All language subtitles for D Is For Distance, 2025

(Click)

(Whirring)

(Rising instrumental music)

(Wind howling)

(♪ Holger Czukay:
"Hiss 'n' Listen")

(Dissonant music)

♪ All the machines
are standing still

♪ Hiss 'n' listen... ♪

(Children singing, distorted)

(Peaceful instrumental music)

(Louis) Can people
have yellow eyes? I forgot.

(Mother) Not really yellow.
Browny yellow, I suppose.

(Heart monitor beeping)

(Ventilator whirring)

(Peaceful music continues)

(Louis) F is a... Wait... F...

No.

(Music becomes melancholic)

(Screaming) No!

(Louis) I wish I had blue eyes
cos I like the colour blue.

I like the colour light blue,
but not really dark blue.

(Melancholic music continues)

(Narrator) There was once
a boy who fell to earth

and found himself
in a dark interior forest

of shadow and bone

from which he feared
he might never return.

He made hundreds
of these journeys

and came back less
of the child he'd once been

and more like a pioneer
of deep inner space.

(Melancholic music stops)

(Mother) Can you see me?
Lou, can you see me?

Can you see me?

Louis, can you see me?

Lou, can you hear me?

(Animals barking
and squawking)

(Mother) Can you hear me?
Louis, can you see me?

(Echoing) Are you there?
Are you there?

(Soft music, birdsong,
bell ringing)

(Narrator) He writes,

"For over four years, I lived
closer to death than life.

Most of my experiences come
from the weird understanding

of the world I fell into

and how I found myself
in a patchwork

of dreams and hallucinations.

When the normal healthy state
of the organism was disturbed,

as soon as I fell ill,

another world began to appear

on the bridge between
conscious and subconscious."

(Phone ringing)

(Louis choking
and gasping for air)

(Church bell ringing)

(♪ Lonnie Donegan:
"Love Is Strange")

(Bright, rhythmic strumming
on acoustic guitar)

♪ Hey, Don?

♪ What, Phil?

♪ How would you call
your baby home?

♪ Well, if I needed her
real bad

♪ I guess I would call her
like this... ♪

(Mother) Louis?

Louis, can you hear me,
darling? Can you hear me?

♪ Baby

♪ Oh, sweet baby

♪ My sweet baby

♪ Please come home

♪ Yeah, that ought
to bring her home, Don

♪ People

♪ Don't understand... ♪

(Song fades)

(Wind howling)

(Mother) Louis? Louis,
can you hear me, darling?

Can you hear me?

Are you there?

(Door creaks)

(Wind howling)

(Mother) Are you there?

Lou?

Can you hear me?
Can you hear me now?

Can you see me?
Can you hear me?

Do you feel all right?

- Can you speak?
- Hello.

(Mother) ...across the road.

(Louis)
Don't film me doing that.

(Indistinct PA announcement)

(Grunts)

Go on, cross the road, Lou.
Keep going.

(Indistinct PA announcement)

(Narrator) When the father
proposes a journey

to the top of the world,
to his son,

to what end neither is sure,

other than looking
for a location

for a film
that will never get made.

(Young Louis)
We are going on holiday!

(Narrator) Perhaps he hopes

they will get to know
each other better,

but he doesn't say,
being a man of few words.

"No more road movie", he says.

A five-day journey overland

and by sea from London
to the Arctic Circle.

(Young Louis speaking
indistinctly)

(Narrator) A journey from
celluloid to memory stick.

No more flights,
no more driving.

(♪ Holger Czukay:
"Ode To Perfume")

(Rhythmic electric guitar
and percussion)

(Distorted voices)

Once he regarded driving
like cinema,

as a form
of forward projection.

These days, he prefers
the sideways view of trains,

the blank gaze
of the random travelling shot.

Technology
and the subconscious.

(Song continues)

(Clickety-clack of the train)

(Train screeching)

(Song continues)

Journeys past, different
times, in some ways easier,

before parenthood,
before social media,

before anything smart.

(Radio chatter)

(Narrator)
Just the empty road ahead,

when it was still possible
to be between two points

and out of reach.

(Whirring and clicking)

(Whirring and clicking stop)

(Narrator)
At the beginning of cinema,

one of its first practitioners
said that it was

an invention without a future.

A remark later confirmed
by another filmmaker

when he said that cinema
and history

are made of the same material.

Similarly,
artificial intelligence

learns only from the past.

Once,
when talking to a chatbot,

the father said he had hoped
for a more nuanced answer,

to be told,
"I don't do nuance."

(Audience gasps)

He was interested
to note that in 2017,

when two chatbots

were programmed
to talk to each other,

they ended up
abandoning English

and developing
their own language

completely autonomously.

(Train whistle)

(Narrator) When asked
what his film is about,

the father says nothing
is written

beyond having a map reference
for a location

regarding an old dead
spymaster,

one of the most secretive men
who ever lived.

- God bless you all.
- (Reporters reply)

Plus literary gunslingers
and gentlemen dopers

on mind-bending trips.

White man's DNA and all
its inherited prejudices.

Time future contained
in time past.

"The same old story",
he shrugs.

What gets remembered
and what gets forgotten.

And in terms of his son,
what he doesn't remember

because of what the drugs did.

(Mother) Sweetheart?

Can you hear me? Can you
hear me? Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?
Can you see me?

You can see me, can't you?

(Father) Lou?

(Mother) Come on. Come on.

Can you hear me at all?

- Can you hear me at all?
- (Louis humming a tune)

(Mother) Louis?

Louis? Louis?

Louis?

(Wind howling)

(Bird singing)

(Mother)
You're kind of...

Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?

(Narrator) He was 12
when he started having seizures,

after a perfectly healthy
childhood.

His mother's reaction
was a combination

of panic and ignorance.

(Mother) Lou?

All she knew about epilepsy

was when the Simpsons
went to Japan

and fell down convulsing

while watching Battling
Seizure Robots on television.

(Mother) Can you hear me?

When she was asked to film
the seizures

to help with a diagnosis,

she did as she was told,
however harrowing that was.

(Mother) Lou, can you hear me?

(Narrator)
He completely lost his life

on very heavy medication,

which stopped him from
processing new information

and he even lost the memories

of the life before
his epilepsy.

(Mother) Can you hear me?

Louis?

Louis?

(Sombre music)

(♪ Harry McClintock:
"Red River Valley")

(Gentle violin,
acoustic guitar and banjo)

(Shrieks)

♪ From this valley
they say you are going

♪ We will miss your
bright eyes and sweet smile

♪ For you take with you
all of the sunshine

♪ That has brightened our life
for a while

♪ Then come sit by my side
if you love me

♪ Do not hasten
to bid me adieu

♪ But remember
the Red River Valley

♪ And the cowboy
that loved you so true

♪ For a long time, my darlin'
I've waited

♪ For those sweet words... ♪

He's called Speedy the Snail
and I really like him!

♪ But at last all
my fond hopes have vanished

♪ And they say you
are going away

♪ Must the past with its joys
all be blighted

♪ By the future of sorrow
and pain

♪ Must the vows... ♪

I just felt like
putting spikes on her head.

♪ Don't you think
you can love me again?

♪ There never could be
such a longing

♪ In the heart
of a poor cowboy's breast

♪ As dwells in the heart
you are breaking

♪ As I wait in my home
in the West ♪

(Angleton) I don't think
I have any horns.

(Reporter) No? A scapegoat?

Well, I mean, it depends on...
You said "goat".

Scapegoat.

I do not say baa-baa.

(Narrator) Two years before
he died, the old spymaster,

lured by the white nights,
the insomniac's friend,

and Europe's best fly fishing,

stayed in a remote hut
in the Arctic Circle.

And in this high refuge
he made a taped record,

a confession,
a settling of accounts,

a dandy's revenge,
a final act of contrition.

Upon being told
his father possesses

a transcript of the tapes,

the son can't decide
whether it is a true story,

the father is making it up,

or he has made it up
but also believes it is true.

He says in terms
of Through the Looking Glass,

Angleton regarded espionage
as a wilderness of mirrors.

Are you still haunted by...?
(Indistinct)

Am I still...?

- Haunted by...
- Possibly, I don't know.

(Indistinct)

I do hear voices...
(Indistinct)

(Phone ringing)

(Clock ticking)

(Bird calling)

One night, he told his mother
everything looked distorted,

big and distant
at the same time.

She asked his doctors

if it was a side effect
of the drugs

and was told
it was a type of focal seizure

called
Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.

They had diagnosed
generalised epilepsy

of unknown cause,
but they said

you don't get both generalised
and focal seizures.

So he was referred to another
hospital for a second opinion.

The second doctor agreed
with the original diagnosis

and told the mother to stop
putting ideas into his head

because children were very
susceptible to suggestion.

(♪ Holger Czukay:
"Hiss 'n' Listen")

(Bass guitar twangs,
rhythmic hi-hat ticking)

(Distorted voices)

(Narrator)
Then the following year,

she was told by his doctors

that you can, in fact,
have both types of seizure.

She discovered more is known

about the universe
than the brain,

and the treatment of epilepsy
is all trial and error.

She knew
she was considered difficult.

She pointed out misdiagnoses,

clinical inaccuracies
and examples of recklessness.

Even so, she supposed they
knew what they were doing.

What she failed to see was the
potentially lethal combination

of hubris and bureaucracy.

(Music continues)

(Phone ringing)

(Two-tone beep)

(Indistinct radio chatter)

(Narrator)
His mother had no idea

when he started
having seizures,

how dangerous epilepsy is.

Every time he turned over
in the night,

she would be
immediately awake,

waiting for
the screeching mattress alarm.

And every morning
she would look into his room,

fearing he had died
in the night from SUDEP,

sudden unexplained death
in epilepsy,

when people die in their sleep
and no one knows why.

(Indistinct radio chatter)

(High-pitched alarm)

(Louis choking)

(Choking and shaking continue)

(Narrator) The doctors
told her to time each seizure

and if one lasted
more than five minutes,

she should give
emergency medication

and call an ambulance.

When a seizure doesn't stop

it's called
status epilepticus,

which can cause
brain damage and death.

Louis has been in status
epilepticus over 12 times.

Is that the harbour
we're going on?

(Mother) No.

But did you see how much sand
there was... in the truck?

(Mother)
No, I didn't notice that.

- There was a whole hill.
- (Mother) Ah, OK.

Yeah, we have one.

Don't look.

OK.

- Mum, did you see that?
- No.

Good.

- What did it say on the back?
- I didn't see it.

F is a... Wait.

F... No.

(Two-note chime)

(Over PA) The next station
is Moulsecoomb.

Is there three lines?

(Over PA) This is coach number
one of four.

(Mother) No, two.
(Louis) Oh, sh...

(Mother) It doesn't matter.
(Louis) Wait.

Now, it's... Uh, yeah.

Mummy, there you go.

(Mother) We're gonna pack up
now because we've got to...

(Narrator) Two minutes
of watching your child seizing

with no way of retrieving them

extends beyond time
into a possibility of a loss

that might be forever.

