What did the studio at Wonderland Avenue do?

[Jan Klimkowski]

Helen - thanks for posting that radio play and the plot summary.

Have you ever seen a movie called The Mothman Prophecies, which explores some of these themes, precursors, synchronicities, in what might loosely be termed a Hollywood Jungian manner?

Fundamentally, I believe that art comes from the subconscious and unconscious. The artist tries to create form (or anti-form) from those subconscious impulses. The sophistication and degree of crafting of the resulting work of art depends upon both the skill and the self-awareness of the artist.

The next stage of interference arises when the work of art comes to be distributed, and here I will concentrate on books, films, TV and radio.

If it is a self-published novel, then the artist's work may reach the public pretty much in the form the artist intended. Nearly all other literature or cinema or television is subject to the interference of the publisher or the broadcaster.

A major director like Ridley Scott has suffered major recuts at the hands of his funders, as the director's cut of films from Bladerunner to Kingdom of Heaven demonstrates. His intended work of art as compared with that originally broadcast have been radically, fundamentally, different.

Authors of novels may have slightly more control, but at the very least they have to work with an editor.

TV and radio programmes are always subject to interference from those funding the project.

In conclusion, the published or broadcast form of a work of art may be substantially different from the original product of the artist's mind.

Kubrick, until the alleged recutting of Eyes Wide Shut, is one of the very rare exceptions to the rule.

The other exception is those rare artists whose work is so strange that it is very hard for the studio or publisher to sanitize it. The films of David Lynch are an example. For instance, Fire Walk With Me and Mulholland Drive appear almost pure forms of Lynch's subconscious.

Most works of art though have suffered fundamental alteration between conception and distribution.

The next stage is the manner in which these works of art affect readers, viewers, listeners.

This introduces the feedback loop involving art and the subconscious.

Once art is out there, for example works such as Bluebird or the Wizard of Oz, where subconscious elements have been shaped into form and narrative, this art starts to shape and influence the subconscious of all those who experience it.

It is in this sense that the repeated allegations that Bluebird or the Wizard of Oz have been used as programming tools have some credibility for me. I find it unlikely that their authors wrote them as "programming tools". However, once these works of art existed, and were performed, and became part of the imagination of millions of people, then their form could potentially be used and subverted.

The Mothman Prophecies is an example of the addition of a metaphysical or archetypal dimension to this process.

Now, to return to the example of the 1945 radio play featuring Frank Polanski in those synchronous locations. I find it highly implausible that the artist or artists who created the work of art, in a studio framework, were knowingly preparing us for Rosemary's Baby and the Manson family slaughter of Sharon Tate, Mrs Roman Polanski, in Cielo Drive, more than two decades into the future.

That said, there is no particular reason in 1945 for the studio to decide to change a seemingly minor detail such as the name of the character "Frank Polanski".

From what part of the scriptwriter's unconscious did that name come from?

Was it simply that the notion of a stupid "polack" milkman, signalled by the use of a name like "Polanski", would help make this brutal character believable for an American audience?

Or did the scriptwriter receive the name from the aether of the personal or collective unconscious? Where space and time twist and swirl in more than three dimensions?