First suggested by a patron following my episode on The Zone of Interest last year, Luchino Visconti's 1969 melodrama The Damned - set during the rise of dictatorship in thirties Germany - provides a suitably apocalyptic conclusion (for now, at least) to my two-year $5/month tier Films in Focus podcast. Based on patron polls conducted every couple months, I recorded a dozen episodes on films which often followed troubled protagonists trying to figure out themselves, and the world, against a backdrop of socially fraught circumstances (call this "the Fire Walk With Me effect"). Of course, to label Martin von Essenbeck (Helmut Berger) a "protagonist" stretches may associations with that term. He certainly is no hero; aside a few key exceptions like the put-upon anti-Nazi couple of Herbert (Umberto Orsi) and Elizabeth Thallmann (Charlotte Rampling), the film is almost entirely stocked with schemers, cowards, and outright fascists, and yet Martin still emerges as perhaps the worst of them all. Nor does he fit our usual conception of an active central figure; although his illicit desires and self-indulgent actions drive the narrative, it is other characters who manipulate him into or out of the place that they want him. Having inherited his grandfather Joachim's (Albrecht Schoenhals') shares of the family's steelworks following a staged assassination, Martin finds himself in a three-way tug of war. This involves his conniving mother Sophie (Ingrid Thulin) and her lover Friedrich Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde) who want Martin to serve as an impotent figurehead for their ambitions; his cousin once removed Konstantin (Reinhard Kolldehorf), prominent in the SA paramilitary division of the Nazi Party, who wants to retain his executive control by sidelining Martin completely; and his other cousin once removed, the SS officer Aschenbach (Helmut Griem), who maneuvers various actors in a game of thrones which could tighten the Party's grip on this important industrial firm while also offering Martin a source of ego-stroking pride as well as an outlet for feverish, fetishistic revenge.
This is the plot of The Damned; however, the impression it creates has as much to do with the saturated, operatic quality of its visual flourishes and the darkness of its sexual psychology as with the intricacy of its narrative mechanics. This is especially true during the film's idiosyncratic dramatic centerpiece, a re-creation of "The Night of Long Knives" in which the once-central SA stormtroopers were betrayed by Hitler and slaughtered en masse by the SS and Gestapo amidst a drunken orgy at a country resort. Around here, the film's second half tips into a more intense, brooding, hot-blooded, and exaggerated pitch reminiscent of other Visconti films of the time. Indeed, this discussion encouraged me to dip back into my own Visconti mini-retrospective of sixteen years ago, when I reviewed The Leopard, Rocco and His Brothers, and Ludwig after big-screen viewings in Boston - The Damned very much incorporates elements of all three from its vision of a patriarch presiding over a dying world to its dysfunctional family portrait driven by jealous rivalry to its vision of decadent depravity in the midst of a ruling class' decline.
I'm also re-visiting past work - while setting up a future project - for the sake of the $1/month reward, offering another narration script for the upcoming Mirrors of Kane video series in a continuation of last month's trend. After next month's Twin Peaks Conversations episode, exclusives will be put aside in favor of advances for both tiers, while I work on finally finishing the four big projects behind the scenes in 2026: Mirrors of Kane, and Lost in Twin Peaks, the TWIN PEAKS Character Series, and Journey Through Twin Peaks.
What are the November rewards?
$5/MONTH TIER
Exclusive to this tier...
Podcast: Films in Focus #12 - The Damned
$1/MONTH TIER
Advance for all patrons...
+ public podcast call-in: The Majority Report with Sam Seder on Chris Pappas, Karishma Manzur & NH Senate race
For the first time in over eight years, I called into a live political YouTube show (previous example are on the Benjamin Dixon show here, here, and here). In this case, I wanted to bring attention to a Senate race in New Hampshire with huge implications, which has been completely overlooked by national media - even left media which should have a direct stake in its outcome. Chris Pappas, an AIPAC-funded Congressman who has one of the worst records on Israel's genocide in Gaza, is running for a Senate seat with loads of endorsements and resources. The Democratic establishment and its media arms have treated this like it will be a cakewalk for him and voters seem generally unaware that they have a choice, despite the fact that his connection with the party's base does not run very deep. He also has a primary opponent who has been particularly outspoken on Palestine: Karishma Manzur (whom you can learn more about and support here). My call begins at 2:18:00; the embedded video below should be cued to that spot though you can also visit the direct YouTube link and of course watch or listen to the rest of the episode which includes a lengthy interview with an Israel/Palestine scholar, much discussion of candidate Graham Platner in a neighboring state's Senate race, and a surprise interview with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Hopefully going forward more people - including the hosts of The Majority Report - can spread the word about Pappas' awful record and disconnect from most ordinary Democrats (and from a majority of Americans), shining a light on this arrogant power grab by a candidate who belongs in the Hague, not the Senate.
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