The Haunted Screen
by Travis Mushett
TV & FilmE · Explicit
Latest episode
Today's (Still) Fascist. Tomorrow Doesn't Gotta Be: The Paxton…
Today's (Still) Fascist. Tomorrow Doesn't Gotta Be: The Paxton…
About this podcast
The Haunted Screen is an antifascist project using film, history, and experimental storytelling to understand our authoritarian present. The first season—"From Caligari to Hitler"—investigates the chaotic, creative world of Weimar Germany. New episodes are tackling new topics.
Episodes
- Today's (Still) Fascist. Tomorrow Doesn't Gotta Be: The Paxton Mixtape, Pt. II · 2 h 30 minThe second and final installment of a series on why the country is indeed fascist, how we got that way, and what comes next. Listen to Part I first. (Or not. Whatever you want…
- Making a Martyr, From Horst Wessel to Charlie Kirk · 39 minAfter the assassination of the right-wing organizer and influencer Charlie Kirk, MAGA has fallen all over itself to turn him into a movement martyr. But this isn't the first time…
- Yeah, Y'all—This is Fascism: The Paxton Mixtape, Pt. I · 1 h 29 minWe knew it would be bad, but holy shit. With the collapse of the American project, it's been hard to focus on film history. So in this two-part series, we're switching things up…
- Cinema Oblivion: Lost Films, Haunted Histories · 40 minAs many as 90% of silent movies are lost to the ages, and many from later eras have vanished as well. How do these holes distort the story of film? This week: reel infernos…
- A New Year, A New Orlok: Nosferatu vs. Nosferatu · 1 h 9 minRobert Eggers' new version of Nosferatu is an absolute horror show in the best way possible. With Orlok Fever sweeping the nation, we're taking the opportunity to repost a 2022…
- Folk Horror, Pt. II: The Haunted Screen Gets Hauntological · 52 minFolk horror is a past-haunted subgenre for our past-haunted times. Appearances from A-Ha, Christopher Lee, Jacques Derrida, Ronald Reagan, Mark Fisher, and creepy child laughter…
- The Happy Halloween We're So Back Folk Horror Extravaganza, Pt. I · 40 minMidsommar! Witchfinder General! The Blood on Satan's Claw! The Wicker Man! '73! And a lil '06 as a treat! No Derrida, though. Gonna have to wait for Derrida.
- 1.6 — The End: The Blue Angel and the Twilight of the Weimar Republic · 1 h 14 minNazi, dissident, victim… Josef von Sternberg’s cabaret classic The Blue Angel had three stars: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, and Kurt Gerron. As the Weimar Era ended and the…
- 1.5 — Fritz Lang & Thea von Harbou, Pt. II: A Marriage—and a Country—on the Brink · 1 h 10 minAs the 1920s became the 1930s, both the Lang-von Harbou marriage and German democracy itself teetered on the edge of collapse. In this moment of personal and political chaos, the…
- 1.4 — G.W. Pabst & the German Left: When Pictures Got Political · 1 h 15 minIn a political environment as combustible as the Weimar Republic, it was only a matter of time before the country’s Kinos became venues for ideological warfare. G.W. Pabst was on…
- 1.3 — Fritz Lang & Thea von Harbou, Pt. I: Seduction, Spectacle, and the Birth of Nazism · 1 h 25 minThrough movies like Destiny, Die Nibelungen, and Metropolis, the husband/wife team of director Fritz Lang and screenwriter Thea von Harbou helped establish Berlin as Hollywood’s…
- 1.2 — Villains: Nosferatu, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, and the Timeliness of Terror · 59 minIn 1922, a pair of diabolical creatures arrived on German movie screens. What can the vampire Count Orlok and the supercriminal Dr. Mabuse teach us about the fears and fantasies…
- 1.1 — Beginnings: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the Rise of Expressionism, and the Long Shadow of World War I · 1 h 24 minA world war lost. An economy in tatters. A country riven by political violence. Germany’s Weimar Era had a tumultuous birth, and with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, its filmmakers…
