Just before we let Darko go back into another dimension we take a few more moments to give our lasting thoughts.
Just before we let Darko go back into another dimension we take a few more moments to give our lasting thoughts.
Donnie Darko Green Room
Gabby Browne: [00:00:00] This podcast is an association with Spotlight Studios, a family of podcasts driven to create unique, one of a kind content. If you have any interest in learning more, please visit spotlightstudiospodcast. com. Donnie Darko, Donnie Darko, Donnie Darko Theories. Here we are, here we are for Donnie Darko Theories.
Wake up. My dad says this thing where he's like, the job of art is to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed. Hey everyone, welcome to the green room. We are going to be talking about Donnie Darko today. Even more fun, fun, fun. It's the big old bunny. Three, two, one. The
Aaron Couser: limelight. When this movie came out in, is it 2000 or 2001, it came out like a [00:01:00] month after 9, 11,
Gabby Browne: 2001. Yeah. Oh, wow. Which
Aaron Couser: killed it, which crushed it financially because of the, uh, airplane crash. They couldn't, they couldn't advertise.
Gabby Browne: Yeah. That's
Aaron Couser: awful. Um, they didn't make much money, but 2001. It came out.
It's the version that you can watch on HBO. It's not really holding your hand and explaining the time travel specifics, water and metal, or the glitch that creates this multiple universe. So basically in the time travel book by Sparrow, it's very rare, but a glitch sometimes happens. An artifact comes from the primary universe and creates a tangent universe.
The tangent universe is very unstable, and a lot of strange things can happen. One person is chosen to save, basically, the world. Because if that artifact does not go back into the primary universe, Then everything falls on top of each other, destroying everything.
Gabby Browne: And that living [00:02:00] receiver is able to have like some type of like supernatural powers, super strength, like he's able to put an axe in a bronze statue.
He has a flood in the school. He burns down Jim Cunningham's house. It's insinuated that he uses the telekinesis at the end to, like, save everyone by ripping the engine into the real world.
Aaron Couser: And this person is haunted by hallucinations and dreams, visions, visions, either to help him find his path to fix this.
Jonathan VanSickle: Stated in the philosophy, it says divine intervention is deemed the only logical conclusion. An
Aaron Couser: act of God is the only way to fix it. This
Gabby Browne: person is also able to speak with the manipulated dead throughout this time period where someone comes to him to act as like a guide throughout this unstable, fractured time.
Aaron Couser: There's only two manipulated dead, which is going to be Frank and Gretchen. And the rest are the manipulated living. And they [00:03:00] both do the same thing. Manipulated dead, I think, are more self aware of who they are. Obviously, Frank is. Frank is actively trying to help Donnie do these tasks to a
Gabby Browne: certain point.
I also think that the reason that Frank is closer to Donnie during this time is because he was taken by Donnie's own hand. Versus why Gretchen doesn't necessarily come to him because she was killed by outside circumstances. is him and Frank have that connection because he was the one to take Frank's life.
And the manipulated
Aaron Couser: living are the ones that have not died but are pushing him in a certain direction. The scene with Karen and Dr. Monitoff where they have that exchange about Donnie Darko, you can read into that as they know that Donnie Darko is the living receiver where they might have that small self realization being pushed by this other force to fix this glitch, this problem.
But they really can't believe that Donnie Darko The strange kid. This is the living receiver.
Gabby Browne: Passion of the Christ was released by the same company and they had just made a extraordinary amount [00:04:00] of money from that movie and from the funds of that movie, they were able to take a risk and say, okay, we'll do a theatrical release because you know, we have some to spare.
And thank God they did.
Aaron Couser: Free will goes out the window sometimes in this chapter nine insurance trap where the manipulated dead will set an insurance trap manipulated receiver. must ensure the fate of all mankind. So it's almost like, no matter what he does, they will set a series of events and conspire with each other that will force Donnie Darko to fix the
Gabby Browne: universe.
Because I truly think in those moments where Frank was posing a question for him when he was in those dreamlike states, He didn't necessarily have to do those things. I truly think in those moments he did have free will. But if he didn't do it then, Frank was gonna find another way. He would come to him again.
He would push him in a different direction, visit him more often. But Donnie is so naturally curious [00:05:00] and has to constantly find the answers himself that there was no way he was going to say no. I love every part of the theory and I know that this is like the theory because it's literally her book. The only thing that I really like in my mental state when I add to this is that it's kind of on a loop.
Donnie's met Frank before. This has happened before. In the moment where they first meet each other on the golf course and Donnie smiles at him like he's known him before. I think every time there's been something that hasn't necessarily worked out. To where Donnie has experienced this timeline of where he dies.
I think this is the first time that Gretchen's died in this timeline. I think this is the first time everything worked out exactly as Frank planned it. That cathartic moment when Donnie's laying in his bed laughing his ass off. He's like, I finally beat the loop. I've watched a lot of horror loop movies recently and there's just something about that smile that Jake Gyllenhaal has of this [00:06:00] knowingness about Frank.
