Show, Don't Tell MINDHUNTER Deep Dive

This video is brought to you by Stream Theory, the new podcast about streaming services and the future of television, from me, and Thomas Flight. Stick around after the video to learn more. You'll never see it. You'll live like any other person, have relationships, hold down a job. We know killers don't have the tools to manage real life. They come from marginalized backgrounds, they break under the pressure of what they've done, they make mistakes. Seems to me everything you know about serial killers has been gleaned from the ones who've been caught. If you've ever taken a screenwriting class, or a writing class in general, you've probably heard the number one rule is show, don't tell. As the rule goes, you want to avoid explaining things explicitly, and instead focus on how they look. A lot of times this advice makes filmmakers focus on details. To show anxiety, a writer or director can highlight a blank stare or nervous fidgeting, as opposed to a character saying, I'm anxious about it. As with any rule, there are exceptions of course, but broadly speaking, it's less engaging to directly tell an audience what's going on in a character's head, instead of giving that audience the clues to piece things together on their own. And for that reason, Netflix's Mindhunter, from David Fincher and Joe Penhall, by all accounts, doesn't seem like it should work. The show follows two FBI agents, in the 70s and now early 80s, as they try to define what a serial killer is by interviewing very historically accurate portrayals of real serial killers, and trying to figure out how their minds work. I told her to shut up. Did she shut up? She did what I said. Then why kill her? Because I wanted to. For a show about serial killers, the horrific violence they inflict, and the process of catching them, Mindhunter is incredibly still, taking place almost entirely in these kinds of interviews and conversations. Most of the time, its characters don't even stand up, and it's riveting. They all bought it, David. Didn't they? Even the shrinks. Especially the shrinks. On the surface, this is the exact thing that Show Don't Tell is cautioning against, people in a room explaining a thing that happened. But if you dig past that surface level, it quickly becomes apparent that even in these heavy dialogue scenes, there's a lot we're being shown. There's the stuff we can see, of course, through the camera angles the show chooses, and the way it's edited and acted. But even Mindhunter's dialogue doesn't just wash over you like some ambient background music. It actively invites you to string ideas together and form your own picture of the characters at hand. Mindhunter is in some ways the perfect case study for the idea of Show Don't Tell because of how stripped down it is. Like a great science experiment, every variable is removed, except for the one being tested. The camera is largely static, the characters barely move, and any action is described rather than seen. So in this video, we're going to look at how Mindhunter builds a story by focusing on three of these conversations that come at the midpoint of Season 2. With Ed Kemper, Charles Manson, and Tex Watson. And how they form an arc of a beginning, middle, and end that shows us a rich and dense series of ideas. Spoilers ahead. In a show full of conversations, I think it's fair to ask why I'm focusing on these three. Since the show began in 2017, Mindhunter has been building to an interview with the infamous Charles Manson. And although Mindhunter seems to be a pretty quiet filming set, news broke of the casting of Damon Herriman as Charles Manson more than a year before the season launched. Despite him only having this single scene. And that episode surrounding that scene, the one we're looking at today, is the longest of the series to that point. By far. These circumstances, both inside and outside the show, spotlight Manson's significance. And for good reason. Manson highlights one of the nuanced conflicts at the heart of Mindhunter's second season. In the first, the title Mindhunter referred to how our main characters, Agents Tench and Ford, were trying to get into the minds of monsters. And I said to Mom, you know, I've never been on a date with a girl, Mom. And what did she say? Thank God. Can you believe that? What a bitch. That's when I started burying the heads in the backyard. Sure. But now in Season 2, it also refers to the dark forces that hunt impressionable minds. After all, Charles Manson never actually killed anybody himself. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. While it's tempting to want to jump straight to the Manson scene, it's not what the episode does. Before meeting with Manson, Ford and Tench visit an old friend and fan favorite from Season 1, Ed Kemper, the co-ed killer, in order to ask him why he would revisit murder sites. As we approach Kemper, we hear him recording a quote from the 1915 Joseph Conrad novel, Victory. For the use of reason is to justify the obscure desires that move our conduct, impulses, passions, prejudice, and qualities. The idea here is ultimately that we see what we want to see and seek to find order in a disordered world, even where none exists. And it serves as a thesis statement for the three acts we're about to watch. In keeping with the style of Mindhunter, the scene is shot with little camera movement, which places a ton of importance on what the characters are saying. It's easy to listen to them if we're not being bombarded by visual information, like flashbacks to the murders, even if they were to be subliminal, like in the show's opening title sequence. But that doesn't mean that Mindhunter is strictly telling us, and not showing us everything in this scene. Rather, it means that every slight deviation stands out that much more. Here's every shot in the Kemper interview scene. And here's what it looks like when you highlight every newly introduced shot in blue, and every deliberate camera movement in yellow once the interview really gets going. Let's look at what important information these deviations show us. The first is a close-up on Kemper after a back-and-forth with Ford, followed by a new shot of Tench. This gives us the impression of Kemper's conversation with Ford growing more intimate, only to be interrupted. I wanted to ask you about something you said a while back, about revisiting the sights of your victims. Hmm. Why did you do that? At the murder site, I could relive the experience, feel the same elation, the incredible release. It excited you? Yes. And that idea is reinforced by the next new shot, a new angle on Tench and Ford together. Throughout the series, Ford has been fascinated by serial killers, and the show seems to imply that without a chaperone, he might become seduced by the dark side and become a monster himself. Hold on to that idea. We'll come back to it. The next new shot caps another series of shots where we edge in on Kemper and Ford. It's a slightly different angle that shows Kemper from over Tench's opposite shoulder. What if you can't make it to a site? Too many people around. It's easy to think of this as a minute detail, but it serves a real purpose in subtly showing us the story beneath the surface. While the vast majority of the shots in this interview are shot from within the triangle of the three characters, this one is not. The effect is that Tench is intruding, as though he's on the outside of the conversation Kemper and Ford are having about how to relive a murder. Sometimes I can stave off that need by remembering the moment of the kill. You can really savor that when you're in the exact spot. What if you can't make it to a site? Too many people around. I kept things. Little trinkets. And in the final flurry of distinctive shots, Mindhunter visually emphasizes an especially chilling speech from someone we've grown comfortable with. We can't discuss ongoing investigations, Ed, with anyone. I'm sure you understand. Of course, Bill. It's a taxing lifestyle. A lot of factors that go into success. As I got better, I was very careful that all conditions were exactly right. The thought is then punctuated by the longest unmoving shot of the scene, and a nice little finger tap from Ed Kemper. Seems to me everything you know about serial killers has been gleaned from the ones who've been caught. Okay, so what have we learned that the scene explicitly told us? Why Kemper returned to murder sites and kept souvenirs, and why it's difficult to catch such a person. But there's also a ton of information that we've been handed subliminally. Ford's mixed horror and fascination with the process, that it might be impossible to keep your mind closed while also trying to learn from these people, and we've explored the relationship between Ford and Tench, its strengths and its weaknesses. Most importantly, we know which details to focus on, all of which primes us for the main event. As soon as our agents sit down and start setting up, Tench calls our attention back to the Kemper interview. You realize Kemper keeps reeling you in? He's the most cogent, credible subject we've ever interviewed. The bar is low. This line helps us transition, and maintains a throughline for these scenes. Although it isn't ever explicitly stated again, this interview addresses that thesis statement from before, that the use of reason is to justify obscure desires, to try to understand the incomprehensible. And this scene is full of chaos. From when Manson sits down to when the interview ends, the length of the average shot is about 3.1 seconds, compared to 3.7 seconds for Kemper. That might not sound like a big difference, but it's something that feels even more stark when paired with the way Manson talks. You need to walk on a different street, guy. Put your clothes on backwards and let everyone laugh at you. You're a