(Church bells chiming)

(Chiming continues)

(Church bells ringing)

(Ringing continues)

(Ringing stops)

♪ People don't understand

♪ No, no

♪ They think loving

♪ Is beautiful and grand

♪ Baby

♪ Oh, my baby

♪ Oh, my baby

♪ You're the one

♪ Your love... ♪

He says, "Whenever I had
a seizure, I blacked out.

I would wake up
knowing I'd had a seizure

but confused nonetheless.

My vision would be blurry.

I would always have
a severe migraine

and feel an immense amount
of pressure,

as if I was deep underwater.

My skin would tingle
in a slightly painful way

and I would never be able
to say what I was thinking."

♪ Oh, my baby, you're... ♪

(Narrator) "Once I asked
to sit on my pillow

when I was trying
to ask for a glass of water.

And once my mum asked me
who she was

and I couldn't find the right
words and just shook my head.

Someone who sacrificed
her whole life

to take care of me

and I forgot her name
because of a seizure."

(Mother) Can you hear me?

Have you got anything
in your mouth?

Can you open your mouth?

Can you open your mouth?

Just check...
Nothing in there.

Yeah?

OK, darling?

OK?

Can you hear me?
You can hear me, yeah?

Can you?

- Yeah. Lou?
- Yeah.

- You just had another blank.
- Another one!

(♪ Holger Czukay:
"Ode To Perfume")

(Soft electric guitar
and percussion)

(Narrator) The old spymaster,
James Angleton,

twins in the father's mind

with the writer
William Burroughs,

another one who was
after the big white whale.

Two chain smokers,

one a dope addict,
the other a drunk.

Warped patricians infected
by high-grade paranoia.

Burroughs was
the perfect artistic product

of the Cold War:
half spy, half scientist,

half astronaut

on that long journey
through inner space.

Decorum and manners
in pursuit of wildness.

(Burroughs) Every particle
of this universe

contains the whole
of the universe.

You in yourself have
the whole of the universe.

I cut you up in a certain way,
I cut up the universe.

(Burroughs) There are
many ways cut-ups can be done.

One very simple way
that I've used frequently is

just take a page,

cut it down the middle
and across the page

so you now have four sections

and you rearrange
the sections.

(Typewriter clicking)

(Wind howling)

If you have
a pre-recorded universe

in which everything
is already pre-recorded,

the only thing
that is not pre-recorded

are the pre-recordings
themselves.

So, with my cut-ups
I was attempting to tamper

with the basic pre-recordings.

(Church bells tolling)

(Eerie instrumental music)

(Burroughs) When you
experiment with cut-ups

over a period of time,

you find that some of the
cut-ups and rearranged texts

seem to refer
to future events.

Perhaps when you cut
into the present,

the future leaks out.

But we simply accepted it
and continued the experiments.

(Narrator) On the fourth drug,

he had yet another type
of seizure,

one that came
every 40 minutes on the dot

and each one lasted
exactly one minute.

(Mother) He's having one. Lou?

Spot on. 40 minutes later.

Louis?

Lou?

Louis? Can you hear me?

(Father mumbles)

- Mm-hm.
- You just had another one.

Another one.

(Phone ringing)

(Narrator)
How long is a minute?

Time stretches and bends.

Some lasted a minute,
some much longer.

And they took many forms,

like a malignant choreography
of demons.

(Birds cawing and screeching)

(Clock ticking)

(Phone ringing)

(Narrator) After two years
of worsening seizures,

Louis' doctors say there's
nothing more they can do

and tell his mother to grieve
for the child he once was.

His father says
it doesn't take half a brain

to work out things are fucked.

He comes from a family
of doctors

and dismisses
the medical profession today

as being in the business
of prescription

rather than care.

(Hippo groans)

(Narrator) He applies for
an Irish passport,

which seems to make sense

as his great-grandfather,
another Louis,

ran the lunatic asylum
in Sligo.

(Over PA) Good evening,
dear passengers.

My name is Simon
and I'm your train manager.

On behalf of European Sleeper
and my entire crew,

I warmly welcome you
aboard this train

heading to Berlin
Hauptbahnhof.

This train will make stops
at Antwerp Centraal,

Roosendaal,
Rotterdam Centraal,

The Hague Hollands Spoor,

Amsterdam Centraal,
Amersfoort Centraal,

Deventer, Bad Bentheim,

before continuing
to Berlin Hauptbahnhof.

We will provide you
with further information

about the progress
of our journey

through the night
shortly before 10 p.m.

For now, we wish you
a very pleasant trip.

(Announcement repeated
in French)

(Narrator) Louis' state of erasure

found a distorted reflection

in the loss of memory

of the father's mother.

Hers was a different kind
of forgetting,

the erosion of old age,

which raises
the stark question:

what of it
is worth remembering anyway?

(Louis humming a tune)

(Narrator) Stoical indifference
has its virtues,

but is not of much use
to anyone else.

His mother turned 100
recently.

No one recognised
at the family party,

apart from a photograph
of her wedding in 1947

where she could name
everyone in the picture

with the exception of the man
she'd just married.

(Announcement continues
in French)

(Louis playing guitar
and announcement continue)

(Narrator) As for the spook
the father is interested in

and coincidences of geography,

he says
you couldn't make him up.

A man whose middle name
was Jesus,

a Cold War warrior
and world-class fly fisherman.

Grower of orchids
who, although a Yank,

was privately educated

in the town
where the father was born.

In 2016 the father returned
to live there

in the house built by
his grandmother after the war,

a house of memory
spanning three generations,

haunted in its own way

and reminiscent
of the entombed world

of Edgar Allan Poe,

another one
who had focal seizures.

