Brett's Conspiracy Theory Notes

Conspiracy Theory (1997)

Suss backgrounds

Donner’s history of cooperating with the military and CIA goes back to his debut film, X-15, revealed in recently declassified files to have been one of hundreds of productions made under the supervision of the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. Donner himself joined the Navy as part of a special one-year enlistment program and worked as an aerial photographer. Donner also directed several episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a spy show made in collaboration with the CIA.[1]

Producer Ron Silver also has a history of DOD/CIA-supported projects, including Executive Decision (1996).

Writer Brian Hegeland has written other DOD/CIA-supported projects, including Tony Scott’s vindication of War on Terror torture, Man on Fire. He also wrote The Skulls, a 2000 movie about Skull and Bones that came out just in time to usher in Bonesman George W. Bush’s War on Terror presidency.

Disinfo op

Note that the WB logo is an image of an image, a corporate screen that turns out to be an advertisement on the bus. Element of deception highlighted beginning with the corporate screen.

This film can be seen as a classic disinformation op out in the open,  scrambling explosive truths and preposterous falsehoods, all in the mouth of a kooky and hence discredited the messenger.

For the rather more discerning viewers, who recognize that truth and falsehood are scrambled together, the movie functions as a Second Matrix op: those “freed” from normie reality are fed a white hat vs. black hat deep politics (see below) that ultimately vindicates the Feds and their mind control programs. Just like Jerry, they effectively go from one handler to another.

Another component of the op in this film seems to be to assimilate the conspiracy theorist with the dangerous outsider-weird loner-incel archetype that is the “profile” of the lone wolf assassin, in other words, to predictively program the conspiracy theorist variant of the lone wolf conspiracy patsy. (Cf. The Batman [2022], where an incel conspiracy theorist and his online minions are cast as an existential threat to society and as enemies of AOC progressivism, despite the fact that his conspiracies are all too true.)

This was a bit of a challenge circa 1997, since conspiracy theorists were regarded as harmless kooks, rather like the “lone gunman” (note the name) crew in X-Files or the assorted eccentrics in Richard Linklater’s Slacker. Consider that Mark David Chapman was something of a conspiracy theorist (for example, he discussed the Kennedy assassination with CIA assassin/doorman Jose Perdomo right before the Lennon assassination, and he told Jim Gaines he was so fascinated by the JFK assassination that he kept a painting of Kennedy in his dining room), but this was not at all emphasized in journalistic portraits of Chapman at the time. Gibson was a good casting decision because he had previously played a lot of loose cannon goofballs (especially in Donner’s Lethal Weapon movies) and so, with the right script and direction, could potentially begin to bridge the gap from harmless kook to dangerous nut. Part of what makes him lovable is how confused he is (typical disinfo victim: buys into lots of canards amid the deep politics esoteric truths he’s also privy to): conspiracy theorists are lovable until they figure out what’s going on. So enjoy the movie and don’t take this stuff too seriously—that’s the message.

The movie thus taunts the conspiracy theorist that no one will believe you even though you’re right, which presumably increases frustration in these demographics and makes them more likely to lash out in search of social validation.

Jerry the “outsider” (the Taxi Driver-Hinckley feedback loop)

Jerry is a pastiche of Oswald, Chapman, Hinckley, Bickle, et al., but more palatable to the audience because, as mentioned, he’s a lovable kook modeled in part on Mel’s loose cannon cop role in the Lethal Weapon franchise. Running into the theater is pure Oswald. The bookstore is Chapman (see below), and so is Jerry’s poster with Lennon’s picture and the words “Assassinated.” The compulsion to buy the Catcher in the Rye is Chapman and Hinckley.

The taxi driving is Bickle, with a nod toward Hinckley as Bickle’s real world successor. The drum sequence at the beginning is a probable offhand reference to the equally “random” drum scene in Taxi Driver. And proving that Hollywood enjoys celebrating the morbid influence that movies have on reality life, Jodie Foster was initially offered the role—and supposedly only declined because she was committed to Contact (she had starred with Mel Gibson in Donner’s Maverick in 1994).

In Donner’s Lethal Weapon (1987), Mel plays Martin Riggs, a character explicitly mentioned as a Special Forces Vietnam vet who worked for the Phoenix Program (called the “Phoenix Project” in the movie). One of the leading goons (Gary Busey, another super assassin who is impervious to pain) was in his unit and was also part of a secret group called “Shadow Company,” which was part of “Air America,” the CIA front which, according to the plot, was running the whole Vietnam war out of Laos, where it was involved in the heroin trade. Many of these details are real and are partly depicted in the film Air America, starring Mel Gibson, which came out in 1990, just a few years after Lethal Weapon. Note that Mel is frequently tortured in movies, e.g., Lethal Weapon, Braveheart, Conspiracy Theory, Passion of the Christ.

Jerry as Manchurian Candidate

His first dissociative episode is triggered by seeing the sparks from a welding torch, reminding him apparently of electro-shock, which is explicitly mentioned later as an MKUltra/post-MKUltra technique.