coward, Charlie. A coward who takes no responsibility for his actions. Yeah, you eat meat with your teeth. Throughout the interview, Manson's rhetoric is convoluted, and he constantly pivots between Tench and Ford, a strategy we were introduced to with Kemper. Manson tries to change the angle of the conversation frequently, which only makes the contradictions in what he's saying more confusing. For example, Manson talks about how his family was created in our society. It's my fault that your children do what they do? Clearly thinking that upbringing had a lot to do with their actions. But in the next moment, he'll claim that the past doesn't matter. That is gone in the past, and when it is gone, it is gone, brother. In one minute, he voices disdain for the pillars of our society, and in the next, he says... Tex Watson? The all-American boy? The pride of Colville, Texas? I have better sense than to disagree with him. Unlike Kemper, Manson never answers questions directly, and the schizophrenic nature of the conversation defies the use of reason, as much as we're trying to make sense of what he did. And what did Manson do anyway? I did not direct anyone to do anything other than what they wanted to do. The Manson murders have captivated the American public for the past half century, and there's a myriad of reasons for this. But this is the sentiment that Mindhunter focuses on. The text in this scene, the actual words coming out of Manson's mouth, are mostly gibberish when taken as a whole. You've got a circle that a man lives inside of. He's responsible for his circle, and his circle only. But the subtext, the ideas that the scene is exploring, are anything but. It's impossible to nail down Manson because we, and Agent Tench, know that he's right on some level. See, I never had any say in your world. You created it. How do you feel about those murders? That's what counts. Happened in your world, not in mine. Yes, he manipulated people to commit horrific murders, but he didn't do them himself. The people he convinced were definite products from our comfortable society, not outcasts that we felt were destined to do evil. Manson makes us face the idea that monsters aren't just the cold, calculated type like Kemper, but that they can be created by dark forces twisting ordinary people's minds. It's not what Manson himself did that scares us. It's that he got to other people, people that we thought we already understood, that truly terrifies us. And we see this visually in the way the conversation keys in around Tench and Manson. In a lot of ways, Tench represents traditional America, from his madmen-level smoking, to his army crew cut, to his status as a family man. But the reasoning we use to justify the obscure desires behind the Manson murders is flimsy at best. Prison's in your mind. Can't you see I'm free? You don't look so free to me, Charlie. You don't look free to me. You look like a composite of what someone told you you are. You live for other people's opinion, you got paint on your face, and you wonder if you look okay. That's enough. Tex is not the same as Manson or Kemper, and his interview feels nothing like theirs. It's brightly lit as opposed to their relative dungeons, and Tex is totally uninterested in attention. While Kemper starts off his interview jealous that Ford and Tench are there to interview a guy who doesn't know what it's like, and Manson asks Ford for his sunglasses just so he can tell everyone he stole them, Manson said he lived with these fellas. He said he stole them? Tex doesn't have an ounce of that attention-seeking behavior. Whenever guards walk by his conversation with Ford, he stops mid-sentence. Oh yeah. He doesn't try to outwit his interviewer like Manson, or demonstrate his keen intellect like Kemper. Instead, he directly answers Ford's questions without any agenda. And the scene's look reflects that objectivity. Sure, neither of the other interviews moves that much. Again, the yellow squares are the shots with Kemper and Manson where the camera moves deliberately. But with Tex, the camera is especially still. The most it ever moves is almost by accident, a camera person trying to keep the character precisely framed. The scene features even wider shots than the Manson interview, visually giving us a bird's eye view of what Tex is telling us. The facts. It's hard stabbing people, Agent Ford. Sometimes you hit bone, my hands were aching. Notably, these unmoving shots are longer, by a wide margin. Whereas the average shot with Manson was a mere 3.1 seconds, with Tex, that average is up to 4.5. This kind of objectivity contrasts strongly with the inclusion of some subtle but noticeable sound effects. From the gunshot in Tex's memory. I had a gun in my hand, so I stuck it in the window and I pulled the trigger. There was no thought, no feeling at all. To the screams of his victims. Everything just busted open. Women were screaming. We were stabbing