(Ice-cream van jingle)

(Narrator)
There, he tended his garden,

walked the dog
and chased shadows.

As the world imploded,

he divided it into those
that couldn't remember -

Louis, his own mother -

and those that
couldn't forget -

the boy's mother.

Any sense of past and future,

relationships,
things going on elsewhere,

was lost.

(Reporter)
I notice on this Christmas Eve

that your family
is not with you.

Is that a result
of all these unhappy events?

Yes.

(Guitar being played)

(Narrator) The father shared
Angleton's way

of reading the world
as a literary text

and he tried
to imagine

what a recording
of the man's final confession

might sound like,

an analogue cassette version
of Krapp's Last Tape,

recorded on
an old Sanyo boom box.

(Recording playing)

(Narrator) Angleton avoided
public statement.

An exception was when he was
doorstepped by reporters

the morning after his fall.

The CIA...

(Narrator)
Despite being visibly drunk,

his cunning never falters.

A civilised demeanour,

deflection laced
with brazen lies.

(Reporter)
Was your branch of the CIA

involved in the surveillance
of American citizens

here inside the United States?

(Angleton) Absolutely not.

Now, could you be careful?
Because I've just shaved.

I've been up all night,
literally, on the phone.

What is it?

This man has more...

What is this?

(Reporter)
An electronic device.

I see.
I'm not familiar with them.

It's much more perfected

than anything
we have in the agency.

(Reporter)
Why did you resign?

(Narrator) Angleton and
the father were essentially

in the same line of work.

Nicotine and alcohol
their lifelong companions.

Both in the business
of fiction,

the art of the lie
and making stuff up.

They know that truth is
a commodity, not an absolute,

a lesson the boy's mother
was yet to learn

when it came
to her son's healthcare.

(♪ Florida Normal And Industrial
Institute Quartette: "Dis Train")

♪ Dis train
don't carry no liars

♪ Dis train

(♪ My Lord)

♪ Dis train
don't carry no liars

♪ Dis train

(♪ My Lord)

♪ Dis train don't carry... ♪

(Narrator) Hospital wards
and doctors' waiting rooms,

Accident and Emergency,

blue-lit ambulances,

a life of endless waiting
and panic

all became familiar
to Louis and his mother.

They were told

they had to accept
the side effects of medication

because uncontrolled seizures
were so dangerous,

but the medication
didn't even stop the seizures.

(Louis) I think I deal with
epilepsy quite well,

even though it's been tough.

It's been tough on me.

I would say...

I would deal with it
quite well.

Um...

Uh...

Even though it's quite hard
to deal with it.

But I don't really complain
about it...

...at all, I would say.

Um...

There's... um...

Uh...

(♪ Cab Calloway:
"St. James Infirmary")

♪ Folks, I'm goin' down
to St. James Infirmary

♪ See

♪ My baby there

♪ She's stretched out
on a long, white table

♪ She's so sweet,
so cold, so fair

♪ Let her go, let her go
Oh, bless her... ♪

The devastating effect

of the medication
on his cognition

was really shocking.

If he was told something,

he couldn't remember it
three minutes later.

He couldn't get out of bed
most days

and he was just watching
the same cartoons

over and over again.

♪ Now, when I die, bury me
in my straight-leg britches... ♪

He stopped being able
to play the guitar.

He stopped being able
to play tennis.

He stopped being able
to do the things he loved.

The one thing he carried
on doing, however ill he was,

was drawing and painting

and that's what kept him sane.

He would just go into
this world for hours on end.

♪ Then give me
six crap-shooting pall bearers

♪ Let a chorus girl
sing me a song... ♪

(Louis) Well, this one
is just about being held down.

It's about everything
that epilepsy

has stopped me from doing.

So, it's kind of...

looking, like, longingly

at people living
their normal life.

♪ Folks, now that
you have heard my story

♪ Say, boy, hand me over
another shot of that booze

♪ If anyone should ask you

♪ Tell 'em I've got those
St. James Infirmary blues ♪

(Muted)

(Soft mechanical hum
inside train)

(Mechanical hum continues)

(Narrator) The father
shows him a picture

of the back of a man's head,

saying he died the month
before your seizures started.

It is the only image
he'd seen in a long time

which has aroused
his curiosity,

maybe because the death

of this shape-shifting
entertainer

at the start
of that fateful year of 2016

foretold of chaos to come.

Maybe he likes the picture

because it is not an original
but a fragment of a copy,

and there's always a chance
it isn't him

but an impersonator
or a double

or a fake or someone else
who fell to earth.

And this fake, real image

of a fake, real man pleased him

in a way that also made him
a bit anxious,

maybe even a little nostalgic

for when it was still possible
to have such perfect hair

and look to the future

and still turn one's back
on the world.

(♪ Adrianne Lenker:
"Snow Song")

(Gentle acoustic guitar)

♪ When you walked in
I just stood still

♪ I said, "I'm sorry, love
I have no will"

♪ If I try to move
I'll break and spill

♪ What's left of me
my weight will kill

♪ If I die inside
this bitter shell

♪ It will be upon
a frozen lake

♪ My knees will break

♪ My breath will swell

♪ The snow around my blood
will paint

♪ Lord, I know my timing's off

♪ And all the earth is ragged

♪ To the bone

♪ Oh, oh

♪ Tired is the burning sea

♪ That calls me to the bottom

♪ Like a stone

♪ Oh, oh

♪ And I'm

♪ Sinking alone... ♪

(Louis)
When you have epilepsy,

it's easy to feel
like you've lost everything.

