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Can you imagine what it's like to erase your own past?
At the very beginning of tonight's movie, I said to Caitlín, "I'm glad to see this director likes German Expressionism." Near the very end, I said, "That is the best film I have ever seen about the process of apotheosis." Both of these statements are true; neither is going to convey how much I liked Dark City (1998), which begins like a solid little film noir and ends like Gnosticism. And of course it recalls Metropolis (1927) and M (1930) and Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (1920) and even some films that aren't in German, chiefly Jeunet and Caro's Delicatessen (1991) and La Cité des enfants perdus (1995), but I am not sure I had ever before seen a street scene simultaneously evoke Franz Kafka and Edward Hopper and you know, they're a natural fit. I can't imagine how the theatrical cut was supposed to work. I've had it explained to me, but I still can't imagine it; I don't know what it is about thoughtful science fiction that makes studios want to tack on idiotic voiceovers, but I hope it's not some kind of actual, contractually-obliged law. And even if one could make a convincing case that the central mystery of Dark City is less compelling than the characters' actions once they figure it out, I still can't figure out why any of the deleted scenes were, because one of the neatest things about the film as it stands is its three-dimensionality, the sense that any of its characters, John, Anna, Bumstead, Schreber, even Mr. Hand, might be the protagonist: and so, by turns, they all are. Take out certain lines, conversations, even reaction shots, that depth of field is lost. God, I bet this is how you jinx a movie, taking Fritz Lang as your model. At least Alex Proyas didn't have to wait eighty-plus years for the restoration.
. . . It's mostly the hair, and a little of the cheekbones, and the eyes, but I kept looking at Rufus Sewell as John Murdoch and being reminded of Michael Cisco. This comparison may haunt me for years. Then again, any film that contained multiple shout-outs to Daniel Paul Schreber's Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (1903) would probably remind me of Michael Cisco all by itself. I still wonder if this explains anything about the world.
In other news, we did not, unsurprisingly, finish line-editing Two Worlds and In Between; I'm staying until Wednesday. I'm very tired. Funny how you write that at four in the morning and it's still true the next day.
. . . It's mostly the hair, and a little of the cheekbones, and the eyes, but I kept looking at Rufus Sewell as John Murdoch and being reminded of Michael Cisco. This comparison may haunt me for years. Then again, any film that contained multiple shout-outs to Daniel Paul Schreber's Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (1903) would probably remind me of Michael Cisco all by itself. I still wonder if this explains anything about the world.
In other news, we did not, unsurprisingly, finish line-editing Two Worlds and In Between; I'm staying until Wednesday. I'm very tired. Funny how you write that at four in the morning and it's still true the next day.
no subject
Yes.
The thing is, in creating Shell Beach at the end--as well as in accepting the name John Murdoch and his love for the woman they chose to be his wife--he's admitting the limits of his freedom. Like Schreber says in the boat: nobody knows where home really is, nobody knows where they came from. The word "earth" doesn't even seem to be in their vocabulary. John's freedom is about choice -- he can choose, by following his heart, which parts of what they've given him to accept and which parts to reject. He can keep the name, love the woman, create Shell Beach. But he has nothing outside of what they gave him. He can't have their machine take them to earth. He can't swim in an ocean that covers the whole globe and lives and breathes with wonder he can't imagine. The story is about a fish learning to built a better fish tank. He's putting rocks and plastic castles and little plants in there for himself and the other fishes. But the tank is the only thing keeping them alive, and it's the only thing they know, so they can't eve really leave.
If we take a step to the left and think of what the Strangers have done to them as a metaphor of ideology, then the message is that you really cannot step outside of discourse. All you have are the things that bind you, and your freedom comes in choosing the best parts of those things. Making the happy lies that kept you going real. But Shell Beach is still a lie. It's not John's birth home (unless he was born in the city, perhaps?). "John" is not the name he was born with, if he was born on earth. And the ocean his makes with his mind is just a wider, sunnier fish bowl.
Memory is a fluid thing: a shape-changer. And another allusion to the sea we carry inside us, even stranded in the deserts of space.
Oooh! <3 I love the way you said this.
I'd love to see a book of essays about this film, if one doesn't exist already.
I had a craving for the same thing after watching, so I searched a couple article databases. Apparently there's no essays -- but the film itself is really popular for use in academic papers on culture/film/sci fi. Usually in combination with other films. And sometime a paper will just reference the theory another paper has done on it as part of an argument.
The two articles I liked best were the one I referenced above about the memory engineering process as ideology, and one that I posted about here with extensive quotes. It pleased me to know academics fangirl it so much in their fusty way.
no subject
no subject
Thank you! Feel free to quote.
The two articles I liked best were the one I referenced above about the memory engineering process as ideology, and one that I posted about here with extensive quotes.
Shall go check out. Awesome.
(My brain has crashed, or I'd try to respond more intelligently to some of the rest of your reply . . .)
no subject
This film! It's made of yummy deliciousness!