Maybe he's never tried the butcher knife before. Right. And this was the time that he tried the butcher knife and he's like, oh shit, I'm learning. I can get through this time. Maybe he had the book, but he didn't read it all the way through, or maybe he was gifted it later in the time. I just truly think these events have played themselves out multiple times before, maybe not in this order.
Donnie has this like persistent confidence about him too, that everything is gonna work out. No matter what he says or what he does that a lot of people don't have unless they've experienced it before. Even looking at Bill Murray throughout scenes in Groundhog Day and it's just like his confidence is raised throughout that.
He gets a little bit more brash, a little bit more wild throughout it. In my mentality, I know that Donnie has seen Frank before. I know that this has played out for him before. That's just my mental
Aaron Couser: theory. Like a young Sparrows mentality kid, you know, Sparrow just doesn't even care about walking back and forth on the street because she knows nothing's [00:07:00] ever
Gabby Browne: going to happen to her.
Exactly. Donnie is literally doing the most insane, crazy things. Taking an axe to his school, burning down someone's home. First time forever? Yeah, first time ever? You're doing that for the first time ever that confidently, dude. You're just like leaving a theater doing that. I just can't believe that in my mind.
I think that Donnie has played out different things in past. timelines but this was the first tangent timeline where he was able to get the jet engine back into the real world. I like that. And then he wakes up and he's like, I beat the loop, I and now I get to die in peace, man. I think Donnie Darko is like a lot of people that I grew up with.
I think he's a lot of people that I know and continue to know. There's a side to who the character is. Someone that everyone wants to be, someone that everyone wishes they weren't. Someone that knows they were at one point in their life. Certainly a character that I hope people won't forget anytime soon.[00:08:00]
Aaron Couser: The theatrical version did not hold your hand. The director's cut put those pages in there. It doesn't make it as ambiguous as far as especially the time travel system work. And you can get to more conclusions that way for yourself. Both versions are beautiful. Both versions are amazing. I guess I kind of lean more towards less clues.
Yeah, less
Gabby Browne: clues. Hundred percent. Absolutely. That's why that's the version that's shown. I watched the other one once in a fever dream, it seems like, and I'm like, where did I know these facts from? How do I know these things? And then I'm like, Oh yeah, they don't
Jonathan VanSickle: show this anymore. See what's this? And it's like, eh,
Aaron Couser: Yeah. Could you imagine like Lynch just putting like pages on on the screen to help explain Mulhall and drive, like it would just kind of take away from that movie a little bit? Yeah. The
Gabby Browne: blue box. Yeah. This is the book, the blue box.
Aaron Couser: Chapter two. Chapter two. Yeah. Right. That just makes Lynch, in my opinion, a little more superior.
Yeah.
Gabby Browne: This is why this guy did one really freaking good movie. God bless you, Richard, for, for [00:09:00] making this movie, because if without it, I don't know where I'd be today, because old Donnie held my hand like Frank did through many a times, you
Aaron Couser: know? It's a beautiful movie, kind of like a Citizen Kane in a way, not, not to say that Citizen Kane was Orson Welles only movie, but it was his opus.
This is, has his soul inside of it, and you can see that because it's so authentic, it's so pure for me and Jonathan, you know, we're 80s kids, and it brings you back to a different time in a different America and a different consciousness. Yeah, and I think that's the
Jonathan VanSickle: main point that I really took away, even beyond all the heady philosophy that we're dealing with here, the literature references, and even the theology that Donnie and the audience struggles with throughout.
I think really at the core of this is it's, it's a relatable story about growing up, finding your path and being true to your voice, being true to yourself, and that's what really makes this movie cook. And that's what makes it so good. stick is the real, honest, basic human emotions that he shows us [00:10:00] throughout.
It's incredible the way those small lines like we all discuss throughout the whole thing still tug at your heart because they just ring so true.
Gabby Browne: This is the movie where Donnie Darko has held my hand like Frank held his and we all just walk on together and just like a giant line with Frank leading the way.
Helping young people through dark times in their lives and knowing that when you are the outsider, you're not really the outsider. There's always someone there for you in the sense that you are never really alone. But in the existential sense, yes, you will still die alone, but I mean, while we're here at least, you know.
We got someone to be with. I took a playwriting class when I was in college, and it was one of the most important classes I've ever taken. In that class, my professor gave us the four existential circumstances of life. I don't have a memorized, but I still have the paper he gave us in [00:11:00] 2017, and I tape it to the back of the door of the door of every apartment I live in.
So when I leave, I have the four existential circumstances. Five years ago, my cousin wrote Shrek as number five on that list. Every day, I read my five existential given circumstances to know that yep, you're alone, you'll die alone, but live it up today, baby girl. You'll never know what you got coming next.
That's right. Unless you got a giant spear coming out of your chest, and then maybe you might. Yeah. If tonight a giant bunny comes to me in my sleep, and then things start getting squiggly, I'll be like, yeah baby, things are going downhill.
Aaron Couser: My uh, liquid spear is telling me to push this red button.
Gabby Browne: Spotlight.
All of our resources will be found in the show notes or on the website. Please check them out if you have any questions.[00:12:00]