And there's so much more
to epilepsy than seizures.

Seizures are just the seed
that branches out

into so many different traumas
and problems.

It can change
your whole situation.

♪ Now inside this blinded bend

♪ I'll pour the ink
down through my pen... ♪

(Louis) I had to move
to Rotterdam, for example.

I was moved away
from my family,

my friends, just my home.

♪ My misery until the end

♪ Lord, I know my timing's off

♪ And all the earth is ragged

♪ To the bone

♪ Oh, oh... ♪

(Louis) My mum did extensive
research for more cures

and she found
cannabis medication.

We went to, um, Holland
to get cannabis

and, although it was very hard
to move away from my home,

um, in the end

it was right, it was worth it

because it cured my epilepsy.

It's... It helped me more
than any other medication.

It had less severe side
effects than other medication,

but it has a stigma
attached to it.

You don't smoke it,
you just take it in oils.

Very little THC in it,
mainly CBD.

♪ I'm

♪ Sinking alone ♪

In kind of my final two years
I was kind of known as

the hospital's
most complex case.

They could not understand

why I was having
these seizures.

Like, they said,
like, to my mum

I will never be seizure-free,
I will never kind of...

"You just need to get used
to your son being disabled

and kind of not...
maybe never leaving home."

(Soft mechanical hum)

(Birds chirping)

(Calm, atmospheric music)

(Mother)
Can you squeeze my hand?

Can you squeeze my hand?

Lou? Can you squeeze?

OK, darling.

Come on.

Louis? Louis?

Louis?

(Guard on PA) Berlin.
Berlin Central Station.

Please exit on the left side
in the direction of travel.

(Indistinct PA announcement)

(Narrator)
A brief stopover in Berlin,

where the father had lived
in the 1980s.

It was strange
finding himself back

in that formerly
occupied city,

epitomising the dark dream
of the Cold War,

where the fault lines
of two civilisations met

at its dividing wall.

(Vehicles rumble past)

(Distant bicycle bell rings)

(Bicycle whizzes by,
bell rings)

(Man) The present masters
of the Soviet Union

have said to us,

"Peaceful co-existence
until we bury you."

- (Interviewer) Mr Zapuder...
- Zapruder, yes.

(Interviewer) Zapruder.
Would you tell us your story?

(Zapruder) I was shooting.
I heard a shot.

And he slumped to the side.

And I saw his head
practically open up,

all blood and everything.

And I kept on shooting.

(Reporter) You have the film
in your camera?

(Zapruder)
Yes, I brought it.

(Interviewer)
We'll get that processed.

Right now we have video tape.

(Narrator) Angleton underwrote
the secret history

of the second half
of the 20th century.

(Reporter) A stoic individual
who admits nothing.

(Narrator) Plenty to confess
after more than 30 years

practising the dark arts
of CIA counterintelligence,

and, in its middle,

the black hole
of the assassination

of the 35th president
of the United States.

Lone gunman?
Shooters on the grassy knoll?

Who knows? Probably Angleton.

He was finally hung out
to dry in 1974

after the press exposed
his illegal activities.

This at the same time

as the Watergate
burglary scandal,

which led to the downfall
of the 37th president.

(Reporter) The biggest
White House scandal in a century,

the Watergate scandal
broke wide open today.

(Narrator)
Angleton later denied

meeting one of the burglars,

a CIA operative who had
previously been sighted

behind the grassy knoll.

Secrets within secrets.

(Woman) Now, tell us
if this is a coincidence.

(Narrator) The father
comes across a photograph

of actor John Wayne
in a military canteen,

taken when filming
in the Philippines.

Standing in the background,
a young marine.

None other
than Lee Harvey Oswald.

(Man on radio)
...how and why we exist...

(Narrator) Angleton denied
all knowledge of Oswald,

the so-called lone gunman,
despite keeping a file on him,

and no doubt was familiar with
the TV show Mission Impossible

which declared each week,
"Capture will result in disavowal

of any knowledge
of your actions."

(Reporter)
Did you shoot the President?

(Oswald)
No, they're taking me in

because I lived in the Soviet Union.
I'm just a patsy!

- Absolutely not.
- Was the agency involved

in the kind of
domestic surveillance

that has been portrayed
in the news reports?

- Explain yourself.
- The way it violated its charter.

My feeling is that it has not.

Are you suggesting
that these years in the CIA

you have watched President Nixon,
Secretary Kissinger

and now President Ford

take the United States
down a misguided path?

As I told you earlier,
Mr Shaw,

you kept me up too many hours

till 3 a.m.
watching public television.

I don't know whether
I like you

or don't like you,
for that reason.

- May I ask if you...?
- God bless you.

I don't know
if "Merry Christmas" is...

It sounds ironic,
but Merry Christmas.

- Merry Christmas.
- Bless you.

All the best.

(Narrator)
Angleton knew the secrets,

knew where the bodies
were buried.

The CIA was supposed
to mind foreign affairs

with no mandate
for domestic issues,

which didn't stop him from running
an illegal mail-opening service.

In fact, he told his son
he worked for the post office.

He may as well have said
that he was a doctor,

given the extent to which the CIA funded
university and hospital research

into the effect
of mind-altering drugs,

using unsuspecting
human guinea pigs.

(Journalist) CIA documents
describe experiments

in which certain patients
were given LSD

for more than
75 consecutive days.

In order to overcome
tolerance to the hallucinogen,

Isbell administered, quote,
double, triple

and quadruple doses.

(Louis humming)

A few patients felt that, quote,
they had become very large

or had shrunk
to the size of children.

