless
25:34
Speaker 1: the operation seemed very promising. promising enough to try on
25:37
Speaker 1: human brains. The procedure was called a leucotomy and it
25:41
Speaker 1: had a success rate of about 35%. There was also
25:46
Speaker 1: a significant risk of the individual becoming epileptic, disabled or
25:50
Speaker 1: even dying as a result of the procedure. Whilst these
25:53
Speaker 1: numbers seemed pretty shocking today, back then there was no
25:57
Speaker 1: real alternative. Leucotomy offered at least a glimmer of hope
26:01
Speaker 1: for those who were previously considered beyond help. With these
26:05
Speaker 1: ideas in mind, Walter Freeman returned to the USA. He
26:10
Speaker 1: changed the name of the procedure to the lobotomy and
26:12
Speaker 1: in 1936 with his partner neurosurgeon James Watts, they performed
26:16
Speaker 1: the first lobotomy on a patient in the United States.
26:20
Speaker 1: Their first patient was Alice Hammett, a housewife from Topeka
26:24
Speaker 1: who was plagued by anxiety, insomnia, and crushing depression for
26:28
Speaker 1: most of her life. She was also prone to nervous
26:31
Speaker 1: breakdowns and was plagued by extremely dark thoughts. Since Freeman
26:36
Speaker 1: wasn't actually a surgeon, Watts had to do most of
26:39
Speaker 1: the work. He was tasked with drilling holes into both
26:42
Speaker 1: sides of the person's head or on top of the skull.
26:46
Speaker 1: He was also responsible for cutting the neural connections between
26:49
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex and other parts of the brain. The
26:53
Speaker 1: prefrontal cortex is responsible for complex cognitive behavior, personality expression,
26:58
Speaker 1: decision-making and moderating social behavior. Essentially everything that makes you
27:04
Speaker 1: who you are as a person, It's also responsible for
27:06
Speaker 1: long-term planning so if a person loses access to that
27:10
Speaker 1: part of their brain, all of their goals and dreams vanish.
27:14
Speaker 1: And so Alice had the operation, a hole was drilled
27:17
Speaker 1: and the prefrontal cortex was severed. After the operation, it
27:21
Speaker 1: seemed like Alice was completely cured. When she recovered from
27:25
Speaker 1: the surgery, she no longer seemed depressed. Her anxiety seemed
27:30
Speaker 1: to be all gone and overall she seemed to be
27:32
Speaker 1: much more calm. The press praised Freeman and the first
27:36
Speaker 1: lobotomy in the USA was considered to be a great success.
27:41
Speaker 1: This was despite the fact that soon after the lobotomy,
27:44
Speaker 1: Alice had begun stuttering and at times she seemed to
27:46
Speaker 1: suddenly become disorientated. Some months after the surgery Alice suffered
27:51
Speaker 1: from a violent convulsion, this was like the air side
27:54
Speaker 1: effect of the lobotomy. The convulsions were so violent that
27:58
Speaker 1: she broke her wrist. Most disturbing however was that there
28:02
Speaker 1: was a change in her demeanor. Reportedly for some time
28:06
Speaker 1: after that incident she become more indolent and sometimes abusive.
28:11
Speaker 1: Alice died from pneumonia in 1941. This was five years
28:15
Speaker 1: after her lobotomy which meant that it was impossible to
28:18
Speaker 1: observe any long-term side effects from her surgery. In the
28:22
Speaker 1: meantime Freeman and what received more glowing praise from the press,
28:26
Speaker 1: the lobotomy was called a soul healing procedure. With this
28:30
Speaker 1: endorsement from the press, Freeman and what began to carry
28:33
Speaker 1: out more and more lobotomies. By the early 1940s the
28:38
Speaker 1: procedure had gained worldwide popularity. This rise in popularity did
28:43
Speaker 1: bring with it more scrutiny. People began to notice that
28:46
Speaker 1: after a lobotomy the patient would appear to be altered
28:49
Speaker 1: and not in a good way. They appeared to lack
28:52
Speaker 1: any sense of spontaneity, no desire to do anything unless
28:55
Speaker 1: they were prompted by another person. They often displayed a
28:59
Speaker 1: complete lack of initiative in starting conversations or taking any
29:03
Speaker 1: kind of physical action. Although in many cases their mental
29:07
Speaker 1: health problems were gone, they were left empty and lifeless,
29:10
Speaker 1: mere shadows of who they had once been. Eventually even
29:14
Speaker 1: Freeman had to acknowledge the side effects but remarkably he
29:18
Speaker 1: was able to spin it. He turned it into a
29:20
Speaker 1: marketing opportunity. He said that lobotomized patients made nice household pets.