people, running around. The message is clear. Tex isn't the same as Manson and Kemper. But he did the same things. And as Ford digs into him, searching for a reason, he's met with disappointing results. Tex tells him all the facts he wants to know. But his desires and motivations never seem any less obscure. You said you felt nothing. Because that didn't matter to us. Okay. Even when we're presented with the facts, stripped of any of the agendas or baggage that comes with Manson and Kemper, we are still just as lost as ever. I've been redeemed by the perfect blood of Christ. First Manson, then Jesus. He's just exchanged one belief system for another. And there's another message in the subtext of this scene. Tench is absent, and all we have is Ford and Tex. Every single shot of Tex is mirrored in Ford as we inch closer and closer. Mindhunter is showing us similarities between Ford and Tex. While Tex doesn't seem like a monster in his interview, he was twisted by Manson. And at times, it seems as though Ford might be twisted by Kemper in his pursuit of this understanding. It offers the show's subtle but powerful response to the Conrad quote that opened Kemper's interview. We might not be able to draw lines around these people. These three conversations show us a story together about how little we understand this kind of violence. And each conversation contradicts or undermines any working theory Ford and Tench could be building. Kemper is cold and calculating to the point of deriding Manson for never doing the deed himself. Manson proves that you can still be quite evil even without personally committing those acts. And Tex offers a completely different third option, part victim, part perpetrator. Throughout Mindhunter, Ford and Tench try to learn what makes murderers tick. In hopes of finding some kind of understanding. If they can get a big enough data set, talk to enough people, surely they'll be able to figure out some kind of unifying theory, right? I think this echoes a reason a lot of us consume true crime. To try and figure out how someone could do these things. What these serial killers and murderers do feels so alien that we can't help but try to understand it. To try and trace it back to our own humanity and see where things went wrong. But these conversations call into question the very nature of Ford and Tench trying to understand this behavior. Maybe we're just trying to look for answers where there are none. To try to reason out obscure desires. Maybe as we dive deeper into the minds of these killers, we don't find clarity, only more muddled chaos. Maybe the whole effort is a fool's errand. In 2018, writer Sarah Marshall published a lengthy article revisiting the only other person who could rival Manson's recognition in this realm, Ted Bundy. She wrote, quote, His story is the story we all know, and yet the longer you listen to it, and listen not just to the legend, but to the people who knew Ted Bundy, and even to the man himself, the more you will find yourself hearing the story of a man who was not a mastermind, was not a genius, and who seems to have understood as little about what motivated him as the people around him did. As you draw closer to its center, and closer and closer to the demon core, you may begin to feel that the longer you spend inside this story, the less sense you can find. But what's utterly fascinating about Mindhunter is that it's able to make these kinds of complex, philosophical arguments, despite the show never talking about them explicitly. Instead, it directs our attention, in subtle camera angles and edits, in the subtext of each scene, and the way these three conversations are juxtaposed, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for us to interpret and reflect on, for ourselves. And all of that, with just one character leaving its chair. I'm Pavlov's dog, man. I'm anything you want me to be. Thank you so much for watching. As always, do the YouTube things. Like, share, subscribe. I recently launched a new podcast with my friend Thomas Flight called Stream Theory. He's a super smart guy who makes videos about The Wire, Chernobyl, Mindhunter, and so so much more. I'll put a link to his channel in the description. But in the podcast, we talk about all of the streaming news that's coming out about Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, and whatever it is that they're gonna come up with next. Most importantly, we talk about how it's going to impact the shows and movies we all watch. The first episode is up right now, where we're talking Disney+, and Mindhunter, which you clearly care about. You can check it out on iTunes, Spotify, or Thomas' website. Last, but certainly not least, a special thanks to all my patrons over on Patreon, who make this channel possible. You guys rock. The most. If you really want to help out the channel, go over there and throw in a buck. It really does make a huge difference. Thanks again.