Their hands or feet
did not seem to be their own

and sometimes took on
the appearance of animal paws.

They reported many fantasies
or dreamlike states

in which they seemed
to be elsewhere.

Fantastic experiences
such as trips to the moon

or living in gorgeous castles

were occasionally reported,
unquote.

Isbell concluded, quote,

despite these striking
subjective experiences,

the patients remained orientated
in time, place, and person.

(Seabirds calling)

(Narrator) When asked about
his worst experiences during withdrawal,

he said it was a toss-up
between phenytoin and clobazam,

a benzodiazapene.

Coming off phenytoin,
he had over 200 seizures in a fortnight.

His weight dropped to 45 kg.

He was too weak to walk
and almost too tired to talk.

He says,
"Withdrawing from clobazam

I was the most scared
in all my life.

Not the most painful

but the most
frightening experience.

Glitching out,

like when the TV picture
goes all over the place.

When I moved my hands it felt
like I had hundreds of hands.

Every time I opened my eyes

the pictures on the walls
had been moved.

When I shut my eyes, I felt
like my skin was expanding.

Other times, I felt like
my body was shrinking.

Everything looked
outlined in blue and purple

and pixelated,
with snakes and clocks."

(Seabirds squawking)

(Narrator) The seizures
and medical withdrawal

did at least bequeath him
his art,

which became his lifeline,

offering a slow climb
out of the pit.

It was as though
the pre-recorded world of Burroughs

had decided to give him
a break,

as in the seizures stop
as suddenly as they started,

allowing him to move on.

They do stop.

Except no one moves on.

(Horn honks)

(Reversing lorry beeps)

(Narrator)
In the stage of recovery,

which involves
being able to return home

and resume his education,

the health service that had
let him down so badly before

waits to do so again.

If the pre-recorded world

had decided to grant
the young man a reprieve,

it was at the expense
of a malevolent system.

(♪ Ernest Stoneman:
"The Titanic")

(Cheerful harmonica)

(Old-timey voiceover) And now
we see you on the steamer

bound for a foreign land.

(Harmonica continues)

♪ It was on Monday morning

♪ Just about one o'clock

♪ That the great Titanic

♪ Began to reel and rock

♪ Then the people began to cry,
saying, "Lord, I'm going to die"

♪ It was sad
when that great ship went down

♪ It was sad when that
great ship went down... ♪

(Narrator)
The father tells his son

that once
there was analogue boredom

and now
there is digital boredom,

a new kind
of addictive boredom,

whereas old-style boredom
was a state of transit.

He says once artificial
intelligence takes over,

the whole lot
will probably get wiped anyway

and it will be back
to candles and matches.

♪ The water
could not go through

♪ But God with his mighty hand

♪ Showed to the world
it could not stand... ♪

(Narrator) Hand. Brush. Paper.

The reassurance of things,
solid objects,

after his free-fall journeys.

A way of transcribing.

Whatever worlds he visited,
they weren't digital.

(Peaceful acoustic guitar)

(Louis humming)

Mummy, don't look at it.

(Guitar music continues)

(Narrator) Sometimes he said
he could smell things

that no one else could,

or had a strong sense
of déjà vu,

or goosebumps,

or a sense of invisible
weights pressing down on him.

Once, he said
he was on the brink

of knowing all the secrets
of the universe

but couldn't quite grasp them.

(Guitar continues)

(Narrator)
The father remembered reading

that the problem
with artificial intelligence

is that
it doesn't get goosebumps

as it doesn't experience
cold, fear or excitement.

(Guitar continues)

(Muted)

(Guitar stops)

(Narrator)
The world we live in,

that grand post-digital mess,

seems much more in keeping

with something
imagined by Burroughs -

mind control,
electronic viruses,

deadly leisure -

than the Big Brother world
of George Orwell,

which removed the pleasure
principle from the equation.

And in pleasure,
the dopamine high,

addiction and enslavement,

as Burroughs well knew.

(Ship horn blares)

(Ship horn blares)

(Narrator)
In the meantime,

the image bank has exploded,
with everything shot to death,

exemplified by
the ubiquitous selfie,

desperate in its want
to be liked and shared.

(♪ Holger Czukay:
"Ode To Perfume")

(Slow, reverberating
electric guitar)

(Percussion joins in)

(Funky beat)

(Distorted synthesisers
join in)

(Song continues)

(Song continues)

(Narrator) He says,
"I take two types of cannabis,

Bedrolite and Cannabiszorg.

The Bedrolite is
a dark black liquid

that looks like
it has consumed

everything it has touched.

Not even light could escape
from its darkness.

Cannabiszorg is pure CBD,

the liquid yellowish
and transparent.

It looks angelic
and completely pure.

I often think about
how much I rely

on these two
contradictory-coloured liquids."

(Song stops)

(People screaming)

(Guitar being played)

(Narrator) He says,

"When you tell people
you have epilepsy,

you can see it scares them.

I guess because seizures

have long been associated
with stigma

and still are."

(Church bell ringing)

(Narrator) "In the past,

I would have been sent
to an asylum

or burned at the stake,

because seizures
were taken for a sign

of demonic possession."

- (Siren wailing)
- (Church bell ringing)

"Had I been born in Germany
in the 1930s,

I would have been gassed

as part of the Nazi
euthanasia programme,

with the forced consent
of my parents."

And even in the UK
during Covid

there were those with epilepsy
and learning disabilities

who were given
"do not resuscitate" orders

without their family's
knowledge or permission.