29:27
Speaker 1: Freeman's career flourished. By 1941 he was advertising the procedure
29:32
Speaker 1: as being nothing more complicated than a tooth extraction and
29:35
Speaker 1: he said that it was perfectly safe. His most famous
29:39
Speaker 1: patient was Rosemary Kennedy. She had been secretly admitted for
29:43
Speaker 1: a lobotomy by her father. This had been kept secret
29:47
Speaker 1: even from her other family members. Since her youth she
29:51
Speaker 1: displayed signs of a slight cognitive disability and as she
29:54
Speaker 1: got older Rosemary also experienced seizures and violent outbursts. She
29:59
Speaker 1: was a difficult child who didn't fit in well with
30:02
Speaker 1: the extremely ambitious Kennedy family. Freeman and Watts drilled a
30:06
Speaker 1: hole into the top of a skull under local anesthesia.
30:10
Speaker 1: Freeman preferred local anesthesia because he could hold a conversation
30:14
Speaker 1: with the patients whilst he observed changes in their behavior
30:17
Speaker 1: whilst Watts sliced into their brains. During a lobotomy Rosemary
30:22
Speaker 1: was asked to sing God Bless America whilst the connections
30:25
Speaker 1: between her frontal lobe and the thalamus were being cut.
30:28
Speaker 1: Tragically it appears that Freeman who was supposed to stop
30:31
Speaker 1: Watts at the right moment hesitated for too long. There
30:35
Speaker 1: was one final cut and Rosemary suddenly fell silent. At
30:39
Speaker 1: that moment her personality ambitions and desires were gone forever.
30:44
Speaker 1: Immediately after the procedure the Kennedys realized that something was
30:48
Speaker 1: very wrong with their daughter Rosemary was completely paralyzed and silent.
30:53
Speaker 1: It would take months of therapy before she could even
30:55
Speaker 1: move with time she gained partial use of one arm.
30:59
Speaker 1: She also had one leg permanently turned inwards and she
31:02
Speaker 1: was unable to control her bodily functions. Horrified with what
31:06
Speaker 1: had happened to their daughter Rosemary's family looked her away
31:09
Speaker 1: in a mental institution thousands of miles away from home.
31:13
Speaker 1: After many months in the institution and many therapy sessions
31:16
Speaker 1: later Rosemary began to speak again sort of. Until the
31:20
Speaker 1: end of her life she could only speak through a
31:22
Speaker 1: mix of garbled sounds and random words. For 20 years
31:27
Speaker 1: nobody from Rosemary's family even visited her. It was only
31:31
Speaker 1: after her father and Joe Kennedy died from a stroke
31:34
Speaker 1: that Rosemary's mother decided to go and see her. Despite
31:38
Speaker 1: Rosemary's emotional bluntness she reacted with a panicked rage when
31:41
Speaker 1: she saw her mother. Rosemary's lobotomy had reduced her mental
31:46
Speaker 1: capabilities to the level of a two-year-old child. She required
31:50
Speaker 1: constant care for the rest of her life. When asked
31:54
Speaker 1: about this incident her mother reportedly said Rosemary's mind is
31:57
Speaker 1: gone completely. This was due to an accident which I
32:01
Speaker 1: don't really discuss. Freeman advertised the lobotomy as a precise
32:05
Speaker 1: and simple solution. He said it could fix headaches, mood swings,
32:10
Speaker 1: insomnia and even digestive problems. Despite what he said it
32:15
Speaker 1: was in fact extremely risky and imprecise. Neither what no
32:19
Speaker 1: Freeman could have any certainty about the exact kind of
32:22
Speaker 1: damage they were causing in the patient's brain. Although as
32:26
Speaker 1: far as their mental conditions were concerned most patients did
32:29
Speaker 1: show some sign of improvement immediately after the surgery. Many
32:33
Speaker 1: of them relapsed within a few months. This meant that
32:37
Speaker 1: some of Freeman's patients were lobotomized two or three times.