When he’s strapped down by Jonas, his eyes are forced open Clockwork Orange-style. He’s bombarded with bright lights, then flashing lights, and injected with drugs. He flashes on cartoon images during this sequence (from Chow Hound by Chuck Jones [1951]), suggesting that TV and movies were used in his programming. Note that the use of flashing lights constitutes an example of the Method, the special techniques that are the stock and trade of the Hollywood cognoscenti and are used to alter or trigger the consciousness of the viewer, in a manner analogous to what is being portrayed in the film (so Revelation of the Method: film as MKUltra torture).

Musicwas certainly used in his programming. He hears Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” during the torture sequence, a song he sings throughout the movie, including with his handlers in the final scene. He "follows the music" to Alice's family property at the end.

(Cf. the use of both Catcher in the Rye and pop music, specifically the U2 song “Exit,” in the programming of Robert John Bardo, who murdered actress Rebecca Shaeffer. He had been writing letters to the imprisoned Chapman) In my MDC episode, I detail the probable use of Lennon music to program/trigger Chapman.

“Alice” refers, I believe, to Alice in Wonderland, alluding to the through-the-looking-glass nature of deep politics as well as to the use of Alice in Wonderland in mind control.

Note the repeating eye image on a sticker or poster in his apartment.

He says Justice is “his girl” because the statue is blindfolded, like he is psychologically.

Deep politics: Jerry’s and Jonas’s speeches

Jerry gives two speeches in the movie about “they,” in response to Alice’s queries. The first is more crude and treats “they” as a monolithic, omnipotent, and hidden. “A good conspiracy,” he tells Alice, “is an unprovable one, because if they could prove it, ‘they’ must have screwed up somewhere.” Which is a strawman parody of conspiracy theory that caters to the normie audience,

In the second speech, Jerry gives a more nuanced deep politics worldview, also in conversation with Alice. There are two teams, “Group 1 vs. Group 2,” Group 1 being the old legacy families and Group 2  being synonymous with the military-industrial complex identified by Eisenhower (shades of Ken Ogelsby’s Yankee-Cowboy rivalry). They compete behind the scenes but often cooperate and often simply form one power bloc. Which is true in broad strokes: i.e., “they” are not really a monolithic ruling entity but a few or several ruling factions all of whom operate cryptocratically, in the shadows, whether cooperating or competing).

Remember that Jerry, in the end, is still working for intelligence, willingly now. We have the “good Feds vs. bad Feds”/”good programmers vs. bad programmers” motif, which is a piece of misirection-through-limited hangout. Lowry, the “good” Fed who saves Jerry from Jonas, tells Alice that is the intelligence community is a family, his organization is the “uncle no one talks about,” a reference to The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the latter organization being a global, Spectre-like organization. Here, then, as so often, Spectre, the intelligence arm of the globalist-Atlanticist faction, is recast as the good guys, and the horrors of MKUltra are solely the fault of the nation-state intelligence faction—and probably a rogue one at that.

Jonas’s speech broadly validates Jerry’s deep politics worldview: “It all ended the moment John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan,” says Jonas. MK tech was “stolen” by a rogue intelligence outfit, “Team B,” so to speak, and Jonas says he must root out the other party by interrogating Jerry. Lowry’s version of events also validates the Group 1 vs. Group 2 outlook—but it demonizes Jonas and his faction in the CIA.

Conspiracy theories (in film or alluded to)

The number of Jerry’s hospital room is 322, the magic number of the Skull & Bonessociety at Yale, which still has Geronimo’s skill. Prescott Bush was part of the cohort that stole it. The name Geronimo becomes important in the movie as a distortion of “Germaine O. Nichols Mental Hospital,” where Jerry was programmed (there are also bags in the hospital with “Geronimo” written on them).

The billionaire “they” killed is named Ernest Harriman, a clear reference to the powerful Harriman family, going back to railroad magnate E.H. Harriman. E.H. and Averell Harriman were members of Skull and Bones. Prescott Bush and Herbert Walker’s Union Banking Company was part of the Harriman consortium, led by Averell Harriman, that had its assets seized by the Roosevelt administration for violating the Trading with the Enemy Act by doing business with Nazi German through Fritz Thyssen.

Alice’s surname, Sutton, is probably a reference to Antony C. Sutton, a historian who wrote one of the standard texts on Skull and Bones, America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones (1983). In his Wall Street trilogy, written in the 70s, he argued (quoting Wikipedia) “that the West played a major role in developing the Soviet Union from its beginnings until the then-present year of 1970. Sutton argued that the Soviet Union's technological and manufacturing base, which was then engaged in supplying North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, was built by United States corporations and largely funded by US taxpayers.”

Jonas’s/Finch’s front is an office for “Global Fund for Acquisitions and Mergers.” Is this a front for the CIA, or is the CIA a front for this, which itself may be a front for the international banking cartel.