(Peaceful guitar music)

(Narrator)
The mother had been brought up

believing in the integrity of
the National Health Service,

part of that postwar dream

of free healthcare for all.

Her grandmother
had been a ward sister

who cared for children
with polio.

And her father, an NHS doctor,

whose early death was seen
as a great loss to medicine.

(Guitar music continues)

(Narrator) The ideal scenario
was that a young man

who had suffered
such tribulation

would be supported.

But doctors refused

to prescribe
his medical cannabis,

saying it wasn't safe,

and discharged him
from their care,

leading to years lost

in a hostile, bureaucratic wilderness.

(Guitar music continues)

(Narrator)
Having made a life study

of voluptuously rotten
systems,

the father is surprised to find
his family infected by one,

leaving him wondering whether
doctors were leaned on,

probably by
the pharmaceutical companies,

which, as everybody knows,

are in a lethal,
addictive business.

Endless questions unanswered,

round in circles,
redactions, sleepless nights,

queasy free-floating dreams,

paranoia as contagious
as any virus.

The father counts the parallels
with Angleton's world,

watching the mother spun
in an endless loop,

frozen with fear,
fear of relapse,

fear of SUDEP,
fear of Louis' doctors,

fear of making a mistake

which could lead to the death
of her son,

and living every day with the
memory of watching, helpless.

(Train screeching)

(Siren wailing)

(Narrator) The father
tells his son about Angleton,

the holy ghost of spies,

who proudly claimed that he
had half of Washington bugged,

later telling reporters

he didn't know
what a tape recorder was.

(Siren wailing)

Despite his writer's block,

he believes the Angleton tapes
are all in his head,

waiting to be transmitted

and the magnetic north
will give him the answer.

(Phone ringing)

(Narrator)
In terms of mind control,

Angleton believed
the Soviets were years ahead.

The CIA hired shrinks,
quacks and hypnotists,

formed unthinkable alliances,

studied the nuances
of hostile interrogation

and the notion
of programmed assassins,

asking themselves

how much was it possible
to fuck with someone's head?

(Phone) You are number 20
in the queue.

(Ringing tone)

(Narrator) In terms of the
wider surveillance network,

if the watcher watches,
who watches the watcher?

Now we watch ourselves.

Freedom to act

has been reduced to freedom
of choice and consumption

in which we end up
only consuming ourselves

in an act
of digital cannibalism.

(Muted)

(Background hum)

(Narrator) He notes
the childish irresponsibility

of the internet robber barons

with their creed
of move fast and break things,

and this, for some reason,

leaves him thinking
of Grünewald's Crucifixion,

and the despair
of the ninth hour.

It was said that Grünewald

was the most uncompromising
of realists

whose Calvary stood
at the opposite pole

from those debonair Golgothas

adopted by the Church
ever since the Renaissance.

And his lack of compromise
let the observer know

that realism
could be truly transcendent.

(Church bell ringing)

(♪ Slauson Malone 1:
"Smile #2")

(Siren wail rising and falling)

(Bass guitar twangs)

(Wavering guitar joins in)

♪ Smile at the past
when I see it

♪ Sometimes shit seem
out of reach

♪ But when it do, I look down
See the glass on the ring

♪ You look close, you could
really see your past on repeat

♪ Tracin' every step back
like I'm draggin' my feet

♪ You should get to know me

♪ The Devil dance,
lean back in my seat

♪ She blow a kiss
It hit the side of my cheek

♪ I wipe it off

♪ Lipstick probably
still on my skin

♪ I'm just a victim
in this world full of sin

♪ My mother try
and keep me safe (haha)

♪ Mama try and keep me safe

♪ When I was eatin'
from your beak

♪ I knew I'd grow
to fly away on my own

♪ Always told me
stay away from the stove

♪ And lit the fire
just to heat up the comb

♪ Now I'm grown, uh

♪ I'm grown

♪ I made my own way

♪ Mm ♪

(Song stops abruptly)

(Narrator) He says, "My last
seizure was some years ago now

but you live every day in the
fear of it starting again."

He remembers little of the
four years lost to epilepsy,

other than brief
harrowing memories

and the feeling
of watching himself

and death watching him.

As they near
their destination,

the father starts to pick up
on Angleton's voice,

but only strange names
being transmitted

that mean nothing.

Flamingo zonker,

yellow goofus bug,

egg-sucking leech,

the grey ghost,

which he doesn't realise
until later are fishing flies.

Coming through more clearly,
Angleton tells him,

"On the river, you seek to
imagine the world of the fish

while giving the illusion
of a real fly,

and the fish believes,
in that moment,

you are the fly."

(♪ Holger Czukay:
"Hiss 'n' Listen")

(Dissonant music)

♪ All the machines
are standing still

♪ Hiss 'n' listen... ♪

(Children singing, distorted)

(Narrator) In terms
of unforeseen connections,

there is the Grünewald,
the CIA and LSD.

In 1951,

more than 300 inhabitants
of a small French town

were afflicted
with terrible hallucinations.

One man tried to drown himself

because his belly
was being eaten by snakes.

Another saw his heart
escaping through his feet.

A third had the sensation
of shrinking

and fire and serpents
were coiled around his arms.

A once common disease
known as ergotism was blamed,

caused by eating bread
made with contaminated flour.

The monks who commissioned
the Grünewald

cared for such patients

whose symptoms included
convulsions,

lesions, gangrene and visions.

In the 1930s,

as a result
of his research on ergot,

a Swiss pharmacist, more
or less accidentally, came up

with the formula for LSD

whose supply was later
monopolised by the CIA

for its secret
biochemical warfare programme.