32:41
Speaker 1: In his book titled Cycle Surgery Freeman discusses cases of
32:45
Speaker 1: lobotomies that he deemed to be his most successful which
32:47
Speaker 1: also makes you wonder how bad the cases are that
32:50
Speaker 1: he didn't include in the book. One case in the
32:53
Speaker 1: book involves a woman who had struggled with depression for
32:56
Speaker 1: four years. Freeman lobotomized on September 18, 1937. He wrote
33:03
Speaker 1: for several days afterwards the patient was slightly confused and
33:06
Speaker 1: was somewhat more aggressive and less self-pitying than she had
33:09
Speaker 1: been prior to the operation. A second lobotomy was performed
33:13
Speaker 1: on her ten days later. After this the woman could
33:17
Speaker 1: only lie quietly in bed with her eyes closed. She
33:21
Speaker 1: was neither sleeping nor awake responding only when spoken to.
33:25
Speaker 1: Freeman described it as not appearing happy but no longer
33:28
Speaker 1: moaning and whining as she had previously. Over time her
33:32
Speaker 1: condition improved and she no longer complained of depression but
33:35
Speaker 1: I loved ones noticed changes in her behavior. she made
33:39
Speaker 1: plans but she was unable to follow through whenever she
33:43
Speaker 1: planned to do chores like cooking or washing she was
33:46
Speaker 1: unable to carry them out and she just sat in
33:48
Speaker 1: her chair she would think about going to town but
33:51
Speaker 1: stay home instead she dressed sloppily and often spilled food
33:56
Speaker 1: on herself whilst cooking she often forgot to add simple
34:00
Speaker 1: ingredients In June 1938 she suffered a generalized convulsive attack
34:06
Speaker 1: and continued to experience these convulsions every one or two months.
34:11
Speaker 1: The more lobotomies that he conducted the more obvious it
34:14
Speaker 1: became that even after successful operations patients were left drastically changed.
34:19
Speaker 1: When they weren't being prompted to do something people who
34:21
Speaker 1: had had a lobotomy tended to just sit motionless with
34:24
Speaker 1: their eyes closed as if they were sleeping but it
34:26
Speaker 1: wasn't true sleep. When spoken too loudly enough they would
34:30
Speaker 1: open their eyes and respond without the typical signs that
34:33
Speaker 1: they were waking from a slumber. They would give no
34:36
Speaker 1: expression of interest and after answering the patient would just
34:39
Speaker 1: close their eyes again. Appearing once more to be in
34:43
Speaker 1: this strange half sleep. A lot of them seemed to
34:46
Speaker 1: take no action of their own. They had to be
34:50
Speaker 1: told what to do at all times. If they were
34:53
Speaker 1: given a utensil they would just hold it in their
34:55
Speaker 1: hands until somebody told them what to do with it.