Jerry’s conspiracy theories (limited hangout)

Jerry says the Grateful Dead are all British spies. Probably partly true. This seems to allude more specifically to the theory that Tavistock created many of the musical acts that defined the American counterculture. The Stanford Research Institute, through its connection to Tavistock, allegedly developed the Grateful Dead. “Alan Trist, a social engineer for the Tavistock Institute, became the shadow manager of the Dead. His father, Eric Trist, was one of the principle founding members of Tavistock” (winterwatch.net).

Jerry also claims that Jerry Garcia is not really dead (“That what they want you to think”), alluding to a neglected conspiracy subgenre concerning celebrities and other public figures faking their own deaths. An obscure Canadian mockumentary called Let Him Be plays with this idea—and toys with conspiracists—re: John Lennon.

They fake Jerry’s death at the end—common among operatives (e.g., Perdomo) as well, perhaps, as celebrities. Cf. La Femme Nikita (1990), Control (2004) and The Demolitionist (1995) for just a few examples of movies in which covert operatives are chosen from among “the dead.

Imdb: “When Jerry and Alice are at Jerry's apartment, he makes a mention of an Oliver Stone and President George H.W. Bush connection, calling him "their spokesman". Stone directed W. (2008), a biographic movie on the life of former President George W. Bush.” Oliver Stone as disinfo-Second Matrix agent??? Maybe mention Oliver’s suss background, beginning with a producer credit on Sugar Cookies, a mind control-themed film from 1973 with some suss contributors. Stone’s staunch Zionism and 9/11 normieism suss, along with sheer amount of Satanic Illuminiati/Monarch material in Natural Born Killers and Any Given Sunday.

Jerry tries to warn Alice that NASA is plotting to assassinate the president by creating an earthquake in Turkey, which actually occurs in the movie. HAARP? Imdb: “In the movie, several times an earthquake is referenced that took place on a southern coast, with a magnitude of 7.3 during a Presidential visit. A 7.3 earthquake did indeed happen in the Northwest part of Turkey in 1999, just to be followed by a Presidential visit.” Clinton was traveling through Eastern Europe, it seems, and dropped in to offer encouragement.

Books

The books shown in the movie seem important, given the role of The Catcher in the Rye, Jerry’s compulsion to track the book down in bookstores, and the fact that Chapman bought a copy in a bookstore in a day or so before killing Lennon (which is why they depict Jerry going into a bookstore in the first place). Titles include Sapphire (?), Breaking the Ring: The Bizarre Case of the Walker Family Spy Ring, Crisis: The Inside Story of the Suez Conspiracy (title is backwards and upside down), The Reagan Foreign Policy (William Hyland), Confessions of an Ex-… Agent, Under Fire (Oliver North), My Life in Court (Louis Nizer, who authored the foreword to the Warren Commission Report), Confronting…the Future.

W.S. [William Steuart] McBirnie, The Trilateral Commission: America’s New Secret Government

McBirnie was a respected religious historian who consulted on THE OMEN II: DAMIEN (sequel to Donner-directed film) and then apparently cashed in on writing a novelization of it, then wrote a conspiracy book on the Trilateral Commission...which Donner pictures in CONSPIRACY THEORY.

In Jerry’s apartment, we see a copy of Media Bypass magazine (a very popular underground magazine among the Patriot movement in the 90s) with the headline “God Save America.”

In the bookstore: Hunchback of Notre Dame, As a Man Thinketh (James Allen, 1903 self-help book), The Runes, Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Kafka),  A Family Collection (Ingells Wilder)

Pseudo-subliminal political message

There’s a sticker on the newsstand at the beginning, visible for just a beat, that says, “Fur is dead.” Donner is very much a stereotypical Hollywood liberal, with great sensitivity for boutique causes like stopping fur and banning the captivity of whales (Free Willy was produced by his wife, Lauren Schuler Donner). He inserts these messages into other films. For example, there’s a waitress wearing a pro-choice shirt in one of the first Lethal Weapon movies. Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) is an anti-South African apartheid movement, which was the cause du jour of Hollywood at that time, and Lethal Weapon 3 is anti-gun propaganda. The third film also takes a shot at Exxon, since the Exxon-Valdez spill was fresh in everyone’s minds. The fourth film (1998) is also chockfull of anti-gun propaganda, taking a specific shot at the NRA, plus pro-immigrant/open borders propaganda, just ahead of the border crises that would begin with the W. Bush Administration.

Misc.

Imdb: “(At around one hour and thirty-three minutes) A truck is seen with the logo "Hynek Enterprises, Inc." This is a reference to Dr. Allen J. Hynek, astronomer and scientific advisor to the Air Force's U.F.O. research programs in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.”

“New World Coffee Shop,” with triangle design.

Jerry’s apartment number, 11, is the number of magic.

[1]See below for another reference to U.N.C.L.E. to refer to Lowry and the “good” controllers, probably a Spectre-type organization.