A rumour persists that the
incident in the French town

was a CIA operation

that involved
spiking the local baguettes.

(Mother) Lou? Lou?

Louis?

Louis?

Louis?

(Louis takes deep breaths)

(Mother) Can you wake up, Lou?

Wake up.

Can you wake up?
Wake up.

Wake up. Wake up.

Come on.

- (Creature squawking)
- (Birds chirping)

(Mother) Louis, can you
wake up? Can you wake up?

Can you wake up?
Sweetheart? Come on.

(Peaceful guitar music)

(Mother) Come on.

Come on, darling.

(Cowbells jangling)

(Narrator) He tells his son

there are too many knots
and metaphors,

too much separation,
overdependence,

entwinement.

Too many levels
of consciousness

and, in all cases,

a suspicion
that reality is the dream

and the dream is reality.

(Guitar music continues)

(Birds chirping)

Well, again, apologies
for keeping you waiting.

(Narrator) For Angleton,
patriot and paranoiac,

elegance and lucidity
turned to alcoholism,

cancer and madness.

What he had once believed was
a fight against the evil enemy,

he came to see

was just another form
of useless control.

At the end of his life

he confessed the error
of his ways, saying,

"Unlike George Washington,

the founding father
of the United States,

who told his father,
'I cannot tell a lie',

the founding fathers
of US intelligence

were fundamentally liars.

Outside of duplicity
and betrayal,

the only thing
they had in common

was a desire
for absolute power.

If you were in a room
with those then grand masters,

you were in a room full
of people

that you had to believe would
deservedly end up in hell.

I guess
I will see them there soon."

Angleton tells the father

that any search for
a meaningful or biblical truth

is futile.

And even after death

there is ambiguity

and one carries on
making mistakes.

(Tinkling lullaby
played on musical box)

(Mother) Sweetie, come on.
Are you there? Are you there?

Louis? Louis?

Louis? Louis?

(Bird of prey screeches)

(Lullaby continues on piano)

(Thunder rumbling)

(Dog barking)

(Thunder rumbling)

(Lullaby resumes
on musical box)

(Lullaby resumes on piano)

(♪ Florida Normal And Industrial
Institute Quartette: "Dis Train")

♪ Dis train
don't carry no liars

♪ Dis train

(♪ My Lord)

♪ Dis train
don't carry no liars

♪ Dis train

(♪ My Lord)

♪ Dis train
don't carry no liars

♪ Don't carry nothing
but the holy fire

♪ Lord, Lord, Lord,
Lord, Lord

♪ Lord

♪ Lord... ♪

(Vocalising)

- (Plucking)
- (Rain falling)

("Dis Train" continues)

(Song stops)

(Melancholic
instrumental music)

(Narrator)
Louis was quite familiar

with the hallucinations
depicted in the Grünewald,

with its angels,
monsters and demons.

For his mother,

the painting was a revelation

in its unvarnished depiction
of suffering and truth

without which, she realised,

there can be no transcendence
or forgiveness.

(Melancholic music continues)

(Narrator)
He sent his mother a message.

"Yesterday,

we headed up the fell.

The climb was exhausting.

And I woke up thinking
of what I'd left behind

and how my absence
would be perceived

in this previous reality.

How it would be seen

in every other dream
I'd woken from."

(Melancholic music rising)

(Narrator) Meanwhile,
what would they find there?

The key to something?

Hope perhaps?

Or just more ambushes?

His father is reminded
of watching westerns

when he was a boy, saying,

"My life is still conditioned
by six-gun cowboys

hiding behind rocks,

whispering
how it's too quiet."

Unlike in movies,

perhaps there is no
character arc,

no redemption,

no closure,

just time running out.

For his son
if they can no longer afford

the medication
that keeps him seizure-free,

and for the rest of us

in our refusal to read
the writing on the wall

when it is staring us
in the face.

(Music continues)

(♪ King Krule:
"My Rifle, My Pony and Me")

(Mellow electric guitar)

♪ The sun is sinking
in the west

♪ The cattle go down
to the stream

♪ The redwing settles
in the nest

♪ It's time for a cowboy
to dream

♪ Purple light

♪ In the canyons

♪ That's where I

♪ Long to be

♪ With my three

♪ Good companions

♪ Just my rifle,
my pony and me

♪ Gonna hang
(♪ Gonna hang)

♪ My sombrero
(♪ My sombrero)

♪ On the limb
(♪ On the limb)

♪ Of a tree
(♪ Of a tree)

♪ Riding to
(♪ Riding to)

♪ Amarillo
(♪ Amarillo)

♪ Just my rifle,
my pony and me

♪ Whippoorwill
(♪ Whippoorwill)

♪ In the willow
(♪ In the willow)

♪ Sings a sweet
(♪ Sings a sweet)

♪ Melody
(♪ Melody)

♪ Comin' home
(♪ Comin' home)

♪ My sweetheart darlin'
(♪ My sweetheart darlin')

♪ Just my rifle,
my pony and me

♪ Hit it, Gal Go, hey ♪

(Soft, ambient saxophone)

♪ No more cows
(♪ No more cows)

♪ To be ropin'
(♪ To be ropin')

♪ No more strays
(♪ No more strays)

♪ Will I see
(♪ Will I see)

♪ Round the bend
(♪ Round the bend)

♪ Oh, she'll be waitin'
(♪ She'll be waitin')

♪ Just my rifle,
my pony and me

♪ Just my rifle

♪ My pony

♪ And me ♪

(Song stops)

(Wind blowing)

(Trees rustling)

(Wind and rustling intensify)

Subtitling by MPS
(Wind and rustling subside)