34:58
Speaker 1: For example if they were sat at the table and
35:00
Speaker 1: told to eat they would immediately scoop up a spoonful
35:03
Speaker 1: of food and hold it in the air in front
35:05
Speaker 1: of them. They would then either put it down or
35:08
Speaker 1: when commanded put it into their mouth. It was as
35:11
Speaker 1: if they were robots waiting for their next instruction. Some
35:15
Speaker 1: family members and tormented by the guilt would later claim
35:18
Speaker 1: that they'd been misled by freemen. But still the man
35:22
Speaker 1: grew for the procedure to be carried out with this
35:24
Speaker 1: increasing demand Freeman became frustrated with how long it took
35:27
Speaker 1: to carry out the lobotomies. Plus many mental institutions lacked
35:32
Speaker 1: operating theaters so patients had to be transported to a
35:35
Speaker 1: separate facility. Then in 1945 he had a flash of
35:39
Speaker 1: inspiration when he saw an ice pick in his kitchen
35:42
Speaker 1: with this device in hand he invented the transorbital lobotomy.
35:46
Speaker 1: His new method was pretty simple. Patients would be subjected
35:50
Speaker 1: to electroshocks until they were unconscious. Then an ice pick
35:55
Speaker 1: would be inserted through the upper eyelid into the ice
35:57
Speaker 1: socket and hammered through the thin layer of bone at
36:00
Speaker 1: the back of the socket up into the frontal lobe.
36:03
Speaker 1: The pick would then be switched back and forth inside
36:05
Speaker 1: the brain severing the connections and then it would be
36:08
Speaker 1: repeated on the other side. The procedure took about 10
36:11
Speaker 1: to 15 minutes and patients were reportedly sent home in
36:15
Speaker 1: Texas shortly after it was done. Freeman conducted his first
36:19
Speaker 1: ice pick lobotomy in 1946 and he deemed it to
36:22
Speaker 1: be a massive success. Soon afterwards he purchased a van
36:26
Speaker 1: which he called the Lobotomobile and he traveled around the
36:29
Speaker 1: USA performing lobotomies all over the country. This greatly increased
36:34
Speaker 1: the rate at which he performed lobotomies and sometimes he
36:37
Speaker 1: would do up to a hundred in a week. This
36:40
Speaker 1: continued for about nine years. However in 1952 the development
36:45
Speaker 1: of effective antipsychotic medications meant that the lobotomy looked like
36:49
Speaker 1: it would be made obsolete. Despite this advancement in medicine
36:53
Speaker 1: Freeman remained skeptical and he continued to advocate fall lobotomies.
36:58
Speaker 1: I mean of course he would, it was his primary
37:00
Speaker 1: source of income. He frequently argued that these newly developed
37:05
Speaker 1: antipsychotic medications could have or known and serious side effects
37:09
Speaker 1: and were not safe for use, unlike the safe and
37:11
Speaker 1: effective ice pick to the brain obviously. Even after what
37:15
Speaker 1: had parted with him Freeman persisted in performing the operations
37:18
Speaker 1: despite the fact that he wasn't a licensed surgeon. Over
37:22
Speaker 1: time he started to introduce elements of showmanship to his
37:25
Speaker 1: procedures performing the ice pick lobotomy in theaters with viewing
37:29
Speaker 1: galleries for interested onlookers. He did stunts like performing lobotomies
37:34
Speaker 1: on multiple people at the same time or operating on
37:37
Speaker 1: 25 women in a single day even when a patient
37:39
Speaker 1: died from a brain hemorrhage caused by the lobotomy. He
37:43
Speaker 1: didn't stop and he just continued operating on the other patients.
37:47
Speaker 1: He also started to lobotomize children. The youngest patient to
37:52
Speaker 1: survive the ice pick lobotomy was a 12-year-old boy named
37:55
Speaker 1: Howard Doley. He had been admitted by his stepmother and
37:59
Speaker 1: this woman hated Howard. According to her own testimony Howard
38:03
Speaker 1: often daydreamed. He disliked washing and sometimes he turned on
38:08
Speaker 1: the lights when it was still bright outside. His stepmother
38:11
Speaker 1: believed that having him lobotomized would make him behave better.
38:16
Speaker 1: For quite some time she tried to have him diagnosed
38:18
Speaker 1: with a mental illness but all the doctors that she
38:20
Speaker 1: took him to just shook their heads. To them Howard
38:24
Speaker 1: was simply a healthy 12-year-old boy who liked to get
38:27
Speaker 1: up to mischief. Then she took him to Dr. Freeman.
38:31
Speaker 1: Based on the information that she gave him Freeman diagnosed
38:34
Speaker 1: with a boy with schizophrenia and he recommended a lobotomy.
38:38
Speaker 1: At 1.30 p.m. on the 16th of September, 1960 Howard
38:42
Speaker 1: Doley was wheeled into the operating theater, strapped to a
38:46
Speaker 1: bed and given a series of electric shocks to render
38:48
Speaker 1: him unconscious. That much he remembers and the rest he
38:52
Speaker 1: says is murky. Miraculously Howard survived the operation with his
38:57
Speaker 1: personality and text in full control of his body. This
39:01
Speaker 1: wasn't the outcome that his stepmother wanted. She wanted him docile,
39:06
Speaker 1: easy to control. In fact his behavior continued to get worse.
39:11
Speaker 1: He was eventually sent to a school for children with
39:14
Speaker 1: behavior problems. Later in life he spent time in jail
39:18
Speaker 1: and eventually he became homeless and addicted to alcohol. In
39:22
Speaker 1: his 50s he managed to turn his life around and
39:24
Speaker 1: he decided to do some research into the procedure that
39:27
Speaker 1: he'd had done on him as a child. He managed
39:30
Speaker 1: to gain access to his medical records and found out
39:33
Speaker 1: that his stepmother had paid Freeman $ 200 to carry out
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Speaker 1: the lobotomy. In 2007 Howard Dulley published his memoir titled
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Speaker 1: My Lobotomy. In interviews he would later say, if he
39:45
Speaker 1: saw me you'd never know that I'd had a lobotomy.
39:49
Speaker 1: The only thing you'd notice is that I'm very tall
39:51
Speaker 1: and weigh about 350 pounds but I've always felt different,
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Speaker 1: wondered if something's missing from my soul. I have no
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Speaker 1: memory of the operation and I never had the courage
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Speaker 1: to ask my family about it. I'll never know what
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Speaker 1: I lost in those 10 minutes with Dr. Freeman and
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Speaker 1: his ice pick. By some miracle it didn't turn me
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Speaker 1: into a zombie, crushed my spirit, or killed me, but
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Speaker 1: it did affect me deeply. Walter Freeman's operation was supposed
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Speaker 1: to relieve suffering but in my case it did just
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Speaker 1: the opposite. Ever since my lobotomy I felt like a
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Speaker 1: freak ashamed. Freeman's career ended in 1967 when he accidentally
40:30
Speaker 1: killed yet another patient, a housewife during a third lobotomy.
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Speaker 1: After this incident Freeman was banned from operating. Throughout his
40:38
Speaker 1: career he performed over 3,500 lobotomies and he caused the
40:42
Speaker 1: death of 490 people and left an unknown number of
40:45
Speaker 1: others permanently disabled. He spent his remaining days visiting former
40:50
Speaker 1: patients and trying to prove the positive effects of lobotomy.
40:54
Speaker 1: Thankfully he didn't manage to change public opinion and today
40:57
Speaker 1: lobotomy is no longer practiced, consigned to the history books
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Speaker 1: as a barbaric and misguided treatment for mental illness. So
41:05
Speaker 1: that's the tale of Walter Freeman and the prefrontal lobotomy.
41:09
Speaker 1: If you found this case interesting I do have another
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Speaker 1: video about a brain surgery that went very wrong. The
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Speaker 1: tale of Henry Mallison, the man who couldn't remember. I'll
41:20
Speaker 1: put a link at the end of the recording and
41:22
Speaker 1: in the description if you want to check that out.
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Speaker 1: It's much appreciated and it really does help me keep
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Speaker 1: making content so thank you.